2 ms·

I have a few ideas, and I’ve read about this for years, fascinated and frustrated that my dad was in WW2 but never talked about it. Most recently I’ve read The

I have a few ideas, and I’ve read about this for years, fascinated and frustrated that my dad was in WW2 but never talked about it. Most recently I’ve read The Pacific War[1], a comprehensive classic. The USA had two huge long-term advantages that Japan could not match: intelligence and production. For most of the war we were reading most of the Japanese encrypted communications. It’s one reason that we won the battle of Midway, for instance. In terms of production, the US moved its economy into a war-footing quickly and nearly completely. People were planting Victory Gardens so that food producers could use less petroleum for farming and fertilization; tires were rationed. Over the long term it’s impossible to see the relatively small island of Japan standing toe-to-toe with the USA. E.g., I found a 50-year-old dissertation [2] on the subject which claims that in 1939 over 90% of Japanese imports of petroleum, copper, and several iron and steel products were from the USA. It’s one reason they kept expanding during the war, despite the risk of being unable to hold territory: they needed the resources. Certainly there are other factors, but these have always stood out to me as incontrovertible advantages. 1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/437549.The_Pacific_War https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/437549.The_Pacific_Wa... 2. https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/23634/Thesis-1972-K91i.pdf https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/23634/Thesis-1972...

ghaff 4y ago
And Midway still ended up with a number of cards falling the US way to be the decisive victory that it was. Might not have made a difference at the end of the day--but it turned the US to a much more offensive position earlier than it might otherwise have had. And greatly weakened Japanese options for a negotiated peace.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Not to forget, Yamamoto predicted a six months time window for Japan after Pearl Habour. After these six months, he knew Japan has lost. And the Japanese carried on for qyite a bot longer than that. But yeah, the US Navy played the cards they had incredibly well. They got somewhat lucky with the promotion of Nimitz. The proboem so is, as it is with the Soviets in WW2 and every single WW2 general who managed to write a well selling book about hinself, to see past the individual hero stories at the bigger picture. Personnaly, I think the biggest plunder of the Japanese was to not take out the harbour infrastructure at Pearl Habour. Not that it wouod have changed anything in the long run so. That, and that they failed abysmally at submarine and anti-submarine warfare.
julienchastang 4y ago
> It’s one reason that we won the battle of Midway Interesting story here that Nimitz had to make an extraordinary gamble the intercepted Japanese communications were talking about Midway island and not somewhere in the Aleutians (the other possible candidate). The gamble paid off and the Japanese navy was always on the defensive after that point.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > Interesting story here that Nimitz had to make an extraordinary gamble the intercepted Japanese communications were talking about Midway island and not somewhere in the Aleutians (the other possible candidate). They were rather more certain of that. https://www.history.com/news/battle-midway-codebreakers-allies-pacific-theater https://www.history.com/news/battle-midway-codebreakers-alli... > Determined to dispel such doubts, Rochefort’s team famously devised a ruse. Via submarine, they sent a message to the base on Midway instructing personnel there to radio Pearl Harbor that the salt-water evaporators on the base had broken down. Two days later, a Japanese message was intercepted that reported “AF” was running out of fresh drinking water.

ghaff 4y ago

And Midway still ended up with a number of cards falling the US way to be the decisive victory that it was. Might not have made a difference at the end of the day--but it turned the US to a much more offensive position earlier than it might otherwise have had. And greatly weakened Japanese options for a negotiated peace.

hef19898 4y ago
Not to forget, Yamamoto predicted a six months time window for Japan after Pearl Habour. After these six months, he knew Japan has lost. And the Japanese carried on for qyite a bot longer than that. But yeah, the US Navy played the cards they had incredibly well. They got somewhat lucky with the promotion of Nimitz. The proboem so is, as it is with the Soviets in WW2 and every single WW2 general who managed to write a well selling book about hinself, to see past the individual hero stories at the bigger picture. Personnaly, I think the biggest plunder of the Japanese was to not take out the harbour infrastructure at Pearl Habour. Not that it wouod have changed anything in the long run so. That, and that they failed abysmally at submarine and anti-submarine warfare.

julienchastang 4y ago

> It’s one reason that we won the battle of Midway Interesting story here that Nimitz had to make an extraordinary gamble the intercepted Japanese communications were talking about Midway island and not somewhere in the Aleutians (the other possible candidate). The gamble paid off and the Japanese navy was always on the defensive after that point.

ceejayoz 4y ago
> Interesting story here that Nimitz had to make an extraordinary gamble the intercepted Japanese communications were talking about Midway island and not somewhere in the Aleutians (the other possible candidate). They were rather more certain of that. https://www.history.com/news/battle-midway-codebreakers-allies-pacific-theater https://www.history.com/news/battle-midway-codebreakers-alli... > Determined to dispel such doubts, Rochefort’s team famously devised a ruse. Via submarine, they sent a message to the base on Midway instructing personnel there to radio Pearl Harbor that the salt-water evaporators on the base had broken down. Two days later, a Japanese message was intercepted that reported “AF” was running out of fresh drinking water.