Wich was the worst nation in the war?

There you go. The U.S would never turn down the aid of other nations. Like they'd want to take all the casualties. Plus the Royal Navy Pacific Fleet was very powerful by that time. Equipped sweetly with Corsairs and Hellcats.

Not so fast.

Ive found other sources that say the following ".....With the exception of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation....."

http://home.att.net/~sallyann4/invasion2.html

The book "Downfall" is in my college library. On Tuesday, I will go check it out and tell you what it says.

plan_D said:

There you go. The U.S would never turn down the aid of other nations. Like they'd want to take all the casualties. Plus the Royal Navy Pacific Fleet was very powerful by that time. Equipped sweetly with Corsairs and Hellcats.

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And those carriers had Steel decks!

wmaxt

So, even in your sources the British would have been involved.

Yes I will admit the RN would have been involved. For how long, who knows. The RN was never known for keeping its forces out to sea for long periods of time like the USN did.

The Royal Navy was put out, when and where it was needed. The same applied for the USN, there's no comparison between the two. The United States were fighting a vastly naval war in the Pacific which translates into longer operating times. The Royal Navy actions were mostly in the Atlantic by escort vessels and in the Med, which was a small piece of desperately fought over sea. Which would allow the ships and crews to go to shore quite often.

Sorry everythign that I have read shows that the British were going to be part of the invasion of Japan. It was not going to be just an American affair. The same people that believe that also believe that the US single handedly won the war.

We didnt win the war in the ETO/MTO single handidly. In fact, Id say it was ALMOST single handidly won by the Russians.

In the PTO the US did win it all. I have not seen any evidence where a commonwealth country made an critical contribution to the war effort in the PTO after the winter of 1943. The vast majority of the air forces, naval fleets and army divisons were American.

Probably the last significant contribution was from the Aussies when they seized Lae. And that was it.

As Ive mentioned before, the war in the PTO was won in July/Aug 1944 right after the Mariana's were secured.

Oh boy here we go. You are about to get chewed up here by most of the forum just to let you know.

Yes the US did make the most contribution to the PTO but you are forgetting about the British and Aussies who fought through to 1945 in the Pacific. Sorry but you are wrong also. Yes the US took the brunt but they ddi nto do it single handedly.

i know what the mountain goats are doing up there watching reruns of midway and tora tora tora to upadate their history

Huh?

Syscom. You are forgetting about Burma where the British and the commonwealth as well as the Chinese fought a large number of Japanese troops and inflicting some heavy defeats on them. The Americans where dominant in the Eastern Pacific (Nimitz) and where largerly dominent in the South Pacific with help from ANZAC troops (MacArthur). Remember there was more than front in the war against Japan and American troops where only in force on two of them, the other two where the British (Burma) and the Chinese (in China). The latter two faced more Japanese troops than the Americans did.

pbfoot: What are you on about??

All of the important battles of strategic importnace in the PTO were overwhelmingly dominated by the US. More than one military historian has said the whole war in the PTO was a maritime struggle. What happened on the mainland meant little in the scheme of things.

The ANZAC navy contributed a cruiser or destroyer on occasion, but for all practical purposes they hardly existed in the order of battle. Now tell me the math. Start with middle 1943, and tell me how many ANZAC and commonwealth forces had for destroyers, cruisers, battleships and carriers (and the fleet supply train) compared to the USN. And if the RN was so mighty, why were they not needed in the PTO after the end of summer in 1943?

Also, name me one important naval battle after Nov 1942 where the commonwealth contributed more than one cruiser or destroyer to the fight? Name me one ANZAC contribution to the invasions of Gilberts, Marshalls and Mariana's?

And who cares if the brits held up 1 million or 10 million IJA troops in Burma, cause it meant nothing. Whomever controlled the sea lanes to Japan, determined who the victor of the war would be. And since the Brits didnt even manage to kick the IJA out of Burma untill late in the war, its even more obvious that that was a sideshow. I can just imagine the small atolls in the central Pacific just jammed packed with all those CBI divisons just waiting to be cut off and wiped out one by one. In fact, tell me how all those divisons were going to be shipped off to the atolls and supplied week after week, month after month?

Tell me how many bomber and fighter squadrons did the commonwealth units have when compared to the 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 14th and 20th AF's?
I show the USAAF had approx 35 heavy, 7 medium and 3 light bomber groups, 7 transport and 21 fighter groups. That dwarfs by an immense margin all the commonwealth AF's combined. And Im not even counting the USN units. I think the USN could deploy almost 800 aircraft alone on the carrier forces by Dec 1943. In 1944, we were adding almost 1.5 fleet carriers per month! do you think the commonwealth countries could match that?

How many divisions did the commonwealth countries have when compared to all the USA divisions at its disposal in mid 1944? The US had at least a dozen.

Look at the map of the Pacific. The USN advance across the central part of it is what decided the outcome of the war. There was nothing Japan could do to stop it. The USN had such qualitative and quantitative superiority, the IJN was going to be wiped out if they came out to do battle. They could have defeated the allies in CBI/New Guinie, but nothing was going to alter the fact that once the Mariana's fell, any of their forces south of the island were now in effect, POW's. Now notice on that map, the sealanes just to the west of the tip of the PI. That was the choke point for all of Japanese war materials. Cut that off and the war was won. Once the USN subs were patrolling that area in wolfpacks, the japanese were in a world of hurt. And those subs were being based in the Mariana's and could remain on station for a long time.

Now lets see your statistics and battles that proves your case. In 1942, they were important to stopping the japanese. In 1943, the US had completely dominated the fighting. In 1944, the battles in the mariana's had sealed the fate of the japanese, and everyone south of there became irrelevent.

Just a few comments here:

syscom3 said:

All of the important battles of strategic importnace in the PTO were overwhelmingly dominated by the US.

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Dominated yes but were they by themselves? No.

syscome3 said:

Also, name me one important naval battle after Nov 1942 where the commonwealth contributed more than one cruiser or destroyer to the fight?

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Isn't that still contributing? I think you are missing the damn point.

syscom3 said:

And who cares if the brits held up 1 million or 10 million IJA troops in Burma, cause it meant nothing.

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That is a very dumb statement. If those 1 million or 10 million were not held up they surely would have been fighting the Marines on and Island somewhere. Things may have been different then.

Syscom this is a very ignorant view of yours. I see it in others also. I dont give a damn who had the most ships or troops in the Pacific or not, it was a joint effort. This is a good way to make a lot of enemies here.

Did the commonwealth contribute to the war effort? yes.

Did they contribute enough to be decisive? nope.

Was it their fault? nope. they were small countries.

Who provided 99% of the warships and shipping to defeat the IJN? The US.

Who provided the bulk of landbased airpower? The US.

How were the IJA divisons in the CBI going to get to those islands? Not even the IJN was sure it could provide enough shipping to get them there. The IJN had its own issues.

How were the IJA going to fit more than a divison (or brigade) on those tiny atolls and supply them when the USN was around? Good question. not even the IJN was going to attempt to supply them. Plus having a division on a 1 sq mile island would be setting them up for group destruction.

If the CBI troops went to the Mariana's, would it have made a difference?. Nope. Since we were reading the Japanese secret codes, we would have known how many troops were on each island and changed the plans and order of battle accordingly.

"I dont give a damn who had the most ships or troops in the Pacific or not, it was a joint effort"...... hmmm....... whomever supplied the most ships and troops usually has the bragging rights to claim a victory. Supplying a squadron of P40's a battalion of troops and a destroyer or two does not mean you can claim equal credit.

Plus, the point is, after early 1943, if the commonwealth countries did not supply anything to the US, would the results have differed one iota? Nope.

syscom3 said:

Did the commonwealth contribute to the war effort? yes.

Did they contribute enough to be decisive? nope.

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I know you're referring specifically to the PTO here. You must be, because otherwise you must be flipping out or something.

Yes, only the PTO. And if you read my many posts, I emphysize that its for their contributions after 1942 when the US military power was growing exponentially in size.

Simply by stating that the CBI was a side-show to the war effort, you have stated that the North-West Europe, African and Italian campaign were all side-shows. After all ...you think the Soviet Union could have defeated Germany on it's own. It doesn't matter that all those countries the West Allies freed would have been in much worse trouble post-war.

And it doesn't matter that many more millions would have died in China, Burma and India if the British and Commonwealth left it alone. After all, the precious United States wouldn't have had the breathing space in 1942 to lick it's wounds after Pearl Harbour. And all that war material diverted to the CBI could have been sent to the PTO to combat the United States.

You seem to forget that tying up men isn't just tying up the man himself ...but it's also all that supply taken to get him there, to keep him there and to keep him fighting. I'm pretty sure the Japanese fighting the U.S would have enjoyed more ammo, more air cover, more tanks, more oil. But where was all that? In the CBI, that's where.

On top of that, it fits neatly into your ideal world to mention the war from 1943 to 1945. Newsflash: Japan was fighting China from 1931. The war was much longer than America's involvement. Alright, the U.S contributed to the final victory in the PTO more than any other nation but the PTO was America's war. The PTO was the only reason America were even in the war in the first place. The war against Japan could have been won without all that in the PTO by just cutting the heart of Japan's war effort, the CBI. And the U.S never did completely cut off Japan's supply lanes.

Well said pD. I agree. The Japanese had been fighting the Chinese on and off since 1931 when they took over Manchuria. Fighting increased after 1937 and only stopped in 1945.

plan_D said:

Simply by stating that the CBI was a side-show to the war effort, you have stated that the North-West Europe, African and Italian campaign were all side-shows. After all ...you think the Soviet Union could have defeated Germany on it's own. It doesn't matter that all those countries the West Allies freed would have been in much worse trouble post-war.

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The allies would not have been able to invade Normandy without the Soviet Union first chewing up the German Army. Africa was not a sideshow because it was not a battle area once the fight shifted to Italy. Once the fighting in France started in earnest, then Italy became a sideshow.

And what happened post war is irrelevent.

plan_D said:

And it doesn't matter that many more millions would have died in China, Burma and India if the British and Commonwealth left it alone. After all, the precious United States wouldn't have had the breathing space in 1942 to lick it's wounds after Pearl Harbour. And all that war material diverted to the CBI could have been sent to the PTO to combat the United States.

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Well, war is cruel, and sometimes in a global battle, someone has to get the shaft. Besides, I didnt say we should have abandoned it, I was saying it was militarily irrelevant. And the historical record is clear, that the fighting in the CBI did not give the US any breathing room. In fact, some precious USAAF groups were diverted to that area when it could have been more effectively employed in the SW Pacific. And there is no record that the US stopped anything just to "lick our wounds". In fact, in early 1942, there were several US raids into Japanese controlled area's.

plan_D said:

You seem to forget that tying up men isn't just tying up the man himself ...but it's also all that supply taken to get him there, to keep him there and to keep him fighting. I'm pretty sure the Japanese fighting the U.S would have enjoyed more ammo, more air cover, more tanks, more oil. But where was all that? In the CBI, that's where.

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The IJN ran past its logistics capabilities in spring 1942, and needed a few months to catch up. It was soon very apparent to both the allies and the Japanese that the logistsics in that area of the world was complicated and a hellhole. Again, even if the IJA could move their assetts to that area and fortify it, it didnt matter in the long run. They still had to be supplied by sea, and once the sealanes were cut, that wa sit. In fact, at the end of the war in 1945, there was still around 200,000 Japanese troops in the region, military toothless and impotent.

plan_D said:

On top of that, it fits neatly into your ideal world to mention the war from 1943 to 1945. Newsflash: Japan was fighting China from 1931. The war was much longer than America's involvement. Alright, the U.S contributed to the final victory in the PTO more than any other nation but the PTO was America's war. The PTO was the only reason America were even in the war in the first place. The war against Japan could have been won without all that in the PTO by just cutting the heart of Japan's war effort, the CBI. And the U.S never did completely cut off Japan's supply lanes.

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One of the key reasons the US got dragged into the war was the US putting trade embargo's on raw materials for Japan, due to their aggressive actions in China. In fact, it was the embargo of petroleum and gas to Japan that made them decide to begin agressive action in the pacific, for their Greater East Asia Co prosperity Sphere. You also forget that the Philipines was a territory of the US then and we were going to defend our territory.

And yes the US did completely cut off the sea lanes to Japan. By 1944, when we finally had torpedo's that worked, we were making big inroads in sinking their merchant marine. Once the Mariana's were taken in the summer of 1944, then those submarines were based there so that they could spend far more time on patrol. Did some Japanese ships make it from SE Asia up to Japan? Yes, some made it. But they were only bringing a VERY small ammount of resources needed to keep the war machine humming. The record is clear, the last five months of 1944 resulted in the near
complete isolation of Japan from the resources in SE Asia. At that point the war was over.