Why Japan Really Lost the War

Real Clear History ^ | 6/7/14 | Jonathan Parshall

[princeofdarkness]

It's no secret that Japan was, shall we say, 'economically disadvantaged' in her ability to wage war against the Allies. However, the sheer, stunning magnitude of this economic disparity has never ceased to amaze me. So, just go give you an idea of the magnitude of the mismatch here, I decided to compile a few statistics. Most of them are taken from Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (which, among other things, contains an excellent analysis of the economic forces at work in World War II, and is an all-around great book) and John Ellis' "World War II: A Statistical Survey." In this comparison I will focus primarily on the two chief antagonists in the Pacific War: Japan and the United States. They say that economics is the 'Dismal Science'; you're about to see why....

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Fascinating article, thank you!

[princeofdarkness]

No problem FF.(Fellow Freeper)

[JohnInSoCal]

correct, japan lost the war the second they decided to wage it against the united states. They were never going to win, getting the carriers would just have made it take a little longer.

[Still Thinking]

I heard officers asked the Japanese, after the war, why they attacked Pearl Harbor. They allegedly said, because they did not think we would fight.

Bet that led to an "Oh [insert Japanese word for 'shit']" moment when they found out otherwise.

[dfwgator]

Bet that led to an "Oh [insert Japanese word for 'shit']" moment when they found out otherwise.

Or as Bill Cosby put it, "First you say it, then you do it."

[Chode]

cause in their own words, they woke a sleeping giant... but what do did they know

[righttackle44]

I think you're right. I am a WWII buff--no credentials, but plenty of curiosity. One of the things that is impressive is the amount of war materiel that rolls down the streets and roads of Europe, the huge stacks of ammunition, arms and rations piled on Utah and Omaha beaches, and the tonnage being brought to the continent from England.

The same is true in the Pacific. I once read a statistic--I wouldn't be able to find it again, I don't think--that the average Japanese soldiers carried in four pounds of equipment to draw from. The average American soldier had over 100 pounds of equipment to draw on, and a virtually inexhaustible supply, on the average.

If you will look around to see where the factories are that produced all of that materiel, you will find huge, spooky, empty buildings and giant slabs where those factories used to stand.

These days, substantial amounts of components for our best weapons systems, platforms, and weapons are made overseas.

No doubt, if we ever went to war with China, the Chinese factories would work overtime to get those components to us. Especially those weapons and systems geared to fry Chinese soldiers in their vehicles and airplanes.

[Still Thinking]

Crytonomicon is one of my favorite books of all time. Love math, love codes, love maximalist writing. Stephensom’s hyperbole makes me literally laugh out loud. Awesome book. Really like Anathem and Reamde as well. His older work like Snow Crash and Diamond age are good too, but I couldn’t seem to make myself slog through the trilogy that’s back story to Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle. It was painful.

[Larry381]

The Russians started the damn war with the Germans

Actually the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 as I think you meant to say.
Hitler invading Russia lost him the war and he probably knew it by late 1942.
Reminds me of a quote by Hitler who stated angrily to Guderian at a meeting in Russia in the summer of 1941:
"If I knew the damn tank statistics you quoted in your book [Actung Panzer] were true I never would have started this bloody war" i.e.against Russia.

[GeronL]

Russia would have betrayed the NAZI’s eventually too, but the Germans did it first

[dfwgator]

No, they started the war in 39, when they agreed to carve up Poland with the Nazis. Hitler wasn’t going to attack without the Non-Aggression Pact.

[Jeff Chandler]

1. The Japanese knew if the Soviets were major players in the defeat of Japan that the Emperor and his family would probably have to be hung.

Well, that's not really any of our business, but they would probably have been hanged.

[chrisinoc]

Japanese naval tactics did not help either.

Japanese merchant ships, vital to the war production, were easy targets for US submarines largely because they used older ships to escort convoys. Conversely Japanese submarines attacked US capital ships instead of going after oilers and replenishment ships.

In addition US Navy fire and damage control was far superior to Japan's navy. US ships stayed afloat to fight again while Japanese ships sank.

[CurlyDave]

We could not win a world war as we stand today

The outcome of the next world war will be determined before most civilians (and most enlisted men) even know it has started. The fighting may go on for a while, but the outcome of the first engagement will determine the winner.

[98ZJ USMC]

“I’ve read that the biggest mistakes that made at Pearl Harbor was not destroying dry docks and the oil farm.”
-------
Their biggest mistake was not catching our aircraft carriers at dock at Pearl Harbor.

Upon hearing that no carriers were destroyed in his Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto said that Japan had just lost the war.

Regardless of Yamamotos' assessment, and it was a failure not to do so, not going after the facilities was the biggest error. Destroying the farms and drydocks would have tethered the Pacific Fleet to the West Coast. Coral Sea and Midway, very likely would have had different outcomes and on and on.

It's highly likely the remainder of the Pacific fleet would have been pulled back to San Diego completely, leaving Pearl Harbor wide open to invasion and reinforcement/relief extraordinarily difficult and very costly. There would have been no salvaging the battleships.

[warsaw44]

That was the original plan: destroy the naval repair yards, the submarine pens and the massive fuel depots.

Did not accomplish one of those objectives.

[montanajoe]

“We could not win a world war as we stand today…. flame away”

You are absolutely correct....

[98ZJ USMC]

Has anybody else heard the US war effort “bad mouthed’ by Brits because we entered the war “late”? Aside from significant US combat contributions in Europe which are reluctantly acknowledged, the pivotal role US supplies and materiel played in winning the war against both Germany and Japan is often given short shrift by such critics. As I always say when hear such sentiments, nobody won the war by itself, the Allies won the war. As for the former USSR, it takes full credit for the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Yes. You see it on discussion boards all the time. Like we were supposed to declare war in 39, blah, ba-de, blah, blah...

These are Brits all pissed off because we don't make more war movies about ..... Brits. Sorry. Go suck on rocks, Lyemes.

As far as the Russians are concerned, there is a very good reason they were able to sweep and overrun German troops with reinforcements almost instantaneously and moved massive amounts of artillery very quickly.

It's called the US Studebaker 6X6 and they had a butt load through lend-lease shipments. The Germans were primarily still horse drawn.

[GeronL]

Yep, we sent the Soviets a bunch of stuff

[98ZJ USMC]

Yep, we sent the Soviets a bunch of stuff

I don't have it at my fingertips, but the numbers are staggering. FAR more than I thought, before I read the figures which, suspiciously (wink wink), are hard to gather up and were downplayed by the press (Imagine that!) immediately after the war.

The preferred narrative was ...Stalingrad! and the Glorious Soldiers Soviet, comrade. Epic battle, no question at all and a turning point, but the 43-45 Soviet counteroffensives were done on the backs of US 6X6's