Japanese air attacks on the Mariana Islands commandos undertook intensive training at Saitama Kanto and the raid was scheduled to take place on January 17, 1945, but was canceled after damage to the airfields at Iwo Jima. The Giretsu Airborne Unit instead attacked a U.S. airbase at Okinawa on 24 May, destroying nine aircraft and damaging another 29. Following the perceived success of the raid on Okinawa the IJN developed plans for a force of naval commandos to attack airfields in the Marianas. On June 24, it issued orders for a raid involving 30 Yokosuka P1Y "Frances" bombers and 20 G4Ms carrying naval commandos. The plan, Operation
Air warfare of World War II resources into an escalating battle of attrition on the island, at sea, and in the sky, with eventual victory going to the Americans in February 1943. It was a campaign the Japanese could ill afford. A majority of Japanese aircraft from the entire South Pacific area was drained into the Japanese defence of Guadalcanal. Japanese logistics, as happened time and again, failed; only 20% of the supplies dispatched from Rabaul to Guadalcanal ever reached there. After 1942, the United States made a massive effort to build up its aviation forces in the Pacific, and began island-hopping to push its airfields