Sorry, I should have said “the British” instead of Churchill.
And actually, no one in Britain had such power at any time, but it sure didn’t prevent them from trying. Such a decision was reserved to Knox and Roosevelt.
It was a given as far as the British and American leadership was concerned. The fact that the British readily agreed to the Americans taking overall command in the Pacific supports the idea.
Well, a little bit of mis-direction certainly doesn’t hurt. The fact that Naval power was absolutely crucial to conducting any kind of land war or land offensive in the NEI is the point. The Japanese could never have launched the NEI offensive if the full force of the US Navy had been deployed as would have been entirely possible absent Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war against the US.
Which proves what about the hypothetical Japanese offensive against the NEI?
Which is totally irrelevant since in the hypothetical instance of the scenario, neither would have taken place.
Not really. The truth is, the Japanese made a only half-hearted attempt at taking Milne Bay. Not to detract from the heroism and sacrifice of the Australian forces, but the Japanese committed only about 1,800 troops supported by about 350 non-combat support troops. The Allied forces numbered almost 9,000 men, with 4,500 being infantry. It was an important battle, but as Pacific battles went, not particularly large.
Sorry, but that’s BS. American air logistics and air support did make a big difference at Port Moresby (where the Australian logistics base for the Kokoda Trail was located) and on the Kokoda Trail itself. It’s true that much of the supplies air dropped to the Australians on the Trail were lost, but those that were recovered made a difference, as did American air strikes against Japanese air bases supporting the Japanese offensive and against Japanese shipping attempting to deliver supplies to the Japanese forces.
In any case, such a statement demeans the very real contributions made by the US Navy in the South Pacific. Australia could not have sustained troops in New Guinea without the assistance of the US Navy and without the defeats the US Navy inflicted on the Japanese Navy…
And as I pointed out, the Japanese land offensive against the NEI could never have taken place if the IJN had faced the full force of the US Navy, as they would have if Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war had never taken place as implied by the scenario under discussion.
The land war in New Guinea is completely irrelevant because it would never have taken place in a scenario where Japan limits its Southward advance to the NEI.
I guess you just like to ignore evidence that doesn’t support your opinion.
In May, 1942, the US Navy, with essentially the same fleet units it had possessed in December, 1941 (minus, of course, the units lost at Pearl Harbor), stopped the advance of the Japanese navy against New Guinea. A month later, the same US fleet gutted the offensive capacity of the Japanese navy. There is no reason to believe that had these actions taken place in defense of the NEI that the outcomes would be any different.
I don’t agree that the USN by itself ‘stopped the naval advance on New Guinea’.
It wasn’t a naval advance on New Guinea (strictly Papua) but naval support for an invasion force headed for Port Moresby.
The USN didn’t operate entirely alone but had the assistance of two Australian cruisers and land-based US aircraft, both of which played critical parts in the Battle of the Coral Sea.
The USN Coral Sea force wasn’t essentially the same (Pacific) fleet units the US possessed on 7 December 1941. The Australian cruisers HMAS Australia and HMAS Hobart, which with USS Chicago and three US destroyers turned back the Japanese invasion force heading for Port Moresby during the Battle of the Coral Sea, weren’t part of the US fleet in December 1941 or subsequently. Without them blocking the Jomard Passage (and surviving an attack by American land-based bombers as well as Japanese land-based bombers), the Japanese invasion fleet had a clear run to Port Moresby once the other USN forces had withdrawn on 8 May 1942 and left the invasion fleet in position to proceed through Jomard Passage to its destination. It’s questionable whether the land-based Allied air forces could have turned them back.
As you’re using Coral Sea to predict the result of a Japanese invasion of the NEI if facing only the USN, and given that without non-American cruisers in Coral Sea it’s quite likely that the Japanese would have landed in Port Moresby, it follows that it’s quite likely that the Japanese would have landed in the NEI if they attacked only the NEI.
It becomes much more probable if Japan attacked the NEI as a surprise attack in the same way it did Pearl Harbor, Malaya and the Philippines because, despite an attack solely on the NEI being a strong possibility facing US defence planners, the USN was not deployed to defend the NEI. The nearest ships would have been the Asiatic Fleet based in the Philippines. Whether many could or would have been dispatched to the defence of the NEI after a Japanese attack on only the NEI is unlikely, as the Americans could be expected to regard an attack on the NEI as a prelude to an attack on the Philippines and so concentrate on defence of their own territory. As it happened, the Asiatic Fleet was no match for the Japanese fleets it faced so there is no reason to believe it would have performed any better when reinforced by the Pacific Fleet against Japanese fleets reinforced by the fleets used against Pearl Harbor and to support the invasions of Malaya and the Philippines plus other expeditions such as Rabaul and Truk.
As it happened, the USN didn’t fare too well when defending only the Philippines as “By the end of December 1941 the Japanese, in addition to striking the United States Navy a crippling blow at Pearl Harbor, had destroyed for all practical purposes the Far East Air Force, had driven the American Asiatic Fleet, together with the remnants of Patwing 10, from its Philippine base to the Netherlands East Indies.” http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/I/AAF-I-10.html And the American Asiatic Fleet, along with British, Australian and Dutch naval forces fared even worse in defence of the NEI.
There is no reason to believe that the USN would necessarily have fared better if the Japanese attacked only the NEI, and using Coral Sea as an indicator just reinforces the prospect that the Japanese would have got their invasion force ashore in the NEI. The simple fact is that in December 1941 to mid-1942, Japan was vastly superior to its opponents in its southern thrust and would probably have defeated them wherever it struck.
Your reference to a ‘half-hearted attempt at taking Milne Bay’ exemplifies your condescending attitude to forces other than the US. If the US had been the main force at Milne Bay you’d be touting it as the greatest feat of arms since Thermopylae.
Alas, Australians were the main force at Milne Bay and it was the first defeat the Japanese suffered in their southern thrust. It was a huge morale booster after a devastating succession of Allied defeats down the South East Asian land chain as it demonstrated that the Japanese were not invincible. As Bill Slim noted: “Australian troops had, at Milne Bay in New Guinea, inflicted on the Japanese their first undoubted defeat on land. If the Australians, in conditions very like ours, had done it, so could we. Some of us may forget that of all the Allies it was the Australian soldiers who first broke the spell of the invincibility of the Japanese Army; those of us who were in Burma have cause to remember.”
Apart from Kokoda and Guadalcanal, name three other land battles or campaigns that were going on around the same time in the SWPA or Pacific which were larger. Or even half the size of Milne Bay in forces committed by both sides.
Apart from Gudalcanal and the Kokoda campaign, which terminated with the reduction of Gona, Buna and Sanananda, name three other land battles or campaigns where the Japanese were defeated on land in 1942.
As for Milne Bay being small by comparison with later battles and campaigns, yes, it was. But without defeating the Japanese at Milne Bay and Kokoda and Guadalcanal those later battles and campaigns would not have been possible. In the second half of 1942 they were the only battles and campaigns that mattered. And, so far as I am aware, the USN did not win them all by itself or, as I shall deal with in my next post, even make the contribution you assert.
MacArthur, who was in command of the whole exercise in Papua (which almost everyone insists on calling New Guinea) and who was possibly slightly better informed at the time than you are now, disagreed.
From the beginning of the Guadalcanal fighting MacArthur had been left with virtually no naval strength at all . After the Japanese landed at Milne Bay he had to weigh the necessity for reinforcements against the risk of sending them under the protection of a single destroyer, the only sizeable surface craft then available in the
South-West Pacific Area . On 6th September he radioed General Marshall personally.
“Due to lack of maritime resources, I am unable to increase ground forces in
New Guinea as I cannot maintain them . . . it is imperative that shipping and naval
forces for escort duty be increased to ensure communication between the Australian
mainland and the south coast of New Guinea . With these additional naval facilities
I can despatch large ground reinforcements to New Guinea with the object of
counter-infiltration towards the north, and at the same time make creeping advances
along the north coast with small vessels and marine amphibious forces . Such action
will secure a situation which otherwise is doubtful. If New Guinea goes the results
will he disastrous.”
But MacArthur had little chance of getting the naval forces he sought while the struggle for the Solomons continued . And in any event Admiral King was unwilling to entrust his precious aircraft carriers to the command of MacArthur or any other army officer who might commit them to unjustifiable risks."
This is the reality of the absence of USN support in the Papuan campaign, from a commentary which is quite supportive of the US.
Despite Japanese command of the seas in the Solomons-New Guinea area–the U.S. Navy had withdrawn from the area in late October after losing an aircraft carrier and seeing another badly damaged–the Allies were asked to take advantage of the shallow coastal waters of New Guinea. In their advance from Milne Bay the Allies moved troops and supplies by fishing boats, tuggers, rowboats, and even outrigger canoes.
p.9 http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-C-Papua/index.html
Perhaps this is just another instance of my bottomless ignorance, but I’m inclined to the view that in 1942, or even 1941 in anticipation of the war, US shipyards weren’t turning out a lot of outrigger canoes and that Annapolis didn’t have a lot of semesters devoted to commanding an outrigger in shallow tropical waters because the USN has pissed off and left the US Army and its Allies to fend for themselves.
Naval gunfire and aircraft could have partially compensated for the lack of artillery and land-based air support, but the enemy’s presence and a support mission in the Solomons reduced the availability of such support. Twice Navy ships withdrew from the southwest Pacific area in response to the Japanese fleet movements. Both of these withdrawals reflected the Navy’s reluctance to expose its carriers and transports to enemy air squadrons based at Rabaul. General MacArthur opposed the withdrawals because they exposed friendly units ashore to enemy air attack and delayed ship-to-shore movement of troops and supplies.
pp. 20-21 http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-C-Papua/index.html
I suggest that you read the full article in the last two links to find out just how ineffective air support was in many respects.
Well, to confirm that I’m talking bullshit, how about naming one battle where American (or any other nation’s, including Australia’s) air support to Australian ground troops made a big difference to the result in that battle on the Kokoda Track.
Rowell and Potts, the latter of whom relied upon woefully inaccurate assertions about the quantity of rations stored from the air at Myola and whose troops accordingly ran short of rations, would disagree with you, although of course they were only the commanders on the ground and lacked your better knowledge of how very well they were supplied from the air, by any air force.
Wizard, voluminous as your detailed knowledge of minutae certainly is, your “softer” conclusions as to what would have prompted the US to oppose the Japanese absent an attack on American forces, has all the solidity of well-vented Swiss cheese. Since we are discussing matters of speculation, I will concede that we will never know, but methinks you should concede the same. To quote you from another of your posts elsewhere, “Nothing ever really gets settled in alternative history.”
Well, if you want to quote MacArthur, you can find very serious words to the effect that the US Navy had no effect at all throughout the entire Pacific war and that the Japanese were stopped only because of the superb personal courage and intelligence of General MacArthur. So I tend to discount his pronouncements on the matter.
For an objective person to claim that the US Navy was not crucial in stopping the Japanese in the South Pacific in 1942 seems to me to be rather curious. To further suggest that US air power in the South Pacific in 1942 had very little, or no, effect on the battles of 1942 seems even more churlish. Yes, the USN was spread mighty thin in 1942, and yes, it did seem that precious little support reached New Guinea in 1942, but to argue that nothing the USN did mattered or that Australia could have stopped the Japanese all by themselves doesn’t hold water.
All of them. I suppose you think Port Moresby, the supply base for the Kokoda Trail battles, could have been defended absent US air and naval support? In trying to make your point, your ignoring the very important logistics routes that essentially ran all the way back to the US. They weren’t being defended by Australian forces.
I will always concede that hypothetical scenarios are never susceptible to conclusive proof. That makes your speculation no more valid than mine. So your “swiss cheese” ends up just as ventilated as any.
I see. It wasn’t really the carrier battle that doomed the Japanese effort to take Port Moresby by sea, but the two Australian cruisers in the Jomard Passage that turned them back. This despite the fact that the Japanese invasion fleet (or any Japanese naval forces) never made contact with the Australian cruisers and the invasion fleet actually turned back because the Japanese carrier Shoho had been sunk and could not provide air cover for the invasion fleet.
[i][b]"Part of the Allied fleet, including the two Australian ships, was now sent towards Papua to wait for and attack the expected Port Moresby invasion fleet. Unknown to the Allies the main Japanese invasion fleet had turned back – they were too vulnerable to land-based bombers without the air support of the Shoho.
This left the Australian ships waiting to engage an invasion fleet that would never come."[/b][/i]
What “critical parts” did the Australian cruisers and US land-based air play in the battle if I might ask?
Which completely ignores the fact that the real reason the Japanese turned back was a lack of carrier air cover due to the Japanese carriers being either sunk or severely mauled by the USN carriers.
And yes, the USN fleet that turned back the Port Moresby invasion was essentially the same as what the USN possessed in December, 1941. Two Australian cruisers did not make much difference and by themselves were not a factor in turning back the Japanese Navy in the South Pacific.
The two Australian cruisers in the Coral Sea were NOT a factor in turning back the Japanese invasion fleet, as it had already withdrawn when they were sent to block the Jomard Passage (see above). And absent the USN the Australian Navy had absolutely no hope of stopping the invasion. UI stand by my original statement that only the US Navy was strong enough to have a chance of stopping the Japanese Navy in the Pacific.
There was no possibility of a “Pearl Harbor-style surprise” attack on the NEI. In fact, the attack on the Philippines and Malaya were not surprise attacks either. The gathering of the necessary troop transports was well known to the Allies days in advance of the Malaya and Philippines attacks. The same would have been true of any attempt to attack the NEI; it would be impossible to keep the gathering of troop convoys a secret.
True, the USN was not deployed to defend the NEI, but USN units stationed at Pearl Harbor could have struck at the Japanese Navy forces assigned to defend the troop convoys and logistics routes. The Japanese would never have launched a sea-borne offensive against the NEI under such circumstances.
The Asiatic Fleet was never intended to be anything more than a “tripwire”. It was never the US Navy’s plan to defend the Philippines and thus the Asiatic Fleet contained only token units. Any defense of the NEI would have been conducted from Pearl Harbor, and in fact, at one time, the USN did have a plan to conduct carrier warfare against the Japanese Navy to defend the NEI. It certainly would not have relied on the Asiatic Fleet to do so.
In the scenario being discussed, the Pearl Harbor attack does not occur.
As I stated above, the USN had no plans to defend the Philippines in case of Japanese attack. However, it’s likely that Pearl Harbor units plus units of the Asiatic Fleet would have combined under the scenario we are discussing and would have been strong enough to stop or at least seriously impede any attack on the NEI.
Well, I certainly disagree with that analysis. Had the Japanese attacked only the NEI, they would have had to deal with the full force of the US Navy in the Pacific, especially if there was no German declaration of war as happened after Pearl Harbor. In fact, the Japanese Navy had several flaws and these flaws were revealed by the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. These were the first battles in which the full force of the USN was deployed to counter the Japanese and they proved that the Japanese Navy was not as invincible as some seem to think. The Japanese Navy was particularly vulnerable when trying to support land offensives and he USN was able to exploit that vulnerability. Defeating a handful of aging cruisers and destroyers operating without adequate aircover or reconnaissance is not the same thing as taking on carrier task forces. When the Japanese Navy was forced to fight against odd that were anywhere near equal, it was found wanting.
It’s pointless responding to you because you insist upon responding to things that I haven’t said. I can’t be bothered defending points I didn’t make with someone who ignores what I said and who continually evades direct questions which challenge his tunnel vision view of history.
Damn right I do and so do you and so does practically everybody else on this board. That’s because I have only formed my opinions after years of reading just about everything I can find on the Pacific war. You’ve probably read the same books and articles; the only reason our opinions differ is because we’ve interpreted those documents somewhat differently. So unless someone comes up with some objective new evidence, and no one on this thread has, neither one of us are going to change our opinions very much.
As for MacArthur, you and I both know he hardly ever gave anyone else credit if he could somehow spin the case to make himself look good. And he particularly disliked the US Navy because that was his main competition in hogging the glory for the Pacific war.
Tell you what, I will if you will. My original statement was that the US Navy was the only force in the Pacific which had any hope of successfully challenging the Japanese if they attacked the NEI. You seem to be intent on arguing that the Australian Navy and Australian Army would have been able to oppose a Japanese attack on the NEI and that credit for Coral Sea and Midway should go to them. I disagree.
Unfortunately, that was not pertinent to the original argument; you claimed that US forces in New Guinea played no role in stopping the Japanese in 1942. That is flat out wrong in my opinion and that is why I cited the contributions of the US Navy and US land-based air in 1942.
In other words, the two Australian cruisers you make such a fuss about really were not a factor in turning back the Japanese Port Moresby invasion force. I do believe you did claim they were an important (you used the term “critical”) factor in the battle of the Coral Sea. So now that has been refuted, you’re saying you didn’t make that claim?
