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If feasible, occupying Oahu and Honolulu could have made some strategic sense, since they would have held hostage a large number of American citizens, which could have forced the U.S. to negotiate. From reading all the other posts on this, it still looks to have been unachievable, even if they had sacrificed all their other objectives.
If feasible, occupying Oahu and Honolulu could have made some strategic sense, since they would have held hostage a large number of American citizens, which could have forced the U.S. to negotiate. From reading all the other posts on this, it still looks to have been unachievable, even if they had sacrificed all their other objectives.
No, I don't think occupying Hawaii was feasible for the IJA - we had a lot of military stationed there, troops & equipment.
If somehow IJN had managed to transport & keep a sizable invasion force of IJA alive & healthy enough to assault the beaches, & they fought their way past all the US troops, & actually did take hostages:
"Before the start of the war, the population of Hawaii was at 423,000 which included an Asian majority of around 310,000 and a white minority of 105,000. Although the census depicted over one hundred thousand whites living on the island, this was not the case. In the census, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants that had arrived decades earlier to work on the plantations were also considered part of the white minority. It was not until large scale military preparations in late 1940 and early 1941, that white American serviceman arrived."
Given that IJN attacked before the Japanese declaration of war was delivered to the US in WADC, & given that the IJN & IJA would invest the Philippines & any US targets of opportunity that they could - Would we have negotiated with the IJA over mostly immigrants in Hawaii? I don't think so, I can't imagine a single high official of the FDR admin nor any high-ranking officer in the Pentagon, nor down the chain of command to the local commanders in Hawaii who would have hesitated to pull the trigger.
It was a different time, & if the IJ military had some nice notions of punctilio in regards to warfare, they only applied to other practitioners of Bushido, as far as I can tell @ this remove. Certainly the US commanders on the scene, putting in 20-hour days directing preparations for a follow-on attack, tending to the wounded, collecting the dead, running salvage & reflotation schedules around the clock - wouldn't have hesitated @ all, IMO.
The Japanese declaration of war wasn't even written until after the raid had been reported to the Gaimudaijin as successful.
The 14-part message (Teikoku Seifu no Taibei Tsucho Oboegaki) was not a declaration of war. It did not break off negotiations with the US. It was not an ultimatum. And Yamamoto's only requirement for the message was that it not tip off the Americans to the coming attack.
The Japanese declaration of war wasn't even written until after the raid had been reported to the Gaimudaijin as successful.
The 14-part message (Teikoku Seifu no Taibei Tsucho Oboegaki) was not a declaration of war. It did not break off negotiations with the US. It was not an ultimatum. And Yamamoto's only requirement for the message was that it not tip off the Americans to the coming attack.
Oh, and the Pentagon wasn't open yet.
Yah, my bad. Good information.
The Pentagon - I knew that Col. L. Groves supervised the construction - I assumed he'd finished before he was assigned to Los Alamos & to head up the Manhattan Project. & so it goes ...
Since we brought up the 14-part message, I'm going to drop this here.
The timing of the delivery of the 14-part message, 1/2 hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor, ensured that it would have no effect on the attack. For a warning to occur based on that message the following events would have had to happen:
(Note: No parties in Washington would have any idea that there was a deadline looming. FDR could have easily have waited until Monday to make a reply. Yamamoto would have been aware of this possibility.)
Japan delivers note on time.
Hull reads note.
Hull responds to Nomura and Kurusu.
They reply, etc.
Hull talks to FDR, explains note.
FDR correctly interprets this as a war warning.
FDR advises SecWar and SecNav to alert all forces.
SecWar and SecNav compose warning message.
Warning messages are handled through military channels, if available, to all commands.
Local commanders assimilate warning message and act properly.
On the other hand, if the US had acceded to every demand in the 14-part message:
Japan delivers note on time.
Hull reads note.
Hull responds to Nomura and Kurusu.
They reply, etc.
Hull talks to FDR, explains note.
FDR agrees to completely change US policy without consulting Congress.
FDR communicates this to Hull.
Hull explains things to Nomura and Kurusu.
They discuss any fuzzy details.
Nomura and Kurusu return to their embassy to contact Tokyo.
(Originally they were ordered to destroy all codes, but got permission to retain one low level code.)
Somehow they get the information to Tokyo.
Gaimudaijin receives message.
Foreign Minster interprets message correctly.
Foreign Minster goes to Prime Minister and explains message.
Prime Minister contacts SecWar and SecNav, who contact their forces to halt attack.
In both the above cases you can see that more than 1/2 hour was needed. So the timing issue is just a farce.
My understanding is that the only reason they timed it the way they did was because they felt that it would be dishonorable to attack without having technically given some notification that they no longer felt it was possible to reach an agreement through negotiations. Sort of like a gunfighter yelling "draw" just before he yanks it and fires.
My understanding is that the only reason they timed it the way they did was because they felt that it would be dishonorable to attack without having technically given some notification that they no longer felt it was possible to reach an agreement through negotiations. Sort of like a gunfighter yelling "draw" just before he yanks it and fires.
Nope. I've found nothing that shows any concern by Yamamoto about the timing. The "kick the pillow of the sleeping enemy" is a throw-away line.* My research partners at Tokyo U. concur with that finding.
*Kick pillow, then slice head when enemy tries to stand up. Very nice of you!
ETA: There was nothing in place to allow the Nagumo Kido Butai to stop the attack if the 14-part Message wasn't delivered in time. The Japanese planes would have already violated US air space by time the message was scheduled to be delivered and I doubt all of the pilots would have been willing to return to their carriers even if orders were issued to do so. AND the NKB had orders to press the attack if they were discovered within 24 hours steaming time from the launch point.
The problem with Japan in WWII is its over-ambition.
During the brief 40 years period, Japan had already grabbed Taiwan and Pescadores (1895), Korea (1902), Sakhalin and Kurile Islands (1905), Manchuria (1931). It just didn't have time to digest all these domains in its vast imperial empire.
If Japan had halted its expansion after 1931 as Ishihara Kenji (the chief architect of Mukden Incident) suggested, spent the next 20 years in developing all these colonies, then it might be a totally different story.
Japan didn't need to stage the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937. It also didn't need to provoke both Soviet Union and U.S. It had more than it could handle already.
The earlier easy victories during the Meiji Period have misguided Japan.
In fact, most countries in the West favored Japan over China until 1932.
In 1902, Britain entered an alliance with Japan. In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth after the Russo-Japanese War. The terms were highly favorable to Japan. In 1918, Japan was granted the German concessions in China at the Treaty of Versailles. In the same year, Japan was one of the 9 countries that participated in the Siberian intervention. Japanese troops were the last one to leave Russian Far East. In 1921, Japan was invited to participate in the Washington Naval Treaty. It was concluded that Japan could be entitled to have the highest tonnage of warships just next to US and UK.
Before 1932, Japan was perceived as the only civilized country in Asia with a high degree of westernization and a certain degree of democracy implemented. On the other hand, China was perceived under the leadership of an autocratic strongman leading a political party based on a Leninist structure.
If Japan could just stop in 1931 after annexing Manchuria, most countries in the West would view it as a fait accompli just like how they viewed Japan annexing Korea.
The turning point came in 1932. Japan started attacking and bombing Shanghai. The most pivotal point came when a photo showing a crying burnt naked toddler sitting helplessly on a railway platform was printed on the cover of Henry Luce's Life Magazine. Then there was a tidal change of public opinions in U.S. towards Japan.
Last edited by Ian_Lee; 07-29-2016 at 02:29 PM..
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