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To: Wiggins
The size of the US Military at the outbreak of WWII and the long supply distance were the biggest reasons the Philippines couldn’t be held onto or reinforced. There was a lack of combat ready troops when the war broke out and the US Navy had been devastated at Pearl Harbor.

Yes.
1,305 nautical miles sailing distance from Nagasaki to Manila.
6,233 nautical miles sailing distance from San Francisco to Manila.

If the invasion fleet and the rescue fleet sailed at the same instant, the invasion fleet could send its transports back for another load, and have the second wave in the Philippines before the first American reinforcements arrived.

If the Americans found out about the invasion as it happened, and had to begin the process of hiring or commandeering transports and tankers, converting them to military use, and getting troops and supplies to the docks, the Japanese would have time to make many trips between Japan and the Philippines. Which is why the Navy was never optimistic about holding them, and why it knew there was zero chance of doing so with the surface fleet sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

80 posted on 08/04/2013 1:06:45 PM PDT by Pilsner
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To: Pilsner

No doubt we would have had our supply lines stretched out so far that what turned out to be a disaster in the Philippines could have been much worse. We had difficulties just supplying the Solomon Island campaign in the Pacific. Our Navy had to rely a lot on PT Boats early in the war because most of our big Navy plans were still on the drawing board. Before and up to the Guadalcanal Campaign the US fought a delaying action in the Pacific. It’s amazing to me that we fought such formidable enemies in Japan and Germany with very little resources to start with and still gained a decisive victory.


90 posted on 08/04/2013 1:43:33 PM PDT by Wiggins
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