Suppose Midway had gone the other way?

Thanks for the interesting replies.

No significant disagreement from me. I think that the Battle of Midway could easily have gone badly for the American's. The American squadrons being lost and arriving ultimately at different times and from different directions than were really planned for worked in the American's favor- though not for the American torpedo plane squadrons.

I always thought that another Japanese weakness was their repeated use- and usual failure- of decoy attacks. In Midway, they had a fleet go attack the Aleutians, taking away one carrier and screening vessels that could have been important.

Ultimately though, American industrial capacity would have won the day. But Mushroom's reference to Japan's nuclear program, which I am not familiar with- if it was that close- and was given another year or two to come to fruition- would that have made a difference?

 

Japan's nuclear programme was worse than the German's, because the Japanese had two.

 

If you want to know more about the program, I can actually suggest an excellent book on the subject. It is Japan's Secret War, by Robert Wilcox. I read this when it first came out in 1985, and have read it many times since then.

But yes, Japan actually had 2 programs. And this is mostly because of the infamous internal politics and power struggle between the Imperial Army and Navy. The Army had the Ni-Go program, and the Navy had the F-Go program.

But Japan had some of the premiere Theorists and Physicists in the world at that time. Ni-Go was led by Dr. Yoshio Nishina, who was a close friend of Dr. Niels Bohr and had worked with Dr. Albert Einstein. He mostly researched the seperation of U-235 and U-238 with cyclotrons prior to joining the Ni-Go project. But the Army insisted he research thermal diffusion instead.

F-Go was headed by Dr. Bunsaku Arakatsu, who did some of the earliest experiments in nuclear fission (including determining the neutron yield of U-235 with a particle accelerator in 1934). He worked at Cambridge under Dr. Ernest Rutherford, and at Berlin University under Dr. Einstein. His research mostly studied the seperation of U-235 and U-238 with a centrifuge.

F-Go was also believed to be the most advanced of the 2 projects. This is the one which many claim detonated it's single bomb in Korea.

It should be realized, that the real struggle to build Atomic Weapons was not in the weapon itself. The theory had long been recognized, as well as the means of detonation (Implosion and Gun). The real work was in the development of methods of either seperating U-235 and U-238, or in transmuting U-238 into P-239.

 

Thanks- I will try to pick up a copy to read.

 

Well, even if Yamamoto managed to win at Midway, only thing he could hope to accomplish was to extend the war for another year, at best.

 

YES! By John Birmingham...and the whole series is full of "in" jokes!

The flagship is the Hillary Clinton, a George H. W. Bush-class carrier.
The captain is Mike Judge.
On one of the Baghdad-class Marine assault ships (there are two, Kandahar and Leyte Gulf) there are counterboarding specialists Cobb, Clancy, & Cussler. (Authors James, Tom, & Clive, respectively.)
Another ship is the destroyer Amanda Garret. (James Cobb's main character.)
One of FDR's aides is a "Commander Turtletaub" (an early pen name of Harry Turtledove), and Roosevelty asks him if the space lizards have landed. (Turtledove's Worldwar series).
A major character is mentioned as being from Grantville, West Virginia. (The town sent back to 17th century Germany in Eric FLint's Ring of Fire series.)
There are many references to famous cricket players & Aussie & European authors. (Birmingham is Australian.)

 

The Japanese sank one fleet carrier, one oiler, & one destroyer, and damaged another CV. They lost one light carrier, had a fleet carrier badly damaged, and the air groups of both fleet carriers lost about half their strength. Tactically, a wash. Strategically, a decisive Allied vistory. Japanese capture of Moresby would have been a disaster.

 

Not necessarily. One thing people overlook: a pasting at Midway could have resulted in a wholesale turnover in the 1942 Congressional elections!

 

That would have been my best guess as well.

 

If the Imperial Japanese Navy won the Battle of Midway it would have been impossible for Nimitz to pursue his island hopping campaign in the Central Pacific. The US would have had to place greater emphasis on MacArthur's offensive in the Southern Pacific. Today not many remember that MacArthur and Nimitz had separate fleets at their disposal.

 

Interestingly enough, for the last week I have been rereading the Worldwar series. And last month I finished the Order 191 series (again).

And yea, that book series was full of inside jokes. Like Senators O'Reilly and Springer.

And of course Colonel Harry Windsor.

 

Best character in the books.

 

No, not a wash.

And not a decisive Allied victory. For it to have been decisive, the Japanese would have had to loose more in the conflict then the Allies did. And the loss of 1 Japanese Light Carrier to an Allied Fleet Carrier shows that this was not the case.

This is why battles can be broken down into Strategic Victory (where a specific goal is attained or where the outcome affects the ultimate war goal), a Tactical Victory (no specific goal met, but one side definately comes out ahead), or a wash.

So Tactically, it is still a Japanese victory. For a decisivy Strategic Victory, the Allied forces would have had to place forces so to ensure that the Japanese did not enter this area again. This did not happen either. Both sides withdrew to lick their wounds. Japanese forces still advanced towards Port Moresby. And this also forced the Japanese to reinforce Guadalcanal. Which was also a costly victory for the US.

For example, the Battle of Heraclea is one of the best known cases where one side had a Tactical Victory, but a Strategic Loss. In this battle in 280 BCE, Pyrrhus of Epirus lost less men then the Romans. But his force was smaller, and the follow-up march was forced to retreat before it was engaged by more Romans.

This led to 2 famous sayings. One is what King Phyrrus said after his soldiers won, which is "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

The other is the term "Phyrric Victory".

 

The US Navy lost one carrier, the Japanese lost a light carrier & many experienced pilots. The US Navy had many carriers coming out of the builders yards (Essex was launched that July) & could replace their losses, the Japanese didn't and couldn't. The Japanese invasion force was turned back from Moresby. The Japanese fleet's mission was an utter failure. So as I said: Tactically, a wash. Strategically, a decisive Allied victory.

 

There is also a nice japanese anime serie called Zipang which bring a nice twist to that scenario. In it a Japanese Aegis is brought back in time to the battle of Midway. The crew has to chose to either help the imperial japanese, some crewmember having lost relative in service during WW2, help the american, of which they are closer now in idealogy, or try to stay neutral...

 

hmmm interesting thought. Would we support our cavalry or Indians during the massacre at Wounded Knee?
Help our the U.S. military with the "Trail of Tears"?

Fascinating spin on the whole time travel concept.

 

I agree with the other posts that speculate that US production would still have made the difference.

However, let me throw out what is not an unlikely (IMO) scenario. Suppose the Japs won big at Midway and the US lost its carrier fleet while the Japs lost just one.

Now Midway is basically indefinsible. The Japanese take Midway and can establish and airbase there.

They now have a secure air and refueling base just a couple days sail from Hawaii.

With most of the battleship fleet sunk in Pearl Harbor, and no carrier fleet for defense, and no other major battle group able to get to the Pacific for months, what stops the Japanese Navy from cutting off the Hawaiin Islands, and mounting and invasion fleet from Midway?

Not much, I don't think.

From Hawaii, the Japanese have a base they can harrass shipping on the US West Coast. Without Midaway and Hawaii, the US is much less able to harrass and interdict Japanese shipping than it was.

Japan didn't have the ability to mount an invasion of the US, but it is certainly possible they could have taken Hawaii and put the timetable back considerably.

 

That Japan didn't want to invade Hawaii?

 

Japan didn't have the forces to seize EACH of the Hawaiian Islands. That's the defect in your supposition.

The Japanese seized two of the Aleutian Islands at the same time as the operation at Midway. The Japanese forces on Attu and Kiska were under constant aerial attack until they were annihilated on Attu and retreated from Kiska.

Any Japanese base on Midway would have been under constant aerial attack and would be isolated by a submarine blockade until the Atlantic Fleet arrived. The Germany First policy would have probably been discarded in favor of a Japan First policy. What do you think?

 

I always thought that the Japanese attack on the Aleutians- which was intended as a diversion- was a mistake. I agree, the Japanese had not brought an invasion force big enough for Hawaii. That doesn't mean that they couldn't have brought a big enough force later if the American fleet at Midway was decimated.

Again- considering the scenario we are talking about- with American carrier forces being decimated, I don't see how Midway would have been bombed. Midway is beyond the bombing range of the B-17. Japan could have ferried land based fighters and bombers to Midway, and brought in flying boats to do recon and anti-sub work. I think Japan could have locked down Midway pretty solidly until America rebuilt its carrier force.

I agree with your assessment that if Midway had ended in defeat, that America would have adopted a Japanese first policy. And in the end, the results would have been ultimately the same- barring the developement of the Japanese atomic bomb that Mush mentioned.

 

I disagree that Japan didn't have the forces to do it. They took far larger targets (eg the Phillipines, Singapore etc) than Hawaii. Without a fleet of aircraft carriers and battleships to defend Hawaii, and with Midway to use as a launching pad, I think Hawaii would have been very vulnerable.

All the Japanese had to do was take Oahu, established base there, and the rest of the islands would go piecemeal.

 

Japanese land forces were engaged at that time in combat or securing and garrisoning Burma, New Guinea, the Philippines, and China. They also maintained the Kwantung Army in Manchuria as a hedge against the renewal of belligerency with the Soviet Union.

Maui had port facilities at Lahaina. Each of the islands had airfields. Each of the major islands had highways that could also be used for take off and landing.

The Germany First policy would have been immediately abandoned in favor of a Japan First policy. The entire Atlantic Fleet would have steamed through the Panama Canal into the Pacific.

The Japanese would have been tied down with an insurgency in the Hawaiian Islands just as it was in the Philippines. Look how long it took for the Japanese to secure Luzon from MacArthur and Wainwright. Months. Within that time the concentration of Japanese ships in Hawaiian waters would have permitted American submarines to work their magic, and for the Atlantic Fleet to arrive.

Moreover, the Japanese would not have been able to use Pearl Harbor. Its facilities would have been destroyed by retreating Americans.

If the Japanese had the power to seize and hold the Hawaiin Islands they would have done so instead of attempting surprise attacks against Pearl Harbor and then Midway.

 

We can speculate all day. Speculators of the day were sure the Japanese could not have taken the Phillipines and Signapore as well. With Midway in their control and without the US carriers to help defend them, Japan had sufficient forces to take the Hawaiin islands which were not that heavily defended.

It would have taken weeks for the Atlantic fleet to get to the Pacific, and the Atlantic fleet did not have a major carrier arm to take no the Japanese carriers.

Plus with the Atlantic fleet gone, assuming it would have been moved, German U-boat activity in the Atlantic would have been less constrained, seriously weakening supply to Britain and Russia which would have had consequences in the European war.

Hawaii was too far away for the Japanese to mount and invasion and supply them at the time of the raid. With Midway in their control, that impediment would have been removed.

 

If Hawaii was in extremis the needs of the British and Russians would have fallen by the wayside. German U Boats didn't pose a threat to the continental US.

I think it would have been difficult for the Japanese to use Midway as the marshalling point for the invasion of the Hawaiian Islands proper because they would have been forced to improve the port facilities in a major way. That would have taken time. Time would not have been on Japan's side.

 

I believe that the major problem for the Japanese, just like the German, was the total absence of heavy long range bomber. Even with midway as a base, they would have lacked the reach in firepower, their battleship and cruiser being quite vulnerable to subs. Japan also lacked in anti-sub warfare system compared to the USA and British.