# WWII: Battle of Midway...why couldn't the Japanese have pressed on and captured the island?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 1, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029 "2020-08-01T22:36:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/141 "2020-08-09T02:43:42Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure high altitude bombing of naval targets (i.e. moving ships) was a total bust. Although, at that time, I think they were still fooling themselves into thinking it worked.
Yes, after Midway there were newspaper reports about how Army bombers had been the primary weapon that attacked the Japanese carriers. This, of course, annoyed the hell out of King. Especially when a decision was made not to challenge the stories in order to spread disinformation to Japan.
There had been Army bombers which participated in the battle and made attacks against the Japanese fleet. But apparently these attacks were completely ineffective and not a single bomb hit a ship. All of the actual damage had been done by Navy and Marine planes.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/142 "2020-08-09T02:49:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> The Doolittle raid was designed from the git-go as a very high level political statement. It was a pinprick attack whose value was 90% aimed at US morale and 10% at puncturing the Japanese homeland’s illusion of invincibility.
The Doolittle raid had an outsized result in that it helped solidify the Japanese military support for the Midway operation, including having the Imperial Army reverse its opposition and persuaded it to contribute the necessary troops.
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Force preservation isn’t everything. Losses and attrition are expected to happen. But force preservation is certainly something that plays large in every battle plan. You’re going to need those assets again tomorrow. Spend them wisely, don’t waste them. Ceding the enemy a 100% defeat in detail of your forces by planning for a guaranteed suicide mission only works when you have a very very high probability of getting 100% defeat in detail of the enemy too.
This is a major element discussed in Shattered Sword, and Parshall points out how the IJN did not understand force preservation, often preferring reckless actions instead of saving the assets to fight again. They were not careful with Hiryu, the final carrier and could have instead saved it to fight another day.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/143 "2020-08-09T02:54:54Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#):
>
> This is a major element discussed in Shattered Sword, and Parshall points out how the IJN did not understand force preservation, often preferring reckless actions instead of saving the assets to fight again. They were not careful with Hiryu, the final carrier and could have instead saved it to fight another day.
I haven’t read _Shattered Sword_ but Toll made the same point in his books (which I referenced above). It’s bizarre to see how willing Japan was to just throw away their own troops in missions they knew were hopeless. Especially when the Japanese were aware that they were facing an enemy with greater resources and they couldn’t win a war of attrition.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/144 "2020-08-09T04:30:56Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> I read somewhere that Japanese assessments of US production capacity was mistaken because they were using numbers based on what the US was then producing, and not the vastly larger amount that the US could produce (by hiring the unemployed and opening shuttered factories).
Even if this were accurate, the Japanese could not have won the war even with the actual capacity. From [Grim Economic Realities](http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> By the time World War II began to rear its ugly head (formally in 1939 in Poland, informally in China in 1937), America had been in the grips of the Great Depression for a decade, give or take. The net effect of the Depression was to introduce a lot of ‘slack’ into the U.S. economy. Many U.S. workers were either unemployed (10 million in 1939) or underemployed, and our industrial base as a whole had far more capacity than was needed at the time. In economic terms, our ‘Capacity Utilization’ (CapU), was pretty darn low. To an outside culture, particularly a militaristic one such as Japan’s, America certainly might have appeared to be ‘soft’ and unprepared for a major war. Further, Japan’s successes in fighting far larger opponents (Russia in the early 1900’s, and China in the 1930’s) and the fact that Japan’s own economy was practically ‘superheating’ (mostly as the result of unhealthy levels of military spending – 28% of national income in 1937) probably filled the Japanese with a misplaced sense of economic and military superiority over their large overseas foe. However, a dispassionate observer would also note a few important facts. America, even in the midst of seemingly interminable economic doldrums, still had:
>
> Nearly twice the population of Japan.
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> _Seventeen_ time’s Japan’s national income.
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> Five times more steel production.
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> Seven times more coal production.
>
> _Eighty_ (80) times the automobile production.
>
> Furthermore, America had some hidden advantages that didn’t show up directly in production figures. For one, U.S. factories were, on average, more modern and automated than those in Europe or in Japan. Additionally, American managerial practice at that time was the best in the world. Taken in combination, the _per capita_ productivity of the American worker was the highest in the world. Furthermore, the United States was more than willing to utilize American women in the war effort: a _tremendous_ advantage for us, and a concept which the Axis Powers seem not to have grasped until very late in the conflict. The net effect of all these factors meant that even in the depths of the Depression, American war-making potential was still around seven times larger than Japan’s, and had the ‘slack’ been taken out in 1939, it was closer to _nine or ten times_ as great! In fact, accroding to Kennedy, a breakdown of total global warmaking potential in 1937 looks something like this: (table follows)
It goes on to discuss how this capacity directly affected carrier production and concludes:
> [@](#):
>
> In other words, even if it had lost catastrophically at the Battle of Midway, the United States Navy still would have broken even with Japan in carriers and naval air power by about September 1943. Nine months later, by the middle of 1944, the U.S. Navy would have enjoyed a nearly two-to-one superiority in carrier aircraft capacity! Not only that, but with her newer, better aircraft designs, the U.S. Navy would have enjoyed not only a substantial numeric, but also a critical qualitative advantage as well, starting in late 1943. All this is _not_ to say that losing the Battle of Midway would not have been a serious blow to American fortunes! For instance, the war would almost certainly have been protracted if the U.S. had been unable to mount some sort of a credible counter-stroke in the Solomons during the latter half of 1942. Without carrier-based air power of some sort there would not have been much hope of doing so, meaning that we would most likely have lost the Solomons. However, the long-term implications are clear: the United States could afford to make good losses that the Japanese simply could not. Furthermore, this comparison does not reflect the fact that the United States actually slowed down its carrier building program in late 1944, as it became increasingly evident that there was less need for them. Had the U.S. lost at Midway, it seems likely that those additional carriers (3 _Midway_ -class and 6 more _Essex_ -Class CVs, plus the _Saipan_ -class CVLs) would have been brought on line more quickly. In a macro-economic sense, then, the Battle of Midway was really a non-event. There was no need for the U.S. to seek a single, decisive battle which would ‘Doom Japan’ – Japan was doomed by its very decision to make war.
One of the common myths about WWII was that the Japanese blundered by not attacking the oil storage and ground facilities at Pearl Harbor. Without getting into the technical discussion of why what wasn’t possible, one of the Japanese officers later stated that they never considered attacking the oil, et al because if they had taken into logistics and war capacities, they would never have started the war in the first place.
One of the problems with alternative histories of the Pacific War is that they neglect the helplessness of Japan’s position.
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I haven’t read _Shattered Sword_ but Toll made the same point in his books (which I referenced above). It’s bizarre to see how willing Japan was to just throw away their own troops in missions they knew were hopeless. Especially when the Japanese were aware that they were facing an enemy with greater resources and they couldn’t win a war of attrition
I second the recommendation for _Pacific Crucible_ but I want to point out that for and better understanding of the Battle of Midway, then _Shattered Sword_ is a must read. Toll repeats the generally accepted wisdom that the Midway operation was simply to draw out the US fleet (quoting Toll, “When he did so [backing the Midway operation], his real objective was not the island itself, which was of dubious value, but the hope of flushing the Pacific Fleet out of Pearl Harbor and destroying it in a pitched battle.”
Parshall goes into much greater depth and demonstrates the dual nature of the mission with the full purpose of invading and occupying the islands. As Toll’s book covers a much greater scope while Parshall is entirely focused on Midway and the steps up to it.
_Shattered Sword_ covers some of the chaotic nature of the organization of the Japanese imperial military although Eri Hotta’s _Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy_ give a much better breakdown of the insanity of the situation. I’ll try to give a brief summary later.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/145 "2020-08-09T04:42:06Z")
_"One of the common myths about WWII was that the Japanese blundered by not attacking the oil storage and ground facilities at Pearl Harbor. Without getting into the technical discussion of why what wasn’t possible,…_." you’re not thinking about the debunked theory that those oil tanks were the stronger, nigh bulletproof ones used much later are you? They _could have_ bombed or strafed them, but it would only have delayed things a little, and true, it wasnt part of the Japanese strategy.
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### Author:  [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/146 "2020-08-09T04:42:55Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#):
>
> They were not careful with Hiryu, the final carrier and could have instead saved it to fight another day.
To illustrate:
After the [Eastern Solomons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eastern_Solomons) and [Santa Cruz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Santa_Cruz_Islands) battles in August and October, the USN was down to one mangled carrier (_Enterprise_). That was facing three fleet carriers and two light carriers; if the _Hiryu_ had been available as well, it’s hard to see how even the “Big E” would have survived.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/147 "2020-08-09T05:07:10Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> They _could have_ bombed or strafed them, but it would only have delayed things a little
Can you define “delayed things a little”? How long is “a little”?
What about bombing the dry docks used for repair (which I think they skipped too)?
My understanding is the Japanese hoped their attack would keep the US out of the war long enough that they could capture what they needed and it would all be a fait accompli. They knew they would not win a war of attrition. They hoped they’d make it so expensive for the US to recover and win that the US would seek a negotiated peace that would leave Japan in control of the South Pacific.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/148 "2020-08-09T13:02:15Z")
Thank you.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/149 "2020-08-09T13:54:19Z")
Just to piggyback on [TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)’s posts, in Shattered Sword the authors wrote:
> Karl von Clausewitz’s famous maxim that “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy” probably never had a less enthusiastic audience than the Imperial Japanese Navy.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/150 "2020-08-09T14:41:18Z")
I make no claim to expertise in WWII details.
ISTM overall that when the US did the oil embargo the Japanese faced a Hobson’s choice.
They had been on an expansionist imperialist roll. Now suddenly somebody a lot bigger was kneeling on their neck. At that moment they realized they were at the apex of their powers. They could either push the bully off their neck now, or try to do it later once they’d been half-asphyxiated.
So now it had to be. And given the tenor of their high command, they convinced themselves the US would crumble when their bluff was called with the first hard punch at Pearl. Which was wrong, but not crazy wrong.
Had the Japanese instead focused on embargo running from the DEI & such, they may well have had a very different future.
My real point being the US embargo has a decent claim to being the true _casus belli_ here. Like modern economic sanctions, but far more effective, we’d backed them deep into an unsurvivable corner. At which point it was just a question of where and when they’d come out swinging desperately.
Backing up further, to be sure the US would not have embargoed a peaceful non-imperialist non-atrocity-committing nation. The embargo was a tactical response to Japan’s pre-existing years-long strategic beastliness.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/151 "2020-08-09T15:48:43Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> What about bombing the dry docks used for repair (which I think they skipped too)?
These are not easy things to destroy. A dry dock is essentially a concrete pit, surrounded by utility buildings. The pit is the important part, and concrete is famously durable. You could destroy it with aerial bombardment, but not easily, and Nagumo was justifiably concerned that the American defenders were significantly more effective against the second wave than they had been against the first (and he didn’t know where the carriers were.)
Tank farms are more destructible than a dry dock, but they’re very big and spread out. Allied strategic bombers struggled to effectively destroy oil facilities in World War II throwing even larger raids of much larger bombers at them.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/152 "2020-08-09T19:31:00Z")
Bully? The reason the USA stopped selling American oil to Japan was due to their imperialistic invasion of mainland China, including stuff like the Rape of Nanking.
> **[Nanjing Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre)**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
>
> The Nanjing Massacre (simplified Chinese: 南京大屠杀; traditional Chinese: 南京大屠殺; pinyin: Nánjīng Dàtúshā, Japanese: 南京大虐殺, romanized: Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as Nanking\[note 2\]) was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the Second Sino-Japanese War, by the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacr...
The Japanese could have simply consolidated their puppet state in Manchukuo, and perhaps invaded the DEI to get their oil. In fact, the Japanese army was floundering badly in China. They didnt need to continue invading China.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/153 "2020-08-09T19:44:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> The reason the USA stopped selling American oil to Japan was due to their imperialistic invasion of mainland China, including stuff like the Rape of Nanking.
Actually, those events predate the embargos (scrap metal and oil) by several years. The immediate cause was Japan’s incursion into French colonies in Indochina.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/154 "2020-08-09T19:56:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Bully? The reason the USA stopped selling American oil to Japan was due to their imperialistic invasion of mainland China, including stuff like the Rape of Nanking.
Sorry I should have been more clear.
I meant bully from Japan’s POV. IOW _their_ reaction was “The big mean ol’ USofA is picking on poor innocent small us = Japan.”
As I said clearly at the end, the whole unpleasantness was started by Japan’s nasty imperialism. Of which the Nanjing/Nanking event was one of many.
What I was suggesting was that the embargo was the thing which ensured Japan & the US would come to blows; up to that point it was plausible we’d just trade nasty cables and support proxies and colonies & such for the next 5-10 years. Once we embargoed, then the train to direct war had left the station; it was then just a matter of when & where the first stop would be along that line.
In no sense did I mean to suggest that the US action was excessive or unjustified. But it clearly was highly escalatory. And most importantly, by choking the Japanese homeland economy, it meant that Japan’s high command was placed under great pressure to respond very quickly.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/155 "2020-08-09T20:06:44Z")
Ok, good. Some people here have posted that the USA forced the Japanese to Attack by the embargoes.
Actually, the Oil embargo didnt have to effect the Japanese homeland economy, what it was really doing was slowing the Japanese war effort vs China. The Homeland could have had all the oil it needed for domastic uses.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/156 "2020-08-09T20:10:23Z")
The demand for oil was mostly driven by the Navy.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/157 "2020-08-09T20:54:06Z")
Hence their very urgent need to get the USA off their neck using that Navy before said Navy was rendered inert.
One of the recurring themes in this thread as to both Midway and Pearl was the Japanese reluctance / resistance to taking their US opponent seriously. They assumed we’d be Cylon clones who’d play our role as scripted in the IJN war plans.
My contention is much of that was because they _had_ to assume that. Both for lack of time and manpower to examine other less favorable rabbit trails and because the only way their plans led to sweet Victory in the short time they’d still have fuel would be if the USN obligingly played dummy w feet of clay to their super ninjas.
And so they persuaded themselves that’s how it _will_ work out and were more or less dumbfounded when it did not. They were then on the back foot strategically for the remaining duration. It took another year+ for them to pushed onto the back foot tactically, and even then on any given day in any given arena either side could have the local tactical initiative.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2020, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/158 "2020-08-10T00:01:23Z")
Without reviewing the book, I don’t remember all of the details, but Eri Hotta’s _Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy_ is a great read, and along with other sources it shows how the Japanese military organization up through WWII hindered the efforts to have effective overall strategies and coherence. This is directly related to the questions raised in this thread about the purposes of the operation as well as their implementations.
The late 19th century Meiji Constitution placed the General Staffs of the Army and Nay outside of civilian control. They directly reported to the Emperor who was duty bound to accept the advice of his advisors. The Army (War) Minister and Navy Minister who were members of the cabinet also reported to the Emperor and both the general staffs and ministries were independent of each other.
The decision making process was insane. From _Japan 1941_
> [@](#):
>
> Strategic proposals were rarely formulated at the top levels; they were usually initiated at the bureau and section levels of the ministries and at the division and section levels of the general staffs. With many specialist groups trying to advance their interests, arriving at a new policy was a very complicated business. If, for example, one division or section of the Army General Staff proposed a new initiative, it would first have to be approved, modified, and endorsed by the other division and section chiefs. Only then would the proposal be discussed in a joint meeting of the Army General Staff (independent of the government) and the Army Ministry (part of the government), usually attended by the chief and vice chief of staff and minister and vice minister. Meanwhile, the bureau and section chiefs of the Army Ministry would be introduced to the Army General Staff’s proposal; if in agreement, they would all work toward convincing the navy (the general staff, as well as the ministry) and the Foreign Ministry, both of which had their own intricate groups and subgroups. After agreement from the Foreign Ministry and the navy was secured, the prime minister’s cabinet would finally be approached by the chiefs of staff, as the representatives of the high command, to put the proposal on the agenda of a liaison conference. This sort of painstaking institutional groundwork was carried out by middle-ranking military planners, most of whom did not even attend the liaison meetings of the top leaders. They were aptly called bakuryo, which literally means “officers behind the curtains.”
Having lived in Japan for more than 20 years, worked in Japanese organizations and seen countless others, then I was very familiar with this sort of craziness.
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### Author:  [@smilingbandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smilingbandit)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/159 "2020-08-10T16:15:33Z")
The Japanese government problems more or less came about by a quirk of the foundation of the modern Japanese nation-state. (I will spare you the fascinating but long and complicated story.) The important part is that the individuals who ran things governed, if not exactly in perfect harmony, by mutual agreement and a considerable level of trust. Basically, they could manage things this way, because they had very similar ideas.
Through some odd historical paths Japan more or less became a pretty successful democracy in the early 20th century, but the government structure that **Tokyobayer** described and a program of nationalization that worked a little too well (as in, they created programs to emphasize Japanese identity over regional or local ones via military service and more-or-less clubs for former soldiers which was everyody) allowed the military to effectively gain control of the state. Except, most of it was basically being run by JO’s. And because the more radical JO’s were the ones starting conflict and carrying out actions, they government ended up being in part directed by whatever the most ambitious or possible mad Lieutenants in the entire Imperial Army wanted. Japan invaded Manchuria basically because officers who emphatically did not on paper have the authority to do any any such thing made it happen, and no one above them knew how to stop it.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/160 "2020-08-10T16:20:09Z")
I have nothing substantive to add to this conversation, but just wanted to say it’s been a fascinating thread to read. Threads like this one are the reason I began reading the SDMB and eventually joined.
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