A Japanese soldier failed to show up for roll call the next morning, and Ichiki, his company commander, thought that the Chinese had captured him.

With the start of the Pacific War in 1941, Ichiki was promoted to colonel and was placed in command of the IJA 28th Infantry Regiment, from the 7th Division, which consisted of 3,000 troops, and was assigned to assault and occupy Midway island.

In August 1942, Ichiki and his regiment were transferred to the IJA 17th Army in the southern front and were based at Truk in the Caroline Islands.

Ichiki had been ordered to wait on the beachhead for the remainder of his regiment, but finding the beach deserted and the island apparently lightly defended, Ichiki grossly underestimated the strength of the American forces, left a rear guard of 125 men, and advanced to make a nighttime frontal assault against the American positions.

[5] Recent Japanese scholarship disputes the claim that Ichiki was personally at fault, and state that the Imperial General Staff placed Ichiki in a suicidal position by ordering him to attack prepared positions, outnumbered 15 to 1, without air, naval or heavy artillery support, and with poor intelligence that vastly underestimated American strength.