Rainbow Plans

Rainbow Plans, US war plans drawn up for five different scenarios. They were so-called to differentiate them from earlier ones which had coloured codenames. Rainbow 5 was the closest to the situation in which the USA found itself in 1941, in that it envisaged working with the UK to ‘effect the decisive defeat of Germany, Italy, or both’, while a defensive strategy was maintained in the Pacific war until success against the European Axis powers was assured. It was based on paragraph D (for Dog) of a recommendation which Admiral Stark had made to Roosevelt in November 1940. This paragraph, or Plan Dog as it came to be called, was then developed into the Rainbow 5 Plan by Rear-Admiral Kelly Turner. ‘Louis Morton in his Strategy and Command volume in the Army histories calls it “perhaps the most important single document in the development of World War II strategy”. Its importance lay in its cogent formulation of the Atlantic-first argument, its acceptability to the Army, and its encouragement of close coordination with the British. Henceforward Plan Dog was to be the cornerstone of American politico-military thought.’ ( E. Larrabee, Commander in Chief, NY, 1987, p. 48). See also ABC-1 plans.