After Pearl Harbor, the resources available to the US Navy to fight back against the Japanese seemed slim indeed. The only real offensive assets at hand were four carrier task forces which had the great good fortune to be at sea on 7 December 1941, but even they seemed to be a doubtful resource, being reduced to three in number on 11 January 1942 when Saratoga was torpedoed and knocked out of the war for four months. Now with only three task forces, each based on a single aircraft carrier, Admiral Nimitz had very little with which to satisfy his bosses' repeated urgings to strike back at the Japanese and, at the same time, defend the vital sea lane to Australia. This book will describe in detail the events of the critical early months of the Pacific War, focusing on the period between February and April 1942, during which the United States Navy emerged from the confusion and uncertainty that immediately followed the Pearl Harbor attack and the new leaders in Washington, DC and Honolulu set the course that would successfully bring a halt to the expansion of Japanese military control in the South Pacific.