Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Wombat101
Gee, four submarines capable of launching a dozen kamikazes at the Panama Canal was a serious threat to the United States and would have won the war for Japan? Be serious.

You need to reread your history. There's a LOT of evidence out there that when the attacks on the Panama Canal were scrubbed, the mission was changed to attacks on US West Coast cities using radiological bombs.
294 posted on 06/01/2006 10:53:21 AM PDT by tanknetter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 287 | View Replies ]


To: tanknetter

Fine. Produce it. Better yet, produce the evidence that four submarines (even ones carrying aircraft and radiological bombs) would have allowed Japan to keep fighting or even to win the war on anything approaching favorable conditions. While you're at it, you can explain to me why the Japanese would even CONSIDER such a thing when they had already witnessed firsthand (in their home islands)the American reaction to a CONVENTIONAL attack on Pearl Harbor?

And YOU need to read more history (I have a master's degree in it); the same thread runs through ALL JAPANESE MILITARY STRATEGY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR: that the Western allies, having been surprised, humiliated,militarily defeated and stripped of their colonies and rights in East Asia, should negotiate a surrender on terms favorable to Japan. This is a cultural shorsightedness peculiar to most Oriental nations and peoples: that having once proven your superiority to an enemy, the enemy should gracefully bow out. Once the Japanese had acquired either an outright surrender or a recognition of their primacy in East Asia, the Japanese could go back to the business of finishing the war in China.

The American enemy not only refused to bow out gracefully, he struck back in ways that struck most Japanese as barbaric (i.e. outside the Bushido code of conduct, but which were obvious to any student of western warfare and history). I seriosuly doubt Japan (even if it had the capability) would have gone to such lengths knowing the Americans would respond in an overwhelming fashion, particularly not when the more serious and sober Japanese commanders and diplomats had already seen the handwriting on the wall as far as their prospects for a victory of any kind.

You assume that because SOME Japanese were willing to commit suicide in the war that the entire nation would. Nothing could be further from the truth.


298 posted on 06/01/2006 11:06:32 AM PDT by Wombat101 (Islam: Turning everything it touches to Shi'ite since 632 AD...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 294 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson