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Getting into WWII


Dantankerous

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If in 1941 Hawaii had either not been a US territory or had we not had a naval base there would Japan have had the gonads to attack our West Coast inviting us into World War II or would the US have not been provoked therefore not participated in the war, changing the entire outcome of Western civilization? How long would we have stood by while the Nazis wreaked havoc on Europe?

 

 Any of you history buffs care to opine?

 

 

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I see it the same as Buckshot Bob.

 

Japan seem to be intent on getting the U.S. to change some of its trade policies with Japan because one of those policies directly effected

the amount of OIL Japan had to continue its functions, one of which was military stuff.

 

The Japanese were hoping that the U.S. would basically back up and say..... 'We're sorry.   Don't attack us again and we will give you more oil".

 

That is my unofficial opinion about it.

 

..........Widder

 

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1 hour ago, Dantankerous said:

If in 1941 Hawaii had either not been a US territory or had we not had a naval base there would Japan have had the gonads to attack our West Coast inviting us into World War II or would the US have not been provoked therefore not participated in the war, changing the entire outcome of Western civilization? How long would we have stood by while the Nazis wreaked havoc on Europe?

 

 Any of you history buffs care to opine?

 

 

Yeah, the Japanese would have came after the fleet on the West Coast for the reasons mentioned above along with their belief that we were too soft to face them- the true followers of bushido- in war.

 

As for Europe, I think that it would have taken a LOT to sway public opinion to our joining the war on Germany.  The Germans weren't seen as a threat to us and we were making money supplying the Euros (not just the Brits but the French, Dutch and Belgians, too) and the Russians with planes, trucks and arms.

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The lack of a US presence in the Pacific would have changed the geopolitical scene completely. The attack on Pearl was to eliminate any possible military intervention buy the US into Japan’s Asian aggression and expanding sphere of influence. If Hawaii had not been a base then we can assume the threat of US Naval action would have been negligible. A large scale operation against the West coast was beyond the capabilities of the Japanese military at the time. 
EDIT: Had the Hawaiian islands not been a U.S. base, the Japanese could have established their own. That would have eventually enabled them to strike at the mainland
 

War would have been inevitable of course but it probably would have been delayed by several years and the outcome might have been different.

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1 hour ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:


 

War would have been inevitable of course but it probably would have been delayed by several years and the outcome might have been different.

When I was in HS , history class always laid out our victory in the pacific as a eventuality. As I got older and read more about the war in the pacific it was scary to see how close things really were 

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The things we can learn here in the SALOON, are amazing! :o

You can search the WWW all you want, but reading actual war experiences from our Vet Pards, along with imparting their military knowledge is GOLDEN. ;)

Many THANKS. :FlagAm:

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26 minutes ago, Buckshot Bob said:

When I was in HS , history class always laid out our victory in the pacific as a eventuality. As I got older and read more about the war in the pacific it was scary to see how close things really were 

It is my opinion that we can thank two factors that were perhaps the most important for overall victory in the war.

Number 1:The resistance of Britain which gave us a logistical advantage, enabling the invasions of Africa and France. Germany, the most dangerous adversary, needed to be defeated first. Churchill and FDR were correct in that strategy which brings us to 

Number 2: Hitlers mental illness (and drug use) led him to destroy the best trained, equipped and experienced military since the Roman Empire in ill advised campaigns in N Africa and Russia. Had he maintained his non aggression pact with the Soviets. He could have had Europe to himself for many years. 
 

The war in the pacific would have most likely been won by us in any event. If the Germans had taken Britain there probably would have been an Armistice. Hitler may have had designs on the US but a cross ocean invasion would not have been feasible. All our strength would have been directed to the Pacific  unless Germany wanted a major investment to assist Japan which, given Hitlers rabid racism, seems unlikely. We would have prevailed. 
Then an interesting international chessboard would have resulted in some crazy times in the 1950s. 

But I’ll leave that to the writers of Speculative Fiction. :D

 

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5 minutes ago, Badlands Bob #61228 said:

What "if" the carriers had been at port in Pearl Harbor during the attack.  The Japanese may have actually attained their goal by eliminating the U.S. Pacific fleet for the next couple of years.

Yes, the Japanese would have had the Pacific to themselves for awhile. But they simply didn’t have the resources to defeat the US. Even as a second front using limited resources, we had soundly defeated them by 45. For them, it seems a David/Goliath scenario without a happy ending. 

(As Insee it they refought the war later in the cinema using Godzilla as a surrogate USA. They fought valiantly and won that time) 

We might have had it a bit easier if Doug hadn’t had his head up his ass.

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Biggest mistake the Japanese made was not following up the Pearl Harbor attack. The fuel storage facilities were left intact and much of the infrastructure that made it a functional Naval base wasn't severely damaged. Not knowing the whereabouts of US carriers, the Japanese were afraid to risk its fleet with a second attack, which underscores how thinly stretched their capabilities were even at the start of the war. Pearl Harbor was back in operation in short order and things went downhill for Japan exactly 6 months later at Midway.

 

From everything I've read, the only Japanese objective was to clear the Pacific of the US fleet as they believed the US wouldn't think it worth fighting for. There was never an intent to invade the continental US as even they understood they didn't have that capability.

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5 minutes ago, Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 said:

IF

Utter nosense to discuss such a big IF.

Not nonsense at all. Unless it takes you away from some productive activity, which in my case it doesn’t. ;)
We are simply re-examining historical events. Something that all military and statesmen do all the time.

 

Now if someone asks “What if the “Japanese had particle beam weapons?”, I’m out. :D

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Just now, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Not nonsense at all. Unless it takes you away from some productive activity, which in my case it doesn’t. ;)

 

Right now I am looking out the window.  That is a more productive activity.  ;)

 

Shall we get back into the big debate over what would have happened IF Custer had taken his Gatling Guns to the Little Big Horn?

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3 minutes ago, Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 said:

 

Right now I am looking out the window.  That is a more productive activity.  ;)

 

Shall we get back into the big debate over what would have happened IF Custer had taken his Gatling Guns to the Little Big Horn?

Sure. :)

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And I’m looking out the window too. Multi tasking. :P

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2 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

The lack of a US presence in the Pacific would have changed the geopolitical scene completely. The attack on Pearl was to eliminate any possible military intervention buy the US into Japan’s Asian aggression and expanding sphere of influence. If Hawaii had not been a base then we can assume the threat of US Naval action would have been negligible. A large scale operation against the West coast was beyond the capabilities of the Japanese military at the time. 
EDIT: Had the Hawaiian islands not been a U.S. base, the Japanese could have established their own. That would have eventually enabled them to strike at the mainland
 

War would have been inevitable of course but it probably would have been delayed by several years and the outcome might have been different.

 

But the question is, would the Japanese still have attacked the Philippines if the US Pacific Fleet had been based on the West Coast instead of Pearl Harbor?

 

If they do, we get dragged into the war in the same time frame, but with bigger logistical issues.  One of the things I read recently was that the US Navy did not have enough tankers at the beginning of the war.  This prevented the use of the older battleships due to their high fuel consumption.

 

It wasn't until June of 1943 when the US Navy started to receive Essex & Independence class aircraft carriers, the Iowa class battleships and the modern heavy & light cruisers.

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Japan is a relatively small nation with limited resources, that had wanted to be a larger nation since the Jap-Ruso war.  Getting bogged down in China (some 900k troops involved) while attacking Pearl Harbor, the Phillipines, Singapore and other islands in a matter of months was just as detrimental as the carriers not being at Pearl.  

Much like the Confederacy, they started out with supremely capable warriors, especially pilots, but their small population meant that they could not replace lost warriors like 'poked awakened bear'.

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5 hours ago, Tom Bullweed said:

Japan is a relatively small nation with limited resources, that had wanted to be a larger nation since the Jap-Ruso war.  Getting bogged down in China (some 900k troops involved) while attacking Pearl Harbor, the Phillipines, Singapore and other islands in a matter of months was just as detrimental as the carriers not being at Pearl.  

Much like the Confederacy, they started out with supremely capable warriors, especially pilots, but their small population meant that they could not replace lost warriors like 'poked awakened bear'.

 

From Japan's perspective they were a small nation with limited resources surrounded by much larger, more powerful nations and empires.  Combine that with the militaristic mind set of the rulers of the country, it had no choice then to try and become a great power as well.

 

Japan went from a feudal society to a major regional power in less than 100 years, a remarkable achievement being a small nation with limited resources.

 

 

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I've heard and read that many believe the U.S. manipulated Japan into starting the war with their (U.S. ) political policies.

I don't know what all those policies included, but it is an interesting thought.

 

..........Widder

 

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37 minutes ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

I've heard and read that many believe the U.S. manipulated Japan into starting the war with their (U.S. ) political policies.

I don't know what all those policies included, but it is an interesting thought.

 

..........Widder

 

Basically The US stopped selling oil and steel to Japan due to their increased aggression in Asia. They were not manipulated and would have eventually forced the US into conflict. The conspiracy theories have been around forever. 

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1 hour ago, Chantry said:

 

But the question is, would the Japanese still have attacked the Philippines if the US Pacific Fleet had been based on the West Coast instead of Pearl Harbor?

 

If they do, we get dragged into the war in the same time frame, but with bigger logistical issues.  One of the things I read recently was that the US Navy did not have enough tankers at the beginning of the war.  This prevented the use of the older battleships due to their high fuel consumption.

 

It wasn't until June of 1943 when the US Navy started to receive Essex & Independence class aircraft carriers, the Iowa class battleships and the modern heavy & light cruisers.

Certainly. The Philippines was a resource-rich target. Are we assuming that The Philippines was also not under us control?

If we are assuming that Hawaii was not a US protectorate and an independent nation, it also would have been targeted to establish a base. It might have been a race to see who could occupy Hawaii first. 

Now if we begin to speculate about Wake, Guam, Midway,  etc, the rabbit hole would be to deep for me or even a tunnel rat to go down.

What if’s, while providing mental exercise, can also lead to confusion, headaches, and heavy drinking. :D

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Japan had already taken Manchuria and expanded the Sino-Japanese war to take Beijing, Shanghai, the atrocities at Nanking, and then Wuhan... and continued south into Indochina.  Finally we froze their assets and cut off all oil shipments.  Japan depended on us for 90% of their oil imports.  In negotiations, we told them they would have to give it all back and withdraw completely from China... knowing they would never do so.

 

Japan, with it's dreams of colonialism, to be just like the British, knew that the U.S. was the only true obstacle to their dreams of establishing a Pacific Empire.  They thought that by destroying the American fleet, including the carriers, they could force the U.S. to eventually negotiate favorable terms instead of a long war.   They were wrong.

 

If the U.S Fleet was not at Pearl, would they have struck the West Coast?  The Japanese would have invaded Pearl Harbor and made it a Imperial Navy and Air Base.  Then we either would have gone to war, or be open to attack from the new base in Hawaii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

s

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2 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Not nonsense at all. Unless it takes you away from some productive activity, which in my case it doesn’t. ;)
We are simply re-examining historical events. Something that all military and statesmen do all the time.

 

Now if someone asks “What if the “Japanese had particle beam weapons?”, I’m out. :D

Are you aware that when Little Boy exploded over Hiroshima, the head of the Japanese nuclear program (which had been transferred to the area around the Chosen Resevoir in Korea to escape our firebomb raids) knew exactly what it was!  Given another six months, Japan might have had at least a dirty bomb, if not a fission device of their own, which could have wreaked havoc with our fleets!  :o

 

If you want an interesting read about Pearl Harbor and our entry into WWII, get ahold of "The Pearl Harbor Secret" by Dr. (USA LTC ret.) Sewall Menzel.  

Stay well and safe, Pards!

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There is a striking parallel between the American expansion into the West, and the Japanese expansion across the South Pacific.
The barbarous methods were identical.. but somehow our methods were OK in the West, but the same methods in the South Pacific were not.

My Dad was the OTD of the California when it was sunk at Pearl.
He said it was a setup, and was quite bitter about walking across the "guts and brains of his shipmates" after they cut him out of the ship.

I also understand after the surrender, our folks found anthrax bombs ready to deliver to our West coast, some two weeks later than the pair of bombs were dropped.
 

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3 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Not nonsense at all. Unless it takes you away from some productive activity, which in my case it doesn’t. ;)
We are simply re-examining historical events. Something that all military and statesmen do all the time.

 

Now if someone asks “What if the “Japanese had particle beam weapons?”, I’m out. :D

Since you’re locked up , this was interesting, If there’s any truth to it Hitler didn’t give up 

https://www.history.com/shows/hunting-hitler

 

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I wonder in the high echelons of the US power wielders in the White House in late '45 and '46 if it was ever discussed for the US to be ONLY the ever country to have nukes......it would have been a different world if the US had been able to stop Red Russia and Red China from being nuclear powers.....there was a slim time frame.

 

Imagine if Japan or Germany had won the race for the bomb.

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3 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

I wonder in the high echelons of the US power wielders in the White House in late '45 and '46 if it was ever discussed for the US to be ONLY the ever country to have nukes......it would have been a different world if the US had been able to stop Red Russia and Red China from being nuclear powers.....there was a slim time frame.

 

Imagine if Japan or Germany had won the race for the bomb.

The Manhattan Project was the most secret operation in the history of the US. They had significant intelligence on the German atomic program. The US/Canadian First Special Service Force was created with the express purpose of destroying the German heavy water facility in Norway. Intel on the Japanese plans was spotty but no doubt the top people knew that inevitably it would be an international issue.

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3 minutes ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

The Manhattan Project was the most secret operation in the history of the US. They had significant intelligence on the German atomic program. The US/Canadian First Special Service Force was created with the express purpose of destroying the German heavy water facility in Norway. Intel on the Japanese plans was spotty but no doubt the top people knew that inevitably it would be an international issue.

 

There was that slim timeframe when the US was the only nuclear power in the world and the Japanese and Germans had been beaten. Its an interesting thought to think it would have been a different world if the US had been able to stop Red Russia and Red China from becoming nuclear powers.

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15 minutes ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

The Manhattan Project was the most secret operation in the history of the US. They had significant intelligence on the German atomic program. The US/Canadian First Special Service Force was created with the express purpose of destroying the German heavy water facility in Norway. Intel on the Japanese plans was spotty but no doubt the top people knew that inevitably it would be an international issue.

 

All this time, I was thinking that Area 51 was the most secret operation..... :o

All these years of hiding aliens and flying saucers and such..... ;)

 

And how about Godzilla always hanging around Japan and not any other country?

 

..........Widder

 

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18 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

There was that slim timeframe when the US was the only nuclear power in the world and the Japanese and Germans had been beaten. Its an interesting thought to think it would have been a different world if the US had been able to stop Red Russia and Red China from becoming nuclear powers.

One of my dads close friends was with Patton in Europe. He always claimed Patton wanted very much to keep right on going. I always remember during the Cold War he said that we wouldn’t have the Russian problem if the US government had just turned Patton loose 

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The German nuclear program was not as close to Japan. The Germans were working on the wrong end of the periodic table.  Of course, everyone points to Russian spies in the Manhattan Project. There were some.  But the Soviet Union gained only a couple of years on exploding their first nuke that they wouldn't have had if there had been no spies.  I'm not sure if the Russian's first nuke was a "device" or an actual deliverable weapon system at that point.  Interestingly, when Sputnik I went into orbit, I thought (and so did a lot of "experts" that it meant they had an ICBM capable of delivering a warhead to the U.S.  It didn't! In fact Korleov, their Chief Designer went to Nikita Khrushev and persuaded him to fund the satellite as a way to scare the snot out of us, because he hadn't solved the reentry problem!  

 

Right now, we are in the same kind of race with the Chinese and Russians over hypersonic missiles, maneuverable satellites and cyber stuff! Not to mention North Korea and Iran.  And the beat goes on! :ph34r:

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