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Say Aussies, if the US wasn't around to help - for instance if the Battle of the Coral Sea was lost, or Midway - would Japan have invaded and occupied Australia?
Kris
hmmm nobody really knows I guess...it makes sense because realistically Australia was the next step and was making quite a large contribution to the Pacific war. However I think that Australia would be a very hard country to invade for a nation like Japan! Australia is a hard country to defend yes with a very large coastline but the massive size of the country would make it difficult to overcome and id imagine the population would put up one hell of a fight!
Australia however also remember has vast raw materials while the japanese in general have very little, if they could capture australia and gain access to its raw materials they could become quite important and also as said above the food stocks!
It all really depends on whether you assume the US was in the war, or somehow willing to stand separate from a Japanese war against the British Empire (including Australia) and do nothing *no matter what*.In the spring of 1942, the Japanese were at the end of a very long supply line. While they had the capability to invade NG and perhaps the northern reaches of Australia, they couldnt exploit it to any high degree.
For my little extract I am assuming that the USA stays neutral during much of the Pacific And European War. It was the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour that finally bought the USA into the War. I am also assuming that if the USA stays out of Pacific it is much less likely to worry with a European War even to the extent of Lendlease not really being active.
The US provided a lot of necessary help to Australian troops in the Pacific. The US had a heavy bombing component and also provided long-range fighters such as the P-38 Lightning which helped in the Pacific Campaign. A lot of the terrain that was being fought over was unknown. My mother tells me the American Command used to call my Grandfather into the Australian and American Headquarters when he was on leave from the US Small ships to explain and detail sections of map for them. He was an Australian serving as an American during the Papua New Guinea Campaign.
Also without US air and Naval support in the Pacific, Japan does not actually need to invade Australia to control it. With sufficient submarines, a very successful campaign of attrition could be conducted. Even with the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, a lot of the better designs for fighters and bombers in Australia were coming from overseas. Then the Japanese carriers can just come across and conduct attrition raids. The Zeros were a match for early aircraft such as the P-40s and such that made up the bulk of the early Pacific airforces... Britain wouldn't be much help in the early period of the War being involved in throwing every possible resource at protecting itself from Operation Sealion. America coming into Europe with lend-lease helped by providing extra resources to throw at the Germans, including heavy bombers capable of conducting daylight raids on German cities. An Allied bombing campaign without the American B-17s would have bled Britain and the Empire dry of qualified pilots assuming the pilots got to Europe... Conveys would be at the mercy of submarines- both German and Japanese torpedo attacks.
As I see it without American Air support in the Pacific, large areas of the Pacific are at risk of being swept up by the Japanese. Large amounts of oil, rubber, and other resources get subverted into the Axis cause. This hampers the Allied cause as artificial substitutes have to be developed to take the place of scarce resources, as attempted to happen in Germany in 1944-1945. Meanwhile, forces are getting pushed by buildups in other areas. The Japanese finally have the resources to build lightweight Zeros, other fighters and bombers in sufficient numbers to do massive damage. So in this version, Pearl Harbor gets launched latter in greater numbers, and succeeds in producing very significant damage, even if the Aircraft Carriers are not there. The repair facilities are damaged, and it requires a major rebuild of the base to bring it back to operational standards while it is getting harassed by Japanese raids. I still think that in the later scenario, Australia may be lucky to survive a Battle of Britain type siege possibly long enough for the Americans to finally counter the Japanese offensives; although it may take a while if America gets involved in fighting a German Axis with Far East Resources flowing in... I think that the end result is still the Allies win, but the result is much bloodier... I can't see the US staying totally neutral if it is challenged in the Pacific which is virtually the USA's Naval Backyard...