Singapore debacle

The great tragedy of Singapore was that soon many troops were handed over the less-than-tender mercies of the Japanese. They could have been withdrawn to Ceylon and/or Australia or given decent equipment (redirected tanks from Arctic convoys or even captured Italian equipment from North Africa) and a fighting commmader to a least inflict serious losses on the Japanese.

 

Ithink youll find the Australians had their say in the original 1930s defence planning for singapore. The Aussies didnt want the place abandoned either..the withdrawal of mideast aussie manpower was directly linked to threat to Australia after fall of singapore..their poor sods like our poor sods were reinforcing the place to the very end. However manpower was not the problem..numbers are not all..just look at Leros in Med when we were actually in acendency..no if Percival had the bns promised and in situ from initial defence estimates of 30s there may have been a different outcome...See Pownells report to Cjurchill on singapore debacle...unfortunately..matters in hand elsewhere were the priority and rightly so..The Aussies did their best to pressure on abiding by original land sea and air estimates agreed to...but it just was not possible..towards the end my own view is that we should have offloaded the last unfortunate reinforcing division at rangoon in full and not singapore..and no need then for all the pressurising of aussies later to land returning mid east boys in burma when understandably australia officioldom was under invasion panic..

 

Australians like to blame the Britis for the Singapore debacle, but some recent research has shown that in the 1930s some Australian military officers pointed out to their superiors that the plan would never work but were ignored and marginalised. As urgh points out, it was pretty sad that so many troops were still sent to Singapore when it was obvious it could not be held (and the commanders were not going to fight to the last man.) but I wonder if they might have suffered the same fate if sent to Rangoon. Ceylon, for jungle training, would have been a better option.

 

The sad part is that Singapore could have been held. Had the Commonwealth / British command been energetic and taken all the measures they could have it would have held. First, they could (and initially planned for) had dug in on the Malay pennisula at choke points putting in proper fortifications and stocking supplies despite local merchants and plantation owners objections. This would have completely stalled the Japanese invasion much as it completely flumuxed them in Burma later in the war. The British had plenty of artillery and antitank weapons to make such a defense incredibly costly to the Japanese.
In the air they could have had an integrated air defense system in place to warn of raids. The Japanese couldn't have made these unescorted as they often did historically. Neither the G4M nor G3M could have stood up to interception by even the mediocre Buffaloes available. By also integrating airfields into some of the defense perimeters on the pennisula they could have held out for a very long time.

Training played less of a role than a very poorly planned and executed defense from the highest levels of command did.

 

TA is of course correct..and the initial defence plans long before percival arrived on the scene envisaged this. But why when mideast and home base uk and atlantic and med theatres were hot wars would anyone think it a good idea to place a massive necessary effort into a theatre that may go hot..move material etc even if previously planned..just in case...the navy etc was never ever going to come to the rescue..they were busy..and even so..liike correigador..it would in that case fall eventually..it was just not the priority while uk was still fifhting for very existance

 

Not really either.

Correct.

? The Attack on Malaya occurred on the same day as Pearl, but Singapore was 2 months later. The 6" & 9" guns would certainly have helped.

Not quite correct actually.
In Malaya/Singapore it was mainly Indian & British.
There were 21 Indian battalions, 15 British, but only 6 Australian (& 2 Malayan.)

 

The British screwed up in Singapore something big. I've read an article somewhere that the British thought the Japanese were too dumb to have such an offensive weapon and that the Japanese could not shoot straight because of their slit eyes. Further, I believe that the British expected invasion from the sea so they concentrated their fire power towards the sea thinking that the Japanese were simply encapable of pushing through the dense jungles. No offense to the British. Uncle Sam screwed up at Pearl Harbor also. As did the French at Dien Ben Phu. In times of war western militarists simply need to think and live as their enemies. Present example is that with all the sophisticated weapons the coalition force have in the Middle East, they still couldn't figure out an effective defense against IEDs. Big question is who are we going to fight with next and what kind of weapon are we going to need. What's an effective weapon against suicide bombers?

 

politics and diplomacy...as will occur at the end no matter what we feel or say. BUT lets keep this off present actions or it will soon be closed as we all differ in our opinions on present actions ...and no offence taken being a brit..but why you dont see similar failings in coregiador ill never know. Suggest you peruse that thread and compare..i for one am lost at the acceptance there but not here..

 

While broadly true, a bit simplistic. All western nations held Japan in low reguard militarily and paid heavily for the misconception. However in the bigger sense they were correct in that Japan lacked the staying power to fight any extended conflict against the west. Both the US and Britain employed plans that were based on part hope and in part the belief that they would have no other commitments to restrain them. Had there been no war in Europe a Anglo-American alliance would be launching an invasion of the home islands in 1943.

 

The only common denominators were command failures at the top, although the US didnt even approach the magnitude of incompetence that the British had with its senior civil and military leaders.

The racial aspect was a factor that could not be ignored. Pre-war feelings about the superiority of the west over the Japanese was rudely wiped away as the Japanese war machine scored victory after victory.

As for the geographic distances between the UK - Singapore and US - PI; once the shooting started, both were at the the tail end of very long supply lines going through contested waters.

 

Exactly syscom..the tail end...and there was no way that singapore could in that case be saved..Singapore an unsupplied island of defiance whilst all around her fell and withdrew..it was never going to happen and its daft to think it would..The long term survival of singapore depended on more than defending the citadel it depended for long term survival on the ability of others to supply and sustain it and the actions of others further north...Illl also ask this...If Britain had no worthwhile fleet to operate in Pacific at time..what was the point anyway of holding on to Singapore..what was its original raison detre..

 

^urqh and syscom

Very much agreed. I think it was unwise to defend either the Philippines or Singapore. Wish that weren't true, but the logistics were nearly insurmountable.

^^belasar

I'm a little skeptical that we would have had boots on the ground in the home islands in 1943 even had there been no war in Europe. The two theatres didn't really use the same resources. The European theatre was very infanftry and armor intensive. The Pacific theatre needed only modest infantry commitments and very minimal armor until quite late. The Pacific theatre was heavily capital ship intensive. The European theatre was comparatively modest in its surface warfare needs, which amounted primarily to ASW, logistical, and some fire support.

There was some overlap, to be sure. Both theatres needed airframes and transports aplenty. But the problem in the Pacific was largely one of building the infrastructure to support fleet activities as we slowly advanced. Freeing forces from Europe wouldn't really have made it all that much easier to build facilities at places like Espiritu Santo and Ulithi, and it wasn't going to be possible to operate with any success against the IJN in home waters until we had local logistical support.

On top of the bases that needed to be captured and developed, we needed to build floating drydocks, refrigerated transports, amphibious assault ships, fast oilers, fast munitions ships, repair ships, aircraft transports, and a host of other auxiliaries, literally thousands of ships in total, to carry the war to Japan. We needed relatively few of these ships in the Atlantic, thanks to the convenient front-line logistical base called Great Britain. I'd actually be relatively comfortable asserting that at the beginning of the war the IJN could have handily defeated the RN and possibly even the USN (though probably not both at the same time) even if they had been stationed within striking distance of Japan with sufficient logistical support. The IJN's first striking force (Da ichi Kido Butai) had the quality and numbers to overwhelm almost any other possible force combination, so long as you kept it together and used it prudently. The USN didn't field such a concentrated force until late 1943 or early 1944 and I don't believe the RN ever did.

The long and the short of it is that all of this required build time, and few of the projects were even begun in late 1941, so it may not have been possible to accelerate it as much as you think. It would be interesting to speculate on precisely how things might have unfolded if the UK hadn't been tied up in Europe. It would undoubtedly have gone somewhat quicker, but it's also quite probably that Japan wouldn't have pursued war so aggressively, and two to three years quicker seems a bit of a stretch.

 

No, that's not really correct.
The US envisioned a massive "Jutland" type showdown, the obviously superior USN would lay a beatdown on the IJN.
It was only after Pearl that the US realized that the Far East was a write-off.

oh I would certainly disagree.

The blame lies almost entirely with
1.) UK Minister of defence
2.) RAF Command (Portal, Leigh-Mallory, Brooke-Popham)
3.) CinC Malaya (Percival)

From what I've seen, the army command staff was competant, and did as well as could be expected, given what they had to work with. Can you point to any specific incedent or action of any the Army leaders that shows that they were inept, incompetant or failed to do their job?
Lt. General Heath (III Corp) Maj. Gens Barstow (9 Ind) Murray-Lyon (11 Ind) Bennett (8 Aus)
Brigadiers Key, Painter, Painter, Carpendale etc?

 

My point was that the battle was lost long before it came down to defending just Singapore. The Commonwealth was defeated in Malaysia / Singapore at least a month before that point. They just didn't know it.

 

SymphonicPoet,

I must respectfully disagree.

While a scenario with no European war is most unlikely, and one with Japan attacking the west without they first being distracted by such a war is even less likely, had they done so Japan would be defeated much sooner then they were historicly were. Yes much heavy ship production would still take the time it did, please consider the following.


The bulk of the Royal Navy spent nearly the entire war in the Atlantic and the Med, with a good portion lost to combat. The bulk of these ships would be available within weeks (4 to 6 is my guess) to counter any Japanese attack. So too much of the RAF Fighter and Bomber Commands. A Spitfire or even a Hurricane would make a more lasting impression on the Zero/Zeke than a Buffalo. So too the bulk of the Commonwealth troops.

Then consider that France would also be free to send part of its fleet, aircraft and troops to defend thier possessions in Indochina, no free ride there for Japan. Even the Dutch could send some of their assets (with allied help) to defend or retake the Dutch East Indies.

Then there is the US. No 100 division army, no supplies or lend lease to Russia. No need to build merchantmen faster than U-boats could sink them. Indeed no Battle of the Atlantic at all. The assets used to invade North Africa, Scicly and Italy redirected to the Pacific. No need for American bases in Europe at all, again all assets sent to the Pacific.

Historicly Japan lost the iniative 6 months after Pearl Harbor, and that with a European war consuming the majority of Anglo-American resources. Japan would have less time to prepare the defensive ring, and might not have captured as much of it they did historicly.

I do not say Japan would be Defeated in 1943, because it would take an invasion of the home islands to force that, but the Allies would have breached their defenses and be at the point of launching such an attack.

 

^^freebird

There's an interesting book on the subject by Edward Miller that came out a few years ago called War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan 1897-1945. It details a constant push and pull between various factions Miller calls "thrusters" and "cautionaries." In the late 19th century it was envisaged that a fleet action between the US and Japan might take place in the western Pacific. In fact, the Great White Fleet's circumnavigation of the globe was in part a logistical exercise to test early theories.

The thrusters had initially advocated an advanced base somewhere in the western Pacific that could hold out against Japan long enough for the US Fleet (and later the Pacific Fleet) to relieve it. Such a "Gibraltar of the East" could protect newly acquired US possessions in the region while serving as a springboard for later operations directly challenging Japan. Manila, Subic Bay, Corregidor, and even Guam were proposed at different times.

By the time of the Washington Naval Treaty the "cautionaries" were ascendant. They warned that no base could hold out long enough for the fleet to reach bases so far west, and so close to Japan's home ports, in a condition to contest the question. They feared, quite reasonably, that any such action could end up closely resembling Tsushima. (Which is in fact roughly what the Japanese were counting on.) They advocated a gradual advance across the Pacific which would allow the US to build logistical bases along the way and would give the country time to build a stronger force of both auxiliaries and combatants.

Initially, the cautionary approach was dogged by problems of geography: all suitable locations for bases were likely to be held by neutral non-combatants. The mandate that Japan occupy Germany's Pacific possessions after the First World War solved that tidily. The US began scouting atols in the central Pacific and studying the capacity and defensibility of their anchorages. A 1927 study by the War Planning Department concluded that Wotje and Eniwetok would be the most suitable basses in the Marshals. A similar study concluded that Truk was the best in the Caronlines. The official plan, O-1, named Wotje and Truk "base 1" and "base 2." They retained this status until the war. (Though the timeline for their capture varied considerably, with early estimates assuming "base 1" would be captured in the initial weeks of war and could be operational 60 days after hostilities began. BuDocs estimated it would take 180 days to complete "base 1" and the final prewar "Rainbow 5" warplan used this estimate.)

The US agreed in the Washington Naval Treaty not to develop any new bases in the western Pacific or materially improve any existing ones, thus Guam had no suitable harbor and Manila and Subic Bay had no drydocks. The cautionaries felt that materials expended in such locations would only deplete the larger cause, since they were not defensible. Disposal of such assets is a sure sign that the US was no longer officially pursuing a policy reliant on significant immediate action in the western Pacific. More tellingly, at the ABC-1 conference Britain requested that the US send a fleet to Singapore. Instead, the US agreed to "distracting" raids in the central Pacific.

Individual officers continued to hold out hope for a dash to the Philippines or even Singapore (MacArthur, for instance), but Naval War plans after 1940 proposed offensive operations in the central Pacific. At least two extent planning documents for Admiral Kimmel's staff are known:WPPac-46 and WPUSF-44. Both were drafted by Admiral "Soc" McMorris, Kimmel's war plans officer, the first as a study for the latter. Kimmel was at a loss as to how to "divert" the Japanese from their assault on the Malay Barrier when a quarter of his fleet had been moved the the Atlantic in late 1940 and early 1941. (In the form of Yorktown, 3 battleships, a light cruiser, and 20 modern destroyers.) The plan he came up with seems to have amounted to using the Pacific fleets 3 CVs as bait for a rather elaborate trap involving a surface battle, to be sure, but it was to be one in the mandates, not at the Malay Barrier. He wanted to use carrier raids into the mandate to draw the combined fleet out and engage it more fully. But at no point would these have approached Singapore, which was the original point.

Now that I've taken far too long to say something rather simple . . .

^belasar

I think the French and Dutch fleets could be largely disregarded. They had no useful front line units apart from a few French Battleships and some French and Dutch cruisers of questionable merit.

As to the Buffalo comment, I think you miss a few vital points:

1. The F2As were being replaced even before the war began.
2. Their negative reputation was at least in part the result of the inexperience of their pilots.
3. They did have some quite significant advantages over the Spitfire: much greater range.

The thing that gets lost is that the F2A and F4F2 had nearly identical performance, save for the F4F's superior supercharger. The F4F3 and F4F4 actually had noticeably inferior performance to either. But the difference in numbers and survivability was enough to compensate. (The F4F4 was the first production model with folding wings, which allowed a greatly increased fighter group.)

But to get back to the RN, the problem is roughly this: They RN had no useful bombers until the TBF/M. Spitfires might be admirable fighters, but they don't sink ships. The RN didn't practice dive bombing in the sense usually meant in the Pacific war (a near vertical dive at high speed) but glide bombing and horizontal bombing, neither of which was terribly effective ships at sea. The Swordfish was useful against undefended ships, but it made the TBD look like a race car. I very much doubt that a Swordfish would have ever been able to press home an attack in the face of even very limited fighter opposition. As difficult as it was to coordinate TBDs and F4Fs, Seafires and Swordfish would have been worse, since the top speed of a Swordfish is lower and the stall speed of a Spit is higher.

The IJN, however, had very well matched aircraft and a great deal of experience coordinating them. Their torpedo attacks, in particular, were extremely skilled and remarkably effective. With no war in Europe the Royal Navy would have had five first line carriers to Japans six. All would have operated smaller airgroups. Additionally, the RN would have had six older and smaller aircraft carriers to Japan's two older carriers and two very capable very new light carriers.

The US comes closer to parity, and actually has a slight advantage in the number of aircraft, but has no experience in coordinating strikes or operating carriers together. One small but often overlooked part of the reason the US won the battle of Midway: it wasn't facing the entire first striking force, but rather only the first two divisions. (CarDiv 5 having been disabled at Coral Sea after it had been detached.) Even if the US had been able to bring all six of its front line fleet carriers to battle at the same time (which it never managed to do) there's no guarantee of victory.

Certainly if the RN and USN can coordinate things improve considerably, but that would leave the USN abandoning Hawaii and the West Coast to the tender mercies of the IJN, or it sacrifices the Malay Barrier. Or it leaves the two fleets in different locations to be defeated in detail. Which seems the likeliest outcome. The RN will still be in a very exposed position. There's simply no way around that. Singapore is to England no different than Manila to the US. Unless England moves the entire fleet to Singapore before the outbreak of the war it will fall before it can be defended, which leaves England in an even worse position vis a vie Japan than the USN. Bases will all be further and more improvised than Pearl. And England will now need to breach the very Malay Barrier that it couldn't hold, which is much more formidable when it's in your back yard.

Further, even if you do eliminate the IJN, what makes the advance across the Pacific all that much quicker? The problem remains much the same. You still have to build harbors, airbases, drydocks, and so forth. You still need tankers, amphibious assault ships, stores ships, and so forth. None of this was present in sufficient numbers in December of 1941, even if you combine both fleets. It will take time to build it. I'm not sure one year will be enough. Japan is enough close to the various Pacific atols that it can supply them with aircraft without conventional surface forces. It simply needs to defend it's shipping. Maybe if Combined Fleet is destroyer (unlikely) Japan concentrates on escorts, ASW, and aircraft, all of which would have been quite useful in larger numbers. I am unconvniced that an assault on the home islands would have been remotely possible in 1943 under the most propitious of circumstances. Consider the fact that Japan will not yet have slowly exhausted her oil and steel stockpiles. Though imagining Germany out of the picture properly belongs in the "What if" forum anyway.

 

No, in fact they were well aware that the Japanese could attack Singapore by land, and through the Malayan jungles. The previous military commander (Dobbie) had commissioned an analysis that showed that it was possible. His subordinate that had done the study - one Colonel Arthur Percival.

That is another huge Singapore myth, that the British didn't have the men & resources to send, or that the UK was in "dire peril" in the latter half of 1941.

With the Germans attacking on the Soviets in Jun '41, by Sept '41 the British knew with certainty that no invasion of the UK was possible until the spring of '42 at the earliest.

They had the troops & transport to send to Malaya without subtracting anything from any other active theater of war, the Middle East or Russia.

 

The top civil leadership certainly bears a lot of the blame. However, the army military command in Malaya (other than Percival) weren't incompetant, they had at least a detailed plan to defend the territory.

As for the US having a "magnitude of incompetence" less than the British, it depends how you look at it. Remember, it was the US that started the ball rolling towards war with the oil embargo in the summer of '41, and pressured the Dutch & the British to support it. Neither of those nations had any interest in a confrontation with Japan, or supporting the Chinese. In fact the British had closed down the Burma road in 1940 to reduce tensions with Japan. Without the US initiative to embargo Japan there would have been no Pacific war in '41 or '42.

However since the US was supplying material to the Allies, Churchill felt obligated to support Roosevelt's Pacific policies. (plus it would bring the US into the war)
So the British had some reasonable expectation that the US had a plan to take the lead in dealing with Japan, as the UK & Commonwealth were heavily engaged against Germany.
Did the US have any realistic pre-war plan to defeat the Japanese?
None that I can see.
WPO-3 wasn't a plan to defeat the Japanese, more like "roll over & play dead".
If the US couldn't stand up to the Japanese in 1941, why did they they push for the embargo in 1941, instead on waiting until '42?

No actually, not correct.
P.I. were in "contested" waters, Luzon certainly, Mindano not so much. Singapore was not in contested waters, as the IJN couldn't pass beyond Singapore to threaten Allied shipping until they captured the airbases in southern Malaya.

The British were in fact able to maintain shipping & resupply throughout December & January unimpeded and didn't lose any (cargo) ships until the Empress of Asia was sunk on Feb 5. At this point the Japanese occupied all of Malaya except Singapore.

SymphonicPoet, what was the first warship in WWII larger than a destroyer sunk by dive bombing?
The Königsberg was dive-bombed by FAA Skuas in April 1940
Königsberg Light cruiser

You are making the mistake in assuming that Singapore cannot be held in Japan controls the South China Sea. (which isn't in any way evident) and you are also failing to account for ground based aircraft, which could be deployed to Malaya & Java

 

Freebird are you stating here that singapore could have held out then? There is also a slight contradiction in your posts whereby you say Brits could have supplied it and no lack of troops etc yet in next post you critisise yanks for the plan as it were and in same post intimate britain was busy against Germany...As for could of or maybe even should of..Greece debacle ensured crete debacle and later mid east offensive capabilities just because the linited fighting and air troops were taken away. Again Singapore was never the priority..ans as for invasion of uk..who said any such thing...defeat does not have to come from a physical invasion of uks mainland. 1941 or even 1940..Ive never been one for believing invasion was ever a reality..but thats another thread and topic. That doesnt mean B ritain could not be defeated without invasion. Today some say air pwwwwrrr wins wars...Id say logistics or lack of them willnow as then lose you the war..my point is singapore was not our priority..and even in hindsight if we had the forces etc ...why did a ramshackle british fleet have to run from ceylon when japanese threatened later..surely if we had em they would be protecting suez canal with all necesarry parked up not being used but just in case and not the hermes and its fleet.sarcasm I know...And in hindsught..singapore can survive how long when all around goes under...again...hot wars elsewhere and a maybe war in the pacific..where do you put your chess pieces...suopose ark royal and eagle barnham etc could have twiddled their fingers in singapore...more sarcasm I know as I cant quote their launch or sinking dates.

 

SymphonicPoet,

I feel you give the Franco-Dutch forces too little credit. As of Sept. 1939 France had:

8 BB's/BC's [3 modern, 5 Dreadnought era], with 2 under construction
1 CVL, 1 under construction
20 Cuisers [10 Heavy, 10 Light]
70 Destroyers
80 Submarines

Dutch Navy 1939 (best info)
3 Cruisers [Light]
12 Destroyers
5 Submarines

It would not be a strain for them to deploy the following;
3 BB's/BC's (French)
1 CVL (French)
8 Cruisers (6 Fremch,2 Dutch)
22 Destroyers (16 French, 6 Dutch)
30 Submarines (French)

Add to this a Royal Navy-Commonwealth force of say the following:
6 BB's, BC's [Rodney, Nelson, K.G.V, PoW, DoY and Hood]
3 CVL's
8 Cruisers
20 Destroyers
25 Submarines

If my numbers are correct we have,
9 BB's, BC's
4 CVL's
16 Cruisers
42 Destroyers
55 Submarines

Why does this matter? Because Japan would deploy only 730,000 tonnes of new warships thru out the remainder of the war. These ships could be on station no later than 6 months after the start of hostilities, with many much sooner. Also the Anglo-French-Dutch fleet would have ships in home waters to replace losses, plus any new construction.

Further a free, unoccupied France would mean that Japan would have to attack French Indochina rather than simply occupy it before December 1941. This helps Singapore in two ways, no staging from Indochina to attack and a thinning of an already overstreched attack plan. Both the Phillipine and Singapore assauts were logisticly weak and nearly stalled as both campaigns took longer than the plans called for. If Japan tries to cobble together Another corps sized force to take French Indochina and Singapore from father bases or waits until Indochina is taken first, then attacks Singapore, the British base gets a better chance to hold.


I feel sure that if you asked 10 pilots to choose between a Spitfire/Hurricane and a F2A, 9 of them will pick the Spitfire/Hurricane and the 10th wiould be grounded by the Flight Surgon for mental istability. More importantly with no Battle of Britain far more of these planes could be sent along with their trained pilots. More than planes are available, the flower of the Indian, Australian and New Zeeland armies would be close to hand and not in North Africa. Even if Japan takes Singapore, can they then push Britain out of Burma to the Indian border, I don't think so.


The limits of the RN's Fleet Air arm are real to be sure, but solvable with the deployment of US made Wildcat's, Dauntless's and Avenger's. The RN was slow to employ these aircraft because after the brief encounter in the Indian ocean the RN carriers did not engage the IJN till late in the war. I can agree that that the IJN air arm is very good, but all but extinct after Midway and will never recover. The RN's carriers need only to hang on till they reequip.


If I give you the Zuikaku and Shokaku for Midway you have to give me the Lexington and a undamaged Yorktown. Further the Wasp and Washington & North Carolina should be free as well as there is no war in the Atantic. The odds are 6:5 with fully operational US carriers and better air defence (2 modern BB's). The odds are getting worse not better for Japan. The CarDiv 5 was not present because the American pilots with limited expeirence and obsolete aircraft forced it out of the battle.


There is no need for the US to abandon Hawaii or any other base to work with the RN/French/Dutch fleet. Indeed it would be better if they did not. With Nimitz attacking in the central Pacific, McAuther up though New Guinea and and RN/French/Dutch along the PacRim. Japan would wilt under a three pronged attack far sooner than the two pronged attack used. While the IJN might defeat them in detail, it failed to defeat a single one when presented the chance.

Logistics is the key but you are disreguarding all the efforts done in the European war that would be free to employ in the Pacific. as an example the USAAF built and operated by Dec 1943 the following:

27 Bases in the Atlantic Islands
28 Bases in South America
94 Bases in Africa
119 Bases in Europe
268 in total

This is just the USAAF, not the Navy or Army or those of the Commonwealth. As for Sealift and Airlift the Allies in Europe depolyed 3 corps sized landing by late 1943 (Torch, Huskly and Avalanche), with Shingle just after the first of the year in 1944. Ports were rebuilt, supply dumps stored and airfields cleared. For every dollar spent on logistics in the Pacific at least 2 were spent by the US/Commonwealth in Europe. A free France and Holland would add to that.

Without a Eurpoean distraction Japan would not get as far and be pushed back much sooner.