Japan decides against Midway and invades Australia instead

Glenn,

Every mile a supply convoy has to sail adds to the danger to that convoy.

The USN were well aware of the importance of shipping to the jap war effort, and they concentrated their attention to eliminating that vital part of it.

The Arafura Sea and the Timor Sea would have been 'happy hunting grounds' for the US subs.



John

 

I think a good analogy might be made in comparing the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska, with Oz. The difference of course being the weather.

In either case, the Japanese are stuck at a dead-end, until the Allies felt like taking them out.

 

The Allies overreacted to the Alaskan landings as well.

 

You work in the mining industry ? Its not often I hear Whyalla or Iron Knob mentioned on the net, lol.

 

If the Japanese did manage land could it realistically have been possible to garner their forces in a way as to place them in some heavy fire zones ?

Bush Fires are a problem over here and logistically could destroy and invading army, in certain regions anyway.

 

Whyalla is an old steel town and Iron Knob with Iron Baron and Iron Monarch, among the older iron-ore mines in the country. BHP was active in Whyalla, Port Pirie, and Port Augusta. Learnt about these in primary school back in the 1960s in social studies class.

 

Skywalker/Kobalt,


I am old enough to remember when Yampi Sound (WA), and Iron Knob etc (SA) were Australia's ONLY source of iron ore.

In fact, the export of iron ore was banned in the years prior to and after WW2. It was only in the 1950s/60s after Lang Hancocks discoveries in the Pilbara that the ban was lifted.

NOW, we have enough iron ore to satisfy world demand for 300 years.

(No, I am not or was a miner)

John.

 

Unless you're an idiot then you know that Midway was a crucial battle in the Pacific. The first major Allied victory in the Pacific and a major turning point in that theater. If we look at both options for the Japanese (Australia vs. Midway) there are several advantages and disadvantages for both. Midway was a battle fought mostly against American troops. The Americans were better equipped, but not necessarily better trained, and were also fighting on foreign soil. The Australians were already known as fierce fighters and gained quite a name for themselves in the first world war, and would have been fighting on their home soil. Much of the reason for the fervent Japanese and German fighting was because of the defense of their homelands. Midway played more to the strengths of the Japanese fighting force. At the time of the battle of Midway the Japanese air force could have nearly blasted the Americans out of the sky, and their naval superiority was unrivaled, due in part to the devastation only a year earlier at Pearl Harbor. Midway was a better choice in this aspect. To attack Australia the Japanese would have had to reach out another 1,900 miles from Darwin (where significant bombing raids occurred) to Sydney and the major population centers of Adelaide, Canberra, and Melbourne, much too far for the aircraft of the time. Most of the population was concentrated on the southeastern coast of Australia, but the Japanese would have had to first establish a firm foothold in the north and work their way south in order to utilize their air force. Because of the Japanese weakness on land (i.e. lack of armored divisions) this would have been much easier said than done. In my opinion, the Australians, with the help of their Kiwi neighbors, and American and British troops, would have been able to easily repel any type of Japanese land invasion. Without strength on land, conquest of Australia would be nearly impossible. It would not have been feasible for the Japanese to sail all the way down the eastern coast because of other naval presence there and the sheer distance from Japan. Even though Midway was a major blow to the Japanese forces, Australia could have been just as big or bigger than any loss on Midway.

 

Hmm....Let's see....

That's arguable; at the time both sides viewed Coral Sea as a great victory. It actually was for the Americans because, for the first time they had stopped cold a major Japanese offensive.

The only American "troops" were the Marines on Midway and they had, as it turned out, a rather minor role in the battle. The rest of the forces defending Midway were comprised of American sailors with a handful of Army airmen. Beside the Japanese, there were no other nationalities involved in the battle.

Most of the Americans actively involved weren't on any "soil" at all; they were sailors and airmen. The Marines ashore on Midway were on American "soil", or rather sand. Midway is part of the Hawaiian island chain which the US annexed in 1898.

You need to specify which "Japanese Air Force", there were two and both were quite different in their capabilities. Neither were markedly superior to the US Navy's air forces, but the IJN's pilots had a slight edge in experience. The Japanese, in fact, never held any naval "superiority" over the USN; they were better in night fighting with light forces, but that was not to be demonstrated until the Guadalcanal campaign which didn't open until two months after Midway. And by the way, the Midway battle took place just six months, almost to the day, after Pearl Harbor.


Midway was a single battle decided in just a few hours, yet it still stretched the logistical capabilities of the Japanese Navy to the breaking point. Invading Australia was, in fact, impossible for the Japanese Navy alone, because the IJN did not have nearly enough ground troops to contemplate an invasion of Australia. Such an invasion would have taken many months, perhaps years, to complete and would have entailed an open-ended troop committment, not to mention logistical commitment, and the Japanese Army wanted nothing to do with it because of that. Comparing the two as strategic options for the Japanese is an exercise in futility since Midway was possible for the IJN, but invading Australia was never a realistic option for either the IJN or IJA.

Midway was, in reality, a very bad choice for the IJN because, had they actually captured the island, they wouldn't have been able to hold for long. Nor would it have proven an asset while they did manage to hold it. It was too small, and too far away to support any kind of air campaign against Oahu, but would have been within range of heavy American bombers.

 

The original proposal was a minor invasion in the Darwin area to act as a diversion to the Allied war effort during the remainder of 1942 and into 1943. It was not to launch a major campaign to try and conquer Australia, which was already impossible by that time.

 

Lifting 2+ divisions to Darwin is most definitely NOT a "minor invasion" as far as the Japanese are concerned in 1942. The required logistical support alone would be enough to cause the Japanese to drastically curtail operations in other areas.

And for what? After it was bombed by the Japanese, Darwin was abandoned as a forward base by the Allies and was unimportant to the Allied war effort. Those two divisions would simply become a major logistical liability to the Japanese and practice targets for Allied air and ground formations.

The IJA was determined not to get sucked into any open-ended troop or logistical commitments on Australian soil, and tying down two Japanese divisions simply to annoy the Allies is exactly that. With no hope of achieving anything beneficial to Japan, such a scheme has no chance of being viewed as viable by the IJA.

 

IJA would not send 2 or 3 divisions with the intentions of calling it a minor invasion. The IJA put them there to keep the allies in check. Probably with hopes of making more quick moves by having a larger army in place for future operations. Japan was still celebrating off of several victories and this had pushed us almost completely out of the pacific. This was a buildup to a future invasion I believe they were hoping to cut off all support for Australia and conquer it quickly. IJN and IJA were at odds throughout the war and the divisions put there were part of the IJN wanting it and the IJA not wanting it. In hopes of dealing a final blow at Midway and taking the Hawaiian islands. An annoiance to our troops as Devilsadvocate brilliantly put it but unfortunate for Japan who was in need of troops elsewhere.

 

"Minor" is in relation to the scale of a small campaign at Darwin versus a huge operation to conquer all of Australia; 2 divisions vs. 10 divisions.

I believe the original poster clarified the intention as to cause a diversionary campaign that would suck in disproportionate Allied resources, to little purpose.

 

And as I pointed out, what would happen is the Japanese would be sucked into a very costly logistical effort to keep the 2+ divisions supplied while the Allies merely contained them and used them for target practice. The idea that the Japanese had 2 divisions lying around, just waiting for something to do is absurd.

 

I would call it (as I would use the term in wargaming) a sacrifice to the war gods. Those two divisions would take alot of Allied resources and attention from places they needed to be far more importantly. Sometimes in warfare such a distraction is actually a good strategy when used to obtain more important objectives.

For example, this strategy would have almost certainly given all of New Guinea to the Japanese. This would have made taking it back far more difficult for MacAuthur. Additionally, the Australians might have lost faith in Mac as a general and pushed the US to replace him. This could have been good or bad depending on who does if it happened.

For the Japanese, they need all the diversions and delays they can muster. The longer they can immobilize the Allies in dead end fighting the better off they are from a perspective of hoping that war weariness sets in and the Allies negotiate a peace. I'm not saying that would happen but, from the perspective of the Japanese at the time that was their plan. Australia fits better than Midway for that purpose.

A Darwin landing also avoids the Coral Sea battle as it does for a Midway one. With the Japanese carrier force intact in the middle of 1942, it allows Japan more flexibility for battles in the Solomons that were still likely to occur. A possibility here is that the whole Kido Butai shows up off Guadalcanal a few days after the initial landings and a naval debacle like First Savo and hammers the US positions. They could have periodically done so afterwards making Guadalcanal less of an air base than it was.
There are many better possibilities for the Japanese going this direction rather than Midway. Losing two divisions after a prolonged fight in Northern Australia would have worked in the Japanese's favor.

 

I agree that diversion and deception are good strategies to pursue when they can help secure more important objectives.

But what exactly, are those more important objectives? And where did the Allies "far more importantly" need to be?

In mid-1942, the Japanese, in the South Pacific, were, if anything, even more over-extended than the Allies.You seem to forget that lodging 2+ divisions on the far northwest coast of Australia, and most importantly, keeping them supplied, would also draw Japanese forces, and critically, logistical support efforts, from Japanese operations elsewhere. Since the Japanese know they don't have the manpower, or sealift capability, required to actually conquer Australia, such an invasion is a dead-end. There is no objective near, or in Darwin, which would justify the loss of 2+ divisions, nor in any areas the Japanese could reasonably hope to reach from Darwin. In any case Darwin proved to be a miserably inadequate logistical base for the Allies, and the Japanese certainly didn't improve the facilities there by bombing the hell out of them. Their troops will eventually be defeated and will have to be evacuated, or more likely, would be wiped out to the last man. This would resemble, on a much larger scale, the Japanese debacle in the Aleutians.

Another aspect you haven't seemed to consider is that a Japanese invasion of Australia, even a diversionary one, would force a realignment of Allied priorities, albeit probably a temporary one. MacArthur would be able to demand more troops, ships, and planes to defend Australia, and they would be forthcoming, as the British could hardly protest an effort to defend one of their own dominions. In fact, Britain might be forced to send some token British troops if only to avoid postwar, Australian accusations of abandoning the Dominions. Bottom line, the American/Australian buildup of forces in Australia would definitely be more focused. It's likely that the interservice rivalry between the US Army and US Navy which led to the Solomons campaign might be avoided altogether. MacArthur might have been able to start his offensive by attacking Western New Guinea and by-passing the entire Rabaul/Solomons/Eastern New Guinea area along wih it's hundreds of thousands defenders.

Unless the Japanese could establish air supremacy over Darwin, any occupation would certainly be short-lived. The Allies would quickly accelerate their air buildup in North Australia, which in June, 1942, was already well underway. The closest Japanese air bases, on Timor, were too far away to wage a campaign for air supremacy, so unless the Japanese are able to establish, and keep supplied, air bases around Darwin, the invasion will quickly be doomed. They certainly weren't able to accomplish that objective in New Guinea when push came to shove, and the relative logistical situation there was far more in their favor.

The Japanese, if in possession of a bridgehead in Australia, most likely would have ignored most of New Guinea. The only reason Port Moresby, for example, was attractive to them was as a defensive position protecting Rabaul from air attacks launched from Northern Australia.The same with the string of Japanese air bases established on the Northern coast of New Guinea.

As for MacArthur, his "replacement" wouldn't have mattered much to anyone but him and Roosevelt. Nimitz and King would throw a party.

After Pearl Harbor, it doesn't matter how long they delay the Allies, negotiations weren't going to happen. The US was going to force unconditional surrender, no matter what.

What the Japanese needed far more than a diversion was more troops, more planes, more destroyers, more transports, and more tankers. All of these things would have been gobbled up in a fierce war of attrition with the Allies no matter what strategy the Japanese pursued. Mounting a major sea borne invasion simply for the sake of fighting with the Allies would only hasten the inevitable end for the Japanese. Furthermore, by choosing to attack at Darwin, the Japanese would be placing themselves at far more of a relative logistical disadvantage than the Allies. At least in the Solomons, the relative logistical advantages/disadvantages were more even.

Probably, but what makes you think the Japanese Navy would fare any better against the USN off Darwin than they did historically at Coral Sea and Midway? In both places, the IJN suffered severely because it did not have the ability to use it's vessels for power projection, i.e. supporting an invasion over a period of weeks, as opposed to hit and run raids as at Pearl Harbor. A landing at Darwin would be exactly the kind of operation at which the IJN proved so miserable, and would place it in a similar situation to that at Midway.

Moreover, the Americans launched the Guadalcanal offensive precisely because of their victory at Midway. In your scenario, no such event would happen and it's therefore unlikely that the Americans would
undertake an offensive at that time and place. It's much more probable that the Allies would concentrate on crushing the 2+ divisions at Darwin along with their air and naval support. Then, with the Japanese weakened as much as they were by Midway, if not more so, would the Allies launch an offensive aimed at rolling the Japanese back. Their choices would be Timor, Western New Guinea, Rabaul, or the Solomons. The Japanese would be poorly positioned, after losing Darwin, to respond adequately in any case.

I agree, however, I can see no way that losing 2+ divisions in North Australia would be more favorable to the Japanese than losing 2+ divisions at Guadalcanal, or on New Guinea. Nothing the Japanese can do changes the basic equation in the South Pacific; they are over-extended and facing an opponent determined to, and capable of, waging attritional warfare on a scale on which they cannot possibly compete. The only thing your scenario accomplishes is to change the scene of their defeat.

 

I'm actually with T.A. Gardner on this one. I think the . . .

portion would be a mistake, achieve little and if successful would not prove useful to Japan.

I also agree with Devilsadvocate when he states;

However, I look upon this as even more of a reason to carry out the Darwin Invasion.

First, everyone needs to remember that upon entering the war, Japan never intended to invade the United States nor defeat them militarily in the long term. Their intent was to hit them hard enough to prevent interference while they completed their expansion in Asia and the Pacific Ocean Areas. They intended to consolidate their gains and build a defensive perimeter before the United States could rebuild their strength and mount a counter-offensive. By dragging the war out and inflicting heavy losses it was hoped they could force the U.S. into a negotiated peace. (no one at the time foresaw the invention of the Atomic bomb) Denying or restricting the use of Australia as an advanced base would severely limit the United States ability and options in it's counter offensive.

The most logical course would be to invade Australia at Darwin and set it up as a logistical base. The same thousands of miles of desert and lack of roads that would prevent Japanese movement south, would also prevent allied forces from striking from that direction. Air power and defenses close in to Darwin would be sufficient to stop allied attempts to retake it. Then proceed eastward, then southward, in a series of shore to shore landings along the coast until they could seize Cooktown. Once Cooktown was secured, airfields would be improved and additional fields constructed, troops and supplies moved forward. Once sufficient strength was amassed Japanese soldiers would move down the coast to Townsville, supported by naval gunfire and land based aircraft. Allied seapower was minimal in May of 1942 and Japans heavy ships and aircraft carriers could have easily controlled the sea lanes off Australia's east coast and over to New Guinea. Once in position to threaten Townsville, naval surface and air forces, supported by long range bombers out of Cookville, would hit Port Moresby. Then Japanese troops would land, seizing the port and airfields. This position would be built up similar to Rabaul and would be the major installation for controlling the Coral Sea and southern New Guinea. I think the Japanese could take Townville and build it up for further moves south towards Brisbane.

1.)

Not so. China had a population 77 times larger than Australia (517,568,000 to 6,998,000). In China, Japan had to control an additional two million square miles (9,596,960 sq miles to 7,686,850 sq miles) also as OZJOHN39 stated,

Japan doesn't have to control all the landmass to control Australia just the coastal regions, and then primarily the eastern and southern coasts.

2.)

Not so, the Japanese would have stuck to the coastal areas. The interior would have been left to the Australians, it was sparsely populated without the ability to support additional population. The Japanese had little hope of controlling these Australians but the Australians in turn had neither the numbers, nor the weapons and supplies to mount a serious threat to the Japanese.

3.)

I do not agree. I see very few similarities, I think a better example would be the Philipines. Japanese invasion of Australia would have most of the same problems as this campaign.

4.)

Not so. Japan had a great deal of coastal shipping. The supply line would have gone from Japan-Naha-over to and down the coast of the Phillipines-Morotai-Boeroe-Darwin. Occupation of New Guinea and the Solomons (other than outposts) would have been unnecessary, and the logistics that, historically, went into supporting these two campaigns would have been sufficient to support a large incursion into Australia.

5.)

Only naval and air units would have been required. they would have been concentrated in a smaller area with land based air support. The toll on inbound allied shipping would have been horrendous, and probably prohibitive. Once again think Phillipines.

6.) Glenn239

You're right. It would have been very efficient.

7.)

Yes, I guess that's why Japanese land forces didn't take the Phillipines, Singapore and threatened India. I guess the American and British troops in those campaigns just didn't try?

 

you know whay i still think midway was a fluke? because of the one-sided pilot skill favoring the japanese. three american carriers sent at least four sorties against four japanese carriers and all were beaten back. one japanese carrier sent two sorties against the americans and scored both times.

 

American pilot skill, except for the green pilots based on Midway, was on the same level as the Japanese. Where the Japanese pilots had a slight edge was in combat experience. It was American carrier doctrine (the part about it being absolutely essential to get in the first strike) that won the battle.

And not all American carrier sorties were "beaten back"; I seem to recall that some American SBD's sank three carriers in a matter of minutes and a fourth carrier before the end of the day.

 

Except that the major rationale for Midway wasn't the further acquisition of territory, it was to draw the American carrier forces into battle and destroy them. An Invasion of Darwin would achieve the same objective, but would probably fail in the destruction part, just as at Midway. That was what I was pointing our with the bit about the IJN carriers being purely a "hit and run" raiding force; the IJN didn't have the staying power to successfully cover an invasion. It got hurt at Coral Sea and Midway because of that fact.

If that is true, and I have some reservations on that, then Japan lost the war on Sunday, December 7, 1941. That was the day that Japanese actions forever precluded any chance they ever may have had of negotiating anything with the United States. Without any alternative war plan, and with no hope of coaxing the US to the negotiating table Japan was doomed.

The atomic bomb really had no bearing on the way the war ended; it merely happened along as a convenient exclamation point at the end of Japan's defeat.

It probably would have had the Japanese ever been able to carry it off; they weren't capable of such a course even on their best day. They simply didn't have the troops, ships, or planes to be successful.

I agree that is a very logical plan of action. There is just a couple of flies in the ointment; The Japanese Army wasn't going to commit the 8 or 9 divisions it would require, nor the 3,000 to 4,000 planes, nor the tens of thousands of troop replacements, nor the hundreds of transports required to haul the supplies. And the IJN didn't have the troops, planes, or ships it would have required either.

The second fly in the ointment would be that such a plan would only work if the USN and USA sat on it's backside and did nothing for about six months; THAT isn't going to happen either. What WOULD happen is that the Japanese forces would get their a***s handed to them, just as they did in the Solomons. Don't for a minute forget that any invasion of Australia immediately changes the rules the Allies are working under; The US, at least temporarily, can forget the Europe First strategy; Britain can't protest such a lapse when it is being done to defend one of her own Dominions. At least not if she wants to retain Australia in the Commonwealth after the war.

Japan would be forced to fight a major fleet action similar to Coral Sea/Midway to get troops ashore on Australian soil. First big problem for them; they are likely to lose the very ships that they need to hold Darwin.

Second big problem is the Japanese have to immediately establish very strong air power ashore at Darwin, otherwise their troops and aircraft will be pounded to wreckage by the Allied planes already in North Australia. They can't rely on aircraft from Timor because it is too far away to adequately defend Darwin. And Japanese bombers can't reach North Australia to bomb Allied air bases unless they are at Darwin to begin with. It's kinda "the chicken and the egg" dilemma for the Japanese.

In any case, if Japan puts all of it's eggs in the Australia basket, it leaves Rabaul and New Guinea wide open to Allied offensives just as the defense of the Solomons and New Guinea left Japan's central Pacific islands wide open to Nimitz Central Pacific offensive in 1943. You see, Japan was over-extended in mid-1942 in the Pacific; it didn't have enough of anything, anywhere, except perhaps ambition and arrogance.

Really? The Japanese Army sure didn't see it that way. They wanted nothing to do with the liabilities that an invasion of Australia involved. They especially didn't want another open-ended commitment for troops and equipment like China and Australia represented. That is why they gave a flat "NO!" when the IJN approached them with plans to invade Australia. The big problem for the Japanese wouldn't be in controlling the coastal areas; it would be that to be successful in Australia they really had to control the sea, both for logistics and to guard their flanks. They were already losing control of the sea in mid-1942.

I have to disagree. By mid-1942, the Australians had ten infantry divisions and three Armored divisions, plus numerous other service and support units. There was also a volunteer defense force (militia) of at least 80,000 men. In addition the equivalent of three US infantry divisions were in Australia with at least another two on nearby islands, which could have quickly reinforced Australia. Moreover the US had three fighter groups, Five bomber groups, two transport squadrons, and one photo recon squadron in Australia in mid-1942. As I've already pointed out, the US would pull out all the stops in reinforcing Australia in case of invasion, so this would be the minimum strength the Japanese would face.

As for the Navy, the Japanese would face at least five fleet carriers, perhaps six, and their task forces, plus two new fast battleships.

The similarities would be that both forces would be defeated with very heavy losses and would have essentially nothing to show for it.

Where were they hiding it?

That's a stretch. "Sea trucks" and barges are a very inefficient way to supply multiple-division invasion forces over a distance of 3,375 miles (the distance between Tokyo and Darwin). When the Japanese attempted to use this method at a distance of around 500-600 miles (Rabaul to Guadalcanal) to supply a relatively small force on Guadalcanal, that island suddenly acquired a new name; "Starvation Island".

Yes, the logistical resources that would have been used to supply Guadalcanal and New Guinea could have been used to supply Japanese forces in Darwin. But it should be noted that the Japanese failed with those resources to adequately supply a smaller force in the Solomons and were badly defeated as a result.

In fact, in mid-1942, the Japanese did not have sufficient logistical shipping to both supply their forces in the Southwest Pacific and service their war industries. Output of Japanese war plants fell noticeably as the ships desperately needed to supply the home front were squandered in a futile attempt to force through pitifully inadequate supplies to isolated garrisons. Trying to supply 2+ divisions with the few freighters and transports the Japanese could muster would only hasten the demise of the Japanese merchant marine.

The situation would be entirely different from that of the Philippines. The supply routes to Eastern and South Eastern Australia would remain secure. Supplies and reinforcements could be brought in to Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, perhaps even Perth, and trucked, or shipped by train to the combat areas. The Japanese on the other hand , have no secure supply lines, and inadequate transport, in any case. Everything they bring in has to come by sea to Darwin (an inadequate port, under any circumstances, it's single wharf could only dock two ships at a time and there was only one crane, which the Japanese bombing destroyed). Then the Japanese have to truck the supplies to wherever their troops are. Big difference between the Allied and Japanese supply situations. The Allies would be able to convoy their transport ships with heavy naval units and aircraft, but that wouldn't be possible for Japanese shipping, unless the Japanese were willing to tie down a major portion of it's fleet for months at a time.

What would those Japanese transports "efficiently" carry back to Japan from Darwin? That part of Northern Australia didn't produce anything during WW II that could have been of use to Japan. But you're right it would have been more efficient than their usual practice. Many Japanese ships traveled empty, even as the Japanese merchant marine was going under because of the three Japanese shipping agencies, not because they couldn't find cargoes to carry. The shipping agencies never coordinated their efforts; army ships left a port empty rather than carry a navy or civilian cargo that would be sitting on the dock; the same was true of Navy shipping and civilian shipping. Even if the Japanese had possessed anything close to adequate shipping, it would have been inefficiently used because of interagency rivalry.

You really think the situation in Australia in mid-1942 was the same as in the Philippines and Singapore in late 1941?

The Japanese in both Singapore/Malaya and in the Philippines had overwhelming air superiority and complete control of the sea; neither of those conditions would apply to the situation in Australia. Furthermore, the Japanese had the initiative at the start of the war; If they invade Australia they surrender the initiative to the Allies. At the start of the war, the Japanese had no defensive perimeter to defend; by mid-1942, they have garrisons and aircraft scattered all over the Pacific and dozens of vulnerable bases to protect. It's a whole different world by mid-1942 for the Japanese.

H. P. Willmott in "Empires In The Balance" made an interesting observation;

"One cannot ignore the simple fact that that not a single [Japanese] operation planned after the start of the war met with success." (page 91)

Willmott is making the point that the excellent Japanese planning, staff work, and intelligence gathering did not carry over into the operational phase of the war. But it is equally true that the Japanese were never as strong again as they were on the first day of the war; but the Allies became stronger as they fought the Japanese to a standstill in the Southwest Pacific.