MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-01-23 |
| FROM | Rick Moen
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout-NYLXS] What Japan SHOULD have done !
|
Quoting Mancini, Sabin (DFS) (Sabin.Mancini-at-dfs.ny.gov):
> What Japan SHOULD have done !
>
> True an invasion of the US West coast could not have been achieved by
> the Japanese successfully.
>
> HOWEVER, the Japanese launched 2 of 3 planned air raids against Pearl
> Harbor.
>
> The commander got cold feet after the 2nd, and called off the 3rd and
> retreated.
Yep! And if the third launch had occurred, they would have at bare
minimum nailed some extremely important targets, such as the fuel farms,
dry docks, and the Pacific Fleet HQ building where Kimmel and his staff
were just sitting there failing to manage the situation. That was a
huge blunder, not authorizing the third launch.
> In retrospect, if they had brought along the invasion force they later
> assembled for the Midway Island attack, they would have easily
> captured Hawaii.
Maybe. Not in the opinion of IJN senior officers, who summarily
rejected the suggestion from Commander Minoru Genda, when he proposed
it. Still, the senior staff could have been overly pessimistic, which
makes for good alternate history. Which is why Harry Turtledove wrote a
two-novel series based on that exact idea. ;->
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Infamy_series
(I've not yet read that, but Harry does alternate history phenomenally
well generally, so it's a good bet.[1])
> The Army and Marine forces there were negligible at the time in comparison.
You betcha! There's a reason why Admiral Kimmel and General Short took
a fair amount of blame.
Your other surmises do strike me as reasonable, FYI, and they happen to
match up pretty well with what professional historian and SF writer
Turtledove imagined based on his exhaustive research.
[1] Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen's duology Pacific War Series
is based on the same idea, with a generally similar outcome: US stuck
in the Pacific War for more years, getting eventual revenge, but not
being able to properly attend to Europe in consequence.
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