Unnecessary Battles of WWII

German = Op Luttich (Mortain counter-attack) - how to hand your forces to the enemy on a plate!
British/Commonwealth = 1943 Dodecanese/Leros Campaign
American = Peleliu

 

Hi Heidi, thats OK, I also ask bone-headed things here all the time-join the club ;-))

 

I will go with Peleliu as the absolutely most unnecessary battle as far as the PTO goes, followed by the re-taking of the Aleutians, and then maybe the operations to liberate all those islands in the Philippine archipelogo and in Indonesia, and the house to house fighting in Manila. In the ETO, the Hurtgen Forrest, Monte Cassino, the 36th Infantry Division's Rapido River Crossing and Operation Varsity are the bone-head award winners there.

I want everyone to bear in mind that I am not down playing the effort on the parts of the fighting men involved and the sacrifices they made, but to place blame on the bone-heads who planned those battles, and just go "oops" when it doesn't work out so well as expected.

 

Pearl Harbour was all about the Philippines.

 

Why would the Americans attack the philipines as a country/nation,when it was clearly the Japanese were the ones that attack America/pearl harbor?
It was all about Japanese IN THE philippines,that the American's were after.

 

Japanese Army objectives 1935-41.
1. remove all foreign "Treaty Ports" from asiatic territories (American industrialist interests in Manchuria and British/French industrialist interests along the Chinese coast all the way to Burma).
2. remove Soviet influenced government from the Yellow Valley region in China and reinstate the Q'ing monarchy under new treaties with Japan (Kuomintang regarded as an Euro-American industrialist interest along the coast).
3. occupy and liberate all colonial interests of Euro-American settlement in the Asia-Pacific rim...

The IJN was assigned transportation, protection and concordant strategic duties, its own objectives cited as primarily securing Japanese Industrial interests throughout the Pacific.

Pearl Harbour was to protect the invasion of the Philippines, which was believed necessary due to American-Japanese relations at the time (MacArthur threatened Japan with bombardment using B-17s based in the Philippines and claimed he would squash any invasion on the beaches over international radio, the Japanese thought the loud mouthed racist idiot was speaking as an official US representative and believed him, also believing this was the sentiment of US Congress and the American people...it is noteworthy to mention Japan was so heavily sanctioned at this time as to have only three years supply of oil before finding it necessary to disband a large proportion of their defence forces, they were being starved into submission so indpendent US industrialists could mine Manchuria and the British and French could rape civil war ravaged China trading opium addiction sourced from British India and French Indochina for national treasures and textiles at cost price for the ventures, it was a 70-year old scam that made a lot of people back home very, very wealthy whilst Japan was about to become the newest third world nation).


I'm sorry but Pearl Harbour was all about the Philippines. The United States knew full well a Japanese attack (read: response) was to be expected and assumed rightly this would come at the Philippines. Pearl Harbour was the launching point of a relief mission to counter any Japanese attack on the Philippines. Nobody thought the Japanese were ambitious enough to launch their initial strike on the relief forces, and then follow up with an invasion of the Philippines. It was actually brilliant.

 

Only indirectly, and then only because the Japanese militarists completely misread, and deliberately misrepresented, US intentions in the Pacific.

Actual Japanese Army objectives between 1931 and 1945 were;

1. Occupy Manchuria and create a puppet state to operate solely for the economic benefit of Japanese business interests.
2. Occupy most of China and economically exploit the more valuable regions of the country for the benefit of Japanese business interests.
3. Occupy every nation in Asia and the western Pacific while controlling the natural resources for Japan's economic benefit. Exercise political and military control of these countries and provide regions well endowed with raw materials for the colonization of ethnic Japanese settlers.

The Japanese believed that the US would react to their invasion of the Philippines by sending the Pacific Fleet rushing across the Pacific to engage the Japanese Fleet in a "decisive battle". The IJN had no objection to this, except that they also wanted to seize the natural resources of the rest of Southeast Asia and the western Pacific. This would take time, and to guarantee the US Pacific Fleet didn't intervene, or attempt to provoke the "decisive battle" before the IJN was ready, they thought it was necessary to cripple the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. They were apparently unaware that the US had no intention of dispatching the Pacific Fleet to defend the Philippines against a Japanese invasion, nor that the Pacific Fleet, because of limitations involving available destroyers, fleet oilers, and fleet manning, was incapable of such operations. This was a notable failure of Japanese intelligence.

See; RAINBOW-5

MacArthur's threats against Japan were all contingent on a Japanese invasion of the Philippines. It is noteworthy that these threats were not made until Japan had secretly completed plans for the invasion of the Philippines. The reason the Japanese found it necessary to invade the Philippines was to secure their access to the oil of the NEI which the Japanese planned to obtain through military aggression.

 

A conscious post DA. I can only give my formal accord for the differing perspective, well argued, nicely addressed.
I won't detract the thread with counter-counter-arguments except to say that I am appreciative of the nature of good academics to never fail in further developing historical perspectives.


I do have a problem with the following however, which is limited in scope.

I do not wish an argument and this could easily start one. Might I simply point out that the following cities in Manchuria require some further research: Aigun, Harbin, Hunchun, Suifenhe, Changchun, Mukden (Shenyang) and Dandong. Some other American/British "Treaty Ports" could also use a bit of examination just over the Chinese border from Manchuria, as these were the primary targets of the initial Japanese invasion. Niuzhuang, Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin, Longkou, Chefoo and Qingdao.
All of the above mentioned cities were caused to become Treaty Ports by force of arms, these particular ones from 1858.

The context of course in which I speak of the corruption and illicit profiteering synonymous with the Treaty Ports stretches from the dawning of WW2 in Asia to that time of destabilised Q'ing rule in China. But it is extremely important this was also the consideration of the Japanese, as monarchists they view politics in far less transient terms than three year electoral offices.

 

Are you forwarding an assertion that Americans, or any other foreign nationals continued to conduct significant economic business in Manchuria after the Japanese consolidated their hold on that province in 1932? If that occured, it is certainly news to me. I have always read that the Japanese Army and a Japanese company called the South Manchurian Railway controlled all economic activity in Manchuria. The South Manchurian Railway was formed by the Japanese government and was, by far the largest corporation in Japan; it allowed no competition in Manchuria.

It's interesting that you mention "treaty ports....just over the Chinese border from Manchuria..." I would point out that, prior to the Japanese aggression against Manchuria in 1931, there was no "Chinese border" between Manchuria and China; Manchuria was a province of China, albeit under the political/military control of a Chinese warlord. The last Chinese Emperor was from Manchuria, a fact put to good political use by the Japanese in choosing a ruler for their pupet state of Manchuko. In fact, the Japanese abolished "treaty ports" in Manchuria by simply taking over the entire province and operating it solely for the economic and political benefit of Japan.

However, it should also be noted that earlier, Japan was also competing for it's share of 'treaty ports" in China. Japan enjoyed extraterritoriality rights in the following Chinese cities; Hankow, Changsha, Foochow, Canton, and Harbin. The difference, of course, between Japan and the other European imperialist powers is that Japan was not content to share Chinese trade with other countries; it wanted complete control of all Asian trade and was quite willing to wage war to secure that trade. The Russo-Japanese war of 1905, and the Pacific war during WW II, were the results.

Regardless of all this extraneous data, I think I've sufficiently established the fact that the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese was an utterly stupid and totally unnecessary strategic move which basically cost them the war on the first morning. Their intelligence failed to inform them that the Pacific Fleet had no intention, and scant capability, of intervening in their Phase One operations, which was their motivation for the attack in the first place.

The tactical execution was almost flawless, but the strategic implication was to negate the only real hope the Japanese had for emerging from the war with their Empire intact; a limited war culminating in a negotiated settlement. After Pearl Harbor, there was zero chance that the US would ever negotiate with the Japanese. It was a colossally stupid military operation; one of the most negatively decisive in history.

 

How was Dunkirk a mistake? It saved a lot of British lives. And the Americans made just as many mistaked as the Russians and British.

 

I would agree with Leros, by 1943 that sort of high risk operation was pointless.
IMO Cassino and the Rapido crossings were a bad plan not a useless battle, the Allies had to break the German front somehow and the heavily motorized US and British divisions were unsuited to turning the poistion trough the mountains like the French eventually did so that left a frontal assault. Anzio is a better fit, why land and then let yourself get bottled up by waiting for the enemy to bring in troops?
Varsity is also a good one but it's possibly hindsight.
Some costly mopping up operations against outflanked Japanese garrisons with no offensive capability left look also pretty pointless in hindsight.
Mers El Kebir if you look at what happened at Toulon a couple of years later.
The Bulge and it's air equivalent Bodenplatte.

 

But that is with the benefit of hindsight. In 1940 they could never of known what was going to happen in later years, or later months for that matter, with regards to the French fleet at such a 'dark' time.

 

Japan would have been better off attacking the Phillippines straight up and leaving US territory out of it. I don't think the US would have gone to war with the same fervour over the Phillippines as they did after Pearl Harbor.

I think Japan realistically could have waged a Fabian strategy and wore down the US in terms of morale. Who would want to die for the Phillippines?

 

The PI were US territory at the time of attack. The US had promised them independence but that was delayed until after the war. The point is, plenty of American servicemen would have been killed and wounded on a surprise attack on the PI. The US public would have been just as upset.

The attack on the PI also couldnt have been as strategic to the Japanese ...they needed a knock out blow on the US Navy and they nearly got it...Halsey and his carriers wer at sea Thank God!

 

Texson66 is correct; the Philippines were still considered US territory in 1941, and the US was obligated to defend the islands. MacArthur had been called out of retirement in July, 1941 by the US Army, and specifically tasked with defending the Philippines against a Japanese invasion, as envisioned in the Rainbow war plan. During the latter half of 1941, the US was frantically reinforcing MacArthur's forces in the Philippines and any Japanese attack would have automatically been met by American air, ground, and naval (Asiatic Fleet) forces. It was virtually a foregone conclusion in the United States that a Japanese attack on the Philippines would trigger a hostile response from the US.

It was not, however, necessary for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor or cripple the Pacific Fleet, as that force had neither the capability, nor the intention, of intervening in the initial Japanese offensive in the western Pacific. Rainbow 5 tasked the Pacific Fleet with the defense of the "Strategic Triangle" (Alaska-Hawaii-Panama Canal) and maintaining the sea lanes of communication with Australia. Conspicuously absent from that document is any mention of a US naval defense of the Philippine Islands (except for that which could be put up by the Asiatic Fleet).

By mounting a humiliating surprise attack, during peacetime, against the symbols of US might in the Pacific (while ostensibly negotiating a peace accord), Japan forfeited any hope of later drawing the US to the negotiating table. An attack on the Philippines, even without a declaration of war, was expected by the American public, and would not have had such drastic consequences for Japanese hopes of a negotiated settlement, although it would have automatically resulted in a declaration of war by the US.

 

It may not sound like a major mistake but why would you send all those troops over,if you were not serious about that action!
and yet it failed and wasted so much time and effort which could have been used in other places which would had anvantage the allies.


Also has anyone heard about an Allie general causing the alllies losing the Crete battle???

This was an unnecessary battle cause the Allies had it in the bag!
The allies had crete surcured,everything was done rightly,the Germans had lost the battle of crete until one Allied general decided to take his army out of crete early without notifying any major allied generals.
This gave germans just enough advantage over the allies and germans won Crete back! Causing the Allies in the future in another battle of Crete.

 

Is withdrawing one's forces too early the same thing as fighting an unnecessary battle in the first place?

Senior leaders can make a variety of mistakes while still fighting battles that should be fought.

 

Farout you have a great point!

Ok,well, if already won crete and lost Crete in just moments,would the second Crete battle be an Unnecessary? That's what i was getting at!
I think you put my theory too rest with you're last post though.