Would Japan have been better off skipping the Pearl Harbor Raid - daring the US to implement War Plan Orange? (1 Viewer)

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Conslaw

Senior Airman
627
449
Jan 22, 2009
Indianapolis, Indiana USA
The Pearl Harbor raid was a huge tactical success for Japan, but I wonder if the US would have been worse off if Japan had used the resources for its Asian conquests instead. My reasoning: War Plan Orange was idiotic. It was a crazy to try to send slow American Battleships to liberate or rescue the Phillipines. The Japanese would have had multiple opportunities to pick off the American ships one and two at a time as they travelled across the Pacific. In the meantime, the few U.S. carriers would be tied to the defense of the battleships. The battleships, lost on the high seas, would have carried a lot more sailors to their doom than when sunk or damaged in port at Pearl. Your thoughts?
 
The Pearl Harbor raid was a huge tactical success for Japan, but I wonder if the US would have been worse off if Japan had used the resources for its Asian conquests instead. My reasoning: War Plan Orange was idiotic. It was a crazy to try to send slow American Battleships to liberate or rescue the Phillipines. The Japanese would have had multiple opportunities to pick off the American ships one and two at a time as they travelled across the Pacific. In the meantime, the few U.S. carriers would be tied to the defense of the battleships. The battleships, lost on the high seas, would have carried a lot more sailors to their doom than when sunk or damaged in port at Pearl. Your thoughts?

I think it's pretty certain that the attack on Pearl Harbor was critical in making the war in the Pacific into a crusade* against Japan instead of a war with limited political aims. It is certainly plausible the USN would lose several ships in trying to recover the Philippines, and it's certainly not unlikely that the USN would suffer more casualties than they had at Pearl Harbor.

In WW2, the Japanese were demonstrably competent and well-prepared for surface warfare (especially at night) and quite able to sink capital ships on the high seas. A massive fleet action, involving the USN's Pacific battle fleet was exactly the sort of confrontation the IJN was planning to fight.
 
I was going to put down some thoughts on this but the old adage comes to mind...

Better to remain silent and let people think you the fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt

Or something to that effect.
 
Since you asked, I'd have to say that the Pearl Harbor Raid was, in itself, a bad mistake.

If Japanese goals were to destroy the Pacific Fleet, leaving the ocean to their navy and destroy America's will to fight, they would have been better off taking The Philippines, as well as Wake and Midway Islands without warning.

American interests and American bases would have still been attacked, which would have drawn out the Pacific Fleet. Which would have meant a fleet of old and aging battlewagons and three aircraft carriers.

The Japanese would probably have made short work out of the battleships, cruisers etc and eventually the carriers. Remember, he performance of the Zero, as well as many other Japanese planes was unknown, at the time, so our pilots would not have been well prepared for them. While, I personally believe the Wildcat was a better matchup than many would lead you to believe, team tactics like the Thatch Weave had not been introduced, nor, the philosophy of avoiding the dogfight with Zeros.

Even, if the fleet made it to the Philippines, relatively intact, think of the Marines at Guadalcanal...under-equipped and many undertrained vs a military in their prime.

Sending out the US military to take back islands that many couldn't care less for, losing a fleet and a lot of marines in the process would have affirmed the beliefs of the anti-war crowd/politicians and the Japanese would have had years to fortify the Pacific without US intervention, UNTIL, their ambitions grew too big and they decided to take the Hawaiian Islands, which I'm sure would have happened.

Also, had the Pacific Fleet, INCLUDING THE CARRIERS, been destroyed on its way to the Philippines or anywhere else, would the catalyst still have been there to convert the Navy into a carrier centric force? Maybe, maybe not.

Personally, I see the attack on Pearl Harbor itself, as the mistake and not the flaws in the plan or the absence of the US carriers. I wonder if Yamamoto, Genda, or any of the other planners ever considered the idea of not attacking at Pearl Harbor?
 
The goal of Pearl Harbour was not to win a war against the USA but to buy time. It was a political goal not a military one.

Also war was gonna happen with invasion of the Philippines anyway so the old adage in for a penny in for a pound may suit.

The goal of the Japanese is to face America in 1942 with a fait accompli and then tell the Americans to ask what they going to do about it? The Japanese plan was the Americans would run home to mamma and hide under the bed clothes.

The A-bomb throwing juggernaut of 1945 was certainly planned for. The Japanese knew that a long drawn out war with USA would end one way. So the idea was to get a first shot in and the Americans would sue for peace.
 
Oh, come on now, be brave, we fools love company.
Oh very well... :lol:

While an attack on say the Philippines, Wake and perhaps Midway may or may not have garnered the same outrage as the attack on Pearl Harbor, it's safe to assume ( I believe ) that a sneak attack anywhere on American bases would rile up the United States populace pretty good. Hawaii after all wasn't a state either, although it could be argued that it was as good as one at the time of the attack. Certainly more closely associated with statehood than say the Philippines or two coral atolls in the middle of the Pacific.

Add to that the outrage of the possibility of having the U.S.N. getting a bloody nose trying to relieve the Philippine Islands and I think a pretty good argument can be made for the U.S. to get its back up so to speak and become the A-bomb wielding juggernaut of 1945. Also, although I'm no expert, I believe the Japanese plan included a conquest of the Hawaiian Island all along so that would just add even more fuel to the fire.

All in all, I think the end result would have been the same, but it might have come perhaps a year to 18 months later than it did.
 
The Japanese knew 2 things that the Americans could churn out warships like printing paper and the Japanese couldn't.
Sink 100 ships and face 1000 more. So even if they were able to fight their beloved decisive battle with the USN just like at Tsushima then don't matter Coz losses can be replaced.

It was Americas will to fight that was the key.

I don't get the Japanese mentality in this case. A bit like going to the biggest guy in the pub and punching him in the face. And the big guy also happens to be a ninja. Unless he walks away you going to get the ass whuppin of a life time. What ever advantage you get from being right pales to what happens if you get it wrong.
 
Yamamoto was not against Pearl Harbour rather than fighting USA in first place.

Whether the American population would bleed for the Philippines is debatable but a few death march later of US soldiers and the the fate is sealed. If you want a peace with USA then killing American PoW is hardly the best way to start.
 
So assuming there is no Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese would have been able to commit their entire fleet to their other conquests. As it happened, Singapore fell in February 1942, Dutch East Indies in March 1942, and though Americans held out at Corregidor until May, effectively Japan had control in the Phillipines well before then. With the full attention of the Japanese navy, resistence in these areas would have been quelled earlier than what happened, but how much earlier, we don't know.

Under War Plan Orrange, the goal was to get reinforcements to the Phillipines, and clear the sea of any enemy fleet that dared to get in the way. The catch, as I see it, is that the US didn't have a combat-ready marine division to send overseas before August 1942. They had no army divisions ready to go even then. (Based on the forces actually sent to Guadalcanal.)

The Navy didn't have enough fleet oilers to support sending its fleet of slow battleships to the Phillipines in one fluid journey. Moreover, the modernization plans for the various battleships were in various stages of incompletion in December 1941. I don't see how the US would have been able to give organized relief to the the Phillipines by May 1942. Anything they did send would be weak enough to be handily defeated by the Japanese.

If you compare what it would have taken for a full-out reinvasion of the Phillipines in 1942 vs 1944, it would have taken fewer ground troops because the Japanese were less-well-established; however it would have taken a stronger fleet, because the Japanese Navy was at its peak in 1942. It seems likely to me that even if the US would have launched a best efforts mission to relieve the Phillipines, the mission would have likely been called off before arrival as being moot.
 
The Japanese knew 2 things that the Americans could churn out warships like printing paper and the Japanese couldn't.
Sink 100 ships and face 1000 more.

Hmm I do admit to not being a Naval expert, but "the internet" says it took on average 20months from initial build to commissioning an Essex class USN aircraft carrier in WW2, and about 36months for the IJN to do the same for the Hiryu carrier for example. So while there does appear to be a disparity in capacity there, perhaps "churn out like printing paper" is slightly over-doing it in terms of USN capacity?

That of course also takes no account of the loss of Navy personell, or all the planes/pilots and so on that would be lost. I`m a bit unconvinced that if the USN in Pearl Harbor HAD lost a load of carriers as hoped for by IJN, that the Americans would have just said "oh well" and built another fleet just like that. Figures suggest it would have taken at least 2 years to do that, which leaves rather a lot of time for other things to occur...perhaps someone more knowledgable can step in and give some guesses about not only the "time to commission from order" but the likely effect of having to do several at ONCE on that time period ? I have absolutely no idea whatsoever about that.
 
You'd have to check the dates, but the Essex class was being built I believe even at the time of Pearl Harbor. It wasn't the time frame so much as the amount of shipyards the U. S. had vis a vis the Japanese that could turn out ships like printing paper. FDR had a fleet program that was planned to make the U.S.N. second to none by 1944, war or no war.

Not to mention FDR's plans for producing 100,000 aircraft, Japan was screwed blued and tattooed from the start, they just either didn't know it, couldn't accept it, or as many have said, were counting on bringing America to the bargaining table with quick knockout(like) blows. That it didn't work and would never work was a terrible miscalculation on their part. As Swamp says, killing American POW's at the start was hardly the brightest thing to do either.

After the way Japan started the war and their behavior through most if not all of it, atomic fire was almost preordained.

*EDIT*

Checked wikipedia - Essex commissioned December '42, Yorktown, Intrepid, Hornet, Lexington, Bunker Hill and Wasp commissioned '43 and six more in 1944. Essex herself was laid down in April 1941.
 
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The USN could have been rebuilt its just a matter of time and will.
So had Pearl Harbour not happened but the the invasion of the Philippines had then its a matter of what would the USN do?

So now that's a timeframe when you build your force up and sail across.

From a Japanese perspective I want to create a kill box where the Pacific Fleet will sail into. That would be well within the range of land based bombers. So using my night fighting skills, Long Lance torpedoes, Subs and battleships and carriers in a very confined combat zone I am going to win because I hold the cards and it would be akin to a batter waiting for ball. This could be somewhere off the coast of the Philippines as the Americans try to either defeat the IJN or try to counter invade the Philippines.

I would suspect the USN would try and avoid such a dragons jaw and attack elsewhere in more of a attrition warfare and draw out the IJN outside of a set piece battle. Trying to create a scratch force and attack Phillipenes in a swift 'we must do something' manner would have been disaster.

In a fleet v fleet action, the USN is actually in a good position and could take on the IJN gun for gun. But in 1942, the true capability of the IJN would not yet be known so Japanese night fighting capability plus the Zero plus the Long Lance and you could be sailing into a trap.

Oddly the loss of the battleships at Pearl meant a charge of this nature didn't happen in 1942 so Pearl avoided the one winner takes all decisive battle that the Japanese wanted and could have won in 1942.
 
Hmm I do admit to not being a Naval expert, but "the internet" says it took on average 20months from initial build to commissioning an Essex class USN aircraft carrier in WW2, and about 36months for the IJN to do the same for the Hiryu carrier for example. So while there does appear to be a disparity in capacity there, perhaps "churn out like printing paper" is slightly over-doing it in terms of USN capacity?

That of course also takes no account of the loss of Navy personell, or all the planes/pilots and so on that would be lost. I`m a bit unconvinced that if the USN in Pearl Harbor HAD lost a load of carriers as hoped for by IJN, that the Americans would have just said "oh well" and built another fleet just like that. Figures suggest it would have taken at least 2 years to do that, which leaves rather a lot of time for other things to occur...perhaps someone more knowledgable can step in and give some guesses about not only the "time to commission from order" but the likely effect of having to do several at ONCE on that time period ? I have absolutely no idea whatsoever about that.
The Japanese government was spending something like 20% of its GDP on its fleet before attacking the US, Netherlands East Indes, and the British Imperial possessions. The US was spending about 4% and still out-building Japan.
 
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To be a success the raid on Pearl Harbour would have to take out all the US carriers in the area which is a fantasy outcome. Its hard to think up any strategy that could have won, just ones that prolong the conflict.
 
Pearl harbour was a political or diplomatic attack more than military.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

So instead of diplomats and letters, send Vals. The Japanese plan was to be to flex muscle, kill Americans, sink ships, sign peace treaty.

The actual military, tactical and strategic goal was peace treaty by show of Force.

Smashing fuel tanks this and sinking battleship that was not important. In fact the attack was far more successful than the Japanese believed possible.

The Japanese seemed to be in two mindsets at the same time. They knew of American potential and so couldn't win a war over the long term but could win a short term set piece battle which they buy time or hopefully get a peace treaty.

A bit like going in a tigers cage with a pokey stick and hoping the tiger doesn't eat you.
 
8CV-12%29_and_USS_San_Jacinto_%28CVL-30%29_docked_at_Alameda_in_September_1945_%2880-G-701512%29.jpg


from front to back, USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise , USS Hornet (Essex class) and the USS San Jacinto (Independence class carrier)

There were nine Independence class carriers built, converted from Cleveland light cruisers. The last one was the San Jacinto and she commissioned in Nov 1943.

I don't believe there was any serious attempt/plan at converting the Baltimore class cruiser hull but it might have been possible if the situation was dire enough. 4 had been laid down in 1941.
 
I think the fundamental problem is that the Japanese massively overestimated the degree of cooperation that was occurring in 1941 between the UK and the US. It appears that senior Japanese officials were convinced that the US would come in on the side of the UK if Japan attacked the UK's possessions.

Given the continuing isolationist sentiment in the US through the end of Nov 41, I think it highly unlikely that the US would go to war over Malaya, Singapore, Burma or the NEI. Had Japan left Pearl Harbor and the Philippines alone, it certainly would have given the US more time to rearm but, equally, it wouldn't have provoked the sleeping giant, and so Japan may ultimately have been better off.
 

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