If we could come back from Pearl Harbor, we could come back from a loss at Midway. Japan could possibly have invaded Hawaii, but I don’t think they were capable of indefinitely holding it. They were capable of causing massive damage to the mainland, but not capable of holding it. American productive capacity and the overstretch straddling the Pacific would ultimately be too much.
Agreement with most all here. Maybe would have taken a little longer. Outcome was never in doubt. Americans were urinated! Even if several atomic bombs had gone boom in several cities in America, Americans were urinated enough to walk through the fires of hades to eliminate tojo. No doubt here.
we’d be speaking Japanese in the Philippines....the US might have fought back but it would have taken time, and a truce with Japan (letting them keep their Asian conquests) might have made sense since Hitler was much more dangerous.
First published on FR in 2005 as "How today's media would have reported the Battle of Midway". (My apologies for confusing the Mogami with the Mikuma)
June 7, 1942
The United States Navy suffered another blow in its attempt to stem the Japanese juggernaut ravaging the Pacific Ocean. Midway Island, perhaps the most vital U.S. outpost, was pummeled by Japanese Naval aviators. The defending U.S. forces, consisting primarily of antique Buffalo fighters, were competely wiped out while the Japanese attackers suffered few, if any, losses.
In a nearby naval confrontation, the Japanese successfully attacked the Yorktown which was later sunk by a Japanese submarine. A destroyer lashed to the Yorktown was also sunk.
American forces claim to have sunk four Japanese carriers and the cruiser Mogami but those claims were vehemently denied by the Emporer's spokeman.
The American carriers lost an entire squadron of torpedo planes when they failed to link up with fighter escorts. The dive bombers had fighter escort even though they weren't engaged by enemy fighters. The War Dept. refused to answer when asked why the fighters were assigned to the wrong attack groups. The Hornet lost a large number of planes when they couldn't locate the enemy task force. Despite this cavalcade of errors, Admirals Fletcher and Spruance have not been removed.
Wasn’t this one of the star trek movies plot?
They would have never taken Hawaii. They did not have the logistic base to support a sustained enemy resistance.If the United States had been better prepared in the PI, they would have never taken them. We would have developed and placed in full production the Hellcat fighter, the Avenger torpedo/dive bomber along with the necessary carriers and support ships. Meanwhile, our submarines would have taken a heavy toll of their supply ships, including oilers and takers.
The golden gate in ‘48.That was a saying back then before the bomb.They may have taken Hawaii but supplying it would have been untennable for any length of time.We would take it back but I’m sure all the civilians would have been butchered.Had the japs invaded Australia all hell would have broke loose in north africa where the majority of the countrys troops were serving.As it stood there was enough trouble as it was.Cant say I blame them either.Thank GOD we whipped them.
Actually it’s dubious that the Japanese could have actually captured Midway had they won the naval battle.
They didn’t do very well in the very limited number of OPPOSED amphibious assaults they tried in WWII; they were repulsed in the first assault at Wake, for example. They almost were beaten when they landed on Corregidor.
Everywhere else they just walked unopposed on to beaches, for the most part.
Midway was chock-full of very angry, very well armed, very well dug in pre-war Marines; it was VERY difficult to get in the Marines prior to the war because the service was so small, and so many guys wanted to because of the Depression.
The Japanese didn’t really bring enough troops to overcome the Midway defenses.
Actually it’s dubious that the Japanese could have actually captured Midway had they won the naval battle.
They didn’t do very well in the very limited number of OPPOSED amphibious assaults they tried in WWII; they were repulsed in the first assault at Wake, for example. They almost were beaten when they landed on Corregidor.
Everywhere else they just walked unopposed on to beaches, for the most part.
Midway was chock-full of very angry, very well armed, very well dug in pre-war Marines; it was VERY difficult to get in the Marines prior to the war because the service was so small, and so many guys wanted to because of the Depression.
The Japanese didn’t really bring enough troops to overcome the Midway defenses.
Hawaii would either be reinforced to the brim or abandoned, but I dont think abandoned
aircraft from EVERYWHERE would go to Hawaii for reinforcements, Kaui would be a fortress more than Oahu, Johnston Atoll would have been armed and paved
However, not enough planes to make any real impact for 3 months, but still, Japanese aircraft would have to be repaired and built, and they also would have needed more carriers, just having 4 more than before would not guarantee victory
I only see a 1 year delay in victory
Here’s my two cents on the “Hawaiian Invasion” question...the Japanese would invade, to what end?
As in, why would they want to?
The Japanese Army’s running wild across East Asia in 1941-2 was geared primarily towards one thing...seizing strategic resources. They wanted the oil of the Dutch East Indies, and the rubber, tin etc. of Indochina and Malaysia. Food was certainly useful, but I don’t think it was as vital; they could plunder plenty of that from China, Korea and Manchuria. (Food from conquered lands was valuable primarily in terms of trade for finished goods from Japan’s industries.)
Outside of the Indies, Indochina and Malaya, most of the other land they grabbed was for strategic reasons more than anything else. Burma and Thailand constituted a rearguard protection of Indochina against invasion from India and cutting Allied supply routes to China, and the Philippines were a strategic defense of Japan’s primary supply routes north and south (which straddled the PI). The Army’s forays into the Central Pacific and Southwest Pacific islands (which again netted the Japanese nothing resource-wise) mostly was due to the demands of the Navy...partly because of the Navy’s expectation of the great Mahanian “decisive battle” in the central Pacific, but mostly because the Japanese Navy (rival in all but name to the Army) was petulantly saying “we can play conqueror too!”.
Time has to be considered as well...the Japanese knew that they would only have X amount of time to grab what they were after, before they expected the threat of an orchestrated reprisal from the United States and Britain. The amounts of time allocated to each Army commander to achieve their objectives was not great. General Masaharu Homma, who was actually one of Japan’s best generals, was allotted only fifty days for his assigned conquest of the Philippines. (When that took four months and additional troops pried away from China and Java to complete, Homma’s career was ruined.)
To make such rapid conquests possible, the Japanese had spent years on spying and reconnoitering their intended targets. Their landing forces were dependent on long stretches of poorly defended beachfront, lots of ground intel, and encountering unprepared or ill-trained colonial forces and unmotivated Western regulars caught off guard...neither the Japanese Army or Navy had anything approaching an actual doctrine of amphibious-warfare-under-fire a la the US Marines. Also, the supply lines involved were fairly short.
With Hawaii (and, frankly, with Midway too), the Japanese were looking at a hard target that offered nothing for the effort. They did not have the intel of on-the-ground conditions in 1942 to plan an invasion, they were facing the ultimate citadel of motivated, alert, mad-as-hell Army, Navy and Marine forces, who had nowhere to retreat to (and so would have stood and died fighting), and did not have a serious plan for landing forces in the face of concentrated resistance. And even if they could have taken it...what good would it have done them? It offered nothing of consequence in the way of resources...what there was wouldn’t have been worth the shipping. Indeed they would have had to supply a garrison on Hawaii, and that would have stretched the limit of their supply lines in submarine-infested waters.
In a nutshell, Hawaii wasn’t worth the effort to invade, and the Japanese knew it. They considered it worth threatening for strategic reasons (again geared towards drawing the Allied naval forces out for the great “decisive battle”), but that was all. In the brief time the Japanese knew they had to grab territory and resources, there were far more important pickings to be had.
There was NEVER a chance that the Imperial Japanese Army would or could EVER invade Hawaii, let alone the US West Coast.
They did not have any troops as they were tied up in China.
They did not have any ships available to carry the troops as Japan started the war short of shipping.
They did not have enough tankers to maintain a fleet off or Hawaii for an assault. They barely had enough for the Pearl Harbor raid and Midway.
Even if they did, they not have the fuel to support that kind of invasion.
Avast, ping...