# Was the pacific theater in WW2 mostly between the US and Japan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 2, 2021, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809 "2021-08-02T02:04:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/62 "2021-08-08T12:28:07Z")
The book “If The Allies Had Fallen” is a book of alternate WWII histories. One of the sections mentions “If the the first B-29’s had been given to General Kenny’s Fifth Air Force out of Australia, instead of being sent to China.” The writer concluded that they would have been used to carry larger bomb loads to the refineries in Borneo. The writer stopped short of concluding whether this would have had a real effect on the war. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/63 "2021-08-08T13:42:35Z")
There were five months where PBYs were the only planes bombing Japan. After the 11th Airforce operating out of the recaptured Aleutians lost half their planes in an attack on the Kurils in September, 1943, they took the winter off to regroup. During that time, Navy PBYs took up the slack. This harassment from the North diverted a lot of Japanese fighters and ships from the main action in the South. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/64 "2021-08-08T17:45:45Z")
Just because a mission was longer than a bomber’s maximum possible range doesn’t necessarily mean a bomber couldn’t have flown that mission. In the Falklands War, the UK flew missions of over 6,600 nautical miles, using bombers with a range of only 3,000 nautical miles (lots and lots of midair refueling was involved). ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/65 "2021-08-08T17:53:35Z")
Which was not a thing in WWII. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/66 "2021-08-08T17:56:52Z")
[Aerial Refueling.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling) > In 1934, Cobham had founded [Flight Refuelling Ltd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Refuelling_Ltd) and by 1938 had used FRL’s _looped-hose_ system to refuel aircraft as large as the [Short Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Empire) flying boat _Cambria_ from an [Armstrong Whitworth AW.23](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_AW.23).[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling#cite_note-HistAv19-5) [Handley Page Harrows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_H.P.54_Harrow) were used in the 1939 trials to perform aerial refueling of the Empire flying boats for regular transatlantic crossings. From August 5 to October 1, 1939, sixteen crossings of the Atlantic were made by Empire flying boats, with fifteen crossings using FRL’s aerial refueling system.[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling#cite_note-14) After the sixteen crossings further trials were suspended due to the outbreak of World War II.[[15]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling#cite_note-15) > > During the closing months of World War II, it had been intended that [Tiger Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Force_(air))’s [Lancaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster) and [Lincoln](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lincoln) bombers would be in-flight refueled by converted [Halifax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_Halifax) tanker aircraft, fitted with the FRL’s looped-hose units, in operations against the [Japanese homelands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan), but the war ended before the aircraft could be deployed. > In January 1948, General Carl Spaatz, then the first [Chief of Staff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_Staff_of_the_United_States_Air_Force) of the new [United States Air Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force), made aerial refueling a top priority of the service. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/67 "2021-08-08T23:07:23Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Rear Admiral Gallery (he’s the one responsible for the German submarine on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry) once wrote that after a successful kamikaze attack, an American aircraft carrier had to be sent back for major repair. In the case of a British aircraft carrier after an attack, it was “Sweepers, man your brooms.” Here is, what I think is, one of the few successful Kamikaze vs a RN CV: > **[Armoured Aircraft Carriers](https://www.armouredcarriers.com/indefatigable-kamikaze)** > > Kamikaze attack damage, April 1, 1945 HMS Indefatigable British Pacific Fleet: Task Force 57 off Sakishima Gunto, Okinawa     A quick assessment of the damage revealed the following: \*The exploding kamikaze had depressed the armoured flight deck by roughly 3in over a 15ft area, and a small fire was ignited in B hangar’s overhead storage space underneath the point of impact. \* \*The R/T office in Indefatigable island was wrecked, as were the flight-deck sick bay and pilot’s briefing room. Splinters peppered many other spaces and an intense fire had been started by the burning fuel. \* _PO Electrical Artificer Les Bancroft recalled:_ _God, it was a shambles. Fires were burning all round, steam was erupting from burst pipes at the rear end, water was cascading from others. Twisted steel and piles of rubble were everywhere. Four crewmen were trying to manoeuvre through this into an area which I now know to have been the island Medical Station. They had obviously been removing the injured; the dead remained…Eight men had been killed immediately and 16 wounded. Six would die later. Among the dead were Indefatigable’s Lieutenant Commander (Flying), an Air Engineering Officer, the Flight Deck Medical Officer and many in the Operations Room._ _One of Indefatigable’s USN Liaison Officers famously (and anonymously) encapsulated his feelings of the experience in a media report from that time (several journalists were with the fleet) which has since been widely quoted:_ _\> “When a kamikaze hits a US carrier, it’s six months repair at Pearl. In a Limey carrier it’s a case of “sweepers, man your brooms”.”_ _Spatulas were also needed._ _AB R. Jenkin would later write:_ _\> I recall the time after being hit by the kamikaze. Leading Seaman Mike Smith on the searcher sight suddenly remarking ‘I can’t see through my sight’. Quickly looking to see what was wrong he discovered his sight clogged up with human flesh which he removed quickly and resumed his position searching for the next target. We assumed when the action was all over that it was part of that Japanese._ [http://www.navweaps.com/index\_tech/tech-042.php](http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-042.php) _### USS Essex CV-9 November 1944_ _A kamikaze hit the port edge of her flight deck, striking planes ready and fueled for takeoff, causing extensive damage with 15 killed and 44 wounded. Thirty minutes later she was capable of launching and landing planes. The damage was quickly repaired and she was back with the 3d Fleet off Luzon supporting the occupation of Mindoro during 14-16 December 1944._ By my account: Hits on USN CVs 18. Number damaged so badly they had to be sent back to the USA:9 Hits on RN CVs: 7, number sent back to port= 2. So it does look like when a USN CV was hit the chance it had to get sent back home was higher, but by no means was it “Sweepers, man your brooms”. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/68 "2021-08-09T01:40:47Z")
I recall reading some years ago that when one of the RN carriers was taken in hand for modernization it was found to have significant damage which was not detected when it was hit by a kamikaze. This was because the flight deck was the “strength deck” and formed the top of the hull structure (on a US carrier, the hangar deck was the strength deck). So rather than being absorbed by the flight deck, the impact was transmitted throughout the hull. Disclaimer: this is from memory, and a cursory search does not turn up the name of the ship in question. But it does seem at least theoretically possible that a sufficiently powerful impact could cause damage elsewhere in the hull. (It may — or may not — be of interest to note that no US fleet carrier was lost to bombing alone. _Lexington_ was scuttled by her escorts; _Yorktown_ and _Wasp_ were sunk by submarine torpedoes; and _Hornet_ was given the _coup de grace_ by torpedoes from Japanese destroyers after being abandoned. Their design may have made them vulnerable to damage from bombing and suicide attacks, but they were pretty damn tough.) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/69 "2021-08-09T08:48:56Z")
[HMS _Formidable_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Formidable_(67)) perhaps? She was scrapped in 1953 after having been decommissioned in 1947 when it was determined repairing wartime damage (she took a combined bomb/kamikaze hit on the deck) wasn’t economically feasible for the UK. The disparity of the economic impact of the war can really be seen between the US and the UK in how they dealt with damaged ships at the end of and post-war. Ships that the UK would have considered total economic write offs like the USS _Franklin_ were fully repaired by the US just to be put in the mothball fleet for the next 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/70 "2021-08-09T12:12:47Z")
_Formidable_ had taken quite a beating throughout the war, a conflict that had taken her from the Artic circle to to doorstep of Japan. And everywhere in between. Plus it was an era when the British Government was taking the view that manned aircraft were obsolete. As culminated in the [1957 Defence White paper.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_Defence_White_Paper) So, I suspect that the Kamikaze was the excuse. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/71 "2021-08-09T13:50:03Z")
Coincidentally, I just read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Bomber Mafia,” about WWII bombing. The book has some interesting things in it, but honestly it was disappointing. It felt SHORT (well, it was short, it’s only about 200 pages) and in parts - a lot of parts - it seemed to skim over things. Gladwell’s books aren’t exactly super-deep, but this one felt shallower than the others. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/72 "2021-08-09T15:58:40Z")
> [@gnarator](#): > > The Mediterranean Theater (North Africa/Sicily/Italy) seems to get forgotten, too, even though the US was heavily involved. Rick Atkinson’s books cover this well. I don’t know if I’d say forgotten, but I think it gets rolled into Europe in the public eye, and the fact that there was a lot of unit shifting/overlap only reinforces that. I mean, the entire US Seventh Army moved from Italy to Operation Dragoon, and then into Southern France, Alsace and Bavaria. They were also in Northern Africa, Sicily and the captures of Palermo and Messina. In general, the public looks at the theaters like this: “Fighting Germany” or “Fighting Japan”, with all the theaters rolled into one or the other. Only historians and history buffs really get into the differences between the Pacific Theater and the China-Burma-India Theater, or between the European Theater and the Mediterranean-Middle East Theater. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/73 "2021-08-10T01:50:39Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Only historians and history buffs really get into the differences between the Pacific Theater and the China-Burma-India Theater Pacific, SouthWest Pacific, and SouthEast Asian. Pacific was the well-known Island campaigns. SW Pacific was Papua/New Guinea, which is /not/ the well-known Island campaigns: different strategy, different command, different troops. The end of the war was ‘Victory in the Pacific’, and happened in Japan. Other parts of the pacific wars were also happening, but it’s fair to say that The End (which is a very visible point), was just the US and Japan, and wasn’t the SWP and China-Burma-India theaters. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/74 "2021-08-10T02:45:01Z")
Sure… I’m just saying that in the popular imagination, it’s basically Europe and the Pacific; there’s not much distinction between the various theaters within those two large categories. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/75 "2021-08-10T12:58:54Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > But in modern times I feel like just about every treatment of WWII that focuses on the American side mentions the serious deficit the U.S. military was starting from initially. I see this a lot in counter-factuals e.g., alt-hist. Perhaps I could have qualified it as “many people” instead of “most people” who don’t really understand it, but I had definitely seen it. Either way, it’s not a big deal or my main point. > [@Askance](#): > > And the only reason the Japanese tried to come over the Kokoda Trail was the Australians had defeated their first landing at Milne Bay. Are you sure? From the [Kokoda trail campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoda_Track_campaign#Strategic_context) [quote] Following Coral Sea, the 17th Army considered an overland advance on Port Moresby. This was based on pre-war intelligence that a road existed linking it with Kokoda. Initial aerial reconnaissance was inconclusive but plans were made for a reconnaissance in force and to exploit the possibility of an advance along such a route. (shortened) The initial landing took place from the evening of 21 July 1942.[/quote] The defeat of the Japanese forces at Milne Bay was at the end of August through early September. > [@Melbourne](#): > > The reason that the army wasn’t involved in the initial Guadalcanal landing was that General MacArthur and Admiral King disagreed on strategy and hated each other. > > Fortunately for the Allies, their personal rivalry was exceeded by the enmity between the Japanese Army and Navy (‘would rather loose the war than shake hands’) The history of the battles in Washington over the strategy of the war is sometimes as interesting as the fighting on the battlefields. There were many back and forth volleys between Adm. King, Commander in Chief, US Fleet, and his Army counterpart, General Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, on the direction of the war, and if Guadalcanal would be under the direction of the Nimitz as CinCPac or under MacArthur as Supreme Commander Southwest Pacific Area. Although the Solomon Islands were actually in the SWPA, King insisted that the initial operation would be conducted under the command of the Navy. Later, the garrisoning would be done by the Army. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/76 "2021-08-10T14:01:26Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > The book “If The Allies Had Fallen” is a book of alternate WWII histories. One of the sections mentions “If the the first B-29’s had been given to General Kenny’s Fifth Air Force out of Australia, instead of being sent to China.” The writer concluded that they would have been used to carry larger bomb loads to the refineries in Borneo. The writer stopped short of concluding whether this would have had a real effect on the war. It’s an interesting question. Kenny had requested the B-29s because the limitations in range and capacity of the B-24s. Several of the key targets were beyond the range of his bombers and he had to wait until the war got closer to the refineries. However, he was able to conduct five bombing raids from Sept. 30 to Oct. 18, hitting various targets in Borneo’s Balikpapan and Lutong districts reducing the amount of high octane aviation fuel and important lubricants. As we know, Japan already was experiencing critical shortages of aviation fuel, with devastating consequences for their pilot training program, to give just one example. By the end of the year, the Japanese had to abandon any attempts to ship oil from Borneo The peak oil from NEI was 1.5 million barrels in Aug, 1943 and by Oct., 44, it was down to 300,000 barrels. The B-29s were in operation in the summer of 44, and while having the B-29s a few months earlier would have helped, things were already in critical condition for the Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809/77 "2021-08-10T16:25:48Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > The B-29s were in operation in the summer of 44, and while having the B-29s a few months earlier would have helped, things were already in critical condition for the Japanese. Really… after Guadalcanal, the Japanese never had the strategic initiative. They only reacted to Allied movements… where they could. It just took the Allies a long time to actually reduce the various islands and areas the Japanese held, as well as to get close enough to actually bring the fight to the home islands via strategic bombing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-pacific-theater-in-ww2-mostly-between-the-us-and-japan/947809.md?page=3)