The Revisionist Attitude Towards The Pacific Theater [Archive]

Subnuts

07-13-10, 07:48 PM

I'm not referring to Japan's continued fingers-in-their-ears inability to take a cold hard look at their actions in the Second World War - that's another topic altogether.

What's been nagging me for years now is the revisionistic and belittling attitude many people have towards the Pacific Theater's overall importance in World War II. Namely, I've read a great number of comments describing it as a "side show" or as an "easy war" without providing any backing references. I can't imagine anyone reading a first-hand account of Tarawa or Okinawa and denying that some serious carnage went down there, or walking away thinking that the Marines weren't terribly brave, and just pushed over the Japanese without a fight.

I find it especially frustrating that, considering the number of massive naval battles that took place in the theater, and the importance of the submarine campaign, I've encountered many people on this forum who act like not a single battle of importance happened in the entire Pacific theater between 1941 and 1945. Seriously - Midway, Samar, Savo Island, Guadalcanal, Surigao Strait...nothing "interesting" happened there? I'm starting to feel like myself and a couple of others here are the lone "voices in the woods" when it comes to actively studying the war in the Pacific. More and more, the popular conception is that World War II was fought in the Atlantic, and later between the Americans and the Germans in June 1944 through May 1945, and everything else was "boring."

Maybe I'm just pissed off because my grandfather Herman Bergman was a signals intelligence officer during the war, and was basically left for dead in the Philippines when the war ended because his very existence was a secret. He went off to have 11 children, and never talked about the war much afterwords, but the fact that his contributions to the war effort have never been officially recognized has always been a sore spot for our family. I wonder how many other people have to deal with the frustration and lack of closure involved with having a "forgotten soldier" in their family?

http://i25.tinypic.com/2ldhhg4.jpg
You see that guy in the upper left of this photo? That's my great uncle Thomas Cadder, who was a nose gunner on a B-24 which crashed into the side of a mountain on Luzon. Nobody ever found the wreckage of the plane or the bodies of any of it's crew. It took more than 50 years for his home town to include his name of their World War II memorial. I'm sure all 10 of the men in this picture appreciate the fact they died fighting an easy side show.

And give me a break, people - the American submarine force fought an "easy war" because they suffered a casualty rate of "only" 22 percent? How condescending can a Fighting Keyboardist get?

les green01

07-13-10, 07:52 PM

well said:yeah:

Ducimus

07-13-10, 08:20 PM

I'm debating if i should use this opportunity "unplug" and let loose in very blunt terms how i feel about this subject, since you let the genie out of the bottle. But suffice to say, i hear you and i understand what your saying.

well said:yeah:

Agreed.

Naturally however, his post will fall on deaf ears.

krashkart

07-13-10, 08:24 PM

A good look into the history books is all it takes to see that the Pacific Theater was no simple task. Even Ernie Pyle had to find that out for himself at some point - he died during the invasion of Okinawa. :-?

Sailor Steve

07-13-10, 08:43 PM

Not mine. Deaf, that is. I had two uncles at Pearl Harbor and it has been my regret since my thirties that I never got to hear all their stories.

When I saw World At War for the first time all those years ago I was offended by the lack of coverage given the PTO. Seeing it again more recently I realized that in some ways it really was a sideshow, at least where coverage is concerned. Given that there was constant fighting going on everywhere, the Pacific looks more like a patchwork - lots of planning and maneuvering leading to a handful of very bloody and vitally important battles.

I think that's the biggest problem in dealing with the Pacific war - most of the time not much was happening. Of course when things did happen, it was big big big!

tater

07-13-10, 08:53 PM

Ducimus

07-13-10, 08:55 PM

The thing is, most people here (IE submarine fans), really don't care. Some reasons are slightly understandable, others not so much.

1.) For some (many?) here, if it does not involve their country, it is not worth the time to find out about it. There are some notable exceptional indivduals to this statement (whom I admire for not being like many others), but from what ive seen, of many, if it didn't involve their country, they are not interested. The PTO is seen as mainly a Japanese, and American thing, and a number of people here are from Europe. To some degree, i can understand this. If i was from Europe, id be focused (more) on the ETO too.

2.) PTO involves more reading then ETO, which has several movies attached to it. From saving Private ryan, to band of brothers, and Das Boot. These movies inspire people to find out more. The PTO has what? Windtalkers? Old black and white Clark Gable movies just don't peak the same level of interest.

3.) Blatant fanboism and willful ignorance. Point blank, this is like football fans. Your team sucks, mine is the best. I think its inspired by romance and myth surrounding Uboats. But more specifically in this case, "your guys couldn't have had it near as bad as my guys, therego your theater is crap!". I won't name names, but one user from Texas told me in a PM a few years ago, that US submarines in the pacific was "as signficant as the Lithuanian navy." and then summarized the US sub campaign in the pacific as: "Blah, blah, torpedo troubles, blah blah blah". I never forgot that.

I never forgot it, because I'd expect that from someone from Europe, but not from own of my own countrymen! It's one thing to, being aninformed person, having a theater preference. But its quite another to make that preference as an uninformed person. That's just ignorant, and willfully so if you don't devote enough time to study both theaters somewhat equally. But this isn't isolated to this individual, Its actualy fairly commonplace here on subsim.

I could probably rattle on, but i think those are the 3 big reasons why the PTO is shat on around here.

mookiemookie

07-13-10, 09:09 PM

I think that's the biggest problem in dealing with the Pacific war - most of the time not much was happening. Of course when things did happen, it was big big big!

Not to mention the geography of it. It covers such a huge area of the world, filled with tiny islands that most people couldn't ever point out on a map. I think that has a lot to do with why people can't relate to the battles in the Pacific.

I won't name names, but one user from Texas told me in a PM a few years ago, that US submarines in the pacific was "as signficant as the Lithuanian navy." and then summarized the US sub campaign in the pacific as: "Blah, blah, torpedo troubles, blah blah blah". I never forgot that.

For the record, that wasn't me! I admit my preference in history is the Battle of the Atlantic, but my bookshelf also has Thunder Below, Clear the Bridge, Silent Victory and Shattered Sword on it. I don't favor one side to the exclusivity of others.

Zachstar

07-13-10, 09:26 PM

To be honest I think when it comes to this forum it is more of a want to be in the Atlantic in future Silent Hunter titles rather than any real revisionist history.

A comment that stuck with me to this day went somthing like "Silent Hunter 4 :rock:... In the Atlantic.... :rock:..... With U-Boats:rock:" Or something like that. Despite SH2 and SH3 being atlantic and mods out the rear end this year this user as well as others seemed to be unable to stand Silent Hunter going elseware.

It is far worse when people wanted SH5 to venture out into more modern territory. People crying about how it wouldn't be realistic even tho most people here have already changed history in the Atlantic and pacific 100 times over. Hypocritical and hard headed and perhaps that along with DRM is why Sh5 sucks so bad as well as its sales.

I wouldnt let it get to you. Its just gamers.

frau kaleun

07-13-10, 10:24 PM

I will admit to being far more ignorant about the war in the Pacific than in the Atlantic and Europe. I know more than the average person, I guess, because I'm interested in WWII at all - but still.

Part of it for me is personal, as my father served in the ETO and not elsewhere. So did the one brother of his that I was around a lot as a child. So whatever personal stories and names and places I heard, were from the ETO.

And the part about popular WWII movies, miniseries & documentaries (some of which are very well done, and do create a sort of "emotional attachment") focusing on the ETO to the exclusion of, or in a way that downplays the importance of, the PTO - that's also a factor. I have seen some things that focus on the PTO but so far nothing that has revved up my interest in the way that, say, "Band of Brothers" did for the airborne infantry in Europe. I do not have HBO so saw nothing of "The Pacific" but expect I will see it when it comes out on DVD, and that may do what previous exposure to the subject via popular entertainment hasn't yet done.

There's also the fact that for Americans of European descent, there may be a lingering sense of connection to that part of the world that simply doesn't exist in the same way when it comes to the Far East and South Pacific.

However, I certainly hope that simply knowing more about the ETO, or being more interested in studying and/or "simming" that part of the war, doesn't lead to the assumption that this equates to a lack of respect for the sacrifices made by those who served in the PTO. Or for the importance of the PTO in the war effort overall. It certainly doesn't in my case. It's just not what I'm "into" right now. There are multitudes of worthy, important things I'm not "into" right now. Doesn't mean I don't think they're important, but there are only so many hours in the day to devote to satisfying one's curiosity about history (and everything else).

There are a vast number of things in this world I know far less about than the PTO in WWII, lol, but it doesn't mean I think they are unworthy of study or interest.

At any rate I am in the process of (slowly) downloading SH4 Gold, so I may be giving the US subs a try eventually. Who knows, I may fall in love with them too.

krashkart

07-13-10, 10:31 PM

^^ That brings something to mind...

I don't have any connections to the war, other than what thoughts were evoked by all the books I absorbed as a kid. So for me it was an experience I could take in more as a whole without feelings one way or another. I was an empty vessel to the books I had opened. The biggest differences between the theaters in my mind are geographic.

I just asked a friend, as an outside source, which Theater comes to mind first and he said the European theater. For a couple of reasons:

1.) The war started in Europe
2.) The Japanese weren't famous for their submarines

TLAM Strike

07-13-10, 11:48 PM

I just asked a friend, as an outside source, which Theater comes to mind first and he said the European theater. For a couple of reasons:

1.) The war started in Europe
Japan invaded China July 7 1937 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War)

2.) The Japanese weren't famous for their submarinesUSS Yorktown CV-5 sunk by I-168
USS Wasp CV-7 sunk by I-19

So two of the Four major CVs sunk by the IJN were by submarines.

Another small carrier could be added to the list:
USS Liscome Bay CVE-56 sunk by I-175
(But she was a jeep carrier and not a significant loss)

The Post War USN SSG(N) submarines (The Fleet Boat Conversions and purpose built Grayback/Halibut classes) incorprated design ideas from the I-400 class submarines namely the airplane hanger (used for Loon/Regulus missiles in the SSG(N)s). Not to mention the idea is still in use with the USN's DDSs that can be mounted on the hull of US SSNs to store Zodacs or Swimmer Delivery Vehicles.

Using a submarine to deliver a smaller submarine was pioneered by the IJN, the US and Russians use this in their DSRVs and SDVs.

August

07-13-10, 11:48 PM

1.) The war started in Europe

That too is debatable.

krashkart

07-13-10, 11:53 PM

I wasn't the one who said it, though. I posted the results of a quick and dirty experiment. *shrug* :DL

EDIT - Plausible deniability. I should be a politician. :har:

Sorry. Anyway, my buddy and I are discussing this right now on IM. Neither one of us know much about the naval war, and I had forgotten about Japan invading China. :-?

August

07-14-10, 12:02 AM

I wasn't the one who said it, though. I posted the results of a quick and dirty experiment. *shrug* :DL

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did. I was just commenting on how so few people seem to know that the fighting started in the Pacific years before the nazis invaded Poland.

krashkart

07-14-10, 12:07 AM

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did. I was just commenting on how so few people seem to know that the fighting started in the Pacific years before the nazis invaded Poland.

I put my fists up pretty quickly sometimes and then I realize that I don't need them for anything. My bad. :DL

AngusJS

07-14-10, 12:34 AM

I don't have relatives who served in the Pacific, but I do have one who served in the ETO (my grandfather, who was a tailgunner in a B-17), so that could be one reason for being more interested in that theatre.

But I think the main reason is the crappy pacing of the PTO story. Compare it to the ETO: Most of the main actors are at war within days of the attack on Poland. The baddies keep winning, and the good guys are in a precarious state for years until the baddies overextend themselves and lose decisive battles, which turns the tables and leads to their total defeat. You can't write that stuff.

In the PTO, a state of war exists between the major players (not counting China) for all of 6 months until the bad guys suffer a resounding defeat at Midway, after which they mostly get their butts kicked for the next 3 years. And it doesn't end in total defeat - Japanese units are still in China, and Hirohito doesn't commit sepuku in a bunker below Tokyo, his empire and ideology completely destroyed, because no foreign armies have set foot in Japan, and Japan is still capable of resistance.

That's not to belittle the tremendous sacrifice that won those battles - I'm just saying that from a dramatic standpoint, the PTO is less interesting.

CCIP

07-14-10, 12:41 AM

Personally, I don't think there's less or more drama - war is war. If people see war as drama first, real history second, to me that is a real problem... Learning about war shouldn't be only about entertainment. It's not only big, exciting stories with good pacing that deserve attention. Sometimes more can be learned through good shocking detail, and PTO provides plenty of that.

I think it should be a civic duty for people to strive to learn more about their history, especially as recent and as painful as that. For my part, my interest in WWII started with the Eastern front, because I grew up with scars and reminders of it in the land and people all around me. But as I went further, I honestly gained more and more respect for other sides to the war as well. Especially in the last couple of years, my respect and interest for the PTO has been pretty high. It might not be as grand a story, sure, but the details of it are every bit as important and disturbing and need to be known.

Sailor Steve

07-14-10, 01:25 AM

Good movies (not sub-related):

Tora! Tora! Tora! (outstanding history, great movie as well)

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (slows down in the middle, as it's one man's true story) but great carrier and flight scenes)

Wake Island (made during the war, propoganda, but informative and good)

Midway (way too much romance and fiction, but gives a good overview of the battle, and some good aircraft shots)

Flags Of Our Fathers (mostly about the aftermath, but still good battle scenes)

Letters From Iwo Jima (great movie about the Japanese side, and marks Clint Eastwood's entry into the Great Directors Of All Time category)

The Great Raid (little-known recent film, tells the true story of a prisoner-of-war-camp liberation)

Help me out here, guys. Movies that tell the story of the Pacific war.

krashkart

07-14-10, 01:29 AM

Pearl Harbor. :O:

I watched Tora! Tora! Tora! one night. Good movie. :yep:

EDIT - Letters From Iwo Jima. I haven't seen it yet but I really want to.

Sailor Steve

07-14-10, 01:30 AM

Pearl Harbor. :O:
I hope that :O: means that your suggestion was a joke, because that movie certainly was.

krashkart

07-14-10, 01:32 AM

I hope that :O: means that your suggestion was a joke, because that movie certainly was.

Yes and yes. Didn't like it much.

Half of my family are smartasses, btw. ;)

onelifecrisis

07-14-10, 01:55 AM

I think you're mixing small scale and large scale considerations, subnuts, and your confusion is the result. A single person can be brave/heroic/whatever in the smallest of conflicts. The size of the conflict overall has no bearing on the merits of the individuals involved.

As for the PT being "boring" I couldn't comment.

As for it being a "side show", by which I assume you mean small scale, it is a fact that the Germans and Russians each lost more men in a single battle than the US lost in the whole war.

The US Navy specifically lost 62,000 men in WW2 (I'm not sure what that translates to in numbers of ships) where as the British Commonwealth naval forces lost more than half a million. No matter which way you look at it, the Pacific War was small-scale compared to everything else that went on.

I think your POV is being coloured by your personal ties to people that served.

Skybird

07-14-10, 03:10 AM

Over here in Europe and Germany it maybe is just natural that the war in Europe gets more covarage, than the Pacific. However, there are TV programs on the Pacific war, too - just not as many, but also not rare. However, myself never thought of it as a less violent or less important war - only as a "different" kind of war involving more water :) , which began later and all in all did not last as long as the war around and finally in Germany.I would estimate that of the European theatre, the fighting in Russia and the way to power by hitler and finally the Holocaust get covered most.

Takeda Shingen

07-14-10, 06:28 AM

Letters From Iwo Jima (great movie about the Japanese side, and marks Clint Eastwood's entry into the Great Directors Of All Time category)

Letters was brilliant. It's companion film was also very good, but this one is one of the all-time great films set in World War II.

Raptor1

07-14-10, 06:40 AM

Tora! Tora! Tora! (outstanding history, great movie as well)

One of my favourite war films of all times, probably.

I think you're mixing small scale and large scale considerations, subnuts, and your confusion is the result. A single person can be brave/heroic/whatever in the smallest of conflicts. The size of the conflict overall has no bearing on the merits of the individuals involved.

As for the PT being "boring" I couldn't comment.

As for it being a "side show", by which I assume you mean small scale, it is a fact that the Germans and Russians each lost more men in a single battle than the US lost in the whole war.

The US Navy specifically lost 62,000 men in WW2 (I'm not sure what that translates to in numbers of ships) where as the British Commonwealth naval forces lost more than half a million. No matter which way you look at it, the Pacific War was small-scale compared to everything else that went on.

I think your POV is being coloured by your personal ties to people that served.

Small scale? The Pacific Theater covered an era several times greater than that covered by the European theater. It saw just as many people die, especially in China, which lost the most people of any country in the war. It eventually included all of the major Allied powers fighting, saw some of the largest naval battles in history and one of the largest land offensives ever conducted. I hardly think the scale was small compared to anything in the ETO.

onelifecrisis

07-14-10, 07:16 AM

Small scale? The Pacific Theater covered an era several times greater than that covered by the European theater. It saw just as many people die, especially in China, which lost the most people of any country in the war. It eventually included all of the major Allied powers fighting, saw some of the largest naval battles in history and one of the largest land offensives ever conducted. I hardly think the scale was small compared to anything in the ETO.

I think you are talking about the scale of individual battles whereas I am talking about the scale of the whole thing. Also, I'm not sure what the area covered has to do with anything? If two men fought mono e mono in the Sahara, would that count as a large scale conflict?

Raptor1

07-14-10, 07:21 AM

I think you are talking about the scale of individual battles whereas I am talking about the scale of the whole thing. Also, I'm not sure what the area covered has to do with anything? If two men fought mono e mono in the Sahara, would that count as a large scale conflict?

I am talking about the whole thing. The land battles in the ETO were generally larger than those in the PTO (With a few notable exceptions), but when one combines the scale of forces involved and casualties suffered on the PTO it is quite clearly not "small scale" compared to the ETO.

UnderseaLcpl

07-14-10, 07:34 AM

I had to think about this one for a while, but I have ultimately decided to support August and OLCs view of the situation. As a whole, the Pacific Theatre of Operations, while very large geographically, was primarily a low-intensity conflict punctuated by brief but bloody naval/amphibious clashes. I'm not saying that the fighting wasn't hard or important or anything like that, but when one looks at the resource gap between axis and allied forces, the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
The Chinese side of the conflict is different, but ultimately boils down to a slow-paced eight-year slugging match between Japan and the Chinese tar baby.

Where I would consider the PTO to be a real sideshow is in the arena of international politics. FDR tried very hard to force Japan into a war, and thus get the US into the larger conflict by refusing any diplomatic compromises the Japanese offered. What he really wanted was to get into the war in Europe, of course.

I'm also inclined to believe at least some revisionist history because the popular history is so heavily colored by the propaganda needed to rouse people to war for reasons other than the real ones most of the time. Much of it hangs on for generations after the war, though I believe that trend will change (and has been changing) as global communications become more and more accessible.

Oberon

07-14-10, 07:57 AM

I am not as knowledgeable about the Pacific Theatre as I am about the European Theatre, and indeed even within the European theatre I know more about the West Europe war than I do the Eastern one. I think geography comes into it, as well as nationality. I am British, therefore I know more about the war that was at our doorstep than on the other side of the world.
However, over the years I have sought to learn what I can.
I like anime and manga, but Japan does scare me sometimes...particularly the attitude the Imperial Japanese Military had towards its enemies, it was perhaps the closest to total war in the Second World War and it was total war from the start, not after a period of push-backs and retreat. The Japanese gave no quarter, and what prisoners they did accept were...well, made to regret becoming prisoners. :nope:
However, I do respect and like some Japanese...Yamamoto in particular stands high and above the entire Japanese military to me. Heh, in fact the Japanese sections in Pearl Harbour were my favourite parts in the whole damn film. :haha:

It's a hard thing to say, really, I don't think it's revisionist, after all even the European theatre has its forgotten wars...not many people in the UK could tell you about the Battle of Italy, the bloody fights at Monte Cassino. I suspect that the same holds true in the US...however everyone knows Pearl Harbour on both sides of the Atlantic.

Japans revision does concern me though, concern me and make me very angry indeed...but...this is not part of this thread...so I will not unload here lest I find myself in the same position as Ducimus.

Another forgotten war in the UK is the Malayan 'emergency' (it was called a emergency rather than a war so that Lloyds insurers would still pay out to the rubber plantations and tin mines), heck I wouldn't have known about it if I didn't have a family member who was involved in it.

No war...no battle...no conflict that men, women and children fought and died in should be forgotten...but alas, with human nature there are so many of them that to recall all would be nigh impossible. :nope:

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 08:13 AM

Oberon

07-14-10, 08:18 AM

A good series about the Pacific theatre but not technically about the actual fighting per se is Tenko.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenko_%28TV_series%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQtVyBKqroU&feature=related

Worth a look, it's very well made and well acted.

sharkbit

07-14-10, 08:21 AM

Letters From Iwo Jima. I haven't seen it yet but I really want to.

I highly recommend the book that the movie was based on as well.
"So Sad to Fall in Battle" by Kumiko Kakehashi. :yeah:

It puts quite a human face on what is usually a enemy portrayed as a fanatical weapon based on so much propaganda.
The movie does a good job as making the Japanese soldier human as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Sad-Fall-Battle-Tadamichi-Kuribayashis/dp/0891419179/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279113299&sr=1-1

:)

Fincuan

07-14-10, 08:21 AM

Good movies (not sub-related):
Tora! Tora! Tora!
The Great Raid

These two are very underappreciated films compared to their quality. I hadn't even heard of the latter before seeing it in a discount dvd-bin, and it turned out to be pretty good.

To add to the list:
Yamato(2005) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_(film))
A Japanese film that concentrates on a handful of crewmembers on the battleship Yamato and the ships demise in the naval kamikaze operation "Ten-Go". Dramatized for sure, but generally a very well made movie and a refreshing change compared to the usual Hollywood point of view.

frau kaleun

07-14-10, 08:37 AM

Good movies (not sub-related):

Tora! Tora! Tora! (outstanding history, great movie as well)

I remember when this "premiered" on network television here. We watched it. I was a kid so my understanding was limited in some aspects, altho I certainly knew about Pearl Harbor and that it's what got the US officially into the war. Have seen it in bits and pieces since, probably need to rent it and watch all the way through again.

My main recollection of this movie is the reaction of one of the Japanese admirals (Yamamoto?) when he finds out that they attacked without their political/diplomatic emissaries having delivered some kind of ultimatum or statement of intent or whatever to the appropriate US officials at the appointed time way far away in Washington DC. Don't know how historically accurate that is, or if I misunderstood what was happening. But it gave me a sad feeling of "well the politicians *******ed things up and now the guys in uniform - on both sides - are gonna have to pay the price."

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (slows down in the middle, as it's one man's true story) but great carrier and flight scenes)
Wake Island (made during the war, propoganda, but informative and good)
The Great Raid (little-known recent film, tells the true story of a prisoner-of-war-camp liberation)

Have heard of the first one but not seen it as far as I remember. Not familiar at all with the latter two.

Flags Of Our Fathers (mostly about the aftermath, but still good battle scenes)

Letters From Iwo Jima (great movie about the Japanese side, and marks Clint Eastwood's entry into the Great Directors Of All Time category)

Have seen the latter, not the former. It's in my Netflix queue somewhere.

Midway (way too much romance and fiction, but gives a good overview of the battle, and some good aircraft shots)

Tried to watch this one a couple times but as is sometimes the case with his movies I just couldn't get past Charlton Heston, who I can really only stand to watch when the scenery chewing is kept to a minimum and/or the quality of the "product" overall is much higher. Sadly, not the case here for me, since IMO what I saw of the film seemed very cliched and formulaic. Also, if Hollywood wants to make a movie about the PTO and have me connect primarily with the stock American "good guys," they need to not put Toshiro Mifune in charge of the Imperial Japanese Navy. :O:

Help me out here, guys. Movies that tell the story of the Pacific war.

I believe The Thin Red Line is about Guadalcanal? Which I did not realize or remember until I was moving it up to the top of my queue after some high praise of it in another thread here. For some reason I thought it was about 'Nam. I have it at home now but due to its length probably won't be able to watch it until the weekend.

Part of it for me is that I'm not a "war movie" fan, generally speaking, meaning it's a genre that doesn't typically appeal to me, like say sci-fi. I'll forgive a lot in a sci-fi film if the "concept" or the effects are entertaining enough. But I'm not likely to sit through a war picture "just because" - it usually has to be either so well made that its appeal transcends any question of genre, or have some element of it that appeals to me personally at the moment even if it's not a five-star product.

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 08:42 AM

The PTO has always been viewed as a sideshow or secondary theater. There are many reasons for this. Most european countries had no interest or troops in the conflict. It really only interests the USA and Japan.

During the war, the coverage was limited. Nothing came out of Japan. The US had most of its troops/resources put into defeating Germany first and this was viewed as the main front.

Unlike the German propaganda machine which trumpeted German triumphs and turned Prien and Rommel into household names even in the UK, the US kept a tight lid on information. Submarine operations in the Pacific received no reporting at all. News was heavily filtered. For example, the news of the Battle of Savo Island in early august 42 (an Allied defeat) was not released until mid-october 42 when they could announce the victory at Cape Esperance at the same time.

Japan, unlike Germany, has still not totally admitted or faced its role in WW2. The Japanese have managed to portray the myth that they fought a tough, but clean war, even though they murdered more civilians in Asia than the Nazis did in Europe.

Of course, the lack of coverage or interest is nothing new. Entire wars receive little or no coverage compared to WW2 (Korea, Vietnam, Middle east wars). Even within WW2, you have different level of interests: ETO is more popular than PTO; Land war is more popular than Naval or Air War; Within ETO land war, NWE 44-45 tends to suck up all the oxygen.

August

07-14-10, 09:12 AM

Most european countries had no interest or troops in the conflict. It really only interests the USA and Japan.

Off the top of my head Britain, France, the Netherlands and the USSR all participated in that conflict.

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 09:26 AM

Off the top of my head Britain, France, the Netherlands and the USSR all participated in that conflict.

ok, minor interest. Britain adopted a wholly defensive attitude until 1944 leaving the heavy lifting to the Americans. The Russians did not declare war until august 6, 1945. The French (Vichy) collaborated with the Japanese until early 45, not something they like to remember. The Dutch did fight hard to defend Indonesia in early 42, but were overwhelmed.

Sailor Steve

07-14-10, 10:24 AM

How could I forget one of my all-time favorites? :damn:

Hell In The Pacific. Stupid title, great movie with two great actors (and only those two). Not really about the war, but a drama about two opposing warriors trapped together (and yes, Enemy Mine was a terrible rip-off). If you should see this one, watch it with the subtitles OFF. It didn't have subtitles in the theater, and it really makes a difference. I will admit that I keep them on now, because what Mifune is saying is kind of fun.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063056/

Tried to watch this one a couple times but as is sometimes the case with his movies I just couldn't get past Charlton Heston, who I can really only stand to watch when the scenery chewing is kept to a minimum and/or the quality of the "product" overall is much higher. Sadly, not the case here for me, since IMO what I saw of the film seemed very cliched and formulaic. Also, if Hollywood wants to make a movie about the PTO and have me connect primarily with the stock American "good guys," they need to not put Toshiro Mifune in charge of the Imperial Japanese Navy. :O:
Midway is one of my least favorite movies, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. I prefer movies about real events over the usual 'war' movie. Midway would have been much better if it had been done Tora Tora Tora-style.

August

07-14-10, 11:08 AM

ok, minor interest. Britain adopted a wholly defensive attitude until 1944 leaving the heavy lifting to the Americans. The Russians did not declare war until august 6, 1945. The French (Vichy) collaborated with the Japanese until early 45, not something they like to remember. The Dutch did fight hard to defend Indonesia in early 42, but were overwhelmed.

Wholly defensive? Well what about Orde Wingate and the Chindits?

As for the rest:
The Japanese and Soviets first fought each other way back July 0f 1938.

Several of the French colonies in the pacific sided with the Free French instead of the Vichy. As a matter of fact despite being nominally on the Axis' side, fighting between the Vichy French and Japanese still broke out in Sept of 1940 when the Japanese violated the terms of their agreement over the occupation of French Indochina.

As for the Dutch, they might have been overwhelmed but they still participated too.

frau kaleun

07-14-10, 11:18 AM

How could I forget one of my all-time favorites? :damn:

Hell In The Pacific.

This was on TCM once but I missed the beginning and had to leave before it ended so I didn't see much of it. I understand it was filmed with two different endings, one version for release in the US and one for Japanese audiences. Both are supposedly available now, I guess on the DVD release.

And yes, part of the "impact" of the story is supposed to come from the fact that the two men speak different languages and can't really communicate with each other verbally. So leaving the subtitles off (for someone who understands only one of the languages involved) would probably make it a more interesting experience the first time around.

Raptor1

07-14-10, 11:19 AM

ok, minor interest. Britain adopted a wholly defensive attitude until 1944 leaving the heavy lifting to the Americans. The Russians did not declare war until august 6, 1945. The French (Vichy) collaborated with the Japanese until early 45, not something they like to remember. The Dutch did fight hard to defend Indonesia in early 42, but were overwhelmed.

In fact, the British attempted an offensive into Arakan in 1942 and early 1943 which failed miserably. The British army in Burma was simply incapable of conducting major offensive operations until the Japanese were decisively defeated at Imphal and Kohima.

And China. It seems like everyone is so keen on not counting China in the PTO, though it was practically the cause of the entire Pacific War.

August

07-14-10, 11:21 AM

This was on TCM once but I missed the beginning and had to leave before it ended so I didn't see much of it. I understand it was filmed with two different endings, one version for release in the US and one for Japanese audiences. Both are supposedly available now, I guess on the DVD release.

And yes, part of the "impact" of the story is supposed to come from the fact that the two men speak different languages and can't really communicate with each other verbally. So leaving the subtitles off (for someone who understands only one of the languages involved) would probably make it a more interesting experience the first time around.

At first I thought you were talking about None but the Brave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_But_the_Brave

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 11:24 AM

Wholly defensive? Well what about Orde Wingate and the Chindits?

As for the rest:
The Japanese and Soviets first fought each other way back July 0f 1938.

Several of the French colonies in the pacific sided with the Free French instead of the Vichy. As a matter of fact despite being nominally on the Axis' side, fighting between the Vichy French and Japanese still broke out in Sept of 1940 when the Japanese violated the terms of their agreement over the occupation of French Indochina.

As for the Dutch, they might have been overwhelmed but they still participated too.

I think the point was why the coverage of WW2 ETO in books, games, movies dwarfs the PTO.

I think it is fair to say that for the UK, France, USSR, Netherlands, the Pacific Theatre was of minor importance compared to the ETO.

For the US, it was of more importance since they were doing the bulk of the fighting, although I know that at one point in mid-42, the US had calculated that it was devoting only 15% of its overall resources to the PTO, although that was subsequently increased.

The invasion of Guadalcanal was so short of everything that it was dubbed "Operation Shoestring".

The Third Man

07-14-10, 11:51 AM

To be honest I have just recently, in the last year or so, started to focus on the PTO, and the CBI (China Burma India Theater), after meeting a gentleman who served in both theaters during WWII. B-24 crew.

His stories are intriguing and perilous.

Ducimus

07-14-10, 03:33 PM

The last battle of WW2, was in the pacific.
The war began here before Europe, and it continued after Europe. Just FYI.

Since things have to be "dramatic" for some of you people to appreciate and understand.... enjoy:

Shootout: Okinawa, The Last Battle of WWII
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrYWhhMNKo
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9m3RMgLizQ
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxDYSFvE0Jw
part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzyEI1ALGk0
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_vhKYQQU8Q

Sailor Steve

07-14-10, 03:38 PM

This was on TCM once but I missed the beginning and had to leave before it ended so I didn't see much of it. I understand it was filmed with two different endings, one version for release in the US and one for Japanese audiences. Both are supposedly available now, I guess on the DVD release.
Actually I've seen it explained. The original script had a rather grim ending. Lee Marvin didn't like it, so they rewrote the ending to be more easygoing. The director didn't like it and edited a new ending which is the one that was shown in the theaters. The original filmed ending is the alternate one on the video, and has an unfinished sound track. The original grim script ending was never filmed.

onelifecrisis

07-14-10, 03:49 PM

Who says the PTO wasn't dramatic? I thought it had the most drama. In Europe we had a clash of steel and flesh, but in the Pacific the US and Japan were having a clash of ideologies. There were kamikaze pilots and suicidal civilians on one side, and the most individualistic nation in the world on the other. I'll never forget one documentary I saw where an American gunner was shooting down a kamikaze; he hit the plane and it started to fall, but instead of looking for a new target the gunner kept shooting at the plane as it fell, then kept shooting at the spot on the ocean where it landed... he just wouldn't stop shooting that thing, even long after it had stopped being threat. Meanwhile, the narrator was explaining the psychological impact that kamikaze pilots had on American crews.

Now contrast that with the nations of Europe, who are all so similar and all so used to fighting each other that opposing armies have been known to put down their guns on Christmas Day and play football.

Raptor1

07-14-10, 03:53 PM

sergei

07-14-10, 04:02 PM

onelifecrisis

07-14-10, 04:04 PM

Are you quite certain you're talking about WWII rather than WWI?

The war in Europe was an ideological war. The war in the Pacific was a resource war...

No need to get snooty. Yes, it was in WW1 that at least one football match took place between the trenches in France, but I thought it was a good example of how similar Europeans are (that single example demonstrates same religion and same sport interests, but the similarities go much further than that).

You say WW2 in Europe was an ideological war? Based on what? The Germans had a go at building an empire, just like the British and French and Austro-Hungarians did. Nothing new in that.

onelifecrisis

07-14-10, 04:05 PM

Ducimus

07-14-10, 04:12 PM

The war in Europe was an ideological war. The war in the Pacific was a resource war...

The people of Nanking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre) would disagree (http://www.nanking-massacre.com/).

Takeda Shingen

07-14-10, 04:18 PM

Yes, it was in WW1 that at least one football match took place between the trenches in France, but I thought it was a good example of how similar Europeans are (that single example demonstrates same religion and same sport interests, but the similarities go much further than that).

That much is certainly true. The Japanese philosophy of society, the individual's place in that society, and how war was viewed were very different than it was in western societies. The Germans were dangerous enemies, but understandable in the western sense. A surrounded German would surrender, as any of his other western counterparts. The Japanese, by the same standards, were wholly unpredictable; a surrounded Japanese soldier might surrender, or he might kill himself, or he might blow himself, and everyone in his immediate vicinity to pieces. As you and others have also alluded, a Japanese pilot might strafe you with machine gun fire, drop bombs or torpedos, or fly his plane directly into your ship. I imagine that it is quite unnerving to fight an enemy whose philosophy is so alien to your own.

Weiss Pinguin

07-14-10, 04:21 PM

And I'll never forget an interview I saw of a US sailor who had lived through several weeks of these attacks.
In the middle of one of these kamikaze attacks, one of his shipmates just stood up, said "Boy, it's hot today", and walked off the side of the ship. They never saw him again.
Just couldn't take any more I guess.

Seeing that interview really sent shivers down my spine.
So many of the stories you hear from vets of the Pacific theater are just downright scary. It's amazing, the things they pulled through. :nope:

Where we live we have quite a few former aviators and marines (NAS Corpus Christi was at one point the largest training facility in the world for naval aviatiors during WWII), not to mention the relatives on my dad's side who served. (Once great-uncle was part of the first waves of Marines on Iwo Jimo) And my mom's side of the family is mainly from the Philippines, so I've always been interested in that area of the war.

onelifecrisis

07-14-10, 04:25 PM

That much is certainly true. The Japanese philosophy of society, the individual's place in that society, and how war was viewed were very different than it was in western societies. The Germans were dangerous enemies, but inderstandable in the western sense. A surrounded German would surrender, as any of his other western counterparts. The Japanese, by the same standards, were wholly unpredictable; a surrounded Japanese soldier might surrender, or he might kill himself, or he might blow himself, and everyone in his immediate vicinity to pieces. As you and others have also alluded, a Japanese pilot might strafe you with machine gun fire, drop bombs or torpedos, or fly his plane directly into your ship. I imagine that it is quite unnerving to fight an enemy whose philosophy is so alien to your own.

My point exactly. :salute:

TLAM Strike

07-14-10, 04:32 PM

Off the top of my head Britain, France, the Netherlands and the USSR all participated in that conflict.

Austraila, New Zealand, and Canada participated on the Allied Side.

Siam on the Japanese side.

The last battle of WW2, was in the pacific.
The war began here before Europe, and it continued after Europe. Just FYI.

The UPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army) (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) wasn't defeated until 1956!

The UPA also has the distinction of being at war with both the Axis and Allies at the same time.

Help me out here, guys. Movies that tell the story of the Pacific war.

The Cane Mutiny

:03:

Raptor1

07-14-10, 04:49 PM

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 05:09 PM

The Cane Mutiny

:03:

good one, loved Bogie in that.

Raptor1

07-14-10, 05:12 PM

The Cane Mutiny

:03:

In fact, I've seen the movie a while ago and loved it. Then I read the book and liked it even more...

STEED

07-14-10, 05:14 PM

People who call it a minor side show and so on need to read a few good books on the subject.

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 05:15 PM

Ah, I see. You refer to the different side's ideologies effecting how they fought, while I was referring to the reasons behind the war itself.

Japan attacked the Western Allies in order to obtain resources so it can continue it's invasion of China, not because it's ideology demanded it attack them. Germany's invasion of Poland and later Russia was quite clearly launched with the intentions of fulfilling the ideological wishes of the Nazis (Among other things).

The difference is not that obvious. Under the Hakko Ichiu doctrine, the Japanese viewed themselves as a master race with a destiny to rule over Asia. Its not that different from the Nazi ideology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakk%C5%8D_ichiu

TLAM Strike

07-14-10, 05:16 PM

People who call it a minor side show and so on need to read a few good books on the subject.
I recommend:
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/4981/eagleagainstthesun.jpg

Read it twice, fantastic.

STEED

07-14-10, 05:20 PM

I recommend:
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/4981/eagleagainstthesun.jpg

Read it twice, fantastic.

Funny you should post that, got it on my bookshelf. :salute::up:

Subnuts

07-14-10, 05:52 PM

The Cane Mutiny

That movie was sweet, man!

Fincuan

07-14-10, 06:11 PM

The Cane Mutiny
That movie was sweet, man!

Never heard of that one, but a movie called The Caine Mutiny is indeed pretty good :D

Platapus

07-14-10, 06:22 PM

Never heard of that one, but a movie called The Caine Mutiny is indeed pretty good :D

So in addition to someone stealing the strawberrys, someone stole the letter "I"?

And I have proved this with geometric logic!

(rolling ball bearings in my hand)

Bilge_Rat

07-14-10, 07:08 PM

Great movie, very loosely based on the november 44 Typhoon than sank 3 tin cans.

remember, these are 1957 special effects...just focus on the acting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtqf0CCVUek&feature=related

frau kaleun

07-14-10, 07:44 PM

Never heard of that one, but a movie called The Caine Mutiny is indeed pretty good :D

Great performance by Bogart and also José Ferrer, who played the Navy lawyer defending the men accused of mutiny. Best bit IMO is when he crashes the celebratory party after their acquittal and tells them all off, then says that if anyone wants to take it up with him mano a mano he'll be outside waiting. Then he adds, "I'm drunk, so it'll be a fair fight." :haha:

But it's another movie that IMO suffers from the unfortunate inclusion of a "romantic" subplot which really seems to add nothing to it all and just bores me to tears every time they cut to those scenes. Don't know if it was in the book, if so and it worked there, I don't think they did a very good job of working it into the movie version.

http://chzhistoriclols.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/934a0bbc-e6fc-4693-807c-a0c10ad2b4a2.jpg

Platapus

07-14-10, 08:07 PM

frau kaleun

07-14-10, 08:12 PM

Only because of my anal-retentive nature, the exact quote is

If you wanna do anything about it, I'll be outside. I'm a lot drunker than you are - so it'll be a fair fight.

yeah, I know, this why I have no friends. :nope:

Dammit I knew I shoulda looked it up to be sure.

But hey at least I remembered it was José and not Mel before I hit "Submit." :O:

Platapus

07-14-10, 08:50 PM

He also had an arm in a cast so that would have been an interesting fight.

Sailor Steve

07-14-10, 09:24 PM

So has anyone besides Raptor1 and me read the book?

nikimcbee

07-14-10, 09:49 PM

Yes and yes. Didn't like it much.

Half of my family are smartasses, btw. ;)

Now that's not what I heard! Mr BenAflakfan.....

:har:

My favorite part of the PTO, is the early part of the War, when it was still an even fight or the Japanese had the upper hand. I think it took a lot of courage to fight in those early days.

TLAM Strike

07-14-10, 09:53 PM

So has anyone besides Raptor1 and me read the book?

Its on my bookshelf but I have not yet read it. :oops:

I don't know when I'll find time to read it since I don't read as much as I did a year ago (no time). I kinda want to finish the mystery I reading then dropped to read The Bear and the Dragon.

Weiss Pinguin

07-14-10, 10:03 PM

My favorite part of the PTO, is the early part of the War, when it was still an even fight or the Japanese had the upper hand. I think it took a lot of courage to fight in those early days.
Outgunned and poorly equipped... But on the flipside I wouldn't have wanted to go up against the desperate late-war Japanese army either.

Sailor Steve

07-14-10, 10:04 PM

But it's another movie that IMO suffers from the unfortunate inclusion of a "romantic" subplot which really seems to add nothing to it all and just bores me to tears every time they cut to those scenes. Don't know if it was in the book, if so and it worked there, I don't think they did a very good job of working it into the movie version.
Actually there's a lot more of the romance, and a lot more of the action, and a lot more of the characterization, and a lot more of everything, and while the main plot is spot-on the background story is a lot longer. If they had filmed the book exactly it would have been five hours long and a whole lot more boring.

Book is better, but the film works better the way it is.

Herman Wouk also rewrote his novel as a stage play, and though I've never seen it the 1988 The Caine Mutiny Court Martial is supposed to be as good as the movie.

Bilge_Rat

07-15-10, 08:28 AM

Raptor1

07-15-10, 10:25 AM

I read Wouk's "Winds of War" and "War and remembrance". Good to show the epic sweep of WW2, but overall, I find his writing a bit to soap opera-ish.

Btw, there was a real-life "caine mutiny" aboard a US ship, the USS Vance in 1965:

http://www.aspen-ridge.net/DE_R_s/USS_Vance/body_uss_vance.html

I read War and Remembrance (Haven't read Winds of War yet, though I have it). I enjoyed it, though there are a few parts which are mighty boring and a few parts in it's description of the war itself which could've been better (But only just a few, it's mostly very accurate).

The Caine Mutiny is a very different type of book though.

Buddahaid

07-15-10, 01:09 PM

"Sands of Iwo Jima"

"They Were Expendable"

"Guadalcanal Diary"

"Battlecry"

MGR1

07-15-10, 02:03 PM

My big gripe with how ww2 is shown here in the UK can be summed up with:

1940, Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Churchill saying "we will fight them on the beaches..."

There's more to ww2 than ********** 1940!:damn::damn::damn:

I had a great-uncle at El Alamien, one on Convoy's who was killed, a grandfather in RAF Coastal Command and the other grandfather did the Murmansk run!

Very few people here know anything about the far-east because they aren't told about it. Even when they are, the fact that Imperial Colonies and Territories were involved can be viewed as turn-off because "Empire" is a dirty word at the moment.

Had to get that off my chest - it irritates me like hell.:mad:

Mike.

Sailor Steve

07-15-10, 03:02 PM

"Sands of Iwo Jima"

"They Were Expendable"

"Guadalcanal Diary"

"Battlecry"
I actually thought of mentioning those and a few more, like Bataan, Back To Bataan, In Harm's Way, etc, but my original thought was to stick with strictly historical stuff, the ones that are almost documentaries.

Of course only Tora! Tora! Tora! fits that bill, and I've strayed a bit myself, so... :oops:

Kpt. Lehmann

07-15-10, 03:44 PM

I won't name names, but one user from Texas told me in a PM a few years ago, that US submarines in the pacific was "as signficant as the Lithuanian navy." and then summarized the US sub campaign in the pacific as: "Blah, blah, torpedo troubles, blah blah blah". I never forgot that.

I never forgot it, because I'd expect that from someone from Europe, but not from own of my own countrymen! It's one thing to, being aninformed person, having a theater preference. But its quite another to make that preference as an uninformed person. That's just ignorant, and willfully so if you don't devote enough time to study both theaters somewhat equally. But this isn't isolated to this individual, Its actualy fairly commonplace here on subsim.

You can keep on lying about what I said and continuously re-fabricate this THING I did not say to you... as often as you like.

It was engineered by you to meet your personal aims.

You are simply bitter, hateful, and intolerant of anything relating to me and/or GWX... and your post proves it yet again.

Move on man. Move on.

Three of my family members (now all passed away) served in the PTO... to include an uncle who was rather tall for his age... who fibbed about his age to join the navy... and was on board the U.S.S. Enterprise during EVERY major engagement that vessel saw.

He was also on deck for at least one successful kamikaze strike on the Enterprise. (at Okinawa IIRC) I was maybe six years old when he told me the story... and explained what a "kamikaze" was... but as I recall it, it seemed he was involved in damage control to some capacity.

Furthermore, I served in the U.S. military myself... ready to defend against any enemy foreign or domestic.

How would it ever do me any good to denigrate either theater.

So regurgitate all you like Ducimus. The truth is still the truth no matter how much you'd like to sculpt and pervert it with textual diarrhea.

nikimcbee

07-15-10, 03:47 PM

Outgunned and poorly equipped... But on the flipside I wouldn't have wanted to go up against the desperate late-war Japanese army either.

Yeah, the Japanese Army, is a whole differnt story.

nikimcbee

07-15-10, 03:50 PM

I'll throw in "Objective Burma" with Errol Flynn:D

Kpt. Lehmann

07-15-10, 03:53 PM

"The Thin Red Line" is one of my favorites if no-one has mentioned it yet.

frau kaleun

07-15-10, 05:09 PM

"The Thin Red Line" is one of my favorites if no-one has mentioned it yet.

I have it from Netflix right now, hoping to get to it this weekend. :yeah:

CaptainHaplo

07-15-10, 05:37 PM

OK - as a student of history, there are reasons WHY the ETO is more often seen as the "major" area of conflict.

These are pointed out for discussion - so feel free to reasonably try and rebut them.

#1. The ETO was where the majority of Aggression against the Allied powers occured with great publicity. The invasion of Poland, France, the BoB, etc, where major news stories of the day. These occured while the PTO was a "Phony War" in many ways for the majority of the Allies - they were "minor" losses compared to the immediate "next door" threats.

#2. America in the PTO didn't get officially involved until late 41..... where the ETO was established in the Euro (and American) civilian mind since at least 1939. Yes, you had groups like the AVG fighting before Pearl, but those exploits were not "major news". Even to the Americans at the time prior to PH - the war was mainly a "European" one. After PH - that changed.

#3. Once VE day hit, the PTO was also already decided - it was a matter of time (barring a huge blunder) and there was little to nothing the Japanese could do about it. Adm. Yamato was prescient when he spoke of awakening the sleeping giant.

#4. The fact that WW1 was so recent in the civilian psycology - along with the way WW1 combat was sometimes romanticized (specifically the Air War) made the air war specifically suited to major interest for the media.

#5. Continuing this theme - Major media (and thus American Civilians) often did not see the threat the PTO held until Pearl Harbor.

#6. After PH - The west coast did not have to deal with seeing ships sunk - the East Coast had not only mandatory blackouts - but there were times you could see the war up close - watching a ship burn and sink from the beach. Thus - the Atlantic (and thus the ETO) came "home" in more ways than the PTO did (other than PH itself).

This is not to say that the PTO was easy or a "sideshow" - it definitely was not. But there are reasons why the ETO is still seen as the more "major" of the theatres. Doesn't mean that its accurate - war is hell no matter where its fought. But it is less recognized for many reasons - some of them listed above.

tater

07-15-10, 06:19 PM

As shocked as the US military was on December 7, they never had the least doubt they would obliterate Japan. The guys at the sharp end didn't know this, or course, but that was absolutely the official feeling and "culture" high enough up.

There is a pre-war quote by a US admiral to the japanese ambassador (previous an admiral himself as I recall) where he said (my paraphrase): you'll might to war with us, and you'll even have some successes, but we will only get stronger and stronger, and eventually we'll destroy your country utterly.

Spot on.

TLAM Strike

07-15-10, 07:46 PM

I don't know if it was a sure thing for the Allies (and by Allies I mean Brito-America and not the Soviets). The Japanese controlled a large chunk of China, and all of Korea, Manchuko in the north and French Indochina (Vietnam etc) in the south. Up until the Japanese surrender the conflict was mostly a stalemate or slow Japanese advance. Even if Operation Downfall was successful (not doubt massively bloody) its very possible that the IJA would continue to fight on in China. The Russian August Storm offensive took Manchuko and and the Chinese were advancing in 1944 but that still left a huge stretch of China and most of Korea left (as the main Soviet force had yet to cross the Yalu when Japan surrendered) for the Japanese to defend. We are talking a region about the size of the Western Front in Europe.

The Soviets would have eventually overwhelmed the Japanese but the US would have to either invade from India (in to Nationalist Territory along one jungle/mountain road) or launch an amphibious invasion from the Philippines or conquered Japan (maybe invade Taiwan as a base) as the Nationalist Chinese had yet to take a coastal port. In that perspective it sort of becomes a Soviet Victory rather than an American one.

CaptainHaplo

07-15-10, 10:09 PM

August

07-15-10, 10:12 PM

Well perception is everything and I doubt eventual victory was nearly as clear in 1942 as it is today.

tater

07-16-10, 12:30 AM

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark said to the Japanese Ambassador to the US, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura in 1940:

While you may have your initial successes due to timing and surprise, the time will come when you too will have your losses but there will be this great difference. You will not only be unable to make up your losses but will grow weaker as time goes on; while on the other hand we will not only make up our losses but will grow stronger as time goes on. It is inevitable that we shall crush you before we are through with you.

For a picture of what the high brass though before the war...

Nomura knew it was true, too, as did the IGHQ.

Captain Vlad

07-16-10, 12:38 AM

I too have noticed the trend among some folks to attribute a greater importance to the War in Europe. I don't usually mind it, as it's most prevalent amongst Europeans and, ya' know, if parts of the war took place just down the street from where I'm sitting, I can absolutely understand why it might seem more important and present in their minds.

Memories of the American Revolution and the American Civil War are still pretty sharp in my country, after all.

Sometimes, though, I encounter the attitude from someone, usually a younger someone, who is just sort of talking out their ass...they've never really picked up any knowledge concerning the PTO, and it shows, yet they have this attitude that the war between Japan and the US was just 'something else that happened'.

These folks are usually gamers, and I actually DO blame some basically meaningless details for part of it. You will never convince me that part of reason for PC wargaming's 'Axis cult' is not the fact that the Germans had sharp uniforms and cool lookin' tanks and 'high-tech' equipment that in the real war was actually of little impact or importance.:)

Many people here are better with their history, and even those who describe the PTO as being of secondary import seem aware of the huge scale of the forces engaged in the conflict and the losses sustained by all the country's involved.

For me...well, I had relatives in both theaters, and war is hell wherever it's taking place, so I refuse to say anyone's sacrifice, ordeals, etc, are more important than anyone else's.

From a historical perspective, though, I quite honestly find the PTO to be utterly fascinating and the ETO to be less so (but still fascinating). This may be because the early actions were fought on such a shoestring on the part of the Allies, or that you had such a contrast between very modern warfare (entire battles fought between task forces that never saw each other) and very primitive (jungle melees in New Guinea).

Mostly it's because the PTO was so very much a naval conflict, and both the navies and the battles they fought there were so far out of scale when compared to Europe. I've always thought it so odd that such fame has been afforded to the capabilities of the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, for example, when in the Pacific, they'd have just pretty much standard issue.:)

Anyhow, the PTO was as world shaping a conflict as the ETO, and it's importance should never be downplayed. J

ust like in Europe, so much of what happened then affects what happened there today...I believe another factor in why these consequences are not seen as so important by some, is simply because those of us in the 'Western World' are often presented with an analysis of history that seems to forget that the Pacific and the people who live there exist.

Sailor Steve

07-16-10, 01:15 AM

Yes, you had groups like the AVG fighting before Pearl, but those exploits were not "major news".
That is a myth we all grew up with, myself included. In reality the AVG's first combat didn't take place until December 20, thirteen days after Pearl Harbor.
http://www.flyingtigersavg.com/tiger1.htm

Raptor1

07-16-10, 02:56 AM

The IJA would have withered on the vine (as the island hopping campaign did to many units). It had no means to support itself with the home island isolated (as it was near the end). The war was a foregone conclusion one way or the other - Japan was lost - by VE day. Sure the IJA could have gone assymetric - but that would have only been prolonging its agony.

Actually, a lot of the Japanese industrial capacity came from Manchuria, so the Kwantung Army would most likely have been able to supply itself to some extent without the home islands.

August

07-16-10, 07:25 AM

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark said to the Japanese Ambassador to the US, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura in 1940:

For a picture of what the high brass though before the war...

Nomura knew it was true, too, as did the IGHQ.

I wouldn't take that as a true picture of what the high brass thought before the war. After all it's not like Stark would tell Nomura "Boy I hope you guys don't attack us as we're way unprepared for war". You don't tell a prospective enemy your true feelings, you present a confident front.

Bilge_Rat

07-16-10, 08:27 AM

Dec. 7 was a huge shock to US/UK military leaders who had seriously underestimated Japanese military capabilities. They had assumed that Japan could only strike at one place at a time, probably the Philippines, that they did not have the capability to attack PH and that their weapons/personnel were inferior to their own.

Instead they found the japanese could attack not only PH, but PI, malaya and many other places at the same time and that their planning, logistics, weapons, planes and pilots were as good or better.

Another shock came on Dec. 10 when the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were sunk. Most navy men had assumed that Battleships maneuvering freely at sea would be fairly safe from air attack. No one expected that the Japanese would sink them so easily.

Early in the war, there were serious estimates floating around washington that it could take 10 years to defeat Japan.

Within the Japanese military establishment, there were very diverging view of the US before the war. A fair number of Navy officers had travelled to the US, some had been educated there, many spoke english and they tended to have a healthy respect for US capabilities. Most Army officers however were insular and few had any direct knowledge of the US. They tended to dismiss the capability and resolve of the US. Unfortunately, the Army had the biggest influence in the government in 1941.

tater

07-16-10, 08:36 AM

I wouldn't take that as a true picture of what the high brass thought before the war. After all it's not like Stark would tell Nomura "Boy I hope you guys don't attack us as we're way unprepared for war". You don't tell a prospective enemy your true feelings, you present a confident front.

It's exactly what the brass thought—and how we prosecuted the war. It's not a surprise that the PTO played 2d fiddle to the ETO, it did because they were confident of winning the PTO. That made the first year even harder on the guys at the sharp end as they were forced to wage a shoestring war.

Note that the ship building program which pointed to our inevitable victory (even to the japs, who required the war be over before that point—it was supposed to be a short war with a negotiated peace before their 2 years of oil reserves ran out) would start having ships off the ways in 1943.

I'm not downgrading the PTO, it's my favorite theater, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Moeceefus

07-16-10, 09:29 AM

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

tater

07-16-10, 09:36 AM

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

One of the few things Yamamoto (perhaps the world's most overrated admiral) ever said or did. That said, his view was not a lone voice in the IJN, or the IGHQ. In fact, it was pretty widely held. The IGHQ themselves, when getting ready for the war to start gave themselves a 10% chance of victory, with a 90% chance of (their own words): "national death."

Bottom line is that they knew that the USN building program (started before the war, and it being the US, the exact count of ships etc was simply published in the newspapers) would render the IJN impotent after 1943. They felt they had to act, since they had convinced themselves that the USN was their primary foe.

Oberon

07-16-10, 11:14 AM

One of the few things Yamamoto (perhaps the world's most overrated admiral) ever said or did. That said, his view was not a lone voice in the IJN, or the IGHQ. In fact, it was pretty widely held. The IGHQ themselves, when getting ready for the war to start gave themselves a 10% chance of victory, with a 90% chance of (their own words): "national death."

Bottom line is that they knew that the USN building program (started before the war, and it being the US, the exact count of ships etc was simply published in the newspapers) would render the IJN impotent after 1943. They felt they had to act, since they had convinced themselves that the USN was their primary foe.

Actually, he didn't say that, or at least there is no record of him saying that. However, his view (and indeed, as you say, the view of more than a couple in the IJN) was that to win one major battle against the US would be nowhere near enough and that to truely win any war against them, you would have to subdue the US mainland.

In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.

August

07-16-10, 11:30 AM

It's exactly what the brass thought—and how we prosecuted the war. It's not a surprise that the PTO played 2d fiddle to the ETO, it did because they were confident of winning the PTO. That made the first year even harder on the guys at the sharp end as they were forced to wage a shoestring war.

Note that the ship building program which pointed to our inevitable victory (even to the japs, who required the war be over before that point—it was supposed to be a short war with a negotiated peace before their 2 years of oil reserves ran out) would start having ships off the ways in 1943.

I'm not downgrading the PTO, it's my favorite theater, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Maybe that's indeed how they thought but you haven't proven it. Stark would have said that to Nomura even if he thought we'd loose if it came to war.

And beating the Nazis was the priority because they were seen as the more dangerous adversary of the two. That does not mean defeating either one was a given.

tater

07-16-10, 11:39 AM

He said what is in effect the same thing in several private letters, though the wording was not poetic. He said that he could fight the US for 18 months, then later changed it to 6-12 months, after which he was not sanguine about the outcome. His private letters also show he was stuck planning for a war he was opposed to since he said flat out that they could not beat the US. His later statement that they'd have to march into Washington to win the war was sanitized and used as propaganda, lol.

But, yeah, the sleeping giant quote is apocryphal.

tater

07-16-10, 11:51 AM

Maybe that's indeed how they thought but you haven't proven it. Stark would have said that to Nomura even if he thought we'd loose if it came to war.

And beating the Nazis was the priority because they were seen as the more dangerous adversary of the two. That does not mean defeating either one was a given.

Well, it WAS a given in retrospect. 100%. PH destroyed ANY chance of Japanese victory—because they required a negotiated peace, and quickly. PH ruined any chance of that (and would have, even had the Declaration happened on time). The "sneak" nature of it, even with Declaration in DC, then moments latter bombs still would have incensed the US population (as it did). Game over, Japan.

Regardless, the proof is in the pudding. The US took a Germany first policy, and the deliberations of that are known. It was not simply germany was deemed the bigger threat—because germany was no threat to the US at all, just US interests in the ETO—meaning the UK at that point. It was because they knew they could win the PTO, and the Europe situation going forward was an unknown at the end of 1941. The idea was to temporize in the PTO until the naval building program started coming into play. Which is exactly what they did.

That at high levels the US was confident in the PTO is not at all controversial.

tater

07-16-10, 12:05 PM

I should add again that the guys at the sharp end didn't know this at all. The news was bad followed by bad for the first few months, and they'd have taken the idea that "we'll whip japan!" as propaganda, particularly given the to the last man nature of japanese fighting.

That the end game was certain can not be in doubt, but that doesn't factor the COST to reach that end.

August

07-16-10, 04:32 PM

That the end game was certain can not be in doubt, but that doesn't factor the COST to reach that end.

Again you're looking at this through the advantage of hindsight where any bet, regardless of odds is a sure one. What i'm saying is that no conflict can be certain until it's over.

There is just too much that can go wrong and has gone wrong in other conflicts for any thinking man to believe victory is ever assured until the last bullet has been fired.

UnderseaLcpl

07-16-10, 05:21 PM

Again you're looking at this through the advantage of hindsight where any bet, regardless of odds is a sure one. What i'm saying is that no conflict can be certain until it's over.

There is just too much that can go wrong and has gone wrong in other conflicts for any thinking man to believe victory is ever assured until the last bullet has been fired.

On the contrary, the prudent leader wins before the conflict has ever been fought. Sun-Tzu said as much in The Art of War, and his maxims hold true even today. War, or at least offensive war, is more the result of inadequate thinking than anything else. It's what happens when you screw up and give the enemy a fighting chance or a reason to fight, either through misplacement of tactical or strategic assets, or through political misguidance.

There is absolutely no reason why the US could not have secured its interests in the Pacific through purely diplomatic means. The sharper minds in the Japanese Army and Navy knew this before the war ever started. Even Hirohito himself saw the inevitable consequences of attacking America. This is where we diverge from the realm of military thinking into the realm of politics. FDR engineered a war with Japan, plain and simple. He left them with no other recourse by asking for completely unacceptable terms (in Japnese foreign policy and trade agreements) and then raising the bar when the Japanese accepted. It had nothing to do with military thinking, but it had everything to do with the political will of one power-hungry anglophilic jackass. It's lie military wisdom in complete reverse; engineer a conflict where there is no need for one.

I totally agree with tater. The cost in lives to achieve a questionable end was completely unacceptable, particularly when we espouse the ideals of freedom and self-determination as being superior to collectivism. If we really believed in the superiority of our own ideology, we'd be happy to let it stand on it's own, and for the most part, it has. But that's not what FDR wanted. He wanted to build a socialist state. He had an agenda to pursue and he was willing to waste lives to achieve it. Just look at what he did! What he tried! He was an awful, awful person, period. He is the reason that it took so many hundreds of thousands of lives to achieve victory over an enemy that was never at war with us. He is the reason that we spent decades and billions upon billions of dollars fighting the same communism that he purportedly detested all the way up until, what, Dec. 1941?

I could go on and on about the reasons why Roosevelt was a lousy leader, and why the PTO was totally uneccesary, but I trust the point is made. If not, I've got three or four books on the subject, and I'll be happy to subit references for review.

tater

07-16-10, 05:54 PM

I don't think the cost was totally unacceptable once the Japanese attacked at all. I do, however, think that there are no plausible scenarios where the Japanese secure a negotiated peace after PH. None.

I am not a conspiracy theorist who thinks that FDR knew about PH, I don't even think that the war was engineered by FDR. One of the primary last minute pushes was in fact an error on the part of a lower level guy in the administration (I'll look it up, but it has to do with the specifics of stopping oil and metal shipments (I have a huge library, gotta remember where I read it)).

Bottom line is that while from the Jap POV, they felt pushed, the reality is that they were "Axis" and were engaging in a war of aggression with China. That the US, and all of Europe did similar things in China doesn't matter. They could have walked away, they chose not to. As ~3% of world GDP, the answer to being backed into a corner by 50% of world GDP (more with the UK) is to BACK DOWN. Period. Anything else is insanity or suicide.

The japs elected to—in their own words—face "national death."

tater

07-16-10, 06:11 PM

August

07-16-10, 07:02 PM

The japs had no capability to attack the US. The US had no need of japanese held territory to maintain the war effort. There was simply no way Japan could compete with the US. Losing Midway would have been a speed bump. By the next year, we'd still have been starting to outpace them. By 1944?

The US built more merchant shipping in the spring of 1943 than Japan built—period (starting before the war, meaning the first months of '43 put more merchies down the ways than Japan did from the early 30s til war's end).

We built nearly 800 DE/DDs. 800! Around 140 aircraft carriers! There is no plausible scenario where Japan wins. None. They thought their 2M barrels of oil would last 2 years at war... by mid 1942, they were already in deep trouble. Many IJN operations were constrained by bunker oil supplies, and the fact that if they used too much more would not be forthcoming.

Then there is the other inevitable end. Come summer 1945, the US would have still had the bomb. 2 ready in August (3d was OTW, actually), and the ability to make one per month after that.

Your entire argument is hindsight, tater. Hindsight of what we were able to produce. Hindsight of Japans capabilities. Hindsight of what Japan was not able to achieve militarily. Hindsight of the effort we were able to put forth. Hindsight of the fortitude of our allies.

None of this was proven fact in 1942.

Kazuaki Shimazaki II

07-16-10, 07:14 PM

Bottom line is that while from the Jap POV, they felt pushed, the reality is that they were "Axis" and were engaging in a war of aggression with China. That the US, and all of Europe did similar things in China doesn't matter. They could have walked away, they chose not to. As ~3% of world GDP, the answer to being backed into a corner by 50% of world GDP (more with the UK) is to BACK DOWN. Period. Anything else is insanity or suicide.

The japs elected to—in their own words—face "national death."

Interesting, so, if it was America that held the 3%, and Japan holding the 50, America would have agreed to any demand made by Japan?

Sailor Steve

07-16-10, 07:54 PM

Ducimus

07-16-10, 08:05 PM

Wow, conspiracy theories and what looks like the Japanese version of Holocaust denial. S'cuse me while i go get a bowl of popcorn ready. :haha:

Weiss Pinguin

07-16-10, 08:15 PM

Wow, conspiracy theories and what looks like the Japanese version of Holocaust denial. S'cuse me while i go get a bowl of popcorn ready. :haha:
Bring lots of butter...

mookiemookie

07-16-10, 08:25 PM

August

07-16-10, 11:13 PM

Not to take sides - but you don't think that we had a good estimation of our shipbuilding capabilities in '42? I think we did.

Estimates fail to become reality all the time mookie, you ought to know that. I'm sorry, so far nobody has convinced me that we went into ww2 KNOWING that we would win.

UnderseaLcpl

07-17-10, 12:24 AM

Have you proof?

You'll have to decide for yourself if the evidence is convincing enough, I'll pick up the books from storage at my dad's house tomorrow. It has transcripts of communiques sent to the Embassy in Japan specifically stating that no agreement was to be reached no matter what the terms the Japanese offered, along with a host of other evidence.

Is it really proof? No, not in the sense that Roosevelt ever claimed to be purposely trying to pick a fight, though I have a hard time comprehending any other reason for deliberately sabotaging diplomatic efforts. Viewed in the context of Roosevelt's dogged determination to get into the war, amongst other things, it isn't hard to believe, either.

Now, I'll dig up the sources (figured I'd have to, and I need to go to dad's house to borrow the digital camera, anyway, as I found some cool stuff in my great uncle's war diary I'd like to share) but be honest with me, Steve. You already know what I'm going to show you, don't you? I'm pretty sure you've done enough research on the PTO to have seen the generous pre-war terms we rejected at least a few times. I also know you've read Shattered Sword and the description of the Japanese mentality towards war with the US therein. In that case, you probably already have a definitive opinion other than "I don't know":O:, so please either back me up or make an opposing case at some point. As fun as it is to present, debate, and if need be, modify my views in an effective manner (and I mean that, no sarcasm) I'd like to just skip to the part where you just totally blow everyone away with your vast knowledge on the subject every now and again. Especially the "now" part.:DL It might save me some typing.

UnderseaLcpl

07-17-10, 12:57 AM

Estimates fail to become reality all the time mookie, you ought to know that. I'm sorry, so far nobody has convinced me that we went into ww2 KNOWING that we would win.

Then I shall make it my personal mission to prove it to you. I'll dig out some more references detailing the ridiculous superiority the Allies had in men and machines, as well as the plans they were making for the Axis defeat well before even the Yalta conference.

However, you do have something of a point. Until Germany went to war with the Soviets, it was by no means clear that the Axis would be defeated. In fact, it was the great fear of Churchill himself that the Soviets would continue to honor the nonagression pact, or even continue to exist. I have a lot of first-hand testimony and quotes from the man himself to support that. Equally interesting is how rapidly he changes positions once Germany goes to war with the Soviet Union, but I digress.

By the time the US entered the war, however, it was abundantly clear what the outcome would be. The only question was how much it would cost in lives, finances, and material to overwhelm Germany. There was a school of thought that said the Soviets were the best bet for sacrificing the millions of soldiers needed to defeat the Wehrmacht, and there was a school of thought that was hell-bent on creating Stalin's much-desired "second front" for fear of losing the Soviets as an ally A third faction wanted to save Europe form the Soviets. As it so often turns out when matters of state and military interact, the outcome was the worst of all worlds, as I'm sure you're well-aware. We somehow went in knowing we would win and managed to end up with a worse Europe than we started with. That's what happens when the mission we think we're fighting for isn't the real objective. Every war is that way.....

I'm beginning to ramble, so I'll conclude by restating the point that we knew dang well that we were going to win that war. I think you're confusing propaganda with why we were really fighting.

Bilge_Rat

07-17-10, 06:00 AM

FDR engineered a war with Japan, plain and simple. He left them with no other recourse by asking for completely unacceptable terms (in Japnese foreign policy and trade agreements) and then raising the bar when the Japanese accepted. It had nothing to do with military thinking, but it had everything to do with the political will of one power-hungry anglophilic jackass. It's lie military wisdom in complete reverse; engineer a conflict where there is no need for one.

That is a bit of an over reach. FDR had been trying to pressure the Japanese for years to stop their war of aggression in China, an aim I don't think anyone could argue with, considering how many chinese civilians the Imperial Japanese Army had butchered.

When talking failed, the US instituted a series of economic sanctions, including ultimately, freezing all japanese assets in July 1941. This made it impossible for Japan to pay for their oil imports. This is not unusual, the US has done the same thing against Iran. Gallup polls also showed these actions had the support of 90-96 % of the US public.

The Japanese are now claiming they would have lost face if they had been forced to stop killing civilians in China. That may be, but how far is the US supposed to bend over to accomodate a tin pot dictatorship?

Bilge_Rat

07-17-10, 06:14 AM

I think the point August is making, which I agree with is that it was not obvious in the first few months of 42 that the US had already won the war.

The basic Japanese strategy was to fortify the pacific island bases, pack them with troops, airplanes, ships, submarines and make any US offensive so costly that the US would have no choice but to eventually sue for a negotiated peace that would leave the Empire with most of its gains.

It is very easy to say in hindsight that, on paper, Japan had no chance, but wars are not not fought on paper, they are fought on the ground, by human beings who can become discouraged. In a war, anything can happen. Just look at Vietnam, on paper, the North Vietnamese had no chance...:ping:

tater

07-17-10, 09:14 AM

The difference with Viet Nam was a combination of national will (we had it in spades post PH), and geopolitical reality. With VN, it was a proxy war with the Soviets, and we were highly constrained by the realities of that time period (unable to escalate without precipitating a wider conflict with the CCCP).

In the case of ww2, we had a free had to do anything we wanted, and did.

In the PTO, the outcome was in hindsight a foregone conclusion, and to the high US brass, it was also assumed to be as well, just a matter of how many lives and how much treasure it would cost.

In terms of when they knew the end was coming sooner rather than later, by late 1943, US intelligence assets in SE Asia were already working on post-war efforts (securing US trade in the region vs the Brits, which became a bone of contention later ;) ).

tater

07-17-10, 09:19 AM

Interesting, so, if it was America that held the 3%, and Japan holding the 50, America would have agreed to any demand made by Japan?

Pretty much, yes, we'd have been forced to follow geopolitical reality. Look at US foreign relations post-Revolution. We were skating on thin ice. Any liberties we took in that area were predicated on the reality that we were far away from Europe (the world was far "larger" in that time period (age of sail) than it was during ww2).

tater

07-17-10, 09:31 AM

Your entire argument is hindsight, tater. Hindsight of what we were able to produce. Hindsight of Japans capabilities. Hindsight of what Japan was not able to achieve militarily. Hindsight of the effort we were able to put forth. Hindsight of the fortitude of our allies.

None of this was proven fact in 1942.

Japan itself thought, before the war, that their chance of victory was 10%, with a 90% chance of "national death." This comes from meetings of the IGHQ, in interviews with guys who were there.

So the sanguine, jap view was a 90% chance of losing the war. I say sanguine because if you look at other japanese estimates of how things would play out, they institutionally overestimated their own abilities, and underestimated the US. They thought their oil would last 2 years at war. It wasn't even close—their use estimates for modern warfare were ridiculously low. They cheated during their own wargames as a matter of course. They thought they'd be embraced as liberators (they partially were), but failed to include any downtick in opinion after they, you know, started murdering locals wholesale.

So, in 1940-41, the Japs, being grossly optimistic estimated their own odds at 90% for a US win. The US estimated it's chances at better than 90% to win—generally, 100%.

The US and Japan were both in agreement that it was the US's war to lose. Japan counted on one thing—lack of US will. That's IT. They assumed that they'd beat us up, then sue for a negotiated peace because Americans were weak-willed, and we'd take that. Note that for this to be plausible, we'd have to sue for peace before the in-progress ship building program started churning out a navy the size of the rest of earth's nations combined in 1943.

So even if you assume that there is a chance that the US would have done this before PH, was their ANY chance after PH? I'd say zero chance.

tater

07-17-10, 09:47 AM

I need to reiterate this in a less long-winded way.

The japanese war plan was not ever predicated on military victory, but a victory of WILL. No jap victory could stop the US from winning—they thought that a US defeat would break our spirit and we'd sue for peace. How'd their one big victory (in the "decisive battle" sense), Pearl Harbor, break our spirit?

What I said above was that high US brass—Admiral King, et al, plus the political leadership—thought that the US chances in the PTO were certain. The US brass would have estimated the US MILITARY chances. Not will. King assumed we had the will. Political will was not his job.

So can you say there was some >0% chance of a failure in US will? Sure. Was it the brass's job to worry about that? hell no, they'd have told FDR, "we'll crush them once all those new ships we got you to pay for hit the theater" and they would have believed it, too.

August

07-17-10, 03:09 PM

So can you say there was some >0% chance of a failure in US will? Sure. Was it the brass's job to worry about that? hell no, they'd have told FDR, "we'll crush them once all those new ships we got you to pay for hit the theater" and they would have believed it, too.

You totally ignore the fact that in 1942 those ships still had to be built.

Natural disaster, political upheaval, game changing secret enemy weapon or just plain old bad luck, many things could have occurred to scupper the most solid of plans.

Until those ships are built, until the people are motivated, until millions of men are equipped, trained and transported around the globe, and they win the fights they are sent there for, only a fool believes that victory is assured.

Kazuaki Shimazaki II

07-17-10, 09:19 PM

Pretty much, yes, we'd have been forced to follow geopolitical reality. Look at US foreign relations post-Revolution. We were skating on thin ice. Any liberties we took in that area were predicated on the reality that we were far away from Europe (the world was far "larger" in that time period (age of sail) than it was during ww2).

From the few times the US actually came closest to being the poor side of this situation, say the War of 1812 or the Confederacy in the Civil War, a disadvantageous geopolitical situation hardly deterred war. In those cases, the gamble wasn't that different from what Japan chose, that 1) the enemy's will was finite, and 2) that ultimately they aren't that interested (like Vietnam).

tater

07-17-10, 10:36 PM

You totally ignore the fact that in 1942 those ships still had to be built.

Natural disaster, political upheaval, game changing secret enemy weapon or just plain old bad luck, many things could have occurred to scupper the most solid of plans.

Until those ships are built, until the people are motivated, until millions of men are equipped, trained and transported around the globe, and they win the fights they are sent there for, only a fool believes that victory is assured.

I'm ignoring nothing, I said that the HIGH BRASS felt it was certain. I then said in hindsight, it was also certain.

There are NO plausible scenarios, or even highly implausible but possible where Japan succeeds after PH. None, zero, zip.

In 1942, the ship for '43 were already being built. They had been planned for a couple years. It was in fact that building program that had the IJN backed against the wall—not the trade stuff, that was temporary. It was that they knew the 8-8 fleet they wished would soon be not nearly enough. The US ships were already under construction.

tater

07-17-10, 10:44 PM

From the few times the US actually came closest to being the poor side of this situation, say the War of 1812 or the Confederacy in the Civil War, a disadvantageous geopolitical situation hardly deterred war. In those cases, the gamble wasn't that different from what Japan chose, that 1) the enemy's will was finite, and 2) that ultimately they aren't that interested (like Vietnam).

The US had zero chance in 1812 of defeating the RN. The problem for the UK in 1812 was that one, their pressing policies were in the wrong, flat out, and two, the economic impact on British industry (wanting American raw materials) was huge, and negative. Japan had no economic leverage vs the US at all. They basically didn't matter one way or another. Their only leverage was fighting, and somehow making it so costly we'd blink. Apparently the US blink level was pretty high, at least as high as the total ww2 US body count.

Besides, again, the situations were very different in the age of sail. Japan might in fact have won a ww2 like situation in the age of sail, but NOT in 1941. Not possible.

They had zero chance for MANY reasons.

Some of which include:

1. US will. Post PH, we were POed, no possible way the war ends in the first year, and that is pretty much required for a jap win. Maybe into 1943. After that, they are toast.

2. No industrial capacity to wage the war they started.

3. Not nearly enough merchant shipping, particularly tankers. Jap merchant shipping was not enough even with ZERO USN submarine action. I have the stats in a book, but the % in repair was high, and the IJN and IJA conscripted virtually all able-bodied men, and the stevedores were decimated. Unloading and loading ships was incredibly screwed up and massively decreased the efficiency of the limited merchant marine (more trips is just as good as more hulls, and they had neither). All the best shipyards were pretty much only working for the IJN, so repairs soaked up the remaining limited resources... really ugly.

4. Horrible pilot training paradigm. Pilots were effectively irreplaceable. By fall of 1942, the pilot situation was in fact hopeless already. A handful of great pilots is not nearly as useful as countless good pilots.

5. No policy or culture (in the IJN) of protecting the merchant fleet vs submarine attack (grossly exacerbating #3 above).

6. A really bad war plan on the strategic level.

7. Sigint and code failures (huge, really huge)

The list goes on, really. All the initial expansion went great, but for the most part everything fell apart when they started to extemporize.

Sailor Steve

07-17-10, 11:10 PM

...but be honest with me, Steve. You already know what I'm going to show you, don't you? I'm pretty sure you've done enough research on the PTO to have seen the generous pre-war terms we rejected at least a few times.
Actually no. Research I've done has always been dedicated to the machinery. I know practically nothing of politics and policies.

I also know you've read Shattered Sword and the description of the Japanese mentality towards war with the US therein.
Nope. I've done a cursory study of the Stinnet papers and read the rebuttals, but all my knowledge of the time is general at best.

In that case, you probably already have a definitive opinion other than "I don't know":O:, so please either back me up or make an opposing case at some point. As fun as it is to present, debate, and if need be, modify my views in an effective manner (and I mean that, no sarcasm) I'd like to just skip to the part where you just totally blow everyone away with your vast knowledge on the subject every now and again. Especially the "now" part.:DL It might save me some typing.
No, I have no challenges or rebuttals, just curiosity. You don't need to go into any great detail, just a general outline of what the papers say and specific references (as in the names of the books). If it shows that Roosevelt was actively trying to get us into the war, great.

The only absolute proof I will demand is that of Roosevelt's prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor, if that is your contention. I know they expected an attack, I just find it hard to believe they expected it there.

So no, I'm not setting you up or leading you on. I just like to see proof (or even good evidence) when claims are made that go against my preconceptions.

tater

07-17-10, 11:23 PM

Suggested reading related to the start, and larger strategic picture (I'm not pulling this out of my ass ;) ):

Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 by David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie

Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941 by Mark R. Peattie

Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II - by John Prados

The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II by Mark P. Parillo

Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 - by H. P. Willmott

Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Strategies, February to June 1942 - by H. P. Willmott

Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army by Meirion Harries

nikimcbee

07-17-10, 11:27 PM

nikimcbee

07-17-10, 11:30 PM

Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 by David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie

I think I've read this before. It was a very intersting read.

tater

07-17-10, 11:55 PM

They were banking on us being soft and rolling over.

In a nutshell this was the entirety of the "grand strategy" to the extent they even had one. Roughly, smash the USN, take the NEI (the whole point of the war), then fight "decisive battle" vs the US (after attriting the USN as it moved West), the result of which (victory for the IJN due to the superior fighting spirit of it's men!) would force us to sue for peace.

It was ridiculous.

Look, a series of meteors might have taken out DC, and all our industry, leaving us open for Japanese invasion—you never know! That's about it for likely scenarios of a Japanese win in ww2 ;) No military reversal could have changed things in the first year other than delay the inevitable.

I'm not arguing it as a sideshow, it was in reality the real war in US terms since they started it.

nikimcbee

07-18-10, 11:05 AM

On a side note, I think it's funny how (back then and now to a lesser extent) we, the US, were praranoid about a Japanese invasion in the mainland. There's no way that would have happened. I just laugh at some of those "what if" scenarios, that people take seriously.

Maybe something for the history channal.....:har:

nikimcbee

07-18-10, 11:10 AM

I really should get a copy of that Kaigun book. If I recall, it went into detail about the developement of all of their ship classes (ie carrier force, destroyers, etc) It was interesting to see the debate between the "old guard", the Mahanian-BB big battle strategy and Yamamoto's line of thinking focusing on air power.

It also talked about, in great detail, about the developement of the long-lance. That's worth the read right there.

August

07-18-10, 12:19 PM

Look, a series of meteors might have taken out DC, and all our industry, leaving us open for Japanese invasion—you never know! That's about it for likely scenarios of a Japanese win in ww2 ;) No military reversal could have changed things in the first year other than delay the inevitable.

For the last time tater. You may have the means to build something but you still haven't done it until you actually do it. To think that success is assured before it actually is only leaves you unprepared when you get blindsided by an unforeseen event, and contrary to the black and white view of the world you like to promote it very rarely works out like that in real life.

What if the Japanese had managed to secretly stash away a hundred times as much oil as they had?

What if the Japanese had backed up the air attack on Pearl Harbor with troop landings?

What if Japanese had managed to block the Panama canal?

What if their German allies had developed The Bomb before we did and not only shared the technology with the Japanese but also sent them a few functional devices the Japanese could use to Kamikaze into Pearl or worse, San Diego and/or San Francisco?

What if the Japanese and Germans discovered that we were reading their coded signals and changed their systems to something we couldn't?

... I could keep going here if I wanted to spend the time but you get the point I hope. You can't tell me that these type of thoughts were not worrying doubts in the minds of the US "High Brass" in early 1942.

tater

07-18-10, 12:36 PM

For the last time tater. You may have the means to build something but you still haven't done it until you actually do it. To think that success is assured before it actually is only leaves you unprepared when you get blindsided by an unforeseen event, and contrary to the black and white view of the world you like to promote it very rarely works out like that in real life.

What if the Japanese had managed to secretly stash away a hundred times as much oil as they had?

They didn't, and the vast majority of jap oil came from... the USA. We knew what their reserves were at least in order of magnitude. Again, the US brass was pretty confident at the time, this is not controversial at all, it was in fact their opinion in 1941.

What if the Japanese had backed up the air attack on Pearl Harbor with troop landings?

In every post, I have said there is no plausible scenario AFTER PH. An invasion at that time (directly following the attack) could well have been successful, though it would have been a huge stretch. As it was, the IJN needed to bug out to refuel, they had no capability for the Kido Butai to hang off Hawaii for more than a few days. Really.

Doesn't matter in the long run, Hawaii was too far away for Japan to supply, it would have been an albatross. In addition, they simply lacked the troops to take and hold Hawaii, AND take the souther resource area (NEI). As it was, troops in the jap expansion were reused, hence the well-planned time tables. Take Malaya, get put in a ship then take the next place. they reused troops.

Had the PH attack included an invasion, the "Germany first" policy—which was largely in place because King, et al were so confident about kicking Japan's ass—could simply have been put off a little. Operation Torch was largely FDR posturing—it was supposed to take place just BEFORE the elections in the US instead of just after. Those forces could have been thrown into Hawaii. BTW, look how long the Philippines held out, even under their (poor, IMO) generalship.

What if Japanese had managed to block the Panama canal?

LOL. It would have been fixed, it's not like they could hold the canal, lol. Regardless, ships could take the longer route if needed for the weeks required to fix it.

What if their German allies had developed The Bomb before we did and not only shared the technology with the Japanese but also sent them a few functional devices the Japanese could use to Kamikaze into Pearl or worse, San Diego and/or San Francisco?

I said plausible. The germans were no where near having the bomb. Not even close.

What if the Japanese and Germans discovered that we were reading their coded signals and changed their systems to something we couldn't?

This is plausible at least. Yeah, that would have decreased a massive force multiplier we had. But think about it, the US was massively more powerful than Japan, AND had a force multiplier. So minus the force multiplier, we're still ahead. Heck, maybe they'd have changed it before we whacked Yamamoto! Had he lived, the war might have been shorter (he is perhaps the most overrated admiral in history, IMO).

... I could keep going here if I wanted to spend the time but you get the point I hope. You can't tell me that these type of thoughts were not worrying doubts in the minds of the US "High Brass" in early 1942.

Doesn't matter, their confidence is still a known entity.

You are arguing what-if, when in fact they WERE confident. Again, their confidence is not controversial, and their choices for how to prosecute the war show this out as the fact it is.

tater

07-18-10, 12:47 PM

Regarding invading Hawaii, I granted it might have been successful right after PH, but the more I think about it, the less plausible that is. How would they keep air support? How? The Kido Butai could not have stayed there. They had few oilers, and fleet replenishment was actually a new thing to the IJN. That means after a few initial attacks, an attempt to invade Hawaii with no air support, and zero ability to support in any way other than CVs.

Not only is this crazy, but it would have been diametrically in opposition to IJN doctrine. remember, you fight like you train, and the IJN planned for years to fight the decisive battle in home waters. It's like Midway—that would have been a disaster for the IJN had they won. Why? They'd have to defend the place, FAR from home.

Oberon

07-18-10, 12:53 PM

What if the Japanese had backed up the air attack on Pearl Harbor with troop landings?

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-sci-fi-fantasy-2006/2110-1.jpg

:yep:

tater

07-18-10, 01:19 PM

Whatcha want to bet I couldn't get through a few chapters of that before finding mistakes so bad that the entire plot falls apart?

BTW, I think the more plausible scenario for the Japanese to "win" in the PTO would have been to avoid conflict with the US, and concentrate on India. UK-Indian relations were at a very low point, and it could have been very possible for the focus to be West, not East, and tipped India into the "Co-Prosperity Sphere." Of course the Japanese would have had to have NOT been Japanese. They were often welcomed as liberators in the NEI, for example, but they burned that good will almost instantly by treating the locals as sub-humans (as they did virtually everywhere).

Such a scenario requires a change in Japanese culture... which probably means a focus on treating other asians better starting with the Meiji Restoration.

August

07-18-10, 02:38 PM

You are arguing what-if

Exactly. "What if's" are still something for those in charge to worry about until they are disproved. You keep arguing "what it turned out to be" as if that were a known in early 1942 instead of a goal to achieve. That's hindsight.

Oberon

07-18-10, 02:43 PM

Whatcha want to bet I couldn't get through a few chapters of that before finding mistakes so bad that the entire plot falls apart?

Oh, I think it'd probably be a few paragraphs...but it's better than a kick up the arse.

nikimcbee

07-18-10, 03:01 PM

Operation Torch was largely FDR posturing—it was supposed to take place just BEFORE the elections in the US instead of just after. Those forces could have been thrown into Hawaii. BTW, look how long the Philippines held out, even under their (poor, IMO) generalship.

Sounds like clinton:haha:

Captain Vlad

07-19-10, 06:57 PM

Regarding invading Hawaii, I granted it might have been successful right after PH, but the more I think about it, the less plausible that is.

You can study the data all day long and we still wouldn't know how plausible it really was unless they'd actually tried it. You could be right; that could be why they didn't try it. But conversely, there have been far wilder successes in military history.

tater

07-19-10, 10:59 PM

You can study the data all day long and we still wouldn't know how plausible it really was unless they'd actually tried it. You could be right; that could be why they didn't try it. But conversely, there have been far wilder successes in military history.

Not in the PTO. Think about the air support problem. They were hard pressed as they were.

BTW:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-Merchant-Marine-World-War-II-Mark-/130411610711?cmd=ViewItem&pt=US_Nonfiction_Book&hash=item1e5d234257#ht_500wt_1154

Mark Parillo's excellent book on the jap merchant marine for $10!

It's out of print, and usually runs 6-7 times that. Someone buy it. (no dust jacket, but who cares)

Captain Vlad

07-19-10, 11:15 PM

Not in the PTO. Think about the air support problem. They were hard pressed as they were.

Yes, in the PTO. Yes, anywhere. The human race is damned good at finding ways around obstacles, shortages...difficulties of all types. It's one thing to look at the data of what they had and what they can produce and say 'well, on paper, I don't see it happening'. And if you were doing that, I wouldn't be griping about it...

...but it's a totally different thing to simply say 'there's no possible way that could've happened'. Because you don't know that some guy better at the job than you or I couldn't have come up with a way to make it happen.

tater

07-19-10, 11:44 PM

Yes, in the PTO. Yes, anywhere. The human race is damned good at finding ways around obstacles, shortages...difficulties of all types. It's one thing to look at the data of what they had and what they can produce and say 'well, on paper, I don't see it happening'. And if you were doing that, I wouldn't be griping about it...

...but it's a totally different thing to simply say 'there's no possible way that could've happened'. Because you don't know that some guy better at the job than you or I couldn't have come up with a way to make it happen.

They would, have to have cancelled Malaya to have extra oilers for the Kido Butai at PH. Even then, they'd measure their air support in days. Then there would be rearming into the bargain.

The DD escorts would have become a major drag had they started chasing sups around (DD endurance at flank is measured in hours for a full tank of oil).

Some things are, indeed, impossible. Others are incredibly implausible or unlikely. There are some fundamental limitations on what the IJN could have done at Hawaii. That's not even counting the pathological inter-service rivalry with the IJA. Another angle is well discussed in Shattered Sword. Doctrine matters. Any attempt to think of alternate scenarios needs to fall within IJN doctrinal norms.

Note that the Japanese eventually considered an invasion of hawaii. They were not prepared to even try until late 1942, and only after taking Midway (it was not considered for the start of the war at all—this is simple fact). Of course by late 1942, the US forces in Hawaii (ground troops) were grossly in excess of what they tossed around as the invasion force. We know how japanese invasions did against an enemy that actually fought them—Wake. And many Wake defenders were not even marines, but construction contractors. Had Lexington not been waved off, the attack that took the island would certainly have failed (we'd have evacuated the island, then, so they still get Wake).

Anyway, us talking about invading hawaii as a possibility only makes sense within the context of when we KNOW the IJN considered doing it. Any attempt before that is fantasy. The US brass certainly thought it was possible, and immediately beefed up defenses, but a coincident invasion with PH is not plausible, because the japanese did not plan, or do this. At some point I have to take their actual actions as a given, and the first few months of the war were "programmed" well in advanced of the start of hostilities.

Raptor1

07-20-10, 03:19 AM

They would, have to have cancelled Malaya to have extra oilers for the Kido Butai at PH. Even then, they'd measure their air support in days. Then there would be rearming into the bargain.

The DD escorts would have become a major drag had they started chasing sups around (DD endurance at flank is measured in hours for a full tank of oil).

Some things are, indeed, impossible. Others are incredibly implausible or unlikely. There are some fundamental limitations on what the IJN could have done at Hawaii. That's not even counting the pathological inter-service rivalry with the IJA. Another angle is well discussed in Shattered Sword. Doctrine matters. Any attempt to think of alternate scenarios needs to fall within IJN doctrinal norms.

Note that the Japanese eventually considered an invasion of hawaii. They were not prepared to even try until late 1942, and only after taking Midway (it was not considered for the start of the war at all—this is simple fact). Of course by late 1942, the US forces in Hawaii (ground troops) were grossly in excess of what they tossed around as the invasion force. We know how japanese invasions did against an enemy that actually fought them—Wake. And many Wake defenders were not even marines, but construction contractors. Had Lexington not been waved off, the attack that took the island would certainly have failed (we'd have evacuated the island, then, so they still get Wake).

Anyway, us talking about invading hawaii as a possibility only makes sense within the context of when we KNOW the IJN considered doing it. Any attempt before that is fantasy. The US brass certainly thought it was possible, and immediately beefed up defenses, but a coincident invasion with PH is not plausible, because the japanese did not plan, or do this. At some point I have to take their actual actions as a given, and the first few months of the war were "programmed" well in advanced of the start of hostilities.

The whole point is what would've happened had they thought of doing it earlier. You can't dismiss something as being impossible just because it didn't actually happen.

And there's no such thing as an impossibility in war. Something might be very unlikely, but there's never a guarantee that it will fail.

tater

07-20-10, 08:13 AM

They themselves considered it so implausible they didn't consider it. They knew their capabilities better than you or I.

The PH force had 8 tankers. The IJN had 9 total. The Kido Butai refueled roughly NNE of Midway on the 2d, over 2000 miles from Japan. Assuming the oilers sped home at 19 knots, they'd only take a ~7.5 days to make the round trip back to the middle of the Pacific. Add in some loading time, plus the fact that they'd have to zig-zag, and you start to see the problems. Dunno how going flank would use up their cargo, either, they'd not usually steam that fast, frankly.

Since that refueling point is in fact a few days NW of Hawaii (dec 2), that means that we should really consider the trip to be longer by a few days in each direction—they'd ant to refuel closer to the fleet. In that case we might add 3-4 days each way, so in effect we double the time to 2 weeks. This is using ALL their oilers but one, BTW, and we're folding in all the loading times, etc. This is a very optimistic number. So they'd need to operate 2 weeks at a stretch, thousands of miles from Japan. Note that the very same CVs were also required elsewhere for the japanese initial expansion—to the place the war was really about, the NEI (and oil).

Sorry, but they simply could not keep that many ships on station—which is why they didn't even consider it before the war. Also, the Dec 2 refuel was just oil for the ships. Some of them would need gas for the planes for later refueling, making it important to have more trips for the tankers.

Again, in all my comments up the thread, I said "after PH." Considering "what-ifs" that includes a totally different start of the war entirely, or a grossly different strategic plan is way beyond the scope of this thread. Might as well say "what if they pulled out of china, apologized, and joined the allies."

So for me, the "given" is at the very least the war plan they started with. Basically the first ~4-5 months when they were following the plan, before they came to the terra incognita of their plan. So you wanna suggest Hawaiian invasion, fine, but it's gotta come after the beginning of the war. They had an ambitious war plan, it's not like it didn't occur to them, it DID, but was dismissed—'cause they knew better.

Then there is still the fact that Hawaii would have been "a bridge too far" for the IJN to maintain...

Tribesman

07-20-10, 12:46 PM

Wholly defensive? Well what about Orde Wingate and the Chindits?

I just thought of them with the flying donkey topic.:up:

It isn't so much that it is a revisionist attitude to the Pacific and far eastern theatres, its just what they were at the time. Britains 14th were called the forgotten army, they came well down the line when it came to getting men and equipment. Likewise earlier Churchills far eastern "fortress" was starved of anything worthwhile for its defence.

What must be remembered is that the allies adopted a Germany first approach, they knew that Europe was the more important as it posed more of a threat while Japan simply because of the scale of the oceans and the vast tracts of inhospitable terrain meant that their potential expansion and devolpment would be more limited and harder to maintain.

So in short since the politicians and military at the time decided that the European theatre was more important it cannot be revisionism to say the european theatre was more important....In fact elevating the far eastern theatre over the European would be revisionism.

tater

07-20-10, 01:11 PM

I think the real point of the OP was more that at the sharp-end, the guys in the PTO had it every bit as hard, or sometimes harder than in the ETO. In addition, they were not fighting for a sideshow, or "nothing" but a significant theater of operations, with importance.

I think that is certainly true on both counts.

That is was secondary is simple fact, and that the ETO was judged to be less certain is also a fact. That those tasked with the PTO as primary responsibility—the USN under King—thought the PTO was not really in doubt as an issue in the longer term is also uncontroversial, and "simple fact." They thought so, and hence agreed with "Europe first."

It's important to remember that the UK was already on the ropes, and the invasion of the CCCP had the germans literally in the suburbs of Moscow at the time of PH (though on the 6th a major counter-offensive was taking place there).

Had Germany secured Soviet oil, she would have been far more of a threat than she was without it (make no mistake, WW2 was almost entirely about oil for Germany and Japan when it comes down to it (slightly more secondary for Germany, but they required Soviet oil since their efforts to get Turkey to join (path to middle east) kept failing).

Want to know my idea for the most plausible axis win scenario—assuming a total "do over?"

Germans secure Turkey as an ally. Invade Poland along with their co-belligerent pals the Soviets (people forget the CCCP was 100% in the wrong in ww2). UK/France declare war, BoF happens as it did. UK isolated, germany keeps US out of war, and goes for the middle east as primary object with the aid of Turkey. Japan attacks only the UK in the PTO, and unlike themselves is nice to those they "liberate." Their focus is India. Link with Axis in middle east.

PS—someone needs to go to ebay and buy that book!

CCIP

07-20-10, 01:47 PM

Germans secure Turkey as an ally. Invade Poland along with their co-belligerent pals the Soviets (people forget the CCCP was 100% in the wrong in ww2).

I don't know how far that would go. I think describing the Soviets as belligerent and '100%' wrong isn't totally accurate - Stalin was opportunist and, within the limits of his paranoia, pragmatic. For all the supposed 'friendship' with the Germans, there was a lot of dancing around in the middle of '39 where he probably would have preferred to have taken a stand on the other side, taking the German threat very seriously (and probably more so than the West, at least in '39) - just that he unrealistically expected the French and British to look the other way as far as the Baltic and Poland went. Here of course Hitler was the more natural choice to look the other way, but I think that 'friendship' was absolutely doomed to turn into open conflict on the catastrophic scale it ultimately ended up taking - the only question was when and who would start it. What would happen then is not a foregone conclusion, but the fact that this would absorb at least the German's focus for some time is a given. I don't think there was any way of avoiding a war on the Eastern Front, and whose favour a delay of a few months in its start would be is really anyone's guess...

As for Japan, I think it would've taken a real feat of pragmatism for them to give their Pacific strategy achievable goals. Their leaders were not really known for that. And for that matter, neither was Hitler. I think both the ETO and PTO have one thing in common - the axis side overplayed their hand.

tater

07-20-10, 04:39 PM

Invading Poland was wrong. Doing so was enough to garner a declaration of war vs Germany by the UK and France... why then not the CCCP?

Oberon

07-20-10, 05:02 PM

Survival. Hitler and Stalin were already in bed with each other in the eyes of the West, declaring war on the USSR as well as Nazi Germany would just tuck the quilt over them and give them a teddy bear.
Such differing ideologies would not stay friendly forever, and I'd wager that the west knew that sooner or later there would be a falling out between them.

Tater, your victory plans make sense but where do you factor the Soviet Union into it...I'm not so sure that Stalin would be willing to let the Nazis expand infinitely, although the longer he waited before striking the Germans the more powerful the Germans would have become.
I'd also wager eventual US involvement, bear in mind that by 1941 US destroyers are actively hunting uboats outside of US territorial waters. The lend-lease act of March '41 gave Roosevelt the ability to throw as much material at Britain as he could get away with and only the uboats could stop them. Bear in mind that although the uboat war was still tough for the UK, it was swinging slightly against Germany up until the US entered the war officially and the second Happy Times came about before the US got around to listening to British advice on how to run a convoy system. So, perhaps if US involvement came later in the war because Japan was focusing on the UK and Germany was in the Middle East instead of in the Soviet Union, it perhaps could have swung the Uboat war a bit more in the allies favour as the shipping lane opportunities dried up. It would, of course, also prolong the war, so you have a greater chance of equipment like the Type XXI and Me-262 making it into greater production...but I do ponder how much of an effect they would have had.
The long and the short of it though, it all boils down to the Soviet Union. Once they are fully mobilised, Germany needs to be as ready as it can be to fight off the hordes and then push back to Moscow. However, the Soviets have the advantage of being able to set the timetable of the war if they attacked first.

Long post...and completely off the original topic so I shall draw it to a close here...but I do enjoy alternate history and exploring different outcomes. :yep:

CCIP

07-20-10, 05:14 PM

Invading Poland was wrong. Doing so was enough to garner a declaration of war vs Germany by the UK and France... why then not the CCCP?

I'd actually dug deep into that question - wrote a paper about it based on diplomatic documents from that period. The short answer is that the Soviets were actually the ones who requested a exactly that kind of arrangement (i.e. protection pact with Britain/France/Poland) to be made back during March '39. Part of this arrangement required Soviet troops to be stationed on Polish territory as defensive deterrent. While that seems like a cynical grab in some regard (it partially probably was), I read a series of letters sent by the British military attaches in Moscow, who assessed the Soviet military capabilities and stated in no uncertain terms that strategically and tactically, it would make no sense for the Soviets to arrange for any kind of mutual defense unless Poland agreed to basing Soviet forces on their own territory. Seeing how the only way from Germany to the USSR was via Poland, what did Soviets have to gain in peacetime by signing up against Germany? And trying to re-base and establish defensive positions in Poland while Germany was invading would've been potentially disastrous. Stalin did not want to risk massive military losses, or a war with Germany to defend a country that refused to allow Soviets to reinforce their defense in the first place.

It's easy to see why Poland didn't exactly fancy Soviet troops on its territory, but (and this is right from British assessments in '39, not my own) there really was no way around it. The French and the British had signed a binding protection pact with Poland, so there was legal basis for them to act when Germany moved. The Soviets had no legal basis to do so. It would've been basically unconstitutional, not to mention (from their view) strategically unwise, for them to take action against Germany at that point

So, since the Soviets' first objective at the time was not to compromise their own strategic position and risk war that would risk Soviet territory being under attack, they behaved totally as they should have in that scenario. It would take Poland's agreement to Soviet conditions for mutual defense, and this agreement never happened. You don't defend someone who refuses your conditions and also openly does not like you (rightly or wrongly) - simple as that.

NB - none of this excuses Soviet actions after the German invasion of Poland of course. That was rightly criminal.

tater

07-20-10, 06:56 PM

Interesting, my area of interest is the PTO, so this is cool.

So to be clear, did the Poles, or did they not invite Soviet troops into Poland? IMO, there is a word for uninvited troops in one's country, it's called "invasion."

Understanding WHY they did so doesn't excuse it since it involved attacking another country.

From wiki:
In early 1939, the Soviet Union entered into negotiations with the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Romania to establish an alliance against Nazi Germany. The negotiations failed when the Soviet Union insisted that Poland and Romania give Soviet troops transit rights through their territory as part of a collective security agreement.[7] The failure of those negotiations led the Soviet Union to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August; this was a non-aggression pact containing a secret protocol dividing Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[8] One week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited French and British support and relief they were expecting. The Soviet Red Army invaded the Kresy, in accordance with the secret protocol, on 17 September.[9][Note 5] The Soviet government announced it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the Nazi German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens.[12][13][14][15] Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded that the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania.[1]

Seems pretty indefensible to me.