WWII: Battle of Midway...why couldn't the Japanese have pressed on and captured the island?

[TokyoBayer]

@Whack-a-Mole

So, the goal was what they hoped would be a knockout blow at Pearl Harbor. When that didn’t do it Midway was hoped to be the next one and give them a toehold closer to the US.

If you were a Japanese admiral tasked with winning in the Pacific, without the benefit of hindsight you have now, Midway looks pretty good.

Many of the Japanese admirals tasked with winning the Pacific didn’t think Midway looked pretty good. When Yamamoto’s officer proposed the invasion plan to the Naval General Staff which was specifically charged with developing the overall strategy for the war with America, it was initially rejected for three reasons:

1. The successful Japanese invasions in the previous month were carried out under the protection of land-based airpower from captured bases and then the air umbrella was pushed forward. Midway was in range of American heavy bombers based out of Hawaii, but too far for Japanese fighter aircraft to fight back. At this stage of the war, carriers couldn’t conduct extended operations in enemy waters.

2. Even is Midway were captured, it was unlikely that it could be supported, especially from sub attacks. The Japanese merchant marine was already overextended. One major problem Japan had was that a lot of its prewar civilian shipping needs were carried by what became neutral or Allied ships. Japan lost a significant amount of shipping capacity simply by declaring war.

Because Midway was small, it couldn’t hold that many aircraft and Japan lacked the resources to supply sufficient aviation fuel, a fact which Yamamoto’s proposals ignored.

3. Naval General Staff officers didn’t believe that the US would be provoked as Yamamoto assumed because it would be easier for the US to reclaim it after the Japanese logistics failed.

It was only after Yamamoto again went to his threat to resign (which he has already done before Pearl Harbor) that the General Staff caved and agreed to the plan.

@Whack-a-Mole

@Velocity

And even if the Japanese had captured Midway, it probably wasn’t worth holding.

I think the idea of holding Midway is it is an unsinkable aircraft carrier. From there the Japanese could control a big part of the Pacific. If you look at a map there isn’t much out in the middle. Hawaii was key, Midway would be pretty nice.

Velocity was correct, and the Japanese didn’t have the logistics to support it, as outlined above.

Both sides were short on tankers but the Japanese were in worse shape and they were desperately needed closer to Japan.

@silenus

By actually invading. Otherwise there was no reason for assault troops to be there in the first place. The idea was to invade Midway, win (fat chance) and thus force the US to respond. With the distraction of the Aleutians going on as well, it was hoped the IJN could ambush the US Navy and eliminate a threat, as well as getting a (very) advance base against Hawaii.

Needless to say, IJN Naval High Command had scored some really good weed, because almost none of that was even remotely feasible.

Shattered Sword demonstrates that the Aleutians operation was actually a simultaneous plan and not a distraction. The proposal for Midway came from Yamamoto and the Naval General Staff added the requirement for the Aleutian operation as well.

Parshall and others have discussed how Yamamoto as the CIC of the Combined Fleet usurped strategic planning from the Naval General Staff by threatening to resign twice. While Yamamoto has a great reputation among some as a forward thinker, Midway was his baby.

Careful research has failed to uncover what weed he was smoking, but it certainly was the best.

There were a couple of interesting time periods prior to the war and in the war where better strategic planning needed to have happened, and the spring of 1942 was one. Once the initial objectives were met, the various branches of the Imperial military was trying to decide which direction to attack. There was the Burma Campaign, some people advocated going into India, others wanted to invade Australia, some just wanted to cut the line of communications between Australia and the US, and Yamamoto (and some others) wanted to go into Central Pacific, including Hawaii. All of these occurred while they were not able to defeat the Chinese.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@TokyoBayer

When Yamamoto’s officer proposed the invasion plan to the Naval General Staff which was specifically charged with developing the overall strategy for the war with America, it was initially rejected for three reasons:

I dunno. Yamamoto was considered the best strategist the Japanese had. The US even went to special lengths later in the war to kill him because the US believed he was so effective.

So, while I believe what you wrote about the opposition it is incomplete without Yamamoto’s reasons for doing it.

Was he infallible? Certainly not. But he was better than most anyone else they had. His reasons for this need to be considered to be properly evaluated.

Sadly, I don’t know his reasons.

[Little_Nemo]

@DrDeth

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.

The oil embargo was actually something of a mistake. The Roosevelt administration wanted to put some pressure on Japan but it didn’t intend to put a chokehold on them. The embargo was only supposed to cover secondary war materials that would hinder the Japanese military but not stop them cold. This was supposed to be accompanied with a threat to embargo other vital materials like oil. The intent was to metaphorically hang something over Japan’s head but not to drive Japan into a corner. They wanted Japan to be worried but not desperate.

But the communications got screwed up and what was supposed to be only threatened got included in the actual embargo. This made the embargo much more serious than had been intended. But by the time this mistake was realized, it had already been sent to Japan, and the United States didn’t want to send a second note cancelling the first one. So they went ahead with the full embargo.

[TokyoBayer]

@smilingbandit

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.

My impression is that the most radical actions were being taken by majors and colonels up through generals in the field rather than the junior officers such as lieutenants. The Kyujo Incident, the attempted military coup d’état in August, 1945 was lead by a major and some colonels, where the Japanese invasion of Manchuria was ordered by the Kwantung Army commander-in-chief General Shigeru Honjō against the orders of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. The Midway operation came from the insubordination of Yamamoto, CiC of the Combined Fleet, Japan’s most important naval command.

The February 26 Incident (1936 attempted military coup d’état) was indead lead by a group of “young officers,” including several lieutenants, but they were part of a larger organization which included more senior individuals as well.

[Deeg]

@Little_Nemo

The oil embargo was actually something of a mistake. The Roosevelt administration wanted to put some pressure on Japan but it didn’t intend to put a chokehold on them.

Stephen Ambrose has a pretty good (and short) essay on this in (I think) his Personal Reflections book. FDR really wanted to avoid war with Japan while simultaneously reigning in their imperialistic wars, an impossible task. FDR was trying to get American support to fight the bigger threat, the Nazis. The day after Pearl Harbor FDR had failed: he was in the wrong war in the wrong hemisphere.

That said, I don’t think we can fault FDR too much unless one thinks that he should have let Japan run rough-shod over the Pacific Rim. Unless the Japanese military had a change of heart (unlikely) then war was happening.

[TokyoBayer]

@LSLGuy

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.

The oil embargo and the following freezing of assets, along with the US persuading its Allies to join the embargo certainly forced the issue. IIRC, the IJN had stockpiles of oil for about one year of peacetime needs, but once the timer started, the pressure increased.

However, Japanese recklessness and the actions of those hellbent on charging forward could very well have lead Japan to declare war on the US even without the embargo. The 1040 Vinson-Walsh Act, with the greatest peacetime US naval buildup (including authorizing 18 aircraft carriers) had gotten the attention of Japan, as well the beginning of increased fortifications of PI and other Pacific islands let Japan know that they only had a limited window in which it may be possible to beat the United States. There were those within the IJN who wanted to challenge the US before its position in the Pacific became too strong.

The Japanese nationalists were simply crazy and like out-of-control gamblers, they kept increasing the stakes without concern of the consequences.

@Little_Nemo

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.

You mean by Navy planes. While the Marine aviators fought bravely and many died, they did not score any hits. What they and the USAAF bombers did accomplish was creating a chaotic battle scene, and forced the IJN carriers to scurry around for a while to avoid getting bombed. That appears to have contribute to Nagumo’s fatal decision to rearm the waiting aircraft aboard the four carriers with bombs for land targets for second strike, rather than keep them with the antiship weapons. The rearming process involved having lots and lots of bombs around when the US attacks occurred.

@Pantastic

There were around 30,000 soldiers on the ground (about 25,000 in two Army divisions and the rest Marines), with lots of coastal artillery. Pulling enough troops and transports from their other operations to make an effective attack on 30,000 entrenched troops would be a significant cost. Succeeding at that large of a naval invasion 2000 miles from the nearest major fleet base was unprecedented, and almost certainly beyond Japanese capabilities.

One alt-hist scenario thrown around is for the Japanese to have attacked another one of the Hawaiian Islands and used that as a base for an attack on Oahu. Like most other farfetched ideas, it has to ignore any real constraints such as logistics.

[Lancia]

@gdave

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

I’ll echo this. Very informative thread. Also, thanks to the posters who recommend Toll’s book. I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived yesterday and I’m looking forward to reading it.

[Little_Nemo]

@TokyoBayer

One alt-hist scenario thrown around is for the Japanese to have attacked another one of the Hawaiian Islands and used that as a base for an attack on Oahu. Like most other farfetched ideas, it has to ignore any real constraints such as logistics.

I read an alt-history article once that had the Japanese launching an attack in Central America and seizing the Panama Canal.

[Andy_L]

Sabotaging the Canal would have been a reasonable strategic goal (I don’t know how tactically possible it would have been). There was a pre-War movie (Across the Pacific) that used a Japanese plot against the Canal as a plot point (replacing the original plot of an attack on Pearl, when reality stole their thunder) Across the Pacific - Wikipedia

[carnivorousplant]

@Andy_L

There was a pre-War movie (Across the Pacific) that used a Japanese plot against the Canal as a plot point

The Japanese had an M1917 Browning machine gun that Humphrey Bogart commandeered to shoot down the attack aircraft.

[silenus]

Harry Turtledove wrote a pair of alt-historybooks (Days of Infamy & The End of the Beginning) that posit a “successful” Japanese invasion of Hawaii.

They eventually have to abandon the islands because they can’t be supported.

[smilingbandit]

You are correct. Most of the actors involved were Senior Officer - but not Generals Officers. Though in my defence.

[txtumbleweed]

It is really hard to overemphasize the oil issue for Japan. This PDF on production of strategic materials throughout the 1930’s really puts it in perspective. The US embargo would be strangling the Japanese both economically and militarily.

The United States was by far the largest producer of oil in 1939, pumping some 171 million metric tons of oil. For comparison, the next closest producer was Venezuela at 30MMT. Japan and Formosa produced a mere 380 thousand MT (kMT? sure, we’ll go with it).

With the IJN alone, in peacetime, using some 500 kMT annually, it’s obvious that imports from the US were the only thing keeping their economy and military going. From the Japanese view, should they be vassals to countries that preached against exploitation while exploiting Asia?

It would seem you could take oil fields on the Asian mainland, but in the 1930’s, there were none. The Dutch East Indies were the largest producer of oil in Asia, at about 8MMT per year. That wouldn’t provide true oil independence (the number I remember was that during war, Japan would need close to 10MMT) but with their stockpiles they would be good for 3-4 years of hostilities.

As it turned out, much of the oil from the DEI never made it to Japan. Between damage to the well sites and the shipping issues due to a lack of tankers or other cargo ships, it looks like the peak was in 1942 when about 2.36MMT shipped to to Japan. In later years the number was less then half that. (Pulled from Evans and Peattie Kaigun, had to do some converting from 2.65 million kiloliters to metric tons so I could be off on the numbers. Also Kaigun is an excellent read on Japan’s doctrine and naval development leading up to WWII.)

The economics in general are just staggering. Take naval construction. The IJN built about 600k tons of combat ships of all types (Battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines) 1942-1945. The USN beat that in destroyers alone (737k) and doubled it in carriers (1373k). There was no way for Japan to win a war that ran long enough for that production to come into play.

Reading some of the posts above, while the Japanese knew and understood these limits, it is almost like there was a massive inertia toward war with the US because their leadership couldn’t come up with an alternative and what passed for strategic planning was hijacked by their more extreme commanders. “We’ve got all these cool ships, we need to find something to do with them or we’ll have to admit to the Emperor they were a waste of money.”

[Whack-a-Mole]

If you have not listened to it already you should check out Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast on WWII titled Supernova in the East (that is to episode one, there are more, it is quite long all put together and it is still not finished).

He discusses all of the points you made at length. Of particular interest was the political situation in Japan and what got them there. A big part of it was the Japanese were late to the empire building table. Japan pulled off a near miracle with the Meiji Restoration but still, they were behind the times on empire building and the empires that already existed really didn’t want another one in the club. So, they tended to push back at Japan which made the Japanese very upset at what they felt was distinctly unfair treatment.

As always Carlin’s podcast is a great listen.

[LSLGuy]

@Whack-a-Mole

…
A big part of it was the Japanese were late to the empire building table. Japan pulled off a near miracle with the Meiji Restoration but still, they were behind the times on empire building and the empires that already existed really didn’t want another one in the club. So, they tended to push back at Japan which made the Japanese very upset at what they felt was distinctly unfair treatment.
…

This is an important insight about those times.

What is more interesting to me is that if you substitute “China” and “2020” for “Japan” and “1920” the story is about the same.

The definition of “empire” is different in this century too, but the parallels are both striking & foreboding.

[TokyoBayer]

@Whack-a-Mole

I dunno. Yamamoto was considered the best strategist the Japanese had. The US even went to special lengths later in the war to kill him because the US believed he was so effective.

So, while I believe what you wrote about the opposition it is incomplete without Yamamoto’s reasons for doing it.

Was he infallible? Certainly not. But he was better than most anyone else they had. His reasons for this need to be considered to be properly evaluated.

Sadly, I don’t know his reasons.

For you, it’s sad, but for the IJN and Japan itself, it was a tragedy that Yamamoto failed to present a winning argument to the Naval General Staff after his representative was questioned so intently. The General Staff’s arguments more sounder and better thought out than the proposal from the Combined Fleet. When Yamamoto’s representative, Capt. Watanabe, laid out the case, the General Staff’s top planners’ reasons for rejecting it were valid questions which should have been answered by Yamamoto, yet instead of fulfilling his responsibility to win the arguments by reason, he choose to simply bully his way though and again threatened to resign if his poorly designed plan was not accepted.

The Japanese themselves recognized that from late spring up to the disaster at Midway, that they were suffering from Victory’ Disease as a result of their overwhelming early successes. Seemingly, nothing could go wrong for them, and the crazy plans for the Midway Operation and the even crazier Aleutian Islands Operation were the results. The scale of the combined operation made no strategic sense, yet it burned one peacetime year’s worth of precious fuel. Most of their entire fleet was involved and their ships were scattered all over the ocean. The joke which passed for the wargames was fixed, the Americans were assumed to be buffoons who blindly did exactly what the Japanese planners assumed they would, and the IJN lost their carriers for their arrogance.

The Reader Digest version (is that still a thing?) of WWII holds that Yamamoto was the lone voice among the entire Japanese military who could foresee the difficulties of attacking America, and that he alone understood airpower, etc. etc.

The situation was not that black and white, and there were many in both the Japanese military and the government who realized the seriousness of the situation, yet failed to act.

Yamamoto also had some very serious flaws. The strategic planning for Midway was a joke and deeply, deeply flawed. There are controversial questions about many areas in the Pacific War, where historians disagree. One, for example is the disagreement between various legitimate historian concerning the relative importance of the roles of the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war in forcing a surrender. (Let’s not get hijacked into that discussion here! This was just an example!)

However, no authority has argued that there must have been some sort of hidden genius behind the planning of the Midway and Aleutian Islands Operations. Really, what is required to know? Obviously, the intent was both to draw out the US fleet and to invade and hold the islands.

The idea of forcing a Decisive Battle (艦隊決戦, Kantai Kessen ; “naval fleet decisive battle” ) was their naval strategy from well before WWII and they, including Yamatomo, failed to understand that it wasn’t going to happen.

Concerning the operation to kill the architect of Pearl Harbor, it’s name should give a clue as to the primary purpose: Operation Vengeance.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Why did the US have Yamamoto shot down then? If he was overall damaging the Japanese war effort best to leave him in place.

It is a different discussion but I have said I think Germany’s biggest weakness was Hitler. Once the war was afoot best to not assassinate Hitler. Let him keep cocking things up for the Germans who would have been far better off (when it came to prosecuting the war) without him.

[OttoDaFe]

I can think of two right off the top of my bald head: the aforementioned Operation Vengeance, and the effect on Japanese morale (whatever faults he had as a strategic planner, he was a national hero).

[Little_Nemo]

@Whack-a-Mole

Why did the US have Yamamoto shot down then? If he was overall damaging the Japanese war effort best to leave him in place.

American intelligence probably didn’t realize how much Yamamoto had effectively dropped out of command. He still nominally held his position. But the Midway defeat broke him psychologically. He became passive and no longer pushed ideas forward. His staff was writing a lot of the orders that he issued.

[Whack-a-Mole]

So they bummed out the nation. I doubt that has any measurable effect on, well, anything when it came to military operations. Japan was no closer to surrendering after Yamamoto was shot down than they were before.