The Pacific Theater - WW2 (What won the war?)

Often times the bigger debate in a discussion about World War 2, is who won the European Theater of Operations, the Soviets or the other allies.

The Pacific Theater is less contentious, as it's clear the U.S. was the dominant ally in terms of defeating Imperialist Japan. This is not to suggest other allies didn't play an important role, what it does state is that the U.S. was the dominant player in achieving victory...the unconditional surrender of Imperialist Japan. Therefore I'd like to open up the discussion to what won the war. This could be a weapon system, a tactic, a strategy, a leader...what won the war.

Believe it or not, I'm not including the atomic bombs and not even the B-29 that delivered them. The B-29 suffered from engine reliability issues and killed more aircrews during take-off than Japanese fighters. It was not particulaly endeared by the men who flew them. What I am including is the M-69 incendiary cluster bomb, which used napalm as an incendiary filler. As most of the buildings in Japan were made of wood, the strategic decision by General LeMay, to switch to low level, night bombing using load-outs of M-69s, incinerated many Japanese cities....literally reduced them to ashes in some instances.

The other entity, which in my opinion was the deciding factor, is the United States Marine Corps. If not for the island hopping campaigns, there would have been no air bases and staging areas in which to begin the air campaign over mainland Japan. The USMC, dealt with an entrenched enemy, with their perverted Bushido code. which regarded surrender as dishonorable. It was literally a question of killing them all, as very few surrendered. Based upon the fierceness in which the Japanese armies fought during the island hopping campaigns, it was clear Japan had to be brought, literally to it's knees. A ground invasion of mainland Japan would have cost an estimated one million casualties by some estimates.

Two things accomplished this...the Marine who fought with an equal level of intensity as that of his enemy...and the M-69 incendiary cluster bomb.

So I've given my opinion, time for someone else.

 

I have no comment regarding the Marines- not because I don't care, just don't know that I have anything to contribute.

But the M-69 incendiary cluster bomb.....that is problematic.

There are two issues-

a) Did firebombing seriously reduce Japan's ability to fight? The record of strategic bombing in general was rather sketchy.

b) Was the firebombing in essence terror bombing? Was it racist?

I am no apologist for Japan, and I believe our dropping of the first- and maybe the second atomic bomb was warrented. But if you compare American strategic bombing in Europe to how bombing was done in Japan and there are some disturbing differences.

American strategic bombing in Europe was focused on reducing industrial capacity, and then later on reducing rail capacity. Britain was instead pretty much bombing population centers, something the United States resisted I believe until Dresden, and even after there was tremendous controversy within the American military about bombing civilian population centers.

But in Japan- the firebombings were really aimed at the civilian populations, completely differently than how Americans acted in Europe- and it seems to me that the aim was essentially terror. And why treat Japanese civilians differently than Americans treated German civilians? We can rationalize it was because Japan attacked the U.S. directly, but I suspect it was the racism of the times which viewed Japanese very differently from Europeans.

The firebombings of Japan have always bothered me.

And by the time the United States was engaging in that, Japan had already lost the war- the only question was how to Japan to surrender.

 

One word - logistics

 

I disagree, the 8th Air Force and British bomber command targeted civilian centers in Germany with high explosive, general purpose and incendiary bombs. Take a look at Hamburg, Germany before and immediately after the war. The U.S. and the allies did not want a ground invasion....the Japanese would not unconditionally surrender. Period.

An entire German 6th Army surrendered on the Eastern Front. Had the Germans exhibited the same fierceness to continue fighting even in the face of imminent defeat, the allies would have used the same strategy of complete and total war. As it is, Germany suffered civilian casualties on the order of the millions, in part due to Allied strategic bombing which included U.S. groups.

 

Or Dresden.

Evil things were done to win WWII.

 

The Japanese were never offered a conditional surrender.

 

I remember seeing a video filmed late in the war...US took over an island and Japanese wives killed themselves and their children rather then be taken prisoner. One haunting scene showed a woman tossing her baby over a cliff into the sea below. To win a war and gain peace you must defeat the enemy and these people would not be defeated easily.

 

The war in the Pacific was won by the US Navy's submarine and naval attack plane campaign that crippled Japanese shipping and deprived them of natural resources or the ability to resupply any of their garrisons.

 

That was on Okinawa, and symptomatic of the diet of propaganda the government was feeding the people. The Americans were depicted as barbaric brutish pigs who had no honor or fear of debasing Japanese civilians

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One of the most under appreciated elements of the whole US campaign in the Pacific. At the end of the war the Japanese merchant fleet was reduced to 5 coastal vessels and 2 blue water ships

 

You can't discount the attack plane efforts. The PBY Catalina's accounted for a disproportionate amount of sunk Japanese shipping compared to their numbers. If I was alive in WW2, I would have fought to be a Black Cat crewman.

 

I wasn't aware of the devastating effect the Catalina's had in the fight. The day you learn something new, is indeed a good day

 

The British bomber command absolutely did- frankly the Brits were returning 20 fold to the Germans what they had experienced during the blitz.

But the American bomber command did not target civilian population centers until later- and with much controversy within the American command structure- I will have to look for citations.

 

People can try and overcomplicate it to sound smart, the use of nuclear weapons ended the war in the pacific.

 

But the bomb was not the deciding factor. Even without its use, the war ends the same, just with a bunch more people dead

 

The bomb was the deciding factor. It didn't have to be, the result would have been similiar had the bombs not been used, but in the reality where they were used, they were the deciding factor.

 

The thread question is what won the war. Without the prior conquest of Iowa Jima or Okinawa, the bomb can not be delivered. So something had to happen before the bomb could be an effective weapon, and I think that is what the OP is pondering.

 

On the macro scale- the answer in the U.S. Navy, supported by American industrial power.

I think it is difficult to identify any specific piece of hardware that was decisive- everything played its part(great shout out to the PBY by the way).

What were the most over-rated/underperforming hardware in the Pacific?

Battleships
B-17's

 

The PBY had a long operational range at over 2,500 miles. It was definitely one of the most under-rated aircraft in the entirety of the war. It was slow and not particularly "sexy" like the P-51 and better known aircraft of WW2, but in terms of it's usefulness, not many could match it. Not only was it effective in spotting submarines in both the Pacific and Atlantic, it was used in maritime patrol, attack, and search & rescue which saved many sailors and Naval aviator's lives.

 

The war was over long before that point. The problem was getting the Japanese to admit it.

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Not particularly sexy unless you totally ignore the dual 20mm cannons, 4 .50 cal machine guns in turrets, dual .30cal belly guns, and an assortment of rockets, torpedoes, bombs, and depth charges. Flying Fortress eat your heart out.

 

Gilligan's Island had some fun with that

 

Someone's been playing Call of Duty World at War!

Not all PBYs were armed to the teeth. Aircraft assigned as maritime patrol and spotters needed to be as light as possible to extend their range.

 

The variants used by the Black Cats (supreme shipping hunters that they were) were very similar to the one featured in World at War. They usually also carried small radar sets, which made patrols less necessary as they could find targets much more easily.

Correction: Magnetic anomaly detectors, not radar.

 

No, because nothing they offered would have been accepted.

During the final months of the war, they tried to offer many "Conditional Surrenders", all of which essentially returned things to status quo ante bellum. And there was absolutely no way that was possible, none of the Allied Powers would accept that.

But they would not accept a surrender that removed the Emperor. Finally because of the 2 Atomic Bombs, the Emperor himself forced the compromise through his own Privy Council, and ended the war.

 

No way - those tray fed machine guns the Japanese used with down right stupid. 30 bullets to a tray on a weapon that can fire two hundreds round a minute

Honorable mention - US D Day ration pack. Two sheets of toilet paper to last three days I think I would have used my allocation before the ramp had even gone down on the landing barge

 

Sure I was not suggesting they were deserving of conditional surrender terms, just that historically no offer was ever on the table