Just a inquiry. Why do you think that. Granted, it would be a bloody mess on both sides.
If the Japanese had retreated to the main islands, would the Allies still have planned for invasion?
As I expounded here and other places, Geo-politics is a delicate balance.
The embargo was due to the fact that Japan was invading China, and committing war crime. They were losing in China anyway, they could have pulled back to manchuko and gotten US oil- with a nice healthy addition to their empire.
They also could have taken the DEI without any real US interference.
Instead the did the very worst thing they could have.
I’ve often wondered why the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor without being absolutely certain that the US carriers were there. I get that the Japanese carriers had already headed east to PH, but could they not have held the launch pending confirmation?
There were mini subs that made their way into Pearl. They could have been used for reconnaissance.
The Pearl Harbor attack, like most (if not all) IJN operations, was precisely timed with very little room for improvisation. Also, hanging around waiting for the US carriers to be in port carried the risk of discovery — aggravated by the fact that the carriers not being in port meant that they were out in the Pacific somewhere, so there was a chance they would stumble across the Pearl Harbor strike force by accident.
(I’ve read varying opinions as to whether the carriers or the battle line were the primary target. While Yamamoto was a strong advocate of naval air power, the upper echelons of the IJN were still committed to the Mahan doctrine that control of the seas would be decided by a Jutland-esque slugfest between dreadnoughts. As, of course, were the upper echelons of the USN.)
An excellent point.
Back to the thread topic, when I was growing up I spent many a rainy afternoon (which, around here, meant many afternoons) reading and re-reading wartime newspapers that my parents had saved for one reason or another. Granted that it was a small sample, based on the letters to the editor some people wanted the Japanese reduced to powerlessness and abject penury. And these were the charitable ones: less charitable writers wanted the Japanese exterminated. This attitude seemed just as pervasive toward the end of the war as it was at the beginning. So while war bond revenues were indeed falling off, to say that “war-weariness” was predominant appears overstated.
If we had lost the two carriers, it would have delayed the Japanese defeat by… not much if any- maybe 6 months.
If they had hit the gas and oil, it might have delayed the inevitable by… maybe 6 months. Other than not attacking Pearl, nothing leads to a Japanese victory. It is *just *possible that if the IJN had attacked only the Phillipines the USA would not have been filled with such a terrible resolve…but I doubt it.
They *could *have gotten away with attacking just the DEI and the Brits- very likely. That would have gotten them the oil they needed.
Actually, one counter intuitive strategy I recall seeing or reading about that would have seriously delayed the US was…don’t sink the fleet in Pearl Harbor. Instead, lure it out and sink it in deep water where the ships would be unrecoverable. Had the Japanese done that, supposedly, it would have set up back something like 2 years. That was actually what the Japanese originally were planning on…2 years where the US either couldn’t seriously respond or could only respond in limited ways, leaving the Japanese free to basically take over all of the South Pacific and to fortify their gains such that the cost to the US to take it back would be, in their opinions anyway, too high for us to accept.
I agree. (And I’ve argued this point on this board in the past.) If Japan had just attacked the British and the Dutch and not attacked the Americans, they would have done much better. I believe that the United States would not have gone to war against Japan in defense of a third party (they hadn’t gone to war in defense of China or France).
The problem was that decision making in Japan had been handed over to the army and navy. They naturally tended to see things in military terms. And from a military point of view, it was a sound idea to secure the route between Japan and Southeast Asia; the presence of another country’s military base (the Philippines) meant that Japan’s vital oil supply was vulnerable if that country chose to attack it. So the Japanese military decided it would be a safer policy to eliminate that possible threat.
On the local level, it was a sound military decision. But it was a terrible political decision, because eliminating the possibility of a threat from the Philippines meant attacking the United States and creating a genuine threat everywhere else. The Japanese military got so focused on one tree that lost sight of the forest.
A wiser Japanese policy would have been to accept the risk of existing American military bases in the Philippines. Because those bases only really mattered to Japan if the United States chose to use them against Japan. As long as the United States and Japan stayed at peace with one another, they were irrelevant. Japanese oil tankers could have sailed by American bases and waved at them.
And we didnt go to war against Hitler, even after he attacked GB, Belgium, the Netherlands, etc.
Yep.
I believe that, even after Pearl Harbor we didn’t declare war on Germany until they declared war on us. Though we had, admittedly, been fighting a covert war with them on the seas for quite a while before that, so it’s possible that eventually it would have happened, regardless.
True enough. The U.S. declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941 without declaring war on Germany. But Germany saved them the trouble by declaring war on December 11. I suspect if Hitler hadn’t moved so fast, the U.S. would have gotten around to a formal declaration pretty quickly.
I believe they would have because Japan would have remained too big of a threat if they hadn’t, and Pearl Harbor was too great of a crime not to be fully avenged. I think politics and public opinion would have demanded it.
Maybe. Depends.
One wonders the outcome of the USA fighting Japan and Britain being able to withdraw from the Pacific theater to use everything against the Germans.
What would the UK have withdrawn? From memory, most of the large Royal Navy assets, including several capital ships were lost to the Japanese in a series of battles around Malaysia and the southern Pacific very early in the war…long before the US could or would have been able to do much. Most of the British territory in the region was similarly lost. They couldn’t exactly withdraw Australia (or India), but I doubt they had a hell of a lot they could have withdrawn to make any sort of difference in Europe against the Germans (who, according to the documentary Animal House were the ones who bombed Pearl Harbor). And I think both the UK and Russians kind of needed the US to focus on the Germans…which is why they pushed for that, despite the natural reaction of the US to want to go after Japan with the majority of our effort first, as they had done us the most harm.
What XT said. The Royal Navy ceased to be a factor after the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk early on. The Aussies were all busy fighting in North Africa and the Indians had their hands full with Burma and environs. There wasn’t a lot left to add to the mix against Germany.
Even if Japan hadn’t attacked the USA right off the bat, they still would’ve gotten their asses handed to them. Once we went to a war footing were weren’t going to just ignore a German ally threatening the Philippines. There would have been a massive force build up, making their capture rather more problematic when the time came. All it would have done is skip the early days when we were getting geared up.
Some hypotheticals simply are impossible. The one posed in this thread would be even less likely than a scenario where the Democrats would drop the impeachment procedures and ask Trump to run on their party ticket as well, allowing him to have the nomination from both parties.
Too many problems. First, as has been pointed out, Japan considered several of the territories as integral parts of Japan. They got into the suicidal war because they couldn’t even get out of China, let alone Formosa or Korea. Then there is no way that they would abandon Okinawa. Any leader who suggested that would have been assassinated.
For Okinawa, I have to assume that the OP wasn’t thought out carefully and was overlooked. We’ll include that island as part of Japan.
More importantly the reason that this OP would have been impossible is that Japan (even including Okinawa) isn’t a viable modern country without outside resources. Oil and steel have been mentioned, as well as rice, but also various minerals, rubber, sugar, etc., etc. Japan got some of its sugar from Okinawa but also depended on Formosa.
Japan wouldn’t have been viable as country and would have collapsed. Manufacturing would have stopped. There’s simply no way that the Japan leadership would have agreed to that.
They were already started rationing by summer of 1944 and giving up the rice from China and other countries as well as the sugar from Formosa would have started a deliberate starvation campaign by their own government. Impossible. Among advanced nations, Japan is unique in its reliance on ocean transport of essential goods, including food. Rice is grown in Hokkaido and Kyushu. Sugarcane is grown in Okinawa (and Formosa). With advance submarine bases reestablished in the Philippines or whereever, subs would be starving Japan by December of 1944.
Second, Japan couldn’t have actually brought back that many troops given its logistics and inability to protect the shipping lanes. They lacked shipping and would have faced US submarines. Bringing back that many troops would have put additional stress on the food situation.
Enough of fighting the hypothetical. If the Japanese were to have done this, an invasion of Japan would have more, rather than less likely. The bloody battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa had not yet occurred, and the US was inflicting heavy casualties with fewer losses themselves.
There would have been more Japanese troops on the main islands, but the US would still have been able to defeat them.