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Shirley they would revolt
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 ...
I watched the Spielberg film “Empire of the Sun” a month or so ago with my son who wanted to watch it. I had not seen it in 30+ years.
I had totally forgot that Christian Bale was the main character as a child.
It is a great history lesson on the invasion of Shanghai by the Japanese and the survival of US and British civilians in prisoner of war camps during WWII.
I agree. The fact that we didn't strike back at Japan even after Japan attacked the USS Panay 4 years before Pearl Harbor, is testament to how much FDR wanted to stay out of WW2. IMHO, Japan might have looked at their USS Panay experience as us being a paper tiger that won't strike back even after they sink one of our ships.
you mean a terminator movie where we root for the terminator? that sounds like a great reboot to me.
The Japanese had about 6 months in their petroleum reserve which meant that their Navy had that long before it would be tied up at the pier for lack of fuel and the Japanese economy collapsed. Even if they cut a deal with the British & Dutch (which FDR was blocking) the US had also passed the 2-ocean Navy Act in 1940.
The Japanese naval superiority in the Western Pacific was going away by 1944 when the newly authorized ships began launching. So, there is the ‘window’ the Japanese were operating within 6 months to 2 years (from December 7).
Even executing their chosen strategy the Japanese were cutting it close on their fuel stocks. High-tempo naval combat operations are hugely expensive in terms of fuel. In fact, there are some studies that showed that the IJN was hamstrung by lack of fuel during the Solomons Campaign (Guadalcanal). The Dutch had sabotaged their oil fields and that oil was only coming online very slowly during the course of 1942.
My Dad enlisted after Pearl, went to CA, HI, New Guinea and was there for the invasion of Luzon. He served under Douglas MacArthur in the Army Air Corp.
What if the dog didn’t stop to take a crap. He would have caught the rabbit.
One thing that I always respected FDR for (and the list is one thing long) is hie refusal to answer hypotheticals.
Until science can prove multiple timelines, these types of hypothetical situations are useless. Japan attacked. They attacked Pearl Harbor because that’s where the ships were docked. A first year midshipman could have made that prediction.
The question that should be asked is, “ Where is the next Pearl Harbor?”
And Hank Johnson knows ALL.
We should start a cargo cult around that man.
I’m no fan of FDR’s domestic policies. But he sure set the right tone. December 7 was “a date which will live in infamy”. And FDR correctly identified the enemy. No fooling around. No fancy talk. Contrast that with what George W. Bush said after 9/11: “Islam is peace.”
Maybe I’m wrong. But I see radical Islam as great a threat today as Imperial Japan was back then.
(Apologies to all for kinda going off-topic here.)
the question that should be answered here is who would have been president had FDR died of polio when he was young? A lot changes when you remove the entire political career and all its influences from the picture. Makes it damn hard to figure out...
Netflix has a good series called the Man in the Hightower where Germany and Japan won WWII and occupied America. It got a little weird as the series went on - something about newsreels and alternative universes - but it was pretty good. The Japs were actually the good guys compared to the Nazis.
What “If the populace knew with what idiocy they were ruled...”?
Interesting. If Japan got Malaya and the Dutch West Indies, they would have gotten much of the oil they wanted without having to fight the US. So why attack Hawaii and the Philippines?
...and obambam was not a NBC American.
Doesn’t matter, because they sunk two British destoryers shortly after.
GMTA
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...).
Probably had a lot more to do with the fact that the IJN was incompetent when it came to Anti-submarine warfare and never spared enough destroyers to act as convoy escorts.
American wolf-packs operating from forward bases pretty much owned the ‘choke points’ through which Japanese merchant shipping had to pass. By the end the subs basically ran out of targets.
In a movie, maybe, but not in real life. Read up on Unit 731 and the Rape of Nanking.
As Mitsuo Fuchida told Paul Tibbets (paraphrased), you did the right thing in dropping the bomb. Had we had it, we certainly would have dropped it on you.
Then there was the insane animosity between the Imperial Army and Navy. It’s amazing that they achieved as much as they did.
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