Why did Japan bomb Pearl Harbor?

Had they won at Midway, what loses. Had the US lost at Midway and the Japanese been more successful at Pearl we would not have been able to refloat and repair those lost ships and we would have been two more carriers down. Hawaii would have been lost as we would not have been able to supply them and Japan would have had free reign and the decided advantage in forcing a peace agreement in their favor.

This is about had they WON at Midway not lost.

It mattered entirely and had Japan been successful and our carrier groups destroyed the war would have ended entirely differently.

Commissioning and combat ready are two entirely different things.

 

More unlucky and a few panic'd decisions more than anything.

 

Japan never even had actual plans for invading Hawaii- it is doubtful that they could have done so. Defending Hawaii would not have needed any aircraft carriers to defend it.

Clearly we are all quarterbacking from what happened 60 years ago, but I agree with Mushroom. Midway would have been a serious setback for the U.S.- it would have set us back about a year in the Pacific. It might even have caused the U.S. to pull resources from the European theater to the Pacific Theater.

So lets assume for a moment that Midway was the reverse of what happened- clearly that could have happened if you read how the battle went. So the U.S. loses all of its carriers and Japan loses one. The U.S. loses Midway.

The Japanese didn't really care about Midway- they wanted to destroy the American carriers- so they would have accomplished what they wanted- for now. Hawaii still would have been protected by an ever increasing armada of land based planes.

Both the Japanese and American industrial capacity moves along like it did- and yes- by 1943-1944 the United States just outbuilds Japan in every category- we have more trained pilots, more planes, more carriers, more cruisers, DD's, submarines- and most especially more freighters. And not just quantity but quality- by 1944 American military planes were superior in just about everyway to Japanese- Hellcats and Corsairs, P-51's and P-38's, B-25's with 75 mm cannon's on them for attacking shipping, and by 1945 the B-29's were rolling out. The Japanese were not able to keep up quantitatively or qualitatively.

The United States population was united in a desire to fight Japan- losing Midway would have been just a hiccup- it might have resulted in the Soviets conguering Germany without us, but Japan would have still gone down. Yamamato knew that Japan could not compete with industrial capacity, but hoped that Americans would decide taking it all back would be too expensive.

 

if and but and maybe. the code breakers saved our ass

 

And that is exactly the point I was trying to make. In 1943 the US built more Fleet Carriers then the Japanese Navy had. By 1944 Japan was on the wrong side of a Naval buildup, and by 1945 the US Navy outnumbered them almost 3 to 1.

And Japan could not take over Hawaii, can't say it any clearer then that. They lacked both the manpower to do so, as well as the amphibious assets to do so. And as you pointed out, Hawaii was becoming a major buildup for land based aircraft. Aircraft with much longer range then anything the Japanese could launch from their carriers.

By mid-1942 we had enough fighters and bombers on Hawaii that Japan would not dared to have attack it. With the increase in patrols, the credibility that RADAR had gained and the 3 bomb groups of B-17, B-18 and B-24 (in addition to all of the other air groups either stationed there or passing through) it would have been suicidal for Japan to even try.

Even if they had the amphibious assets to attempt it in the first place, which they did not.

The only chance Japan had to actually take Hawaii was in December 1941. That is when they had the choice, to go for Philippines and a single strike on Hawaii, or conduct a much smaller invasion of the Philippines and concentrate on simply keeping it bottled up as the bulk of the troops went to Hawaii for an invasion. Once the decision was made to conduct a major invasion of the Philippines, the future operations were set in stone, and they lacked the capability to conduct any major amphibious assets further away.

 

are you serious here?? they had every intention of invading Hawaii. Midway was to be used for staging the attack on Hawaii. with our carriers on the bottom who's to stop them??? Pearl was still a mess. we were trying to get everything out before another attack.

 

With what amphibious assets?

Japan was in a serious hurtlocker in 1942 when it came to transports. Most of what they had were involved in operations in Java, Thailand, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. There were so few remaining available that they had to conduct the withdrawal from Guadalcanal with destroyers and cruisers.

And on top of that they had done a "surge" in China, and were pushing for Burma.

By 1942 there were simply no assets available to conduct an attack on Hawaii, period. No ships, no troops, not enough of everything basically. So even if they had destroyed the US fleet, they had nothing left to do an attack with.

 

Pablum. Midway was useless as a staging area for an invasion! It is a flyspeck in the middle of nowhere. The Japanese couldn't supply Guadalcanal, much closer and a stone's throw from their huge base at Rabaul...so how were they going to supply MIDWAY?!?! The Japanese had no hope of invading Hawaii. They simply did not have the logistical capability to do so. Pearl Harbor and Midway strained their logistics to the limit!

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Granted, their transport fleet took a serious beating at Guadalcanal, but I recall the main reason for using destroyers was speed: they could get in and out at night, and thus not be attacked by aircraft on Henderson Field.

Spot on.

 

Every intention? When? They didn't send troops to invade during Pearl Harbor. They didn't send troops for that invasion with the Midway fleet. All Midway could have been used for was for refueling the big Japanese flying boats. 1500 nautical miles. I believe that the only U.S. planes that could fly that distance were the B-17's and maybe the PBY's and B-26's that they based there.

Midway is not a naval port- it would have done the Japanese only a small amount of good.

Hawaii was an unsinkable carrier that had operating radar. After Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was reinforced- within 2 weeks the first reinforcements steamed in.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Guard-US/ch8.htm

 

Yah, you can blame Homer Lea & William Randolph Hearst for promoting the fear-mongering about Japan/China invading the Philippines, Hawaii & the US West Coast (well, 1 out of 3). Lea made a living @ it, he wrote 3 books & lots of other material on China, Japan & related. Hearst picked up his writings on the Oriental threat & helped popularize the boogeyman. Lea even wound up as staff & an adviser to Sun Yat Sen, as the Republic of China gasped out its last breath.

 

plenty. they brought a hugh landing force to midway which thank god never landed. in 42 they were running wild with conquest eveywhere. they had more than enought to capture Hawaii. if they take Hawaii we have no base's in the pacific. none. here was their big chance to knock us out of the war. at this time the IJN was bigger and far superior to ours. they proved that at the canal. which almost turned into another Bataan and Corregidor. the code breakers earned their pay here and beyond.

 

The Midway invasion force was less than 3000 troops. Even had they captured Midway, the Japanese had no hope of supplying it!

American carrier aviators proved they were a match for the Japanese at Coral Sea. There was never any real chance of the Marines being driven off Guadalcanal...again, the Japanese could not supply their troops!

 

yes they did

Planning the attack on Midway Atoll

The Japanese had planned that their Midway offensive would take place in three separate phases. In the first phase, the large fleet aircraft carriers of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's powerful First Carrier Striking Force (Kido Butai ) would approach Midway Atoll from the north-west on 4 June 1942. In the pre-dawn darkness, Nagumo would launch aircraft from his four carriers to attack the American air and land defences on Sand and Eastern Islands. When the American defences on Midway had been neutralised by Nagumo's carrier-launched air attacks, the second phase would begin. Warships and transports of the Midway Invasion Force commanded by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo would approach Midway from the south-west and land troops to crush all resistance, occupy the islands, and prepare the airfield to receive Japanese combat aircraft. Having neutralised Midway Atoll and prepared it for Japanese occupation, the third phase required Vice Admiral Nagumo to wait in ambush with his carrier force for the anticipated arrival of carriers of the United States Pacific Fleet on or soon after 6 June. When the American Pacific Fleet arrived from Pearl Harbor to defend Midway, Admiral Nagumo would destroy it. Admiral Yamamoto would hold the powerful battleships of his Main Force in reserve west of Midway to provide any support that Vice Admiral Nagumo might require to destroy the American fleet.

The man responsible for planning the Japanese amphibious landing on Midway Atoll was Commander Yasumi Toyama. Toyama laboured under a number of serious disadvantages. The only maps of Midway Atoll in his possession were old and likely to be unreliable. Toyama had no aerial photographs of the atoll because the pilots of Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-221 had intercepted and shot down a Japanese four-engined Kawanishi 97 "Mavis" patrol flying boat that had been approaching Midway on 10 March 1942. This Japanese flying boat had come from Wake Island and had been assigned to carry out a photographic reconnaissance of Midway to provide intelligence for the Japanese amphibious assault on Midway in June.

Toyama had no intelligence concerning the defences of Midway and the number of defenders. The Navy planners expected to face about 750 US Marines, and that would have been the pre-war strength of the Midway Detachment, Fleet Marine Force. The Army estimate was more realistic; they expected that the Marine strength would be closer to 2,000. It was anticipated that the Marines might have between 50-60 planes on the atoll.

Toyama planned a simultaneous attack on Sand and Eastern Islands from the southern side of the atoll where the two islands were close to the reef. The Japanese landing force would number about 5,000, and would be spearheaded by two elite assault units - Captain Minoru Ota's 2nd Combined Special Naval Landing Force numbering about one thousand five hundred marines, and the Army's Ichiki Detachment which numbered about two thousand men and was commanded by Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki.

Captain Ota's marines would land on Sand Island, and Colonel Ichiki's troops would land on Eastern Island. Both landings would require flat-bottomed landing boats, and the Japanese Navy had none. Toyama would have to swallow his pride and borrow landing boats from the Japanese Army.

http://www.pacificwar.org.au/Midway/Preparations.html

why invade this island unless you have plans for its use???

 

just curious. where did you get the 3000 figure from ??? i never really heard how many

far as the canal goes, it was so bad Halsey's staff recommended a contingency plan to abandon the island. he said no. if they get a wiff we're pulling out they'll be down here like buzzards. but that's another story

 

For the Battle of Midway, Japan brought 15 transports, with around 5,000 troops and their equipment, as well as engineers and water desalination equipment.

It took almost 130,000 to secure the Philippines, against a force of 150,000 defenders.

There were in excess of 250,000 Soldiers, Sailors and Marines on Hawaii by the time of the Battle of Midway, with more arriving all the time. That is in addition of between 200-350+ fighters and bombers at any given time.

So no, there was no "huge landing force" that was "more then enough to capture Hawaii". The force in fact was about the same size as what they brought to take over the similar sized island of Wake the year before.

 

According to Joe Biden, they didn't.

 

The main reason to attack Midway was to lure the American carrier fleet out and destroy it. Midway would also provide a forward operating base for reconnaisance and would have provided a lot of protection to any Japanese fleet that was operating in the area later on. If would provide a forward base for the big Japanese flying boats to do reconnaisance of Hawaii, and probably provide a relatively safe refueling place for Japanese subs.

As Mushroom said- the only viable moment in time that the Japanese could possibly have taken Hawaii was during the Pearl Harbor attack. Within 2 weeks after that attack the buildup of Pearl started going like gangbusters. If our carrier's had been lost, all the troops, planes etc that we were sending to the South Pacific would have come to Hawaii. Likely even more troops and vessels would have been diverted from the European theater to the Pacific- remember- the United States was actually afraid of a Japanese attack, and America was actually pissed off at the Japanese- only by masterful manuevering by Franklin was so much of our war effort directed towards Germany. The American people would have been fairly content to focus almost entirely on Japan and remove the only real threat that the public saw.

 

The Japanese plan was to lure the American aircraft carriers into a trap with the attack on Midway and Japanese submarines were supposed to sink the American carriers departing from Pearl Harbor. But there was no element of surprise because the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code was broken by American codebreakers. Admiral Nimitz knew exactly what the Japanese were up to in advance and he could assemble the American carriers approximately 350 miles northeast of Midway to ambush the Japanese carriers heading for Midway. American ship movements were detected by the Imperial Japanese Navy but Admiral Yamamoto did not inform the Japanese carriers to maintain radio silence and avoid exposing their positions, which turned out to be a crucial mistake that determined the outcome of the Battle of Midway.

 

Japan tried to accomplish a very surgical plan that if they had succeed in destroying the US Pacific fleet it would break the back of the Chinese forces forcing the Chinese to sign a treaty and accept to be part of Japan's Co-Prosperity Sphere this would greatly boost Japan's military capability in man power and resources allowing them to seize control of all Pacific Islands including Hawaii. At the same time the success of Japan would greatly help Hitler's offensive against Stalin that would allow Germany abundant resources of war materials and man power, as well allowing them the capability of Japan invading mainland USA from the West Coast and Germany from the East or Atlantic through Canada or maybe through Central America.

 

Seriously I don't think any of that makes any sense.

 

(My bold)

No. Japan seriously underestimated China, Korea, Russia & the US. In 1941, the Chinese forces fighting the IJA were the Nationalists, who fought only minimally, to keep US & Allied support/$/supplies flowing to them; & the Communists, who fought the IJA @ every opportunity, to the death. Neither Chinese force was going to sign any kind of treaty with Japan - it would have meant the death of that party, in the eyes of China. Japan outfought Imperial Russia on land & sea, @ the cost of committing every available troop & scraping the bottom of the barrel for replacements - they won a brilliant but narrow victory over Imperial Russia - & proceeded to lose the peace negotiations.

Japan's military was fully tasked in late 1941 - there were no troops, transports, support, supplies to spare to ship to HI for a v. bloody fight @ sea & on the beaches, against impossible odds & an entrenched & fully prepared defense. HI was outside of the Japanese sphere of influence, they only dared dash in for a raid on HI - with lots of complicated decoy/maneuver units demonstrating to confuse the defense. Invading the US West Coast was a further pipe dream - the only way Japan could have had the numbers would have been to abandon China, Manchuria, Korea, never invade the Philippines, abandon all plans to invade the oil, rubber etc. resources they went to war for in the first place. & that still wouldn't have provided the logistics, transport, supplies, replacements & so on for a prolonged campaign. In fact, the entire Japanese strategy was for a short, brutal campaign. Sink the US Pacific Fleet, inflict enough casualties, make the price of reconquering the lost territory too high, & the US might sue for peace. Japan was @ its peak in the first year, from 1942 through 1943; & they lost ground (in cf. to the US) every day thereafter.

As Adm. Yamamoto explained to the Japanese high command, he could run riot in the Pacific for 6 months to a year; after that, it would be certain defeat. Most of the high military command seemed to know that - they could not hope to match US economic/manufacturing power in a prolonged war. See Warriors of the rising sun - a history of the Japanese Military - Robert B. Edgerton, W. W. Norton & Co., c 1997.

 

Korea was annexed in 1910. Some Koreans even fought with the Japanese.

If you're referring to the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 then I think you'll find that the Japanese came out on top.

There would not of been much point in capturing Hawaii.

 

Wow, and how the loss of the US fleet would cause China to surrender (not that they even could - there were 2 major and many minor groups fighting for control of that country), I have absolutely no idea. And the US was not the only source of supply for them either, the Soviets, Australians and English were also shipping them supplies (as well as what they captured from the Japanese themselves).

So this makes absolutely no sense at all, totally detached from reality.

ANd no, Japan was not going to invade neither Hawaii nor the Mainland US. They could not even take over China, which was right next door, let alone the US. Not even the most optimistic war plans of Japan and Germany envisioned a conflict on US soil in less then 25 years.

 

WW I, WWII, and present day plans to bomb Syria all makes no sense. But do you think Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany at that time have no long term plan that Japan only reason to bomb Pearl Harbor was because they felt like it? Or how about the Allies USA, UK, Russia, France these big four are you saying they have no long term plans or alterior plans and motives of their own?