Before the japanese can exploit these territories and use them as sort of the equivalent of the nuclear reactor powering their future empire, they have to take the places first. And that's what the early stage is of, say, from december to late february or march,. So if you look at this campaign in chapters or sections, the first section is the japans blitz creek section. There are landings north of singapore, as we said, hong kong's attacked immediately. A wake island will be attacked quickly, although the marines will prevent it from falling quickly. The british naval attack force goes to sea a couple o days after war broke out by