There was also Wake island which was certainly opposed. Also the Battle of Guam in 1941.
So, yes, the IJN took several islands in the face of oppositions.
I concur that they could not take Midway AFTER they lost their carriers. But if they had not, then all bets are off as close air support could have made the difference. It would have been bloody, but it is a maybe.
All those machine guns are great- but not if they have been bombed and strafed to nothing.
Yes, later we had issues when the Japanese dug deeply in, with massive series of tunnels and bunkers. That was impossible at Midway, the land was just above sea level.
The problem is that we are again running into the question of whether the IJN are trying to take Midway, or destroy it. They may not be able to do the former at all, even with the best of luck, owing to a complete lack of proper training, planning and equipment for the assault force. They certainly have the ability to do the latter assuming they can do so un-opposed, but that obviously didn’t happen in reality and that’s exactly the opposite of the scenario Whack-a-Mole keeps trying to insist upon, with increasingly a-historic assumptions.
If Midway is destroyed, Japan has no reason to take or hold it, because they’ve just reduced the functional airfield to a barren scrap of rock in the ocean. If Midway is taken, it’s more of a point. There are simply no reasons to expend energy to capture Midway island for its own sake, and the entire operation was never really crafted with the goal of that capture in the first place. The goal was to attack the USN with a powerful advantage. Midway itself was merely the means of getting that fight.
If un-opposed, they could just rain shells down on it until everything was levelled and the airfield completely wrecked and useless. This would probably causes severe casualties, though not necessarily completely crippling ones, among the personnel on duty there. It also wouldn’t necessarily destroy the ability of the Marines to resist a landing attempt. The relatively small size of Midway would mean that, once Japanese ships found the range, they could basically drop shells until their magazines ran dry. And the task forces had enough ships to pretty much saturate the island with shellfire. This would likely ruin any military stores, fuel, munitions, and any planes that failed to escape, plus more or less functionally destroying any buildings. While Midway had a substantial ground air force, they almost certainly would not win a battle against the IJN alone, and if they were destroyed or driven off and forced to flee, the airfield would be pretty vulnerable to bombing runs and bombardment.
Well, it’s possible that the IJN, if not opposed, could have done severe damage to Midway (“wrecking” is, MHO, a bit of a stretch). But there were a couple of factors working against them.
For one thing, while Kido Butai was a superb raiding force — the best in the world at this point of the war — it really wasn’t designed for protracted operations which required it to stand off a target and pound at it for any period of time. And as far as the battleships and cruisers were concerned, as noted above (see Yamamoto’s reply to Watanabe’s suggestion that they use the Main Body’s battleships to bombard the island), the IJN’s focus was almost exclusively on destroying enemy warships. This not only meant that they never developed much in the way of a shore bombardment doctrine, but also probably meant that the BBs’ magazines carried mainly armor-piercing rounds which are far less effective against land targets.
Finally, there’s the bugaboo of the whole operation: logistics. If nothing else, it wouldn’t be very long before they had to break off for refueling.
Pretty sure we disposed of the idea that Wake was analogous to Midway several posts back, but in short, Wake had a handful of heavy weapons and a garrison of about 450 Marines who turned away the first invasion attempt before succumbing to a second attempt that landed some 2500 troops.
The General Board recommends that (a) Guam be not fortified under present circumstances; (b) the current harbor development be continued to completion; (c) Guam be not developed as a naval base, but that plans be prepared and kept up to date for its development as a fully fortified air and submarine base.
In the Philippines, the Japanese chose undefended areas far from where the US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) were concentrated. This allowed the IJN to land on generally undefended beaches and establish beachheads from where they could advance overland in strength.
What lessons would the Japanese have drawn from these assaults that would have transferred to the Midway invasion and allowed them to find success?
If the force multiplier is aircraft and naval gunfire support, what precedents do we have of the IJN having developed, incorporated, or used combined arms tactics in support of an amphibious invasion as of June 1942?
Although i recognize these points, I don’t agree in the specific. Midway was just too small to resist the kind of firepower that the IJN could bring to bear, even in passing. Just the Yamato alone could lob 18" shells, and, well, AP or not, that’s just going to shred everything downrange. And Midway is basically a perfect target due to having no geography to speak of. The battleships just don’t need to spend much time loitering nearby, and that’s not counting that the IJN simply doesn’t need to even use its surface fleet until Midway has been reduced to ineffective status via overwhelming air attack.
Yes, and so? It is certainly an analogy since what was asked for is a opposed invasion of a island by the IJN. Are you saying Wake wasnt opposed? Not a island? The Japanese didn’t successfully invade? Now sure, the defenses there were not as powerful as Midway, but that was not the question. Nor did the IJN have 7 BB, 13 cruisers, 6 aircraft carriers and about 250 aircraft at Wake.
Note I am not saying the IJN could have done it, but I am saying they ONLY could have done it with the Aircraft carriers and all those attack planes.
The problem is that while a seemingly reasonable idea, that’s not what Yamamoto’s plan called for. The plan called for a minimal bombardment from the four CruDiv 7 cruisers and only using BB if necessary.
The Marines were dug-in well and had been living underground for months. There were some concrete fortifications and instant pillboxes which used the turret from WWI tanks.
American experience at other landings, including similar atolls, showed that bombardment from even heavy caliber weapons over a much longer period of time was largely ineffective against dug-in defense. A hurried shelling from eight-in guns from ships that had not practiced target identification would not have produced effective result.
The idea of saturation shelling is anachronistic; it was developed later in the war by the Allies and while it’s tempting to say “why not?,” the reality is that the IJN didn’t do that.
If we start to expand the counterfactual to allow the Japanese to effectively perform something they’ve never trained for or careful planned out then, the US side should be allowed to change history as well, and it’s impossible to predict an outcome.
The schedule was exacting and unforgiving. They were going to land when they were going to land. There is no reasonable reason for them to suddenly have the same insights to history that we gained from reading history books.
The expected outcome of the bombardment would have been unsatisfactory.
Also note that the flat shape of the island actually worked against effective artillery placement. Think of golf and trying to get on the green with only using a driver or long iron when you really want to be hitting with a short iron or pitching wedge. I posted this before, but the bombardment at Wake saw the shots going too short or too long.
Strafing against deeply dug-in troops wasn’t effective, either, for obvious reasons.
The invading force came from the Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) and the Army. The same unit under the same commander, Col. Ichiki was sent to Guadalcanal and got slaughtered when Ichiki charged a less well dug-in Marine position on the banks of Alligator Creek.
The IJN would need to knock out the two seven-in guns and but would likely launch their troops without a sustained bombardment. With all the fortifications, mines, IEDs, anti tank mines which could be fired electrically as well, I don’t see how any force could succeed given those parameters.
[quote=“TokyoBayer, post:569, topic:917029, full:true”] The problem is that while a seemingly reasonable idea, that’s not what Yamamoto’s plan called for. The plan called for a minimal bombardment from the four CruDiv 7 cruisers and only using BB if necessary.
[snip]
American experience at other landings, including similar atolls, showed that bombardment from even heavy caliber weapons over a much longer period of time was largely ineffective against dug-in defense. A hurried shelling from eight-in guns from ships that had not practiced target identification would not have produced effective result. [/quote]
To the first part, yes, I agree. That’s exactly why I explained that, while the IJN could likely demolish Midway given time, they wouldn’t do that. It’s exchanging the strategic goal for a tactical one, and not the tactical goal they wanted. I am criticisizing the idea, not supporting it or arguing for it.
To the second, again, if you read my posts you will se I am not arguing that IJN bombardment would have killed all the soldiers; I am suggesting that they would realistically have wrecked the airfield, stores, and above-ground structures and made Midway functionally useless without substantial and prolonged repair and resupply. Note that this was hardly un-precedented in the war and even much lighter attacks could cause severe damage. The marines, as I indicated above, might well be able to repel an attack even after a substantial bombardment, but they wouldn’t be defending much of military value (although obviously survival is valuable!). Also, while I focused on the possibilities of adding surface bombardment to the situation, there is no reason the IJN wouldn’t also drop ordnance from their air wing as well, which I pointed out above. In much less favourable circumstances, the IJN was able to inflict severe damage to other airfields.
Again the scenario I was responding to was what would happen if the IJN had no naval opposition. IN which case the most realistic outcome to me is that Midway is re-built after such an attack. That this action would be unrealistic in the first place is absolutely true; it was never the goal for the IJN at all. It’s simple possible for them to do so if they had chosen it.
Edit: for some reason the quote function isn’t working. Maybe I wrecked the format somewhere. I bold-ed the quotes text for easier reading.
That’s it, the sum total of your analysis? Wake is an island that Japan invaded? That the IJN had a bunch of airplanes at Midway?
The IJN could have brought every aircraft their carriers were capable of embarking (I’ll even let you resurrect Shoho, and then fix and find aircraft for Shokaku and Zuikaku) and it would not have improved the chances of occupying Midway one iota.
To back up the idea that the IJN wasn’t all that great at tactical ground strikes, we have the actual results of the first raid on Midway. The Japanese sent in about 100 aircraft to attack the island and did heavy damage to fixed installations. Importantly, though, they knocked out none of the anti-aircraft or artillery and killed only 6 people. This cost the IJN about 10% of their strike shot down and another 15% heavily damaged.
You hold up Wake Island as a shining example of an amphibious assault into a fortified island by the IJN. We’ll ignore that the first invasion attempt was a failure. Japan had about a 5:1 advantage there in troop strength. The IJN brought about 2500 troops to conduct the assault on Midway. That means they have to reduce Midway defenders from about 3500 troops to 500 to have a chance at success.
Let’s be generous, maybe the IJN can do it with only a 3:1 advantage, so that means a max of 800 or so defenders on Midway.
How do you plan on killing about 2700 Marines (to get to that 3:1 attacker advantage) at the rate of 6 per raid when you are losing at least 10% of your attacking aircraft every time to do it?
That was not the goal of that first raid. It was to knock out the airfield and the aircraft. Read Shattered Sword. They always planned for at least one more, maybe more. The first did heavy damage but did not destroy the airfield.
Mind you, taking Midway was not the primary goal. It was to lure the American fleet into a decisive action.
Which of course meant the IJN would sink the American fleet and the USA would sue for peace. not.
Airstrips were rebuild fast. You couldn’t knock them out for long.
It didn’t have to be built up extensively for it to be valuable. Look at Guadalcanal and the other places they captured. The army under MacArthur made of science of landing on unopposed locations and throwing up functioning bases, seemingly in minutes.
It’s been discussed already but some of the staff wanted to go and flatten the island and Yamamoto wisely said no.
One of the reasons for the Battle of Midway was that the Japanese were actually trying to capture the island, in addition to the goal of drawing the US fleet out of Hawaii to fight.
It’s rather in-depth but to understand the reason requires an understanding of the organizational structure of the Japanese military and government, the various ideas by the different groups concerning how the war would end and the conflicts and interactions between the groups.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was divided between Navy Ministry and the Navy General Staff. The Planning Division of the Navy General Staff was the organization which was charged with setting the strategic objectives of the war. Yamamoto, CinC of the Combined Fleet, was supposed to execute those objectives, but he was clearly a strategic thinker and of course the man behind the Pearl Harbor raid. Famously, the Navy General Staff vetoed the idea and Yamamoto threatened to resign. Eventually, he got his way.
After the onset of war, the first few months were busy securing the territories Japan had set as initial objectives, allowing them territory which would hopefully become a strong defensive ring that would wear the Americans out. Japan actually did far better than they had originally thought possible.
While Japan had meticulously planned the initial objectives and strategies, they did not have an end game and didn’t know how to force the US to agree to end the war. There was a real lack of strategic direction once the initial objectives had been taken. The Navy believed that one massive decisive battle would defeat the US, and then the US would sue for peace.
After years of unending fighting in China, the Army didn’t believe that a single naval encounter would end the war, but rather believed a robust defensive ring would make it too costly for the US forces who would eventually give up and let Japan keep China, as well as other countries, but they were pretty vague about that.
Many navy leaders assumed that America would quickly give up, and they were surprised that had not happening by early spring. As a result, the military started to expand their objectives, with some Navy leaders wanting to attack Australia or at least sever links between there and America while the army wanted to continue to fortify the defensive ring.
Unique among the major combatants in WWII, there wasn’t an overall strong leader who could override the branches of the military. There were sharp divisions not only between the IJA and IJN but also within the branches themselves. Because there wasn’t a single leader, all the decisions needed to be made by cooperation between the service branches, both of which hated and mistrusted each other.
That’s the background. I know that many people know this, but some may not.
Yamamoto pushed for the attack on Midway as a means of forcing a decisive battle with the US but also for the objective of occupying the island as a stepping stone to Hawaii, presumably if sinking more US ships didn’t accomplish the goal.
Yamamoto’s proposal for attacking Midway was initially rejected by the Navy General Staff for some very solid reasons, among which was the knowledge that it would be impossible to supply the captured island. Yamamoto once again had a showdown and threated to resign, and the Navy General Staff capitulated.
The Navy General Staff then had to negotiate with their counterparts in the Army General Staff who also flatly refused to consider that. They also were aware of Yamamoto’s aim of Hawaii and thought it impossible as well as a distraction from their aim of fortifying the defensive ring.
However, the Doolittle raid changed that, and the Army signed on, as well as started making plans for Hawaii. I haven’t read anything about the discussions internal to the IJA concerning the change, but apparently they did intend to occupy Midway.
The bottom line is that the mission was for both purposes.