Remember Pearl Harbor

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by August

and from Midway they can hit the Hawaiian islands.

I think Midway in Japanese hands would have made for a lousy advanced base. It is less than three square miles of land, had zero fresh water, is possessed of only a relatively small harbor, and has room for but one small airfield. At best it could operate an air contingent of about 90-100 aircraft. In other words, there was absolutely no chance of using Midway as the sort of major logistics center (think Truk or Rabaul) for further operations down the Hawaiian chain. Midway was, at best, an outpost.

Second, Midway is too far from Hawaii. Even if the Japanese had been able to install an airgroup at Midway, and keep it supplied, it had no chance of exerting a powerful influence on Hawaii, since it is nearly 1,300 miles from Oahu. During the later Solomons campaign, the Japanese (who had the longest-ranged fighter in the Pacific in the A6M5 Zero) found it nearly impossible to exert air power from Rabaul to Guadalcanal, which was 650 miles away. If seized by the Japanese it likely would have shared the fate of that other US outpost, Wake Island. Isolated and bypassed by war's end with a starving garrison. Even Nimitz didn't use Midway as a base in his Central Pacific Offensive. He usually staged out of Pearl harbor.

Later in the war the US was able to build up Midway into a respectable submarine fueling depot, but only by investing the sort of heavy engineering resources, (bulldozers, dredgers, steamshovels ) that Japan always sorely lacked.

[August]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

I think Midway in Japanese hands would have made for a lousy advanced base. It is less than three square miles of land, had zero fresh water, is possessed of only a relatively small harbor, and has room for but one small airfield. At best it could operate an air contingent of about 90-100 aircraft. In other words, there was absolutely no chance of using Midway as the sort of major logistics center (think Truk or Rabaul) for further operations down the Hawaiian chain. Midway was, at best, an outpost.

Second, Midway is too far from Hawaii. Even if the Japanese had been able to install an airgroup at Midway, and keep it supplied, it had no chance of exerting a powerful influence on Hawaii, since it is nearly 1,300 miles from Oahu. During the later Solomons campaign, the Japanese (who had the longest-ranged fighter in the Pacific in the A6M5 Zero) found it nearly impossible to exert air power from Rabaul to Guadalcanal, which was 650 miles away. If seized by the Japanese it likely would have shared the fate of that other US outpost, Wake Island. Isolated and bypassed by war's end with a starving garrison. Even Nimitz didn't use Midway as a base in his Central Pacific Offensive. He usually staged out of Pearl harbor.

Later in the war the US was able to build up Midway into a respectable submarine fueling depot, but only by investing the sort of heavy engineering resources, (bulldozers, dredgers, steamshovels ) that Japan always sorely lacked.

I would think that Midway would have been a good place to base bombers which would be used to strike at shipping and possibly support landings on the Hawaiian islands themselves, not as a substitute for Rabaul.

I do agree that it would have been difficult to support this base. Certainly easier though if the US carriers were sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by August

I do agree that it would have been difficult to support this base. Certainly easier though if the US carriers were sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

One of the many objections the Japanese General Naval Staff raised to Yamamoto's 1942 plan to capture the atoll were logistical. The Japanese merchant marine was already overtaxed. Given that there were no resources on Midway even vaguely worth transporting home, those merchant ships supplying Midway would have to return home empty in ballast. Every mile traveled in ballast, of course, lowers the overall efficiency of Japan's merchant fleet further. Even if US carriers were sunk and gone, US submarines will still be present, so such a long supply line would require escort as well.

Another objection raised was the island's vulnerability to US 4-engined bombers operating out of Hawaii. Midway was so small that dispersing aircraft on the ground would be difficult and Zeros later in the war found the up-gunned B-17s a tough nut to crack in the air. This raised the specter of suffering outsized aircraft losses on the ground in the event of US bombing.

In short, I think Midway would have had some propaganda value for a time had the Japanese captured it. But then so did the Aleutians for a short while, until the Japanese gave up the venture there.