 The Southwest Pacific was not a promising theater of war for the strategic bomber . The bombers of the day did not have the range to reach Japan from Australia , and there were no typical strategic targets in the theater other than a few oil refineries . Thus , " The air mission was to interdict Japan 's sea supply lanes and enable the ground forces to conduct an island @-@ hopping strategy . " This set up a doctrinal clash between Kenney , an attack aviator , and Walker , the bomber advocate . The long @-@ standing Air Corps tactic for attacking shipping called for large formations of high @-@ altitude bombers . With sufficient mass , so the theory went , bombers could bracket any ship with walls of bombs , and do so from above the effective range of the ship 's anti @-@ aircraft fire . However the theoretical mass required was two orders of magnitude greater than what was available in the Southwest Pacific . A dozen or so bombers was the most that could be put together , owing to the small number of aircraft in the theater and the difficulties of keeping them serviceable . The results were therefore generally ineffective , and operations incurred heavy casualties . 
