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jlf1961 -> RE: Pearl Harbor Day (12/7/2015 9:23:16 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BamaD
quote:
ORIGINAL: Greta75
This opens endless debate on IF the US was responsible for ending WW2.
In our history textbooks, they were hailed as saviours and the very reason WW2 ended. Of course because they attack the Japanese who are the main transgressors in Asia.
But on the internet, and in Europe and even in the US itself, they believe, it would have made no difference whether US interfered or not.
Gawd knows, who is right.
Winston Churchill had his first good nights sleep in over two years on Dec 7 1941. Some people are fools. Noone should claim that the U S won the war and everyone else were just supporting cast. However it is equally foolish to say that it made no difference. Austrailia was pretty much on their own and needed help, Midway broke the back of the Imperial Navy. Any claim that American manpower and production made no difference doesn't understand the war at all.
Saying this is not intended in any way to lesson the sacrifices made by all of the other countries involved in the war, everyone did as much as they could.
BTW saying the U S interfered is a bit of a misnomer since the Japanese attacked us, not the other way around.
Technically speaking, regardless of what history claims, Midway did not "break the back of the Imperial Navy."
Japan lost 4 first line fleet carriers, they had 3 left, with two more ready to launch.
What Midway did was break the "myth of invincibility" held by many Japanese Admirals. Isoroku Yamamoto figured he could give the Japanese Empire six months to a year of victories after Pearl Harbor.
But Midway was the third in a series of events that broke the mindset of the Imperial Navy Command.
First there was the Doolittle raid, then Coral Sea (a draw more or less,) then Midway.
But then, Nagumo had other problems besides the American carriers. He had senior staff screaming for a second strike on Midway, while none of them knew where the American Carriers were.
He expected at most 2 carriers, believing Yorktown sunk at Coral Sea.
And his staff were sure that the American Fleet could not be anywhere near Midway when they hit the island with the first attack.
When operation K failed because of an American seaplane tender at French Frigate Shoals, Yamamoto's first inclination was to call off the strike on Midway, but there was a screen of Japanese I boats between Midway and Pearl Harbor, the problem is that they got on station after the carriers passed the line.
The Japanese still had a very effective fleet in the Pacific, as proved with the battles around the Solomons.
The problem was that the Navy pulled the Carriers Wasp from the Atlantic, which put the fleets on equal terms as far as carriers went.
Even then, when the Hornet was sunk, followed a couple of months later by the Wasp, the Japanese still could have mounted a major strike against the Pacific Fleet, but by then Yamamoto was dead, and no one on the Imperial staff had the balls to take the risk.
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