Probably just pure logistics. No one thought of it because getting to Japan in any kind of reasonable time frame was physically impossible. Even today, a fligh

Probably just pure logistics. No one thought of it because getting to Japan in any kind of reasonable time frame was physically impossible. Even today, a flight from the US west coast to Japan is ~11 hours one way and involves losing a day due to the international dateline. So you lose about 3 days just flying back and forth. And costs nearly a thousand dollars for economy class. For most people, it’s not really an easy trip in the same way a hop to Lisbon from London might be. Now imagine that with prop planes.