Any thoughts of what effect it would have had? I imagine the Pacfic war would have been more defensive and utilizing submarines and land based aircraft to hold the Japanese to the west of Hawaii. Thoughts?
It would have set back the war in the Pacific for 1 or 2 years at the most. As I recall, the Japanese never had any intention of pushing beyond Midway, and even the Aleutian attack was a feint. The whole battle was mostly to destroy the American carrier force. The delay would have given Japan more time to fortify the islands that they had captured, but just look at the forces the United States had built up by 1944 and 1945. The United States was still ramping up when the war ended. And assuming it didn't cause the U.S. to divert forces from Europe to the Pacific, look at what Great Britain brought around once Germany was defeated. What Japan hoped would happen is that the U.S. would choose to settle after losing Midway- and I have seen nothing to indicate that would have happened.
The thing of note is how many of the ships were being built just before WW2 started, if only Chamberlain had came into power a couple of years earlier Britain would have been ready to fight the war at sea. This is all rather heart breaking for me, as someone who has been brought up to think Churchill saved the country and Chamberlain was a incompetent fool, I have been told a lie my whole life. I now believe Chamberlain to be the best British PM of the 20th century, but I am the only one who thinks it.
