“We lost the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington and the destroyer Hammond. They lost a carrier too.And I believe the cruiser ‘’Mikuma’’.But you’re right, it convinced the Japs to abandon plans to invade Australia.”
The Japanese offensive was not planned to invade Australia. All efforts to recommend the Japanese invasion of Australia were rejected because there was not enough shipping to transport and supply the Japanese invasion forces. As an alternative plan the Japanese navy suggested and implemented a campaign to capture the Solomon Islands and Port Moresby, new Guinea as stepping stones to capture many of the South Pacific Islands, including Tahiti. Using the South Pacific Islands to base airfields, the Japanese planned to interdict all air and sea communications and thereby isolate Australia and New Zealand from outside trade, supply, and defenses.
Japanese agents covertly negotiated with prominent members of Australia’s Government and influential who showed interest in an Australian surrender to the Japanese with or without a Japanese invasion to force capitulation. These Australians negotiating an Australian surrender to the Japanese were unaware of what Japan had planned for them. Captured British Commonwealth soldiers imprisoned in the Japanese POW camp/s in Southeast Asia were being subjected to a secret Japanese experiment. The Japanese Army was feeding rice to the POWs, but the rice had been specially treated to remove much of the nutritional benefit out of every grain of the rice. The objective was to see how long it would take for the White race POWs to waste away in their health and die due to the effects of malnutrition. If the experiment proved to be satisfactory in exterminating White race people, the Australians and New Zealanders were to be put into internment camps, and the specially treated rice was to be used as the source of nutrition. As the internees perished due to the effects of the malnutrition and internment, Japan planned to re-colonize Australia and New Zealand with replacement Japanese colonists.