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

Skip to comments.

Pearl Harbor: What If Japan Never Attacked?
1945 ^ | 12/7/21 | Robert Farley

Posted on 12/07/2021 9:26:40 AM PST by MAGA2017

What if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor eighty years ago today?

The attack is today regarded as an enormous tactical success, but a strategic failure. Several older battleships were damaged or destroyed, but the treachery of the attack spurred the United States to fully mobilize for war and to pursue that war with a vengeful fury. The attack also pushed the United States to adopt innovative tactics that would quickly overturn Japanese advantages in air and naval technology. What other military options did Japan have besides an attack on Pearl Harbor?

It would have been extremely difficult for Japan to avoid attacking the United States in the context of a general offensive into Southeast Asia. While Washington had stopped short of making an ironclad security guarantee to British and Dutch possessions in Asia, it had made clear to Tokyo that it did not welcome further aggression. The US had cut Japan off from steel and oil, putting tremendous economic pressure on the Japanese war machine.

(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events; US: Hawaii
KEYWORDS: 1941; hawaii; japan; pearlharbor; worldwareleven
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-155 next last
To: BenLurkin

> What if we could go back intime and kill FDR when he was a baby? <

I’d advise against that. For all his faults, FDR performed very well as a wartime commander-in-chief. In particular, he understood that the Axis had to surrender unconditionally. No half-way measures. And while FDR set the grand strategy, he let his generals carry things out as they thought best.

Contrast that with the idiotic wartime behavior of LBJ and George W. Bush.


21 posted on 12/07/2021 9:41:55 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Michael.SF.

They would have gotten their @sses handed to them. Not even the worst insane racists of Japan considered an invasion.


22 posted on 12/07/2021 9:42:30 AM PST by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

What if we could go back intime and kill FDR when he was a baby?

~~~

Because you only wounded him, in the leg, and he is wheel chair bound, although the press hides it because he is a democrat. Good job more rangetime 4u


23 posted on 12/07/2021 9:42:45 AM PST by z3n (“If the populace knew with what idiocy they were ruled, they would revolt.” -Charlemagne)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Seruzawa

Hubris.

They were having lots of success so they convinced themselves that they could eliminate the US from the region in one strike.

The cabinet in Japan was a mess with some real madmen at the helm and they prevailed.


24 posted on 12/07/2021 9:43:03 AM PST by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: MAGA2017

“Splash the Zeros”


25 posted on 12/07/2021 9:43:19 AM PST by al baby (Hi Mom Hi Dad)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MAGA2017

What if they weren’t “coaxed” in to it?


26 posted on 12/07/2021 9:44:11 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hinckley buzzard

That’s basically a one-sentence summary of the article.


27 posted on 12/07/2021 9:44:20 AM PST by Campion (What part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

A blast from the past!.....................


28 posted on 12/07/2021 9:44:32 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Now yer talkin’!


29 posted on 12/07/2021 9:45:02 AM PST by Delta 21 (Quarantine the sick. Protect the vulnerable. Hang the guilty. Free everyone else.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MAGA2017
Japan attacked because we were strangling their economy by embargoing oil and scrap metal. Think about an economy dependent on another country's scrap...
So, if they didn't attack the US, Brits, Dutch, French, etc., their economy would have collapsed along with their war in China.
Fortunately, the Japanese never managed to properly exploit their conquests, but their economy managed limp along on wartime contingencies until the USN sank pretty much their entire merchant marine (we were better at unrestricted submarine warfare than the Germans...).
Japan was economic ruin when it finally surrendered. It is amazing there wasn't mass starvation. The Japanese persevered after the war despite horrible food shortages.
30 posted on 12/07/2021 9:45:31 AM PST by Little Ray (Civilization runs on a narrow margin. What sustains it is not magic, but hard work. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rktman

I recommend, Day of Deceit, by admiral Robert Stinnett.


31 posted on 12/07/2021 9:45:56 AM PST by JonPreston (Q: Never have so many, been so wrong, so often)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

I loved the “Insubordinate and Churlish!”


32 posted on 12/07/2021 9:46:39 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: JonPreston

Yup.


33 posted on 12/07/2021 9:46:55 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

President Huey Long?

What a nightmare!


34 posted on 12/07/2021 9:47:12 AM PST by Little Ray (Civilization runs on a narrow margin. What sustains it is not magic, but hard work. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Little Ray

What if we let Japan have China, would Mao and the CCP have happened?


35 posted on 12/07/2021 9:48:16 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: wbarmy
They missed the ships that they were specifically trying to hit, the carriers. In reality it was a tactical failure, a strategic failure, a moral and political failure.

Agreed. Another possible mistake was in not getting the oil tank farms. If they had taken those out, Pearl would be out of commission for months. However, it would've required a second strike, and with our carriers out somewhere, they probably just elected to scoot.
36 posted on 12/07/2021 9:48:24 AM PST by BikerJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Little Ray

Mr. Weiss saved the country.


37 posted on 12/07/2021 9:48:36 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Kartographer

“I like to know what would America had done if the Big Island had flip over during the attack?”

Nah, that couldn’t have happened. See all those big heavy ships so close to the land were exerting tremendous downward pressure on the ocean bed beneath them and thatg would prevent the Island from leaning over enough to flip over.

Hank Johnson told me this.


38 posted on 12/07/2021 9:49:06 AM PST by billyboy15
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: MAGA2017

Japan was our ally in WWI, and though we stiffed them in the Treaty of Versailles, the Showa Emperor (Hirohito) could have chosen to side with the allies all the way up until 1937, and he would have had the Kuriles, Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria, along with access to all the supplies from the East Indies, the Philippines, and the US.

An alliance of Britain, the US, Nationalist China, and Japan would have ruled the seven seas and controlled most of Asia, the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Western Europe, leaving Hitler and Stalin to fight over the land and resources between their countries—no WWII.

Once Japan invaded China in 1937, however, all that went out the window: China was our friend, and Japan became increasingly gruesome in its quest to conquer the Nationalists, leaving the door open to Mao and the Communists to reap whatever spoils were left over. Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany became its only option, as did the only way Japan could enter WWII, by a surprise attack that hopefully (to them) would cripple America’s defenses before the war began. When that didn’t happen, their defeat became inevitable.


39 posted on 12/07/2021 9:49:11 AM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hinckley buzzard

Exactly. We would be draw in quickly anyway.

Pearl Harbor was an attempt to limit the US naval power in the pacific.

It didn’t work


40 posted on 12/07/2021 9:49:45 AM PST by redgolum (If this is civilization, I will be the barbarian. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-155 next last

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.

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