Pearl Harbor Question For DU historians.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I'm watching a Netflix documentary on Pearl Harbor. What did the Japanese think we would do when they attacked it? Just shrug our shoulders? And what do you think would have happened if TFG was president then?

[Elessar Zappa]

1. TFG would have joined the Axis.

As to your first question, I’m not sure.

[Torchlight]

2. Sue for peace.

Tokyo believed that the destruction of the Pacific fleet (along with the conquest of most of the central Pacific) would force Washington into the realization of a long war of attrition far beyond the stomach's of the American people, thus coercing Washington to sue for peace as Japan continued its offensives on the mainland of China.

[PJMcK]

5. Kind of a dumb plan

The U.S. Pacific Fleet was an old and inadequate force. The Pearl Harbor attack forced the U.S. to build new and better ships to replace the Fleet. The Japanese completely misread the American resolve following their brutal and unprovoked attack. We built ships at break-neck speed and with a national sense of purpose.

Yeah, Trump would have sided with Hitler and Mussolini.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Especially when FDR was looking for a causus belli to get us into the war on the side of the Allies.

[RobinA]

32. Misreading The Other Guy

is a tragically common influence in world history.

[Angleae]

45. PH didn't force the navy to build new ships. Those "new and better ships" were already on the way.

[Tetrachloride]

3. Long term goal was Asian oil

https://pearlharbor.org/why-japan-attacked-pearl-harbor/

[irisblue]

18. Tetrachloride is right, the Japanese Empire needed the oil & rubber to continue the war in China

The Empire attacked Manchuria for natural resources, food, raw materials and slave labor in 1937.
The war in China was largely ignored in the US.
(Short article-https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/china.htm).

[Model35mech]

4. Their plan was to destroy US ability to wage war in the Pacific

It obviously didn't work.

Frankly, I think TFG would have declared war. War time presidents have enjoyed tremendous power and little scrutiny, that a combination made to fit Trumps personality like a glove.

[BlueIdaho]

11. Aircraft Carriers...

They hoped to destroy the aircraft carriers in the Pacific theater. That would have pretty much ended our ability to wage war in that vast space for years. Luckily none of them were in the harbor. The Japanese military understood that a failure to sink the carriers sealed their fate. It was only a matter of time until they would be defeated.

TFG would have tried to make a deal to put a Trump Casino in downtown Tokyo. Failing that - he would have gone golfing.

[ironflange]

14. This!

They probably weren't too happy to see the carriers were gone. They REALLY weren't happy after Midway.

[Model35mech]

15. Yes, but they had also planned to destroy huge fuel depots at Pearl

as well as destroy the submarine pens and dry docks.

Had they accomplished all their plans the US would have had to mount operations from California and the Aleutians Islands.

As it was the Doolittle raid on Tokyo happened roughly 4 months later, and the Japanese carrier force was destroyed in the battle of Midway just 6 months later.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

16. Bingo!

The Japanese did a lot of damage at Pearl Harbor, but not enough.

The survival of the carriers was critical.

[rsdsharp]

17. This☝️

Our carriers were at sea. The Japanese hadn’t expected that. In May, 1942, they fought the Japanese to a draw in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval battle in history, where the major ships never saw each other.

In early June, 1942, the Japanese Navy’s ability to wage war was effectively ended when the US sank four of their mainline carriers in the Battle of Midway, against a loss of one (and one lost at Coral Sea).

Midway was the turning point of the Pacific war, and it was the carriers, which were not at Pearl Harbor, that did it,

[Aristus]

30. BlueIdaho and Model35mech beat me to the punch.

Well done!

The Navy's Pacific Fleet carriers being out of the harbor is often cited as a miracle of the attack. But just as important is the fact that the huge fuel depot, an immense fuel tank farm vulnerable to air attack was completely untouched.

I will add my own observation that having the battleships sink in the harbor was actually a mixed blessing, as it made them much easier to raise and repair than if they had all been sunk at sea. The harbor is very shallow, and all of the ships were within easy access to repair facilities. The Arizona and the Utah excepted, of course.

[whistler162]

41. The Japanese also failed to

hit the fuel farm which would have crippled the Pacific fleet's use of Pearl Harbor for a while.

[dweller]

6. Not sure we can have this discussion until

there is a bill passed to recognize and promote ‘both sides’ of the event …






✋

[VGNonly]

33. Both sides...

[Hekate]

39. Usually DU starts relitigating the *end* of WWII about August 2 every year. Kind of refreshing to...

… rehash the beginning of WW II before that for a change.

[inthewind21]

7. He would have

held a press conference and talked about the "very fine people" on both sides.

[Sympthsical]

9. Japan thought Americans would be shy and retiring about war

They clearly hadn't met us.

They figured knock out our fleet, take over the Pacific, and entrench themselves to the point that we would balk at the effort of pushing them back out.

Unfortunately for them, America is like that weird cousin who sees three feet of grass in the half acre yard, grabs a weed wacker, and thinks, "Let's goooooooo!!!" while you sip a beer on the porch and stare.

Bad judgement all around.

[czarjak]

10. Remember when President "I'm Smarter Than The Generals" had to have PH explained to him?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

13. Did anybody ever explain to him about the Revolutionary War airports?

[czarjak]

28. Either before or after his New Testament Gospel lessons. I've swear I've heard.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

29. he really said it ...

[sarisataka]

12. Japan knew the US would fight

Their belief was they could seize the resources they needed and complete their defensive perimeter before the US could recover from the loss of the Pacific Fleet. Further, when faced with the option of a long drawn out war or a negotiated settlement that allowed Japan to keep its main objectives the US would choose the latter.

They underestimated the resolve of the American people and their industrial capacity. Something Yamamoto warned that even the US did not know how capable it was.

As far as historical what ifs, it is hard to say. It is possible Japan would never have needed to fight the US. Assuming, however, history repeated under a different President I think it would have gone similarly. He would have been furious that a 'lesser' country dared to attack while he was in charge.

[hatrack]

19. Yamamoto knew that Japan, barring some military miracle, had no chance of winning . . .

Before hostilities, he said that "For the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. After that, I have no expectation of success."

He'd lived and studied in the US and understood the scale of America's economic power. He also pegged the timetable, in that Midway was almost exactly six months after Pearl Harbor.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. Churchill said he slept like a baby after getting the news.

Because he knew the Allies would win the moment Anerica joined the fight.

[JHB]

20. They thought taking out the fleet would have given them about a year of free reign in the Pacific...

...and by the time we could deploy a fleet to replace it, they would have accomplished and consolidated their other goals in the Pacific. By that point, they figured the US would be open to negotiating, letting them keep what they took.

Plenty of parallels with what was done here on 1/6.

[billh58]

21. Awakening a Sleeping Giant

Awakening a Sleeping Giant

Instead of causing the United States to retreat and allow Japan unfettered rampage throughout Asia and the Pacific, as Tojo predicted, the exact opposite happened. No longer isolationist or “neutral,” America and the American industrial machine, although idled by the Great Depression, began turning out military goods at an unprecedented rate, while millions of aroused Americans rushed to recruiting offices to prepare themselves for a fight to the death with the country’s enemies.

Although Yamamoto is widely (and erroneously) quoted as having said after the Pearl Harbor raid, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve,” Yamamoto’s actual words were written to Ogata Taketora, the ultra-nationalist editor of the Tokyo newspaper Asahi Shimbun on January 9, 1942: “A military man can scarcely pride himself on having ‘smitten a sleeping enemy’; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.”

Yamamoto was certainly correct. And he would not live to see the end of the war that he and his country’s leaders, along with Adolf Hitler, had provoked––a war that caused the deaths of 50 million people and changed forever the course of world history.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/pearl-harbor-the-sleeping-giant-awoken/

The alleged quote from Yamamoto is from the film Tora Tora Tora, but he did say something similar. There were strong rumors that Roosevelt knew the attack was coming, and did not pass the intelligence along to his commanders. Many believed that Japan was purposely goaded into the sneak attack by the US, so that we could enter the war against Hitler.

[captain queeg]

22. Like many have mentioned, the Japanese thought the US would not engage in a protracted war of

attrition. If they could destroy our pacific fleet they’d have a free hand for awhile. They could conquer what they wanted and dig in making it very costly to throw them out.

It’s kind of surprising how WWII was a racial war in many ways. We thought the Japanese were small with bad eyesight and not as smart as us. They thought we were incapable of a life of privation and a long term commitment. Those sorts of stereotypes were used for propaganda. At any rate I don’t think they expected our reaction.

Also the Japanese army had more power and influence that their navy and they didn’t cooperate well.

[keithbvadu2]

23. There probably were some TFG family members at Normandy.

There probably were some TFG family members at Normandy.

They would have been on the cliffs above the beaches.

[Samrob]

24. One thing I was taught in school was that had the Japanese continued inland and not stopped at Pearl

we might all be speaking Japanese now. We were not prepared in any way for a mainland attack. Anyone out there with history background can support or refute this?

[sarisataka]

26. Logistics

And lack of inter-service cooperation in the Japanese military made the idea of the invasion of the US mainland an impossibility.

[alphafemale]

31. Do you literally think Hawaii is just a little way off California?

I is not like the high school maps.

[Hekate]

34. There was some J naval patrolling of the West Coast, & one submarine attack at the Ellwood oil field

…. North of Santa Barbara, plus a balloon bomb in Oregon that killed a woman and her kids. Nobody was killed at Ellwood.

One article I looked at said there was an information lockdown at the time? Not sure on that. I am not going into it extensively just now.

https://www.history.com/news/5-attacks-on-u-s-soil-during-world-war-ii

One thing I think is sure: the average Japanese simply had no idea of the sheer scale of the US compared to their mountainous island chain, which runs about the length of California. An invasion from them would have been a disastrous failure in the end.

[Tarc]

46. If that is what they taught, your teachers were kinda dumb, to be honest

Japan was already occupying parts of China, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific.

IF Japan had won Midway, they MIGHT have been able to use that to stage an occupation of Hawaii. But mainland America was out of the question.

[robodruid1]

27. From some of the books i have read...

Japan expected a devastating air attack that would destroy the pacific fleet.

Then they expected the Atlantic fleet to move from the east coast to the pacific where Japan expected to win a surface naval engagement. Then and only then would the US be ready to negotiate. The naval battles with China of the 1890's and the Russian fleet action of 1905 gave them this mindset.

[Hekate]

35. Interesting. Yes, the Russo-Japanese war was an incredible misstep by Russia, as they sent their ...

…fleet halfway around the globe to disastrous effects. After that, Japan was celebrated as “plucky little Japan” who bloodied the nose of the Tsar.

[Xolodno]

36. The Tsar and Nobles were extremely incompetent.

Officers were promoted by aristocracy, not by actual capability.

Later under the Soviet Union, the Battles of Khalkhin Gol showed the Empire of Japan that the Soviets should not be messed with.

[Hekate]

37. It makes one wonder what merit system Russia is currently using. They are fully capable of...

… blowing Ukraine to rubble with bombardments, but apparently have significant problems with morale and many other things.

[Xolodno]

38. Its military became corrupt and a cancer under Yeltsin.

You can't weed them all out overnight, and some who are corrupt may actually be very competent. At the beginning of this war, they were laughable. Now, it appears they have found their stride as Putin has fired generals both in the military and FSB. He now knows who is capable and who was looking for a luxury ride.

They aren't moving fast, but are taking one city and village at a time. Their tactics have changed from using tanks to try and quickly take an area to using artillery and scorched earth (a long used Russian method). Their military has a doctrine of defense, that doesn't lend itself well to offense.

There may still be some morale problems, but they seem to be getting a handle on it. I read one article recently where the troops arrested their commander as he was trying to desert and leave them hanging.

Sad to say, it takes actual war experience to find out what your military is really capable of. And we have that problem here to some extent with the likes of former President Bush, Bolton, etc. People who have little to no military experience ready to put our own troops in harms way for their imperialist vanity.

[Shellback Squid]

40. they hoped our carriers were there, remember a "sleeping giant' quote?

[FakeNoose]

42. The idea was to keep us out of the European war

Japan's pact with Hitler was that they would engage us in the Pacific, not Europe, and keep us busy fighting the Japanese. Hitler had almost won Europe but he KNEW the USSR would be his toughest fight. Hitler didn't want to see the USA coming in to help the Allies in Europe. Which we did anyway.

[roamer65]

43. Dump is a surrender monkey.

He would have caved almost immediately, since he would have been fellating Hitler for years at that point.

[Polybius]

44. Another question is what if they didn't attack us?

Would we have ever entered the war?