Political Crossfire Forums

In a WWII documentary, I 'think' it was 'World at War', a very good docu BTW.. It's from the 70's, so some of the info isn't quite correct because of the info learned after the 70's but anyway it is a good docu..

Anyway in the episode about the Japanese surrender they showed the signing on the USS Missouri and MacArthur talking ,etc.. And then they showed some of the representatives of all the countries that were at war with Japan signing the papers.. And one of the Japanese Diplomats who was at the signing on the Missouri said while he was watching all these representatives from the countries Japan was at war with walk up and sign the papers he thought to himself 'what was Japan thinking when we went to war, how could we ever have thought we could have defeated all these countries?

Obviously the US handled 95% of the Pacific War.. But yeah, what was Japan thinking?

only six months after a bitter naval defeat? i don't think so

If you look at naval tonnage produced:

1941:
IJN: 180,000
USN: 130,000

1942-1945:
IJN: 550,000
USN: 3,200,000

But then again, the real issue wasnt the tonnage produced in the early years but rather replacements for losses, the US Navy was able to not only replace their ships lost at Pearl Harbor but they exceeded their fleet numbers by 1942. Japan on the other hand, could not replace her losses in skilled pilots and ships and so had to suspend their offensive operations after Midway.

The biggest losses the Japs had were surprisingly against the USN submarine groups, the Jap Navy didnt have any ships or crews trained for anti-sub warfare; their merchant marine were basically slaughtered by the US submarine corps and so doing, doomed their cause because it prevented materiel from going to Japan.

So this meant that even if the USN lost the battle of Midway, it would have only prolonged the war by a few more months at the most.

That's presuming that Midway itself has no more strategic significance than the ships the USN would have lost.

Whereas the entire point of Midway from the Japanese perspective was to remove the USN surface from the pasific theater of operations. Which would have allowed them to be far more aggressive in their operations in Australasia. With the eventually objective being an invasion of Australia and the securing of their entire southern flank.

Yes it would have taken the USN out of the theater for perhaps 6-8 months max. However in that time, they could have gained a significant strategic upper-hand in the region.