What was the greatest Japanese victory in WW2

Choose wisely. I'm personally going with the Battle of Bataan. Over 100,000 American and Filipino soldiers died, not including citizens.

 

I would argue Singapore. That city was supposed to be imprentrable, but skillfully moving through the jungle the British thought was impossible to get through ended up being a major victory for Japan.

 

I don't think enemy body count is the way to measure a victory. It's "greatest gain for the lowest cost."

By that measure, I think the conquest of Vietnam/Malaysia/Singapore/Burma is their greatest victory. Secured a huge area and some important port and shipping routes, at ridiculously low cost.

In terms of body count, for instance, look at the Battle for Malaya (modern-day Malaysia). Japanese took the whole country. Casualty count:

JAPANESE
1,800 killed
3,400 wounded

BRITISH
5,500 killed
5,000 wounded
40,000 captured

Or consider the invasion of Thailand. Fighting lasted only a few hours, and casualties were tiny. But as a result, Thailand agreed to an alliance with Japan and declared war on the Allies. Japan gained control of a huge area, and quite a few useful ports, at minimal cost, and no need for an occupying army.

 

That was pretty bad. Death tolls do not reach Hong Kong levels though.

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Those were pretty big. Malaya caused the death of 60,000 British and Chinese Communist Party troops, compared to 3000 Japanese. BTW, if anybody wants to debate this, I firmly believe if the Japanese did not invade, they would of won the Chinese civil war.

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My mistake, I countered in captures as death tolls.

 

Pearl Harbor of course.
Pearl Harbor by its' crippling effect on the Pacific Fleet and
very limited loses for the aggressor.


One may argue the wisdom of Pearl Harbor but,
it was a lopsided win for the Empire of Japan.


Moi

No
They invade politely​

 

(My bold)

A tactical win but a strategic disaster? One more win like that one, and there wouldn't be a Nippon at all. We probably would have leveled the entire island chain with nukes, salted the glowing ruins, and planted radiation warnings for the next 500 years.

 

Please note, "one may argue the wisdom of Pearl Harbor".
Y'want a greatest victory. The battles quoted show Japan minimally losing 20% of their enemy losses.
Pearl Harbor was hardly 2% was it.
The Pacific Ocean was a Japanese Lake for 6 months. As Yamamoto promised.
One could extend the argument that no victory by Japan was a strategic win, in the long term.


Moi

No ​

 

I wouldn't count it as a great victory because it was so small-scale, in the end.

They meant to cripple the U.S. Pacific fleet. But the carriers weren't in port, and in the end the raid did limited damage: 6 ships sunk, 13 damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed, 2,400 people killed.

Yes, Japanese losses were minimal (29 planes destroyed, 64 people killed, the loss of 5 midget subs). But it wasn't a big victory because it didn't accomplish much.

You credit Pearl Harbor with making the Pacific a Japanese lake for six months, but the U.S. plan for war always involved being defensive in the Pacific while concentrating on crushing Germany. So the Pacific would have been a Japanese lake for about that long with or without Pearl Harbor. In the end the ships sunk at Pearl Harbor were not strategically significant (the U.S. won the Pacific with air power, not battleships). Indeed, one could argue that by forcing the U.S. to rely on air power (and thus discovering its awesome power), the Japanese hastened their own demise.

 

Yeah- Pearl was a tactical victory but a huge strategic failure- Japan could have attacked swept most of the South Pacific other than the Phillippines and the U.S. would likely not have done a thing.

 

Maybe, but you couldn't blame the Japanese for trying it. The end and be all of Naval Strategy right up to and even into WWII had been the totally decisive big battle of rival fleets set up by Admiral Mahan in the late 19th century, and the Japanese had been the only ones who had ever really carried it off in it's purest form at the Battle of Tsushima Straits in 1905. This made them a world power and earned them the only real Alliance the old British Empire ever made (Didn't last long, unfortunately. If it had it might have, paradoxically, stopped the Military Takeover which ended the Taisho period and even, possibly headed off the whole Axis idea, with maybe WWII in the bargain)

The Ironic thing is that after Yamamoto gave them this victory the Naval Chiefs still ignored its main lesson. The strategy of the Big Battle was still sound but it was to be between Carriers, not BBS. The Japanese wasted resources on the Yamato, the largest BBS with the biggest guns ever put on one, and which was sunk on her first foray, before she even got off one salvo with them.

 

(Your bold)

Yah, & Emperor Hirohito's capitulation speech (the Imperial Rescript) says "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" & other self-serving drivel. There's enough mealy in there to have fed the starving Japanese people for months.

Nah, if you want Japan's greatest military victory, it was the comprehensiveness & efficiency of their military intel-gathering. They knew everything there was to know about British, Dutch, French, US military dispositions, depots, fuel, ammo, defense plans, manning tables, COs, organization, right down to TOE & supplies (except that IJ military didn't pay any attention to logistics - one of the reasons we eventually stomped them into the ground). They had planted agents, informers & spies in all the native workforces of note - British, Philippine, China - & probably USSR. If they had only pursued self-knowledge with the same efficiency, they would have known they were overmatched from the beginning (1931), & sought some other arena to contend in.

 

(My bold)

Yah, I can. From 1931 on, Japan - well, the IJA & IJN & their proxies in the so-called government - ran riot in Korea, Manchuria, China. They clashed with USSR, but that was unpleasant - the Soviets had tanks, arty & well-armed & trained manpower. Japan's military couldn't make sacking & looting pay. Oh, they raped & burned & stole, used captured military & civilians for bayonet, sword & target practice. They drove off landlords & farmers, imported Japanese rice farmers & propped them up as puppets - & then wondered why they couldn't grow crops. The same for oil fields, bananas, rubber, coal, iron, cocoanut, everything their military touched turned to Scheiss. & so to compound the folly, they decided to war on the West entirely, except Germany & Italy.

 

Its still debated who won. Wikipedia cites it as an American victory, because we demolished the attacking fleet, which led them to miss 50% of the fleet. The other 25% was able to be rebuilt, over time. I think we won, because even though the defense crippled us, it allowed us to launch a counter offensive.

Apply it like this. A siege takes place at a castle. 600 attackers, and 400 defenders. If the siege is over, and the attackers retreating, and were left with 300 attackers routing and 200 defenders, who won? I would argue the defenders did. Pyrrhic coined the term "Pyrrhic Victory", to refer to a victory where both sides took heavy losses, but one side still came a slight bit victorious.

 

As you mention about the greatest gain with the lowest possible cost, I would vote for the attack on Pearl Harbor. How many Americans died with virtually zero deaths for the Japanese airmen. Some died in a mini-sub and a handful of others including one captured but that is some great odds.

 

I still stand by the Battle of Bataan being the worst defeat in US history. We lost our entire army garrisoned in the Philippines. If we had one the defense, than the war would of been shortened tremendously.

 

What do you mean by "We" ?
Afghans and Americans?


It was Pearl by the scoreboard.


Moi

No ​

 

I used it in the context of Americans. I am American that is.

 

Since when? ​

Something like Operation Paperclip?
I've been American since June 21, 1948

No ​

 

(My bold)

Not quite the entire garrison. Some were never captured or escaped, and formed guerrilla (!) units, or became coastwatchers. But yah, the regular garrison was starved out or out of ammo, or their positions were untenable.

The Orange Plan for Japan was always to concede the Philippines as untenable, & retake it later. MacArthur could have done better - he promised an active defense of the beaches, prepositioned supplies, ammo, food forward (a nice gift for the IJA). & counted on poorly trained, poorly disciplined, poorly armed Philippine levies. He shifted the long-standing defense plans & botched it. He managed to lose his air force on the ground - days after Pearl Harbor. He failed to execute his orders to bomb the Japanese staging military airport in Formosa, which meant he lost his AF, which meant loss of control of the airspace over the Philippines, which meant collapse of the various stands, loss of further supplies, detachments (US & Philippine) spread out & out of contact, no power, water, civilian & military clogged roads, panic & on & on.

He did much better eventually, once he, his family, his PR detachment & personal staff, the Philippine honchos & the national treasury were safely ensconced in Australia.

 

The greatest japanese victories were Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines,Yunnan and Ichi-Go, I think. Contrary to popular belief, the bulk of the Japanese army was fighting in China, not in the Pacific Area.

 

There are two different events you are talking about that. Singapore was only approachable across a causeway. The Japanese in the Malay campaign rarely moved the through the jungle. They were forced to use the roads like everyone else. What they did do that did surprise the allies was use push bikes to cover more territory.

Their other interesting tactic was a double flank attack from the same flank

 

It is funny how unconventional that tactic was. I still think Bataan was the greatest battle in the war. The Japanese to American death ratio was astounding. We lost the whole Filipino army, along with 60,000-70,000 of our own troops.

 

Yeah it took half the Malayian peninsular for the Australian forces to figure out counter tactics. Today with modern GPS maneuvers like that would be easy. But back then doing it all by eyeball took extraordinary jungle craft.

 

your numbers look suspect, I find 15k americans took part not 60-70k ....and death ratio doesnt seem extrodinary, japan 19k killed and wounded, usa/filipino killed and wounded 30k...

 

The filipino army was integrated in the US one. Maybe were not mutual here, but those were US troops we lost, with US citizen ship. Japan broke through 5 defensive lines and killed 100,000 soldiers. Your numbers seem way off to me actually.