 Kawasaki Ki-48 Bombers in New Guinea, 1944.

Kawasaki Ki-48 Bomber

Marshal Admiral Mineichi Koga as Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, 1944. 

Following the death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 19, 1943, Koga succeeded Yamamoto as Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet. His flagship was the battleship Musashi. Koga attempted to revitalize Japanese naval operations by reorganization of the Combined Fleet into task forces built around aircraft carriers in imitation of the United States Navy, and organized a land-based naval air fleet to work in coordination with the carriers. Operationally, he intended to mount an aggressive counteroffensive in the Aleutians to dilute American forces and to lure the American fleet into a major naval engagement in 1943.[2] However, the losses of Japan's land and carrier based aircraft based in the central Pacific eventually forced a Japanese withdrawal from the Gilbert Islands and Solomons by the end of the year. Koga gradually adopted a more conservative stance, attempting to conserve his remaining forces to inflict maximum damage on the Americans when they closed toward the Philippines.

