Posted on 06/28/2019 5:31:10 AM PDT by C19fan
Look at the OOB. Oahu was not well defended.
The Hawaiian Department, 7 December 1941
The USA lucked out and a good thing too.
What did the Japanese fleet do after the attack on Pearl Harbor?
That was a powerful strike force.
Where did it go?
To China?
Where?
“The movie - hailed as ‘the next Pearl Harbor’ “
That bad huh?
Looks like another lame CGI fest
At the war’s beginning, the Japanese Zero was unrivaled in the sky. Its radial engine developed 950 horsepower.
The Zero weighed about the same as a modern day SUV.
So, if you can imagine your SUV having 950 hp, that’s
what handling a Zero was like.
Another interesting Midway fact is that 621 bombs were dropped from altitude onto the Japanese fleet.
Not one of them so much as scratched the paint on a ship.
“Had the Japs taken out the dry docks and oil storage at Pearl, the war may have had a different ending.”
Nope. The difference would have been negligible. That would have simply been another of those astonishing WWII US production/construction stories. Just a bump in the road at best.
The moment the first Jap bomb was dropped, they lost the war. Yamamoto knew they could never defeat the USA. Too many Jap leaders were smitten with the way they won wars against Russia with a single sea battle causing the other side to sue for peace.
A goodly amount of live footage during the attack on Midway was taken by John Ford, the famous movie director.
He was advised to get underground with the command staff,
but chose to get into a shack near the action and film it.
“Without the dry docks, machine shops and oil storage farm, the U.S. Navy would have been driven to our West Coast.”
Nope. There is no way we would have relocated and pulled in. The opposite would have happened. There would have been massive sealifts of material and machinery and a massive effort to rebuild and make it operational.
That was demonstrated time and again during the war.
Too many Jap leaders were smitten with the way they won wars against Russia with a single sea battle causing the other side to sue for peace.
They knew they could neither defeat nor occupy the US, and were planning, at best, for the US to sue for peace and get out of the way of their taking resources by force.
Yamamoto knew America, and was aware we could not be defeated long term.
Saburo Sakai said the only American plane they feared at the beginning of the war was the B-17.
They and probably the Americans too, soon learned that high altitude precision bombing against moving ships was totally pointless.
I think we’re talking about two separate movies. John Ford did shoot and created a documentary named Midway. The movie I was referring to was the drama Midway, released in 1976, starring Charlton Heston, Peter Fonda as Nimitz, Glenn Ford as Spruance, and Robert Mitchum as Halsey.
I do not think Ford’s footage was in the Midway drama, but I could be wrong.
From IMDB.com:
“Most sequences of the Japanese air raids on Midway are stock shots from 20th Century Fox’s Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) (for instance, the Command Car thrown into a wall by a bomb blast).”
“If the Japs had sent their Naval infantry invasion force to Hawaii instead of the PI, the war would have lasted a lot, lot longer.”
Zero chance of that succeeding. For starters, Hawaii was not hamstrung with MacArthur. For another thing, Hawaii had some very potent coastal guns. It would have been for worse for the Jap than Wake was. Wake had a few 5 inch guns. Hawaii had 8 an 14 inch with numerous 12 inch mortars and 5 inchers.
The Japs were very good at some things. But forcible amphibious assault against a defense wasn’t one of them.
Then what objectives do the Japanese give up or cut back on in order to muster the force needed to take Hawaii? How do they get their landing forces through the massive winter ocean swells to the shore? How do they provide and maintain the logistical support needed for the weeks that would be needed to take the islands? All of these questions would have needed to be answered to pursue an invasion of the Hawaiian Islands.
I don’t know to what use Ford’s footage was made, though I think I saw some of it on Youtube. It’s a remarkable story, though.
Then Hawaii falls then the PI is basically defenseless. We have to talk terms or fight much longer and but would eventually win.
Maybe maybe not....the productivity of the American continent would still have been left intact. We may have had to use more atomic bombs to get back what we lost. Forget all the wasteful fighting. Concentrate directly on the Japanese homeland working from the North and East and force all Jap forces back from conquered areas....spend resources saved on building the atomic bomb sooner. Boeing did have a fighter jet design in ‘39, just not enough time to fully develop it and the US military was not interested at that time as we were not at war; we could have developed it.
I don't know if Yamamoto was aware of our industrial strength (he spent some time here) but DeGaulle evidently did. I read where he was addressing some military officers about their backs-to-the-wall situation in Europe when another officer burst in with the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He turned to the rest of them and said "We have won the war."
They looked at him as if he was crazy, but he reminded them of our industrial power and said we would drown the enemy with our resources.
They looked at him as if he was crazy, but he reminded them of our industrial power and said we would drown the enemy with our resources.
Because naturally Yamamoto studied at that anti-American Institution, Harvard.
Was Harvard always thus?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.