"As you know, Joan, Superman, or Uberman, is vulnerable to one thing: kryptonite. The U.S. would have put all its energy into creating a kryptonite bomb in time to stop Uberman."
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 ...
More info?
What if Japs had done a second raid and concentrated on the oil storage facilities at Pearl?
And Obama wasn’t a Natural Born Citizen.
My Grandfather thought the Kingfish was the greatest governor LA ever had for providing school books to the kids and building roads and bridges all over the place.
Whatever happened to the Japanese was brought on by their own actions. Hard to feel bad for the treacherous, fanatical bastards.
FDR would never have allowed that...
His whole strategy for 3-years had been to maneuver the U.S. into the war in support of England
That required an excuse...
Japan could have attacked the Dutch colonies and Brit colonies without getting America into the war. It was a strategic blunder which I’m grateful they engaged in, because the USA was the most instrumental in ending WWII, in particular with such forcefulness against the Jap aggressors.
True. But if Japan had simply taken the oil sources and stayed clear of the US they would have avoided war with us. Today we don’t remember how isolationist the USA was back then. The American people would never ever have stood for a war with Japan over British colonies. Never.
The Japanese invasion of China was not only, or even mostly, about weak China at the time. It was also, or as much, about the European run port cities on China’s coast and the agreements and rights the Europeans had with China. Hitting China was as much about ending European trade rights in China as much as hitting China herself.
They woulda just hired a few eskimoes to teach that kayak trick of flipping right back up. Wash hands, done deal.
Yup. Sounds about right to me.
Keep in mind that, for such a small country, they sure kicked a lot of @$$ in their immediate region.
Absolutely.
The Japanese courted extinction for their treachery and fanaticism. The atom bombs saved them.
One aspect this article leaves out is the effect of American public opinion. Americans did not want a war. Additionally Americans historically were not well inclined towards imperialism and so felt very little sympathy with the colonial powers in SE Asia.
Without PH FDR would’ve then been faced with the prospect of striking the first blow in a Pacific war. Something he most certainly did not want to do.
I don’t think America knew what it was capable of on December 7th.
The objective was to fight a holding action in the Pacific until the war in Europe was won. In the end, we were able to persecute two wars successfully with a major hat tip to Russia for grinding down the Germans on the Eastern Front in a very inefficient but inevitable manner given the stupid decisions of Hitler.
Had Hitler listened to his Generals the result in Europe may have been far different although I tend to think Russia would have eventually been able to push the Wehrmacht back had Stalin maintained control. One can make a good argument that Stalin’s decisions prior to the war and during the war were on par with the incompetence of Hitler. Russia simply had enough people to make up for it.
Good post. I was five years old and having Sunday dinner with my parents at a neighbor’s house. My dad let me leave the table when I was finished eating and I went into the living room and turned on the radio just in time to hear Roosevelt announce that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Told my parents.
The next day, a Monday, every red-blooded man in America went down to the draft board to volunteer. My early childhood was shaped by that war—younger friends couldn’t believe the shortages I described, the Gold Stars and Silver Stars on houses all over town.....
And today, Xiden is giving the country away to Putin.
No words.
I recollect him saying that, and still use the saying myself, to this day.
Look what they’ve managed to accomplish since WWII.
"As you know, Joan, Superman, or Uberman, is vulnerable to one thing: kryptonite. The U.S. would have put all its energy into creating a kryptonite bomb in time to stop Uberman."
They certainly COULD have. Think of it.
When I read Gen. Stilwell’s bio and the excellent “ Stilwell and the American Experience in China” I was surprised. He said that after the attack at Pearl Harbor, he was sent to Cal. to assess the security and set up defense on the coast there. He was APALLED. There was NO defense at all.
American ports, harbors, manufacturing, etc. were all totally exposed and defenseless! Fully 80% of the US aircraft manufacturing was completely without security and ALL of it was sitting within gunboat range, on the coast, as were the harbors, air fields and ports!
Of course, lots of people expected the coast to be attacked, as well.... and rightly. It makes me ill when people complain that Japanese Americans were removed from the coast.
Seriously? What were we supposed to do with all those important areas exposed and with so many Japanese at large... no matter WHAT their sympathies?
What would any other nation have done? I think the US was well within its rights to be cautious and all they did was get the Japanese citizens out of the way.
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