How Yamamoto screwed the poochFollow

The title got me so hopeful.

Also, FDR wouldn't have let them attack Pearl Harbor if he thought they'd take the islands. All he was looking for was an excuse to get into the war.

Go on...


On the "happier" question:

1. At least they weren't white?
2. Significant population of Japanese descent?


These are questions, not statements.

Really hoping for Pikko to chime in on this one, as she may have a better idea of how wrong I am on these particular issues.

You're old enough to have seen some of the propaganda that was being used around that era. Any more resolve and they'd have installed German easy-bake ovens in the detainment camps.

You're forgetting a couple of things here.

The Japanese attack was by air, the aircraft carriers/boats never really got that close. in order to bring in troops, they'd have had to add a rather large number of troop transports to the convoy and as it was, they were already lucky to get by unnoticed. I think landing troops in Hawaii would've been far more difficult than you're thinking.

I'll give this a shot.


While assaulting and capturing Pearl Harbour and the rest of the Hawaiian islands would have been quite the glancing blow against the US, it was not the aim of he attack. The attack didn't even achieve it's main goal, which was to completely cripple the US Navy stationed at Pearl Harbour. The increasingly important aircraft carriers weren't in port during the attack and the Japanese missed a great chance to knock the Navy out for quite a while longer than it ended up doing. They did manage to sink some battleships though, which, by the end of the war, were far from the most important kind of naval vessel.

Anyway, the thing about the idea of the Japanese capturing Hawaii, is that it's actually somewhat plausible. The Us Navy would be forced to sail out of ports on the west coast, and the Japanese would have the freedom to do what they want in the central and western pacific(seeing as they proved very quickly how England, France and the Dutch were completely unable to defend their holdings in the area).

However, when I hear about the plausibility of it, I never hear anyone mention thee fact that such an operation would seriously weaken Japanese military power elsewhere, especially after the inevitability of the Allies coming back, probably in '43. Considering the way the Japanese fought in the war, tens of thousands of both Japanese and Allied soldiers would have been killed both in the initial attacks, and in the case of the Allies re-taking of the Islands.

On the domestic side of things, knowing what we do about Japanese brutality during the war, I see no possibility of the vast majority of the civilians on the island liking Japanese rule.

In any case, the war would have ended the same way. The Japanese really just didn't have the resources to take and maintain control of the Pacific. The allies, on the other hand, had more than enough resources to fight their way across the ocean and bring the Japanese mainland under siege. Like we did.

Back to the hypotheticals, if Germany was in a better position and had finished its untersee-mannschaftswagen, then there would be a stronger hypothetical. Having hidden landing craft pre-positioned would be a huge advantage, making it much cheaper (strategically) to take and hold rather than harass. It also offers the possibility of naval blitzing which would have been a strong counter to the large area of the US naval and coastal holdings.

If the Western portion of the War had proceeded less terribly it would have been an option further out on the timetable.

@ gbaji. yes, that is a fine counterpoint to the reality of the war. What I'm aiming for here is a viable (if the IJM had thought it out) alternative. They had the resources, just not the foresight.

Edited, Dec 7th 2011 4:24pm by Bijou

What gbaji and I are pointing out is that they couldn't have done it. They never had the resources to do it. They couldn't simply add more boats to the fleet during the attack without getting spotted and thereby, not being able to make the surprise attack. Thewy would have had to fight to even get close to Pearl.

They weren't capable, that's the point.

Ok. Here's what likely would have happened. First possibility: Japanese forces delay the air attack to coordinate with the invasion force:

Once the Japanese fleet got within a couple hundred miles of Hawaii, they would have been spotted. At that point, the islands would have gone on high alert. All the personnel would have gone to their defensive positions. Anti-aircraft guns would have been manned, aircraft would have been launched, fast moving ships would have been deployed in a picket. By the time the Japanese could have attacked they would have met stiff resistance instead of total surprise. The larger fleet ships would still have been in harbor (takes quite some time to get them up and moving), but would not have been nearly as defenseless. The low flying torpedo ships would not have been nearly as effective, and the higher flying dive bombers would have had to get through a large amount of defensive air power. In all likelihood, the attack would have been a failure, ground forces would have barely been able to land much less been able to effectively capture any ground. It would have had all the negatives of an attack on the US, but with none of the positives of actually hurting our military. And the cost would have been massive for the Japanese.

Second possibility: Japan makes the same surprise attack it did historically, but then follows it up a half day or so later with an amphibious assault on the islands.

This is presumably what you're thinking of. They just bring some troops transports and then take advantage of the chaos and destruction their surprise strike caused to land troops and take the islands. This is good in theory, but is problematic. Remember that they launched from several hundred miles away in order to avoid detection. This was sufficient for waves of attacks, but they were pretty much at the end of their effective safe attacking range (ie: they could not loiter around the battle, but had to strike and then return). But it would take the better part of a day for the fleet elements needed to land a ground assault to arrive at the islands. Yamamoto actually called off a planned third wave because air defenses in Hawaii were starting to respond and the cost/benefit of another wave wasn't worth it (fewer high value targets and more likelihood of losses to their own forces). The air attacks did not focus on island defenses, but on the fleet and air bases. It didn't need to because they counted on surprise to avoid having to deal with those defenses. Had they attempted to cover both, they'd have done less damage to the naval infrastructure, possibly very little. Remember, this was all about resources expended compared to costs to the enemy. They could have gone all in, but it also very likely would have ended in disaster. Hawaii did have a significant number of military personnel. By the time a full invasion could have occurred in this scenario, those forces would have been fully prepared. Even just a whole bunch of armed guys manning artillery and anti-aircraft weapons would have been sufficient to make any assault incredibly expensive.


I just don't think that they *could* have sent sufficient forces and been able to successfully take the islands. And, as I pointed out earlier, even if they had, they did not have the resources to maintain Hawaii as a military base. The US would have still rebuilt its fleet and the first place they'd have retaken would have been Hawaii. The idea that Japan would have maintained a fleet presence in Hawaii is interesting, and it's possible they could have made life very "interesting" for the US west coast, but it really does come down to the sheer distance. Hawaii was just too far for Japan to maintain with the capabilities of that day.

Japan was much better off doing what they tried to do. Had they been able to consolidate the South Pacific completely (specifically taking even portions of Australia), they could have similarly prevented the US from being able to do anything. The distance issue applies in reverse as well. The fact that Japan was not able to consolidate in the South Pacific shows that they certainly could not have done so in Hawaii. The same problems would have existed for them (failure to prevent us from supplying and using Australia and other islands as bases), but would have been much worse since they'd have had to keep significant resources in such a precarious position in Hawaii.


If Japan had possessed significantly greater resources, they could (and perhaps should) have taken and held Hawaii. But then again, if they'd possessed those resources, they wouldn't have needed to attack in the first place. Their entire reason for war was to gain access to greater resources they felt were needed to create an empire. The attack on Hawaii was intended to buy them the time to do so without US interference, and frankly it worked about as well as one could have hoped. Since that still wasn't enough to prevent defeat, it's hard to imagine any other scenario they could have tried which would have altered the ultimate outcome.

Yup. So the issue hinged not on choices made with regard to the attack on Peal Harbor, but with the management of the resources they'd spent so much effort to obtain. Now we could play the "what if Japan had utilized those resources better" game, but that's an entirely different question. I still say that had they done that, they would not have felt the need to attack the US. They had what they wanted, and could have simply held the territory they'd gained against US intervention and done everything they could to avoid war. The reality is that they still felt that they didn't have sufficient resources and the US was standing in their way.

So I think we need a new plan. Next time a country wants to take us on, 'stead of sending bombs, let's try this: Send everyone in the country a color television and a satellite dish. And give 'em the basic package, not HBO — screw those people. And before the war starts, we make them all sit down. "Okay, we'll go to war with you. You want a piece of us, fine, fine. Before we go, I want you guys to understand us a little better, so you have to sit down and watch ESPN2 for 24 hours. 'Cause you watch ESPN2 for a full day, you're gonna understand America a lot better. 'Hi, we're America! We build monster trucks ... for fun! We developed the top fuel dragster, zero to three hundred thirty miles an hour in under five seconds, cause, pfft, we were bored. Piss us off, heh, and see what we build! And we may feel bad about it later! Ask Japan. But before we feel bad ... we're gonna jack you up! And then we're gonna send you FOOD! 'Cause we're America; We're schizophrenic. Don't mess with a nation that needs medication!'"

Yeah, welcome to the point.

Then there's your answer. If they'd had those resources available directly for their war effort, they would not have needed to attack the US at all. Your initial question is therefore somewhat pointless. Japan's reason for attacking us at Pearl Harbor was entirely to create sufficient breathing room so that they could consolidate those resources and utilize them to solidify their control over the region without US interference.

A bit less dismissive argument is that japan would have been much better off simply using those resources to build military assets to defend the sphere it was interested in. It could therefore have acted with impunity in the area and challenged the US to do something about it. In all probability we would *not* have intervened in that case, exactly because attempting to engage in a military action that far away would not have been feasible. It was because Japan didn't have those resources that the US could continue intervening (without actually starting a full war), which led to the decision to attack Pearl Harbor. If they'd had sufficient forces to do the type of invasion you're talking about, they could have simply driven US forces out of bases in the region and then laughed at the US fleet sitting on the other side of the ocean and unable to do anything about it.


The lack of those resources drove that decision. It's why they were unwilling to engage the US in the South Pacific in any direct way. They saw the fleet in Hawaii as a big enough threat that they needed to destroy it prior to taking any direct action. Sufficient military force would have made that unnecessary.

I've played a couple outstanding games as Japan against a lackluster US player. You absolutely can take Australia and Hawaii. Eventually, you can take Alaska and toss some air strikes against the west coast of the US. But the game ends (ie: you win) long before you're really in a position to invade the US mainland. I suppose if you deliberately stretch things out and are playing against a particularly crappy player, you could take the US as Japan. But the objectives of the game at least put much more of a focus on crunching Russia once you have established superior naval forces in the Pacific.

I think I might have landed forces on the West Coast in a game once. Been a long time since I played regularly though, so my memory is kinda fuzzy. I know that even a semi-decent player can prevent Japan from really doing anything directly against the US. It's all about control of the Pacific islands and it's really hard for either player to push past that. The game is somewhat biased towards an eventual US win though. If the US and Japan players are similarly skilled and make no significant mistakes (and their allies don't screw up too badly), the US can eventually push Japan back and start bombing the main islands. But it takes a really long time and most games end with the US still bombing Japan to weaken its defenses enough to even contemplate an assault.

It's by far the most fun total WW2 board game though. Loved playing that back in the day.

Yamamoto said that a lion needs to use all of it's strength to kill a rabbit. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a brilliant strategic move. However, the mistakes made by Japan and the carrier force enabled the United States to be in the war right away. They missed the US Carriers. (They were out on training) They did do damage to the Battleships in port. Most were very outdated and due for retrofitting. They didn't sink most of the cruisers and destroyers. They completely missed the fleets oil storage tanks. The biggest mistake was enraging the United States. It was just a scant few months later and Doolittle bombed Tokyo with bombers launched from the very carriers the first Japanese attack missed.