Days of Infamy Series - End of The Beginning

End of the Beginning carries the story forward through the rest of the occupation. By mid-1943, Japanese occupation of Hawaii has brought a toll of strict food rationing, severe martial law, and American prisoners (military and civilian) suffered abuses from their occupiers. However, the occupation has also affected Japan's military presence on the island chain as the nation has to forgo their war efforts in bringing supplies to the islands; their military conquests in Asia and the Pacific rim have overstretched their resources, and suffer severe reductions in supplies due to frequent American submarine raids on Japanese supply ships. As a result, the Japanese forces on the islands, commanded by Admiral Iwabuchi Senji and General Tomoyuki Yamashita (the historical leaders of Japanese forces during the Philippines Liberation of 1944-1945), are left without any military support. In the United States, the Americans have amassed the ships and troops to retake Hawaii, and launch another, but larger, invasion attempt. The Americans quickly gain the upper hand, torpedoing the Japanese carrier Zuikaku with a submarine, and sinking the Akagi and Shōkaku in aerial attacks at the loss of only one escort carrier. The Americans, greatly aided by their new F6F Hellcat fighter, quickly gain control of the air, and gradually defeat the Japanese on Oahu. Most important Japanese officials and their collaborators escape on a submarine as Honolulu falls, but Minoru Genda and the King and Queen of Hawaii choose to commit suicide. Following the American victory, Hawaii becomes the staging point for the American war effort in the Pacific theater, as it was in the actual war, albeit longer.

What is happening outside Hawaii is sparsely referred to in the two novels of the series. The projected invasion of Port Moresby succeeded, so New Guinea was entirely under Japanese control from mid-1942 onward. The Battle of Stalingrad took place and was a Soviet victory, but there were no landings in French North Africa (the TORCH invasion of November 1942). Instead, the US shipped a massive army around Africa, possibly larger than the British and Commonwealth forces present for the historical Battle of El Alamein. The buildup of American naval forces for the second attempt to take Hawaii would need a faster buildup of ships than is historical, implying that much more industrial effort was put into this buildup, leaving less for Europe. The implication is that there was no Sicilian or Italian campaign in 1943, and that there would be no Second Front in France in 1944. More than implied is that there will be no major Nisei combat forces, and that most ethnic Japanese will be shipped from Hawaii to join those in relocation centers in the United States, a blow to civil rights in postwar America.