In addition to significant activity south of the home islands, the long ongoing intrusion and exploitation in northern China and Manchuria also required continuous sea transport although the distances were shorter. Other remote invasion points all required at-sea transport over long distances. The next month Singapore fell, followed later by the Philippines. Within eight days of Pearl Harbor, the West Coast of Malaysia thousands of miles from Japan, was a destination for cargo ships supporting the Japanese invasion army. Japan’s aggressive and successful early actions of December 1941 created within a few weeks greatly lengthened merchant ship trade routes covering distances up to 3000 miles from the homeland. Why did Japan wait until late 1943 to implement a central broad Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) strategy for convoying merchant shipping with escort ships and where feasible, air cover? The Japanese Navy knew from 1939 the U-boat success with guerre de course especially against merchant ships sailing independently, yet did not act.
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