Was World War 2 really decided in just 5 minutes?

[witchbottles]

There has been a considerable debate if McClusky's radio call on that June day west of Midway represents more than the turning point of the USN/IJN Campaigns. It has been said by learned folks such as Robert Lundgren that "the war itself was decided in those five minutes near Midway Atoll."

Was the loss of those 4 carriers and their trained aircrew so large that it effectively ended all hopes for the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis overall?

Was Stalingrad just a sideshow in the grand scheme of things? Could Hitler have lost at Stalingrad and with a smashing victory over Nimitz at Midway- could Yamamoto and Nagumo have pulled victory from the jaws of Hitler's ill-advised 2 front war-driven defeat, for the entire Axis?

 

[von Marwitz]

No.

von Marwitz

 

[Paul M. Weir]

I can't see how a moderate extension of Japan's success could affect the ETO. Whether it was at Midway or 6 months to a year later the Japanese were simply doomed. The only question was when and what cost. They simply could not maintain a winning naval force for too long.

First the US could utterly outproduce them both in ships and aircraft. No ifs, buts or maybes about that. Not only could they not produce the numbers, they had great difficulty in getting the next generation of aircraft into service. The A7M Reppú, the A6M Zero replacement took 4 years to develop, with only about 9 produced. Japan produced some excellent designs but the weak point of Japanese aviation was a lack of sufficiently powerful and reliable engines. As things got tighter (partly due to the US submarine campaign biting once their scandalous torpedo problem was fixed), quality and durability plummeted. For example the otherwise excellent Ki-84 Hayate had a habit of shearing off landing gear on landing.

Secondly they had an insufficient aircrew training regime. Their pre-war scheme produced excellent pilots, but their policy washed out many who, though not excellent, would likely have made pretty good pilots. They don't seemed to have rotated experienced pilots back to train the next tranches. In contrast the US produced pilots like out of a factory and once the US had some air war experience many were rotated back to training units to pass on their real life lessons. Japanese pilot quality dived and by '44 you had the Great Marinas Turkey Shoot as a result.

The Japanese were simply fucked, dead men walking, once the US got into it's stride. Taking on the US was the greatest strategic overreach and moronic stupidity of the last hundred plus years that I can think of.

As for the ETO, barring an emotional collapse of Stalin, there was little chance that the USSR would collapse and barring that the Germans were just buggering themselves with Barbarossa. Whether it was 22-Jun-41 when Barbarossa started, 31-Oct-41 when Typhoon was paused or 25-Dec-41 when the main Soviet Moscow counter offensive started, by the end of '41 the Germans had been turned back for good, the first time in the war. While it would not be until Bagration in '44 that the Barbarossa gains would be erased, the next year's offensive (Fall Blau) gains were erased by early '43. IE '42 gained the Germans absolutely nothing. So the turning point in the ETO was the end of '41 at the latest.

 

[Blackcloud6]

"The Japanese were simply fucked, dead men walking, once the US got into it's stride. Taking on the US was the greatest strategic overreach and moronic stupidity of the last hundred plus years that I can think of."

This.

 

[witchbottles]

I tend to agree with the above overall. Even given the historical "scraping the bottom of the barrel" that occurred in the bloodletting war of attrition on naval ships and trained aircrew in the Solomons campaigns. At best I can see, if the Yorktown, Hornet, Enterprise and all 13 CAs were on the bottom around Midway, to a loss of some 30-40% of the aircrews on the Kido Butai (using the actual loss rate of the Hiryu's strike group later that afternoon as a comparison) - and the loss of Midway Atoll - the ultimate result would have been really just providing an outer point in the perimeter of the Pacific Rim that would still have been bypassed as the ships and Marines and pilots and planes rolled off the oiers all along the seaboards and arrived to mass in Pearl. Instead of Betio and Makin as a real first strike in the Central Pacific in 1943- it would have been something like Jaluit or Maleolap, then Makin and Betio the following month in Dec of 43 as those outer points covered a good 1400 nmi of observation points for IJN recon flights. Operation shoestring would have gone off on time in Aug of 42, under the cover of the Saratoga and a few big boys from LatFleet transferred for this duty - so Torch later that year might be short the USS Texas and a handful of CAs.

The bloodletting in the Solomons would have continued, and the Sara and Wasp would likely have both been lost - but given their historical performance - that is really not so far off the mark - and the rest of the actions in the SWPOA would have continued on a par.

Perhaps, from my concept - the best the IJN could gain at Midway was a 1-2 month extension in time of resistance - perhaps another 500 or so US Marine casualties at Maleolap and /or Jaluit. Couple this with an extremely aggressive use of Yamato and Musashi in the Solomons to accompany Hiei and Kirishima after the carriers were all beaten down and the 2nd battle of Guadalcanal in Ironbottom Sound would have led to another 30 or so Cactus Air Force planes out of action from bombardment, the BB South Dakota on the bottom with the Hiei and Kiri - and the BBs Washington, Yamato and Musashi all damaged and heading back to ports for refit -taking them out of action for about 6-9 months ( they all were out for that period anyway, albeit only the Washington having any damage) - so no gain at all beyond sinking a single fast BB and a few planes - maybe another 500 or so casualties to the USN/USMC total there.

Final result was still the same and a surrender with perhaps a total loss of about 2,000 more US KIA overall ( 3 CVs and a BB sunk) and a defeated Japan. CVE Gambier Bay and DD Johnston might have survived Samar with a damaged Yamato laid up in say Truk - and cut off.

The events in the pacific had little capability to allow the Japanese to assist Germany in Russia. The events in Russia and in China had a good impact on allowing Japan to hold the Pacific longer - that would be my ultimate view. I agree Hitler lost on 22 Jun 1941 - and Hirohito on 7 December 41. Hitler blew the only chance, (one that his generals created and gave him) with the Kiev pocket turn - Stalin was going to stay in Moscow and a 1941 capture of both Moscow and Stalin *might* have led to a cease fire agreement with surviving USSR - a quite damaging morale blow there.

 

[von Marwitz]

IMHO it is not the point whether the Japanese were successful at Midway (or elsewhere) or not. The point is that they had not the slightest chance to keep up with US production. Eventually, the US could just field more and more CVLs including escorts and other vessels that it would become impossible for the Japanese to overcome them.

The Kido Butai was, without doubt, the prime carrier force in its day and the only one that was capable of conducting air operations involving coordinated aircraft from multiple carriers at a time. It could elect to strike whereever it wanted. But the Japanese did not have the power to supply, or more precisely, secure the lines of supply. Even if they had successfully invaded Hawaii, vulnerable supply lines would have spelled doom on Japanese occupation forces. Had the Japanese used the the Kido Butai for the purposes to secure that line of supply, it would have deprived Japan of one of the few (initial) advantages it held - a carrier force able to conduct airstrikes with coordinated aircraft from multiple carriers anyway they wanted - thus threatening a huge area.

von Marwitz

 

[Brian W]

Would the dropping of the A-bomb ended the war if the US were still outside of the Japanese inner defenses (i.e. no loss of Okinawa, Iwo, and Luzon)? I don't know. I think that the US would have tired of the war quickly if it had drug out to 1946. What that means, though, I don't know. A tired US and a Japan that didn't surrender because of the two a-bombs would probably have ended up needing the Russians to invade the main islands. In the end, it would have been worse for Japan and the US, but allowed a divided Japan, a real disastor for the US/Europe in the Cold War.

 

[Paul M. Weir]

If you don't have forward bases how do you deliver your "special", Fedex?

Tinian and Saipan are closer to Japan than the Philippines and was one of the main B-29 bases for the conventional and nuclear bombing of Japan. Once you have the Marianas then the next step is taking places like Okinawa. The closer islands were much used for emergency stops for B-29s as well as for basing fighter escorts. The initial B-29s were based in China and between the logistical nightmare of supplying over the Hump and Japanese success in Operation Ichi-go in threatening the Chinese bases, the US rebased in the Marianas.

I can't find it now, but there was some discussion of a Japanese attempted landing on Midway. My opinion was that while Japan might have had a decent chance of taking Midway in Dec '41, by the time of the Midway battle they had no chance. They were inferior in combat troop numbers and Midway had a decent array of coastal and AA guns that would have been a severe threat to any Japanese ships.

The start of the Soviet August Storm operation removed any Japanese illusions that they could use the USSR to negotiate more lenient surrender terms. That, from what I have read, seems to have been a bit more prominent in Japanese thinking than the first nuclear strike. Tokyo had already been gutted by conventional means (more casualties than either nukes) and until the second the Japanese had not fully comprehended the significance of same. To the Japanese a nuke was not all that much different from a large conventional fire bombing raid. Hiroshima had been deliberately spared from conventional attacks to better measure a nuke strike's effects precisely because the conventional bombing had been so effective in gutting Japanes cities.

 

[Brian W]

I mentioned Luzon as taking it eliminate shipping route to SE Asia, and it makes a better staging area to invade Formosa, Okinawa and Japan than the Mariannis islands. But yes, the Mariannis were the inner ring of the Japanese defensive parimeter, and it was there loss that made the Tojo government fall. I understand the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Korea's impact on Japan. Are you saying that the Japanese would have surrendered without the loss of those islands listed and without two Abombs, just because the Soviets destroyed the Manchurian army? I guess I don't see an answer in what you wrote.

 

[Paul M. Weir]

What the Japanese would have done once any hope of a mediated surrender was gone is very difficult to gauge in hindsight. Let's list the various factors:

• The IJN has been gutted, some ships remain but recent events showed that the IJN was incapable of fending off all but the very smallest USN actions. Their then few remaining CVs were for the most part without aircrew, only good enough as bait at best during the Philippines campaign.
• The USN submarine war was strangling the essential supplies of oil, rubber and minerals and had started to run out of targets. Fishing boats would have been next. The Japanese had to hoard aviation petrol for one last kamikaze stand. I mentioned problems with build quality and they were at least a year into that already.
• The USN was doing CV based fighter and bomber sweeps where ever it pleased on coastal Japan.
• Their biggest Asian mainland conquests, N China, Korea, were disappearing like snow in summer.
• Their SE Asia holdings were either lost (Philippines) or utterly isolated (Indo-China) from Japan.
• With a few exceptions their cities and industry were cinders.

The Japanese governments (the IJA and IJN were never very much in step at the best) recognised that they could not repel an invasion and intended to hold back forces to bog down subsequent US advances. They were getting to the stage of arming the populace with swords, knives and pointy sticks, which seems to us to be Pythonesque but was quite serious. There is no doubt that they wanted out and recognised that they had no chance. There was also the possibility that the Soviets might invade Hokkaido. While it was most unlikely that the Soviets could have pulled it off, given how bad things had gone the Japanese could not rule it out. I suspect that they feared that more than anything else.

The only question was what terms could they hope to get. The prior devastation of the IJN, IJA and industry I estimate as contributing 70%, August Storm 20% and the nuclear strikes 10% to their surrender decision. However the nukes did provide a fig leaf to their home audience, that the more important factors did not. To admit that the overall war situation was hopeless and had been for almost 3 years would be to admit that the whole Japanese system was utterly bankrupt and moronic. Better to invoke Godzilla as spin.

So given the overall war situation without which defeat would not be a consideration anyway, I would guess that the tipping point would be about 2 to 1 for AS vs nukes. However the nukes were a public relations gift in the matter.

 

[MAS01]

I think that Jon has the right thought, that WWII was decided in just five minutes, but he's got the wrong five minutes. The crucial five minutes were 7:50-55 am on December 7, 1941. That five minute period brought the United States, with all of its untouchable production potential, into the war.

Here's another line of thought:

If the Japanese had not attacked Pearl, Wake, Guam and the Philippines, what would have brought the Untied States into the war? Would the United States have stayed neutral and continued to supply arms to the Allies? For how long? Could Roosevelt have persuaded the populace to enter the war without the attack at Pearl? If he had, would he have been reelected in 1944?

Cheers,


Mark

 

[witchbottles]

I think that Jon has the right thought, that WWII was decided in just five minutes, but he's got the wrong five minutes. The crucial five minutes were 7:50-55 am on December 7, 1941. That five minute period brought the United States, with all of its untouchable production potential, into the war.

Here's another line of thought:

If the Japanese had not attacked Pearl, Wake, Guam and the Philippines, what would have brought the Untied States into the war? Would the United States have stayed neutral and continued to supply arms to the Allies? For how long? Could Roosevelt have persuaded the populace to enter the war without the attack at Pearl? If he had, would he have been reelected in 1944?

Cheers,


Mark

I'm understanding thee- but remember, it was not until sometime in Feb of 42 that it was agreed at the Arcadia conferences to put Nazi Germany and the ETO first. Further, the US was at war with Japan on Dec 8th, 1941, not Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

 

[Uncle_Duke]

Jonathan Parshall wrote an article a few years ago that addresses some of the issues in this thread, specifically, whether the Battle of Midway really mattered all that much in the greater context of the war.

Overview of the Economic Forces In the Pacific War: Why The Battle of Midway May Not Have Mattered

 

[Bob Walters]

If you don't have forward bases how do you deliver your "special", Fedex?

Tinian and Saipan are closer to Japan than the Philippines and was one of the main B-29 bases for the conventional and nuclear bombing of Japan. Once you have the Marianas then the next step is taking places like Okinawa. The closer islands were much used for emergency stops for B-29s as well as for basing fighter escorts. The initial B-29s were based in China and between the logistical nightmare of supplying over the Hump and Japanese success in Operation Ichi-go in threatening the Chinese bases, the US rebased in the Marianas.

I can't find it now, but there was some discussion of a Japanese attempted landing on Midway. My opinion was that while Japan might have had a decent chance of taking Midway in Dec '41, by the time of the Midway battle they had no chance. They were inferior in combat troop numbers and Midway had a decent array of coastal and AA guns that would have been a severe threat to any Japanese ships.

The start of the Soviet August Storm operation removed any Japanese illusions that they could use the USSR to negotiate more lenient surrender terms. That, from what I have read, seems to have been a bit more prominent in Japanese thinking than the first nuclear strike. Tokyo had already been gutted by conventional means (more casualties than either nukes) and until the second the Japanese had not fully comprehended the significance of same. To the Japanese a nuke was not all that much different from a large conventional fire bombing raid. Hiroshima had been deliberately spared from conventional attacks to better measure a nuke strike's effects precisely because the conventional bombing had been so effective in gutting Japanes cities.

That is also what I have read. It is not a particularly popular opinion. The Japanese would have surrendered without the bomb. I fear the reasons for dropping the bomb were political rather than military.

 

[Paul M. Weir]

That is also what I have read. It is not a particularly popular opinion. The Japanese would have surrendered without the bomb. I fear the reasons for dropping the bomb were political rather than military.

I'm not surprised it's not popular. Though I argued the case, I also have strong doubts about that. I feel it's utterly impossible to figure out what would have happened. Yes, August Storm had a very large impact on the Japanese, but due to the clash of culture and reality and also the urgency of the situation, we are trying to predict the decisions of men utterly torn mentally. I suspect that they would have surrendered, but somewhat later, maybe after news of fresh disasters, Manchuria included, filtered through.

I'll have to give the US a pass on that. There was absolute no way the US could read the minds of the Japanese when even they did not know their own minds. There might have been a secondary bonus in impressing the Soviets, but I have little doubt that the absolute overriding reason was to avoid a possible invasion of Japan, with the horrendous casualties that were expected on both sides. The US had only too much experience of Japanese fanaticism to act otherwise.

 

[Bob Walters]

Your assessment is more generous than mine. However, the political implications were more than just impressing the Soviets. It was also used to hurry along the Japanese surrender before the Soviets had more claim on the Japanese mainland.

 

[Paul M. Weir]

However, the political implications were more than just impressing the Soviets. It was also used to hurry along the Japanese surrender before the Soviets had more claim on the Japanese mainland.

I agree with that to a fair degree, the US had borne 3/4 or more of the Pacific War, so pretty rightly felt it was due the spoils. Keeping the Soviets out of Japan would be important but compared to avoiding the butcher's bill, I think the even most cynical pinko baiting politician would put getting bodies back alive above all else. Can you imagine the reaction of the US public when it came out that the US had nukes but didn't use them and had to invade.

Your assessment is more generous than mine.

Maybe, maybe. I have had spats in the Religion & Politics and have been accused of not considering/understanding, say, why the US didn't enter the war until attacked. I won't pretend I understand other than the major underlying political currents of that time. However I do try to put myself into the mindset of those involved. I have only the vaguest ideas of things like the logistics required to build, supply and ship multiple armies to distant theatres of war. I may have a good reputation here for WW2 history, but if you could read my mind when I post, you would realise how ignorant I sometimes feel when asked about stuff. Really, truly ignorant.

However I do understand the desire to avoid bloodbaths. Sons, fathers, brothers, even daughters, mothers and sisters who will not come back. I have had to make the decision to have some of my beloved cats put down when all hope had gone, that was very hard but necessary. I have never had to make such a decision with regard to a human being and hope I never will. Now while there have been far too many military and political sociopaths who did not give a fuck about casualties as long as they looked good, we were fortunate that among the Western Allies the majority of the military and political leadership retained basic human decency and sanity. As it was, the US suffered ~420k KIA/MIA. That's 1/10 of the population of the Republic of Ireland.

Yes, such a decision would be "political", but the whole decision to pursue the war was "political", Clausewitz's axiom of "War is the continuation of politics by other means." I believe to be so, so true. While you don't want a freshly elected backwoods rube to run your armies, the overall strategy and priorities are, indeed must be, political choices which you then hand over to your military professionals to implement.

So given the lack of knowledge of enemy intentions back then and having a weapon that might have the effect of shocking the enemy into surrender, if I had to make the decision I would almost certainly have said Yes. Other factors would be just icing on the cake.

 

[witchbottles]

... Clausewitz's axiom of "War is the continuation of politics by other means." I believe to be so, so true. While you don't want a freshly elected backwoods rube to run your armies, the overall strategy and priorities are, indeed must be, political choices which you then hand over to your military professionals to implement.

So given the lack of knowledge of enemy intentions back then and having a weapon that might have the effect of shocking the enemy into surrender, if I had to make the decision I would almost certainly have said Yes. Other factors would be just icing on the cake.

I think many misinterpret Clauswitz here. My inference from his work is that when one government desires a resource that another government has, and it feels that diplomatic methods of acquisition of that resource have eitther run their course or will no longer suffice to provide it, then activating the military might to take that resource from the other country(ies) occurs. (Not a subjugation of that country's government or its people- that is not the primary aim of war - according to Clauswitz.) So it is a continuation of politics, not as much as it is what occurs once political and diplomatic means of attaining the desired resource(s) fails. The epitome would be the Imperial Japanese war plan in December of 1941, taking by military force what diplomacy can no longer achieve (rubber, tin, steel, oil, etc).

 

[witchbottles]

Your assessment is more generous than mine. However, the political implications were more than just impressing the Soviets. It was also used to hurry along the Japanese surrender before the Soviets had more claim on the Japanese mainland.

That seems a rather bold inference and gives Truman far more omniscience and altruism than I believe can be justified in late August 1945. True, the Cold War was all cued up and beginning after the fall of Berlin, but it was far from the now common hindsight standard of a "mexican stand-off" - which any supposition that the Truman administration was attempting to forestall Soviet aggression in the Far East must contain as a base inference. I would, given Potsdam, disagree generally that Truman saw the Soviet as any menace in the Far East theater. If he did, I doubt he would have stepped on Marshall and MacArthur's toes as hard as he did to rein them both in about Nationalist China and the division of Korea in 1948/1949. (That little blunder triggered another war, as we well know.)

 

[Bob Walters]

That seems a rather bold inference and gives Truman far more omniscience and altruism than I believe can be justified in late August 1945. True, the Cold War was all cued up and beginning after the fall of Berlin, but it was far from the now common hindsight standard of a "mexican stand-off" - which any supposition that the Truman administration was attempting to forestall Soviet aggression in the Far East must contain as a base inference. I would, given Potsdam, disagree generally that Truman saw the Soviet as any menace in the Far East theater. If he did, I doubt he would have stepped on Marshall and MacArthur's toes as hard as he did to rein them both in about Nationalist China and the division of Korea in 1948/1949. (That little blunder triggered another war, as we well know.)

I have found reading some of the works of Gar Alperovitz rather enlightening.