Did the US save Australia from the Japanese?

[HealzDevo]

The fact remains though that even if you delay US entry into WW2 some aspects of the result will change. It is presented as a fact that the US would have got involved in 1941 which simply is not entirely true. America was largely poised between those that wanted world involvement and isolation. For some even Lend Lease was a slippery slope that was unwanted. The show Star Trek has an episode (I think it is called Broken Mirror) which assumes a reality where the peace protestors won, although we don't know what happened in the Pacific in this reality, we know the Germans somehow took parts of the US. Pearl Harbor was the straw that broke the camel's back. Even Roosevelt wasn't entirely certain which path to take himself. I am assuming Japan organizes more of the strategic conquests before going after places like the Phillipines which are not quite as useful...

 

[Mungo60]

Maybe another good question would be - What if the US did a Hiroshima on Berlin before the Russians got there ? Sorry if im breaking topic, tell me to shut up if im being ignorant here.

 

[Shortround6]

I dont have the facts or numerous of the top of my head but the majority of Germany were defeated in the east long before American, Britain and Canada even set foot on the continent. And there manufacturing ability far eclipsed what the US was able to produce and under severe military strain too.

The bolded part is not correct. The Russians did do a tremendous amount to defeat the Germans but it was done with blood and not by out producing the US.
The US built roughly twice the number of aircraft that the Russians did. The Russians did very little ship building (nothing over 1000 tons completed during the war? war for the Russians starting in June of 1941) Russian tank production was high but truck production was not great.

Russia achieved High tank and artillery production by strictly limiting production in other areas, like railroad rail and locomotives.

A fair amount of Russian mass production was actually dependent on Lend-Lease supplies like steel, copper, aluminium and assorted alloying agents/materials.
Not To mention thousands of machine tools.

 

[Shortround6]

The fact remains though that even if you delay US entry into WW2 some aspects of the result will change. It is presented as a fact that the US would have got involved in 1941 which simply is not entirely true. America was largely poised between those that wanted world involvement and isolation. For some even Lend Lease was a slippery slope that was unwanted. The show Star Trek has an episode (I think it is called Broken Mirror) which assumes a reality where the peace protestors won, although we don't know what happened in the Pacific in this reality, we know the Germans somehow took parts of the US. Pearl Harbor was the straw that broke the camel's back. Even Roosevelt wasn't entirely certain which path to take himself. I am assuming Japan organizes more of the strategic conquests before going after places like the Phillipines which are not quite as useful...

The US had been gearing up for several years, delaying US entry hurts in some ways and helps in others. I have mentioned the US fleet expansion.
For the AAF Please remember that on Sept 13th 1940 they had placed an order for 773 P-47s. Hundreds of P-38s were on order and production lines for the B-17, B-24, B-25 and B-26 had already been built, in some cases multiple production lines. 584 F4Us had been ordered in June of 1941 and Brewster had been sighned up as a 2nd source on Nov 1st 1941.
The avalanche of American production was coming. Delaying firing the opening shots for 3-6 months is not going to affect the production of war materials in 1942 a whole lot. It does give the US time to replace the most obsolete aircraft in the Philippines, provide extra aircraft and better facilities/logistics.

Japan cannot bypass the Philippines leaving an increasingly hostile US presence astride the new supply routes.

What is the US reaction going to be when, after the US places the oil embargo on Japan for their actions in China, if Japan invades the Dutch East Indies to seize the oil fields there to get around the embargo?

 

[swampyankee]

American isolationism was mostly directed against involvement in Europe. I suspect many isolationists found it much easier to tolerate Germany's aggression, even murder of civilians, than similar aggression by Japan, even were the Japanese awarded prized by the IRC for kindness to civilians.

 

[pbehn]

Please don't forget that Japan attacked the UK at the same time as Pearl Harbour, in the same way.

 

[mikewint]

On 23 March 1942, the Australian government recalled Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Blamey from the Middle East to be Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces. Blamey was appointed Land Forces Commander under MacArthur.

On 3 April 1942, MacArthur received from the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff in Washington a directive concerning the conduct of the war in the South-West Pacific. MacArthur was specifically directed to include on his staff senior Australian military officers. He defied the direction by appointing only Americans as his staff officers. By defying the order from his superiors, he deprived himself of advice from Australian generals with actual experience in the conduct of war. In the subsequent bloody fighting on the island of New Guinea, the absence of experienced Australian military advisers on MacArthur's staff would be reflected in poor planning and intelligence gathering, near panic-stricken responses to surprise moves by the Japanese, and unrealistic demands by MacArthur and his staff on field commanders.

Curtin was aware that MacArthur had defied his own superiors by excluding Australians from his staff, but he made no protest to Washington. It appears likely that Curtin's acquiescence was prompted by his overwhelming relief that the United States had come to Australia's aid, and a desire not to appear ungrateful.

On 18 April 1942, General MacArthur formally assumed command of the Australian armed forces. At this time, MacArthur commanded 100,000 members of the 2nd AIF, 265,000 Australian Militia, and 38,000 Americans.

On 25 April, MacArthur issued his first directive as Supreme Commander in Australia: Allied Land Forces were to prevent any Japanese landing on the north-east coast of Australia or on the south coast of the island of New Guinea. Although the directive appeared to recognize the strategic importance of Port Moresby and the vulnerability of northern Australia to increased aerial bombardment and invasion if it were to be captured by the Japanese, MacArthur and Blamey took no immediate steps to fortify Port Moresby or reinforce with battle-toughened AIF troops the poorly armed and inadequately trained militia garrisons in New Guinea.This inexcusable neglect of the defense of Port Moresby by MacArthur and Blamey becomes even more difficult to understand in the light of evidence that the Japanese and the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz, were well aware of the strategic importance of Port Moresby.

At Port Moresby, Major General Basil Morris was in command of the 30th Australian Infantry Brigade, a militia formation comprising the 39th, 49th and 53rd Australian Infantry Battalions. With the exception of the 53rd Battalion, the militia were led by experienced AIF officers and NCOs, but they were only raw recruits with an average age of eighteen. In addition to the Australian militia units, General Morris also had troops of the local Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB) and the local New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR). The troops of the NGVR, all European and numbering about 450, were spread thinly across areas of the Australian Territory of New Guinea not occupied by the Japanese. The fortifications of Port Moresby in April 1942 comprised two ancient naval guns, a field artillery regiment, a heavy anti-aircraft battery, and a few mobile anti-aircraft guns.
Having finally been made aware of the seriousness of the Japanese threat to Port Moresby by the Battle of the Coral Sea (7-8 May 1942), MacArthur requested additional Australian troops to bolster the weak defenses of Port Moresby.
On 15 May 1942, Blamey assigned another militia formation, the 14th Australian Infantry Brigade. The failure of the two senior commanders to send seasoned AIF troops to New Guinea at the earliest opportunity could have had disastrous consequences for Australia when elite, battle-hardened Japanese troops began their determined drive along the Kokoda Track towards Port Moresby in August 1942. It was only then that MacArthur and Blamey appear to have appreciated the danger to which their neglect had exposed Australia, and they rushed seasoned AIF troops of the 7th Division to New Guinea.

When the heavily outnumbered and poorly supplied Australian AIF and militia troops could not initially stem the determined Japanese advance along the Kokoda Track towards Port Moresby, MacArthur and Blamey were severely criticized for their neglect to provide adequate defenses for Port Moresby and the heavy loss of Australian lives on the Kokoda Track which resulted from that neglect.

It was at this point that MacArthur quickly shifted the blame for his mistakes to troops under his command, and he announced his view that the Australian troops on the Kokoda Track were poor fighters who were retreating from a smaller number of Japanese troops. In fact the Australian troops were outnumbered by at least five to one by elite Japanese troops, and MacArthur and Blamey had sent them into action without adequate arms or supplies. General Blamey supported MacArthur's lie to excuse his own neglect of Australia's northern defenses and her soldiers. He ignored the overwhelming strength of the Japanese invasion force and the grave supply problems faced by Australian troops on the Kokoda Track. To his everlasting discredit, he blamed the fighting qualities of the Australian troops and their field commanders for their failure initially to stem the Japanese drive towards Port Moresby.

On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that Australia did receive a real benefit from MacArthur's appointment as Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area, with his headquarters in Australia. MacArthur's obsession with recovering the Philippines from the Japanese worked to Australia's great advantage because it was necessary first to oust the Japanese from the island of New Guinea, and MacArthur was a powerful advocate in Washington for his command in Australia to receive the military resources necessary to achieve both tasks.

 

[Smokey Stover]

The bolded part is not correct. The Russians did do a tremendous amount to defeat the Germans but it was done with blood and not by out producing the US.
The US built roughly twice the number of aircraft that the Russians did. The Russians did very little ship building (nothing over 1000 tons completed during the war? war for the Russians starting in June of 1941) Russian tank production was high but truck production was not great.

Russia achieved High tank and artillery production by strictly limiting production in other areas, like railroad rail and locomotives.

A fair amount of Russian mass production was actually dependent on Lend-Lease supplies like steel, copper, aluminium and assorted alloying agents/materials.
Not To mention thousands of machine tools.

Im sorry i just dont buy that about lend lease. Infact whenever this subject comes up the only argument for the US thats ever made is about lend lease. Do you know how long the war had been going on before a single ship reached Russia or even Britain for that matter. Roosevelt was no. 1 concerned with appeasing his people so they would re-elect him and if Europe went to hell before that happened well then so be it. Also have you any idea how much tonnage of lend lease equipment was sunk or lost during the arctic conveys? Not to mention the price Britain had to pay for lend lease equipment ensured the quick demise of the empire so a new superpower could emerge. Ie America. But im not blaming the US. I blame Churchill for spending all his time and energy trying to drag America into the war when we had repelled the German airforce completely alone. The main was nothing more than a drunk, a warmonger, an opportunist who sent thousands of young men to their deaths over two world wars. Some see him as a hero, i see him as the reason Britain invented everything and gave it away.

 

[pbehn]

Im sorry i just dont buy that about lend lease. Infact whenever this subject comes up the only argument for the US thats ever made is about lend lease. Do you know how long the war had been going on before a single ship reached Russia or even Britain for that matter. Roosevelt was no. 1 concerned with appeasing his people so they would re-elect him and if Europe went to hell before that happened well then so be it. Also have you any idea how much tonnage of lend lease equipment was sunk or lost during the arctic conveys? Not to mention the price Britain had to pay for lend lease equipment ensured the quick demise of the empire so a new superpower could emerge. Ie America.

In June 1941, within weeks of the German invasion of the USSR, the first British aid convoy set off along the dangerous Arctic sea route to Murmansk, arriving in September. It carried 40 Hawker Hurricanes along with 550 mechanics and pilots of No. 151 Wing to provide immediate air defence of the port and to train Soviet pilots. The convoy was the first of many convoys to Murmansk and Archangelsk in what became known as the Arctic convoys, the returning ships carried the gold that the USSR was using to pay the US.

By the end of 1941, early shipments of Matilda, Valentine and Tetrarch tanks represented only 6.5% of total Soviet tank production but over 25% of medium and heavy tanks produced for the Red Army.[48][49] The British tanks first saw action with the 138 Independent Tank Battalion in the Volga Reservoir on 20 November 1941.[50] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941.[51][52]

British Mk III 'Valentine' destroyed in the Soviet Union, January 1944.
Significant numbers of British Churchill, Matilda and Valentine tanks were shipped to the USSR.[53]

 

[Shortround6]

Im sorry i just dont buy that about lend lease. Infact whenever this subject comes up the only argument for the US thats ever made is about lend lease. Do you know how long the war had been going on before a single ship reached Russia or even Britain for that matter. Roosevelt was no. 1 concerned with appeasing his people so they would re-elect him and if Europe went to hell before that happened well then so be it. Also have you any idea how much tonnage of lend lease equipment was sunk or lost during the arctic conveys?

OK, educate me, tell me how many ships were sunk bringing supplies into Vladivostok, or how many were sunk on the Iran route?

Tell me when the first US supplies (not British) reached Russia?

Browse the list here:
Complete List of Lend Lease to Russia including atomic materials

Now is this list a lie or is it true (subject to clerical errors) and if it is true please explain how the Russians didn't need these materials as they were doing so well producing things on their own.

excerpts.
Aluminum & alloys, ingots, slabs, etc. 366,73S,204 lbs
Aluminum plates, sheets, strips 124,052,618 lbs.
Brass &c bronze ingots 10,214,064 lbs
Brass & bronze bars, rods, etc. 66,329,462 lbs.
Copper wire, bare 28,235,738 lbs.
Copper wire, rubber-covered 16,521,612 lbs.
Drills, etc., metal cutting, power-driven 7,822,2l6
Steel bars, cold finished 425,331,742 tons
Boiler tubes, seemless 157,231,260 lbs.
Turret lathes 3,073
Lathes 2,644
Electric welding rods & wire 24,264,316 lbs.


the last is over 12,000 tons of welding rod/wire. Want to tell me how the Russians were going to make all those welded tanks without welding wire?
Or did the Russians just use their own and stock pile this stuff in warehouses?

The Russian workers did near miracles in poorly heated factories on near starvation diets (also helped with lend lease See list of food stuffs like
Pork, pickled, salted, fresh,frozen 529,814,747 lbs.) but even the Russians cannot make tanks and planes with their bare hands out of rocks and trees.

 

[pbehn]

Tell me when the first US supplies (not British) reached Russia?
.

I only mentioned the first British shipment because the tanks actually got to Moscow before Adolf

 

[parsifal]

And the fact that Australia had no fighters to defend the country is an even bigger factor.

Australias front line fighter was the Hawker Demon.

They only bought 64 to start with back in February 1934 and by Pearl Harbor at least 27 were written off or converted to mechanical training schools.

So at best 37 Demons to defend against hundreds of Oscars and Zeros.

And a handful of Wirraway trainers - which outperformed the Demons anyway.

As for the Army, it was far more modern and up to date but all in England and the Middle East, little more than training facilities in Aus itself.

It would have been a cakewalk for the Japanese.

And the fact that Australia had no fighters to defend the country is an even bigger factor.
It was a factor but not a critical one. The numbers of fighters the IJN could spare in its land based formations for the whole of the Pacific (not SEAC area) was 25 front line Zekes at Rabaul and Lae and about 40 A5Ms in the Marshalls and Marianas. The forces at Rabaul increased somewhat after the fall of Singapore and the PI, but substantial portions of the JAAF were returned to their original billets in China .


The japanese rapidly succumbed to over reach in the early days of the war, and their logistics broke down almost from the start, with virtually no effective interference from the US forces to affect that logistic situation

Australias front line fighter was the Hawker Demon.

No, incorrect, it was in fact the buffalo. Surviving demons were relegated to training from before the war. We also had some squadrons of P-40s operating in the middle east

If the US had failed to join the ABDA alliance in 1941, you cannot validly assume that things would stay as historical. They wouldn't. The Australian joint chiefs were already proposing at least 10 squadrons of fighters for home defence, preferring to equip with hawker Hurricanes. This came to nothing, but ther was no panic initially because of assurances given by the Americans primarily 1940 and 41. We cut back on our aircraft development and production as a result.

Had the US not joined ABDA and not given guranteesto provide materiel to Australia in the lead up to war, we would not just have sat there and let it all happen. We had contingency plans to commence production of a home produced fighter. Our options were limited by engine at the time, but it was functional, and ultimately was the adaption of the wirraway, which became the boomerang. This home produced fighter concept was first mooted in 1940, historically nothing was done for over a year and then in the panic of late 1941 a fighter adaptation was made ready in just 6 weeks. This would have happened in late 1940 if the US was tardy in joining the collective defence arrangements. We would have had about 300-400 fighters by December 1941, not including the likely MTO recalls.

We would also have had a substantial bomber force, in the form of an accelerated beaufort program and planned service delivery of the CA4 bomber.

They only bought 64 to start with back in February 1934 and by Pearl Harbor at least 27 were written off or converted to mechanical training schools.

So at best 37 Demons to defend against hundreds of Oscars and Zeros.

And a handful of Wirraway trainers - which outperformed the Demons anyway.

See corrections above.

As for the Army, it was far more modern and up to date but all in England and the Middle East, little more than training facilities in Aus itself.

That would include CMF formations like the 39th bn which fought in the Owen stanleys. They were referred to as "chocos"…..chocolate soldiers…..and I can see that some old myths and prejudices linger on to this day. Please be aware that nearly all of the 5 divs eventually committed to front line combat during the war proved themselves superior to nearly every other nation's forces that they either fought alongside or against.

In 1941 many of these formations were short of equipment, because such equipment had been shipped off to the MTO. Our home production of military equipment was being grossly underutilized prior to December '41. A refusal by the americans in 1941 would almost certainly lead to a 70% increase in outputs….provided the money for a switchover to a full war footing could be found. The scenario would almost certainly see all four AIF formations deployed back into Australi and the 5 CMF formation much better equipped. It is entirely possible even that the armoured division would have been equipped

It would have been a cakewalk for the Japanese

Not really. They certainly didn't think so.

 

[parsifal]

They would have used the supply ships to take back to Japan the food etc that Aus was sending to the UK.

The bloody wharfies would no doubt have willingly loaded the Japanese ships, something they refused to do for so many ships taking food and supplies to Aus troops in war zones.

I very much doubt that many Aussies would have destroyed crops, herds or flocks or anything else useful. Many of the unions were more pro German/Japanese than pro allies and would not have damaged anything even if the government had told them to.

Even now the government is maintaining its hypocrisy and the double standards one expects from our politicians of all stripes - and it is not the same brand who were in power in ww2. This bunch have sold the port of Darwin to the Chinese but are all uptight about a smaller pacific nation possibly allowing the Chinese navy port access.

You need to read up on the Fortress Australia plans. Australia was firmly united, including its waterside workers, and the Japanese would simply not have the logistics....the trains, the MT, the port capacities, to "ship" nonexistent supplies back to japan.

There simply is not the lift capacity in the Japanese merchant fleet to transport and maintain an expeditionary force of that size and maintain it at that distance. moreover, once they get ashore, there would be a rapid slow down in the offensive due to a shortage of MT. The best parrallel I can think of is the Axis operations in NA. Over 30000 trucks were employed to keep something like 3 divs supplied to combat readiness standard. and the distances from their PEs to the front lines was a fraction of those facing the Japanese. The IJA didnt have 30000 trucks to pour into the campaign, sne they didnt have the rolling stock or the rail gauge conversion capability to set up an effective railnet There are multiple track gauges in northern australi, set up from the 1880s as a defensive measure against a possible Russian and later Japanese aggression.

It would not have been a walk in the park

Frankly you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[swampyankee]

Maybe another good question would be - What if the US did a Hiroshima on Berlin before the Russians got there ? Sorry if im breaking topic, tell me to shut up if im being ignorant here.

The nazis were the original target of the Manhattan Project, but they lost too quickly.

-------------------

Back to Australia: I believe one should note that groups like dock workers were frequently more resistant to foreign invasion than, say, police.

 

[GrauGeist]

...The Russian workers did near miracles in poorly heated factories on near starvation diets (also helped with lend lease See list of food stuffs like
Pork, pickled, salted, fresh,frozen 529,814,747 lbs.) but even the Russians cannot make tanks and planes with their bare hands out of rocks and trees.

Don't forget "Roosevelt Sausage" which the Russians loved.

 

[pbehn]

The nazis were the original target of the Manhattan Project, but they lost too quickly.

.

Couldn't possibly be making the bomb took longer than expected could it?

If the Japanese attacked Australia they would have to attack the RN fleet as they did in Dec 1941, that means they would never be able to make a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour and would have supply their army waiting for an attack upon them.

 

[Shortround6]

I am just wondering how much of a cake walk it would be to walk from Cairns/Townsville to Sydney (let alone Melbourne) in the Australian summer?

Modern map, I don't know how many of these roads didn't exist in 1941 or were tracks in the sand once you got more than few hours from the coast.

 

[buffnut453]

The Japanese trying to invade and take over Australia is the Pacific Theatre equivalent of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. There's just too much there to occupy it all, and too many opportunities for the Allies to strike back with either regular or irregular forces...or both. It would have been a strategic disaster for Japan (not that starting the war in the first place was a great strategic success for them...!).

 

[GrauGeist]

Good perspective, SR.
Taking Australia would be much like Japan trying to invade the west coast of North America.
Aside from military and civil resistance, they would have to deal with the topography, and while the Sierras and Cascades are not completely impossible, the Rockies would be.
Also consider that moving inland through the Pacific Coastal range, Cascades and Sierras has limited options and virtually all passes provide textbook examples of killing zones.

 

[Greg Boeser]

There simply is not the lift capacity in the Japanese merchant fleet to transport and maintain an expeditionary force of that size and maintain it at that distance. moreover, once they get ashore, there would be a rapid slow down in the offensive due to a shortage of MT. The best parrallel I can think of is the Axis operations in NA. Over 30000 trucks were employed to keep something like 3 divs supplied to combat readiness standard. and the distances from their PEs to the front lines was a fraction of those facing the Japanese. The IJA didnt have 30000 trucks to pour into the campaign, sne they didnt have the rolling stock or the rail gauge conversion capability to set up an effective railnet There are multiple track gauges in northern australi, set up from the 1880s as a defensive measure against a possible Russian and later Japanese aggression.

Let's remember a few facts.
Japan launched its "Southern Offensive" across a huge expanse of the globe with one objective. To cause, to use a modern term, "shock and awe" to the Allied powers. Quickly gobbling up isolated bases within their sphere of control (Hong Kong, Guam, Wake) and overrunning poorly defended colonial territory in SE Asia, the Allies were to be so demoralized that they would sue for peace. They expected a cakewalk, but reality intervened. In spite of rapid victories in Malaya, Burma and the Philippines, and the rapid seizure of Rabaul, the Japanese quickly found themselves overextended. Resistance at Wake Island delayed the Japanese timetable two weeks and required additional forced to accomplish. Ditto the Philippines, which held out until May and resulted in the commander of the operation being relieved. The surprise attack by the Lexington and Yorktown on the Lea-Salamaua landings 10 March, 1942 cost the Japanese three transports critical to further expansion and damage to other ships resulting in a month long delay in launching the Port Moresby operation. Without these critical delays we don't know how much the Japanese could have achieved in severing the lines of communication to the US and UK. Would Australia stand alone against the Japanese if their Allies could not support them? Or would they accept the new status quo? Japan does not have to fight for every inch of Australia, just seize the key ports.