In 1942 the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and US Navy (USN) had fought a series of actions to blunt the Japanese thrust into the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands. Indeed, after their defeat at Midway in June 1942, the Japanese had seemed to make the battle to retake Guadalcanal their principal concern, putting into the field battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and aircraft in an attempt to break through the Allied defences. The savage battles against ad hoc and inexperienced Allied naval and air defences had been costly to both sides, accounting for more than 24 warships, hundreds of aircraft and thousands of officers and men, and forever giving the waters surrounding Savo Island the nickname ‘Ironbottom Sound’. But the end of the worst of the slaughter had come in November 1942 when the Japanese left the field of the Battle of Tassafaronga with a tactical victory but a strategic defeat. They would never again directly challenge the Allied navies in battle in the South Pacific Area Command (SOPAC) or Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA).

The new battle that had to be fought throughout 1943 was that of supply: the boring and tedious task of building up combat strength and the material to support forthcoming operations, which is as essential to warfare as it is neglected in most accounts of the fighting. The year 1943 was also the time when major changes in Allied strategy in the Pacific and the organisation of the forces to fulfil those strategic expectations were made. Significant material strength began, at last, to flow from the resources and factories of the United States and some of that reached Australia. Training for the tasks that lay ahead, in particular that of amphibious warfare, assumed great importance for the Allies.