Japanese naval aircraft flew into Lae on New Guinea in early April 1942. Zero ace Saburo Sakai described the strip, built by the Australians before the war to airlift supplies into, and gold out of, the Kokoda mine, as a “forsaken mudhole.” Although Japanese authorities considered it an improved airfield, it was so small that Japanese pilots compared it to landing on an aircraft carrier. Three decrepit trucks provided support there.

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Japanese navy tables of organization and equipment specified that each air unit was to have extra aircraft in its organization equal to one-third the operational complement. Yet by early April 1942, naval air units had no extras and were below their authorized operating strength. The navy general staff refused urgent requests from the shore-based 11th Air Fleet for replacement aircraft because not even the higher-priority carriers were up to strength.

The navy general staff had been equally shortsighted in planning for mutually supporting air bases. Japanese officers who could see the big picture had no solution. “Nothing is more urgently needed than new ideas and devices,” Rear Adm. Matome Ugaki, chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, wrote in July 1942. “Something must be done by all means.”

No one on either side of the Pacific had foreseen serious campaigns in the Solomons and on New Guinea. In the first 10 months of war, the Japanese navy managed to complete only one new air base, at Buin on Bougainville, and it had only one runway. Important though that base was, it was a rough field, and seven of 15 Zeroes were badly damaged when they landed there on October 8, 1942. Heavy rains delayed construction, and even significant additions to the construction troops did not help much. The runway continued to be soft and slippery during rains. When flying unit ground crews arrived and reported that Buin was unfit for operations, Admiral Ugaki, rather than arranging for construction assets to properly complete the field, groused to his diary: “How weak-minded they are! This is the time when every difficulty should be overcome. Don’t grumble, but try to use it by all means!” Fliers did try — and damaged about 10 aircraft a day when the runway was wet.

The airfield at Guadalcanal bore bitter fruit when the Americans seized it just before the Japanese brought in their own aircraft. The Japanese failed to construct ferry sites and auxiliary airfields between Rabaul and Guadalcanal, 675 miles away, when they had the time. Lack of shipping to carry men and equipment for that task was the main problem, but their near total disregard of an aircraft’s combat radius was also at fault. For example, 18 Aichi D3A1 dive bombers were ditched into the sea in the first two days of the campaign when they ran out of gas.

Japan had not developed a robust civil engineering infrastructure. It did have power rock crushers, concrete mixers, mobile power saws and mobile well-drilling equipment, but bulldozers, power shovels and other earthmoving machinery were in short supply. Picks, shovels, manpower and horsepower provided the backbone of Japanese engineering activities.

Japan’s prewar military budgets had gone to warships, infantry divisions and aircraft, not to construction equipment. When war came, the hitherto-ignored lack of construction assets affected tactics. For instance, without mechanized equipment to cut dispersal areas, frontline aircraft were vulnerable to attack on the ground.

Japanese planners did have one good reason for skimping on airfield construction units. The normal bearing capacity of most soil was good enough to handle lightweight Japanese aircraft. But Japan lacked sufficient steel to turn out large quantities of steel planking while it concentrated on aircraft, warships and merchantmen, and it was short of shipping to transport it. This meant that Japan depended on manpower to construct airfields. The military used native laborers wherever it could, paid them poorly and fed them little or nothing. They worked more than 2,500 Javanese to death while building a field on Noemfoor Island.

The Japanese army had to use infantrymen to help build airfields. In December 1942, for example, the engineer regiment and three rifle battalions of the 5th Division were detailed to build airfields in the Solomons. “When we compare [our] clumsy result with what our enemy accomplished,” recalled Commander Chihaya, “building huge airfields in good numbers with inconceivable speed, we ceased to wonder why we were utterly beaten. Our enemy was superior in every respect.”

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