Why Japan Lost the South Pacific air war (video/discussion)

[Garfly]

 

 

 

[onetrack]

There's one simple basic reason that Japan lost the South Pacific Air War. The Japanese built 30,000 aircraft in total - and the Americans built 90,000 aircraft in total.

The Japanese were simply overwhelmed by the industrial might of America, and I don't think any individual differences in aircraft designs, had any major bearing on the outcome.

Both sides had equally brave pilots, and individual war actions demonstrated that. 

 

What is probably not well known, is that the Allies were stunned to find upon entering Japan, that the Japanese had approximately 2,500 operational aircraft in hiding, all prepared for Kamikaze attacks on Allied troops carrying out the expected invasion of Japan.

The toll on Allied troops would have been tremendous if an Allied sea/ground invasion of Japan had been carried out - and this led to the eventual acceptance of the belief, that even though the two A-bombs were ghastly, the use of the A-bombs saved possibly more than a couple of million lives. The Americans already knew that the Japanese would fight to the bitter end, if Japans islands were invaded - but they had no idea the Japanese were so well prepared for an Allied invasion.

[Garfly]

I've often wondered whether a strategy of just imposing a cordon-sanitaire around the Japanese islands (as opposed to either a hugely costly invasion or the horrors of Atomic bombs) was ever considered.  And, if so, how did those arguments run?

[kgwilson]

As far as aircraft go in the early stages of the war the carrier based Mitsubishi A6M Zero was superior in every way except pilot protection to anything the US and Australia had at the time. After the battle of Midway when Japan lost 4 aircraft carriers and the Japanese army had most of its force at poorly constructed and managed airfields near Wewak destroyed by allied bombing, plus the reinforcement of more modern allied aircraft like the Spitfire, Mustang, Corsair etc it was all over in the air for Japan.

[Old Koreelah]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

… the Allies were stunned to find upon entering Japan, that the Japanese had approximately 2,500 operational aircraft in hiding, all prepared for Kamikaze attacks on Allied troops …

I’ve read other accounts that the Japanese had in the order of ten thousand aircraft, but not necessarily all operational.

 

Quote

…the use of the A-bombs saved possibly more than a couple of million lives. The Americans already knew that the Japanese would fight to the bitter end, if Japans islands were invaded…

That’s the conventional justification for the use of A bombs, but a much more plausible version challenges this.

The US firebombing of Tokyo and other cities killed far more than the A-bombs did, so the the loss of two more cities did little to convince Japan’s wartime leaders to throw in the towel.
 

What really got their attention is when the Soviet Union declared war; years earlier Zhukov had inflicted massive defeats on Japan’s army and they knew that the Red Army was now a massive, unstoppable juggernaut. Worse still, they knew what the Bolsheviks did to the Russian Royal family.

 

Surrender to the Americans and their allies was preferable to a Soviet invasion that would have deposed and possible killed their beloved emperor.

 

[onetrack]

True. The Russians declared war on Japan on the 8th August 1945, after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, and a day before the Nagasaki bomb was dropped.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

[walrus]

The A bomb and the Russians gave the Japanese Government peace faction the strength to overcome the “war to the last civilian” faction. In other words, the Bomb and the Russians gave the Japanese Government the excuse they needed to overcome the Bushido faction who wanted everyone to die fighting.

[Flying Binghi]

What a coincidence. In furthering my study of bush fire effects I recently got a book Fire And The Air War. Bond, Bugbee (1946)

“A compilation of expert observations on fires of the war set by incendiaries and the atomic bomb...” A new reprint book from Amazon though I’d imagine it would be on the net somewhere.

 

In the chapter covering the official report of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, page 223, we find:

 

“...The bombs (atomic) did not convince the military that defence of the home islands was impossible, if their behaviour in government councils is adequate testimony. It did permit the Government to say, however, that no army without the weapon could possibly resist an enemy who had it, thus “saving face” for the army leaders and not reflecting on the competence of Japanese industrialists or the valor of the Japanese soldier. In the Supreme War Guidance Council voting remained divided, with the War Minister and two Chiefs of Staff unwilling to accept unconditional surrender. There seems little doubt, however, that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weakened their inclination to oppose the peace group.

The peace effort culminated in an Imperial conference held on the night of 9 August and continued into the early hours of 10 August, for which the stage was set by the atomic bomb and the Russian war declaration. At this meeting the Emperor, again breaking his customary silence, stated specifically that he wanted acceptance of the Potsdam terms.

A quip was current in high government circles at this time that the atomic bomb was the real Kamikaze, since it saved Japan from further useless slaughter and destruction. It is apparent that in the atomic bomb the Japanese found the opportunity which they had been seeking, to break the existing deadlock within the government over acceptance of the Potsdam terms...”

 

As Old Koreelah  has pointed out, I suspect what would happen to the Japanese ‘industrialists’ and the Emperor if the Russians invaded probably ‘concentrated’ many minds.

 

 

 

 

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Edited June 15, 2021 by Flying Binghi