TIMJOT
Posts: 1822
Joined: 4/30/2001 Status: offline
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quote:
Originally posted by byron: The only dog I have in this fight is the proposition that, if the Japanese attacked the U.S., they had to capture the Philippines. I'll let the other folks defend the idea that either the U.S. had to be attacked or that Japan had to attack the Philippines for political reasons.
If I were a Japanese staff officer, and I saw that the navy was going to strike Pearl Harbor, I would try to put myself in the shoes of my adversary. I would know that America would be in the war, but I would not know how much damage would be done at Pearl Harbor - heck, the fleet may have been spotted before it reached Hawaii. I would also know that the P.I. contained the largest American bases west of Hawaii, that it was governed by an American governor general, and that there were numerous American farming and business interests there. I would believe that, once war started, America would not voluntarily abandon the Philippines if it were not captured outright. After all, what were the 100,000+ soldiers going to do? Swim home? Would the American public allow the military to surrender a possession they considered to be theirs without a fight? No, the Americans would stay as long as Japan left them there.
The Army Air Corps was largely destroyed on December 8th, but the Japanese didn't know that would happen. Pearl Harbor was completely successful, but the Japanese didn't know that would happen either. The Japanese had no other choice than to plan for a still dangerous adversary that could resupply the Philippines.
When the military situation became untenable for the Americans, due entirely to defeats on land, the puny fleet was withdrawn. If the Americans weren't forced to leave, would they have left some ships and aircraft there that could be a hindrance to my operations? I think so. The Japanese would have been hard pressed to eliminate the U.S. raiding activity by sea and air by patrolling over 7000 islands covering an area as large as Delaware, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Maryland put together. Much of this area was beyond the range of their aircraft - unless of course they captured airfields in the P.I.
By not taking the P.I., the Japanese are leaving what is essentially a safe zone for America to exploit any time it wants. Run a couple of destroyers up there from Australia and raid convoys based on real-time information passed down by the airplanes launched from the Philippines. Weather's bad? No problem: just drop anchor off of island #5,349 until the weather passes and then get on with sinking Marus. How about shuttling B17's in and out? Its about 2400 miles from California to Hawaii, but only 1400 miles from northern Australia to the southern Philippines. Wouldn't that be fun? Fly up at night, refuel and then go wandering around the sea lanes for a day or two before flying back to Australia. Heck, just base some PBY's out of there; they could land anywhere and, with a range of 2,500 miles and a flight endurance of 20 hours, they could sure do a lot of scouting and drop the occasional bomb on a tanker. Why bother with the Doolittle raid? You can send Catalinas up to Japan every night. Yeah, that'll make the Japanese military popular with the masses. And, since most of the repair facilities at Clark and Manila Bay weren't destroyed and have been moved, the Americans now have full round-the-clock maintenance facilities for your repair pleasure if you need them.
Let's face it guys, if you don't control the land mass and all you have to face is air and naval patrols, it not much different than operating out of any forward base during the war. Supply would certainly be a problem, but the Japanese wouldn't want a Henderson Field right in the middle of their backyard. Have fun finding and destroying in an area the size of New England the 3 PBY's that are telling American intelligence all about your fleet movements. And the American army has nothing to do all day long but build fortifications and keep training a very large Filipino army with supplies dropped at night (don't have to worry too much about being accurate since there are 20 million friendlies to help police up the bundles - and no Japanese). The Americans couldn't wait to break through to the P.I. because - hey! There's a whole Filipino army just waiting to get into the fight once it is given modern weapons. Oh, and the 80,000 Americans that were captured are now fit for duty. Thanks, Japan, for letting America keep a forward air base garrisoned by 100,000 American soldiers that would have otherwise been captured. I was afraid that I would have to recapture it after a long and bloody fight.
All I gotta say is that I wish I were in charge of Philippine operations if the Japanese weren't going to invade. I would've made your lives miserable to the point that you would've had to invade - and against a much better prepared army, too.
Byron I completely agree with you that if Japan and the US are at war than the PI must be taken. Its a no brainer one only have to look at the map. My only contention was that initiating a war with the US was not neccessary to accomplish Japanese aims. However that being said and assumeing that the US and Japan are at war. The best strategy in IMHO would have been not to attack Pearl but do attack and cut off the PI then sit back and let the US Pacific Fleet come to you and destroy it in a decisive battle of your choosing. But that assumes that the Japanese new just how superior there carrier arm was and that the day of the BB's were over. Two things they had no way of knowing at that time. Except for Yamamoto who belived as much, which makes it even more unexplicable that he felt it so neccessary to sink those BB's at Pearl. In fact he was against building the Yamato class BB's because he was so sure the days of the BB was over.
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