Pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese shipping to Vichy France

I don't know why I got to thinking about this, but, if Japan wanted to run merchant ships into Vichy France, say Marseille and Toulon, prior to attacking the US, Britain and Dutch, could they have? Britain was engaged in the Med. but would they have stopped Japanese flagged ships for fear of drawing Japan into the war? What if the Japanese ships were escorted, they could reasonably claim it was to protect them from belligerents from both sides? Would the British chance a confrontation to try and stop and search the merchant ships? The British fleet was spread pretty thin and really didn't need another shooting war with major naval power. Vichy France was technically neutral and recognized as such by the United States. They could sail from French Indochina ports to French ports. Germany needed rubber, tin and tungsten, they historically ran blockade runner operations from the Far East, why not get the Japanese to do it overtly?

 

Japan didn't have sources of the materials, which is why they invaded the DEI and SEA and what they could buy was needed for their economy.

 

Your not thinking outside the box...

Japan could, and did, serve as an intermediary purchaser or strategic goods, which Japan then shipped to Germany. Although, these good were more often sent using the Trans-Siberian Railway as opposed to merchant shipping.

 

Had the Japanese wanted to, they could have. However, the Japanese began requisitioning their merchant ships for military purposes in 1940, so there were less and less bottoms to go around. Then the Japanese recall order issued on July 2, 1941, sealed the deal.

The British did stop, search, and impound contraband materials from the occasional Japanese merchants that they came across. The Asama Maru was probably the most notorious(although that was for German sailors attempting to return to Germany). However, by the beginning of 1941, the British, mostly due to American "advice", were becoming more cautious about stopping Japanese merchants bound for Europe. This can be seen in the "Asaka Maru memo" http://ukwarcabinet.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/cab-66-15-1-0001.pdf
In the end, the Americans decided that any intervention of the Asaka Maru might lead to war with Japan, and so advised the British who left the Asaka Maru unmolested.

Given the usual short range of escorts, a Japanese trans-oceanic escort would be highly unlikely.

The Japanese could do it overtly, but why? So long as the Tran-Siberian Railway remained an option. Unfortunately, once the German invasion of Russia voided the Railway option, embargoes were taking their toll on the Japanese.

A good book on the subject is "Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936-1941" by Antony Best.
Google Preview: https://books.google.com/books?id=7XaMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=japanese+ships+stopped+by+britain&source=bl&ots=5lE7A9s8An&sig=xi1URhlwVy0CLOHnFoCmBFMLNDM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY0YStsuTKAhVIWBoKHfkXAUMQ6AEIMTAE#v=onepage&q&f=false
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Britain-Japan-Pearl-Harbour-1936-1941/dp/0415867797

 

. Stealing goods from Indochina was one thing, but they wouldn't have taken the risk to return it to France where they would have lost control of the goods. In Toulon they were quite sensitive you know, and rather than send some goods to the Germans, they'd kept it our burn it.

 

I wasn't thinking of them stealing the goods, I was thinking along the lines of them transporting Vichy Indochinese resources from the Far East to Vichy France, for the Vichy Government. Of course it would all be smoke and mirrors. Japan would be pressing the Indochinese Government and Germany the Continental French to make the transaction. The French Government could benefit by transferring the materials to Germany in lieu of the onerous costs of paying for Germany's occupation, but traded at fair market value, it would lift a lot of the financial burden. The French politicians could frame it as a poke in the eye of the British and as France's reestablishment of trade with it's colonies. Anglo-phobia was running fairly high in the French population after the British attack on the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kabir, the interment of the French naval squadron in Alexandria, and the seizure of French ships in British ports. Many French saw it as a betrayal by the British, against a France acting honorably under the terms of the Armistice. Japan would benefit by re-opening a supply line cut when Germany invaded Russia, and could load mercury, machine tools, etc.

Steverodgers801 wrote:

There was rubber and tin in excess from Indochina and Thailand.

 

Good info, good links. Been reading a book on FDR and pre-war American Foreign policy. FDR was really walking a tightrope in his efforts to aid the British. If the Japanese and Germans had been a little more astute, and had used some of FDR's tricks at manipulating US public opinion, they could achieved a lot more and might have hamstrung Roosevelt's efforts to bring the US into the war against Germany.

It wouldn't have taken but a few ships and the need was there as evidenced by continued German blockade running efforts. As for escorts a couple of armed merchant cruisers or a Katori class CL. I'm not thinking that they could, or would fight their way through, but the presence of a naval vessel changes the whole dynamic. If the British did attempt to intercept, or better yet fired upon them, the US and Britain would be in a bad way diplomatically. Neither Britain or the US wanted a war in the East quite yet. If Britain is seen as an aggressor, US material support for her would become problematic. The US recognized Vichy France as the legitimate French government so goods to and from her own territories would be in a different classification.

 

How many ships they could have used to send cargo to Vichy France and in the end to Germany?

The Germans did use subs to do that during the war, but considering the distance and possibly the size of ships and the willingness of the crews what might be the number to do that, and also the time to travel to europe? And did Japanese aim to have the goods fro themselves?

 

It wouldn't take many. Tungsten for instance, Germany managed to get 90% of it's Tungsten requirements met through imports from Spain and Portugal, a single blockade runner from the Far-East in January 1944 managed to supply Germany's rubber, tin and Tungsten needs for the remainder of 1944. So I don't suggest that in items such as Tungsten, Japan can meet all of Germany's raw material needs, just make up some shortfalls. However, this is just a secondary consideration.
The US had already filed diplomatic protests against some of Britain's high handed methods implementing their economic blockade (primarily over the sanctity of mail). Many US humanitarian/relief organizations had chaffed under British refusal to allow food and medical relief shipments to civilians in occupied Europe. Roosevelt had attempted to engineer confrontations with the German's in order to build popular support and to hopefully have an egregious enough confrontation to be able to enter the war on Britain's side. Nobody was ready for or wanted to go to war with Japan just yet. The US hoped to postpone an outbreak of hostilities until the latter part of 1942. US public opinion was strongly anti-interventionist, though sympathy for Britain's plight was building. If Japan could overtly ignore the blockade, Britain would be in a tough spot. International law did deal with neutral nations dealing with belligerents. Britain could legally stop, inspect and seize contraband from Japan (neutral at the time) shipped directly to a German or German occupied port. Shipments from Japan to the neutral Vichy French ports was much less clear cut. Shipments from Vichy French Colonial to Vichy French European ports, basically internal within a neutral country would not be unlawful. That would be like saying Germany could legally hit US flagged ships shipping from the northeast to the gulf. The US would see the ramifications and would protest, plus they recognized the Vichy French government as the legitimate French government. Roosevelt had ordered covert diplomatic efforts that were underway before we entered the war in order to keep Vichy France neutral. Now firing on a merchant vessel flagged by a nation is different from firing on a Naval vessel, the later is considered an overt act of war. Say a British blockading squadron fired upon and sank the IJN Katori, a pretty much useless cruiser in the grander scheme of things, in order to stop and search/seize the escorted merchant vessel. This would give adequate cause for Japan to declare war upon Britain, they could attack British possessions in the Far-East, Malaya, Borneo, Burma, and Pacific mandate islands. The US wouldn't and couldn't muster public support to declare war on Japan since Britain was the aggressor. In the best case scenario the US would attempt to broker a diplomatic solution before war broke out. Japan might accept a removal of economic sanctions and return of financial assets frozen in the US. A win for Japan. If not Japan can deal with the British without having to deal with the US interfering in their conquest of the SRA. Any military move by the US against Japan would be hard to justify since they were not the initial aggressor. Plus, the US selective service act forbade deploying called up US military personnel outside the United States and it's territories, that's why they had to deploy US Marines to Iceland in July 1941.

Excerpt Selective Service Act 1940
(e) Persons inducted into the land forces of the United States under
this Act shall not be employed beyond the limits of the Western Hemi-
sphere except in the Territories and possessions of the United States,
including the Philippine Islands.

On August 12, 1941 Roosevelt asked Congress to extend the term of service to 18 months, it was passed by the US House on a single vote. Many of the original, October 1940 men threatened to go home regardless, when their original 12 months time ran out. The US public, confronted by the prospect of sending these men off to fight an Asian war, precipitated by British aggression, would not support said measures and would likely rethink it's commitment to the extraordinary measures the Roosevelt administration was employing to aid Britain.

If the British let the shipment through, Germany and Japan benefit from the resources, material and technical exchanges.

 

Japan didn't purchase the materials, the Germans did and there is only a 6 month gap between when Germany attacked the Soviets and Japan the US. The Soviets supplied most of what Germany needed as part of its trade agreement.

 

Please explain, you've lost me.

 

Yes..."Most" of what Germany needed. Rubber did not fall into that category. The Soviets were not meeting the German demand for rubber. That is why Japan was acting as a proxy buyer of rubber, and then shipping it off to Germany.

IIRC, the Japanese also sent a prodigious quantity of soybeans. But again, most of this was shipped via the Trans-Siberian Railway.

 

Japan didn't need to use shipping until the Germans attacked the USSR, and once Japan seized Indochina it became almost impossible to acquire materials. Also it was Germany sending Japan the money to buy materials and then sending via the Soviets. So there is only a brief period of time when Japan would need to use shipping to send materials.

 

Yes...But Japan was not paying their British Malayan rubber suppliers in German Reichsmarks. Nor was any German city given as the final destination.

So, yes...Japan was buying the rubber.

 

French Indochina exported an average of in excess of 60,000 tons of rubber per year, pre-1942. Thailand exported large quantities of Tin, and lesser amounts of Tungsten. China in 1941, was the worlds largest producer of Tungsten, (and is so today). Germany had a need for all these materials. Six months is a long time to go without critical, limiting resources. Germany tried to use blockade runners to bring the materials to Germany. They had a major blockade running effort in the winter of 1941 into 1942. The Trans-Siberian route, as noted by Takao, shipped about 300 tons of rubber per day from the far-East to Germany. This route ceased to be available in June of 1941, due to Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Thereafter, the Trans-Siberian railroad became an important route for the transit of US lend-lease materials to the Soviet Union. Starting in August of 1941, after the outbreak of hostilities with the US only non-military supplies, transported in Soviet ships were shipped via this route. Japan and the Soviets did respect their neutrality agreement.
From Wikipedia
"the northern Pacific Ocean and the Trans-Siberian Railway – became the safest connection between the USA and the USSR. Accordingly, it accounted for as much freight as the two other routes (North Atlantic–Arctic and Iranian) combined."

These are all facts.

Now to conjecture. Japan needed certain supplies and technical aid from Germany (fact). Germany desperately needed the materials I have mentioned, (plus others, not mentioned)(fact). Japan was planning on moving south to seize British and Dutch possessions (fact). The US was attempting to control Japan through economic sanctions (fact). Neither the US, or Britain were ready to go to war with Japan, Britain was stretched too thin and the US's rearmament program needed time (fact). Why couldn't Japan have used this time to gain what they needed from Germany by transporting the needed material on their ships, between Vichy French Indochina and Vichy France itself? Germany would benefit, Japan would benefit and Vichy France could benefit by selling the materials produced in their colonial possessions to Germany to offset the onerous occupation costs Germany was charging them. That is if Britain allowed the shipment through. If they didn't, and the Japanese ships did not voluntarily comply the British would have to forcibly stop and seize them. If they were escorted by a warship or ships, this could be considered an act of war. If Britain fired upon Japanese shipping, Japan would be free to reciprocate against British shipping, or demand reparations, release of seized ships and cargo, or risk war. Britain was bad about not backing down. Best case, for the Axis, Japan declares war over the British attack. Moves south and seizes British possessions. The Netherlands are a government in exile in England so they have no choice but to declare for England. Japan declares war on the Dutch and seizes their possessions. The US has not been attacked. Japan was not the initial aggressor, Britain was. The US public is not interested in going to war in the Pacific. In fact law prevents deployment of US draftees outside the western hemisphere or US territories, to include the Philippines. A military build-up there would take away from US support for Britain against Germany. Without a declaration of war, the US Navy can not intervene. Germany was the primary focus and considered the primary threat. What would the US do?

 

Unfortunately, a Japanese ship breaking the blockade, especially with a warship "escort", would be seen as the aggressor nation by the West.
- If she is a harmless merchie, what is she doing with an armed escort?
- What cargo is she carrying that necessitates an armed escort?
- If she is carrying innocuous goods then why didn't she stop and agree to be searched?
The pro-Roosevelt & anti-Japanese papers would have a field day.


Vichy France would probably not be a party to it, as they were trying to get the British to loosen their blockade, not tighten it. So, by being a party to this, would likely be counterproductive.

Are the Japanese that ready for an early start to their war, seeing as their forces are likely not in position to take adequate advantage of the early start?

Which would be more beneficial to Japan...an early start to their war, or another year's supply of American oil?

 

From what I recall of the polls from the time the US populace was pretty well fed up with Japan and ready to "deal with) her although the polls didn't specifically mention war. As I think we've discussed before US anti-interventionism was anti evolvement in European wars. Outside Europe things were a bit more open. I'm not sure this would have helped the Japanese much and it might have hurt the Germans to be connected to the Japanese.

One thing to consider is the times involved. From what I can tell it's a bit over 11,000 nautical miles from Vietnam to France. If you have a ~10 knot freighter you are looking at over a month long voyage. If the ships start out in Japan it's going to take a month or so to come up with the plan and get them to Vietnam and loaded I would suspect. There's also the problem of getting fuel along the way. The US embargo froze Japanese assets in the US and I'm pretty sure Britain went along with that. That leaves the Japanese bartering for fuel at minor ports along the way I suspect. If the clock starts after the embargo is fully in effect can the Japanese get to France before November?

 

You are forgetting a key point. Yamamoto was afraid of the Philippines as a base against Japanese shipping. He went to war against the US to seize the Philippines to prevent their potential usage as a base.

 

Not sure that's all that relevant in this topic. It's also not clear how much Yamamoto's fears had to do with the overall Japanese strategy. He wasn't even the head of the navy much less the government. Where did you hear he was afraid of the Philippines by the way?

 

He threatened to quit if his attack on Pearl harbor was not approved. It was not just Yamamoto it was the Japanese military that was afraid of the potential threat of the Philippines