"To support these goals, during the first few months of 1942, besides Malaya, Japanese forces attacked and successfully took control of the Philippines, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Wake Island, New Britain, the Gilbert Islands and Guam, inflicting heavy losses on opposing Allied land, naval and air forces.Japan planned to use these conquered territories to establish a perimeter defense for its empire from which it expected to employ attritional tactics to defeat or exhaust any Allied counterattacks.