Editing Guadalcanal campaign (section)

===Japanese decision to withdraw===
{{Main|Operation Ke}}

On 12 December, the Japanese Navy proposed that Guadalcanal be abandoned. At the same time, several army staff officers at the Imperial General Headquarters (IGH) also suggested that further efforts to retake Guadalcanal would be impossible. A delegation led by Colonel [[Joichiro Sanada]], chief of the IGH's operations section, visited Rabaul on 19 December and consulted Imamura and his staff. Upon the delegation's return to Tokyo, Sanada recommended that Guadalcanal be abandoned. The IGH's top leaders agreed with Sanada's recommendation on 26 December and ordered their staffs to begin drafting plans for a withdrawal from Guadalcanal, establishment of a new defense line in the central Solomons, and shifting priorities and resources to the [[New Guinea campaign|campaign in New Guinea]].<ref>Jersey, p. 384; Frank, pp. 536–538; Griffith, p. 268; Hayashi, pp. 62–64; Toland, p. 426.</ref>

On 28 December, General [[Hajime Sugiyama]] and Admiral [[Osami Nagano]] personally informed [[Emperor of Japan|Emperor]] [[Hirohito]] of the decision to withdraw from Guadalcanal. On 31 December, Hirohito formally endorsed the decision. The Japanese secretly began to prepare for the evacuation, called Operation Ke, scheduled to begin during the latter part of January 1943.<ref>Hayashi, pp. 62–64; Griffith, p. 268; Frank, pp. 534–539; Toland, pp. 424–426; Dull, p. 261; Morison, ''The Struggle for Guadalcanal'' pp. 318–321. During the conference with Sugiyama and Nagano, the Emperor asked Nagano, "Why was it that it took the Americans just a few days to build an air base and the Japanese more than a month or so?" (The IJN originally occupied Guadalcanal and began constructing the airfield). Nagano apologized and replied that the Americans had used machines while the Japanese had to rely on manpower. (Toland, p. 426).</ref> By now, Japanese forces on the island had dwindled to fewer than 15,000 men.