After the Pearl Harbor attack as I understand it the next major target was Midway but what if it would have been coastal California? What if before the Doolittle raid the Japanese had went forward with a massive attack against the California coast line how would that have changed the war? Would that have even been feasible at the time? I just figure if there was ever a time for them to be that kind of ambitious after Pearl was it. It just has always struck me that as huge as WW2 is in history I've never seen anything about US shorelines being truly threatened. Closest thing I've seen is Mexico possibly being wooed into joining the Axis and having to defend the border as well but that's it. To me I think that an attack of that kind could have been devastating to US moral at that time....First post everyone so sorry if it sucks.
Japan never intended to invade the North American mainland with boots on the ground. Their plan of action from the start was to acquire their empire in Asia (securing much needed resources). After that they would be a more formidable opponent and this would then allow them to sue for peace. A island nation by default is very starved of resources. The idea with Pearl Harbor was to knock out Americas Pacific Fleet with one strong calculated punch. Thus allowing them time to build their expansions. If they did attempt any invasion it would have to be after having strong supply bases in Asia. But to go with your question, Japan as they stood right after the Pearl Harbor attack - if they landed along the West coast - would be beaten back off the mainland in a manner of months. It would basically be like what happen when they invaded Alaska but on a larger scale.
Japan began the war with inadequate shipping to support the home islands and their new found conquests, much less a sufficiently large enough force to sustain even moderately effective force in North America.
Although it is now clear that Japan had no capability to mount an attack on the West Coast, at the time there was great fear of such an attack. On December 7, my father was stationed at Davis-Monthan with the 6th Reconnaisance Squadron. On December 8, 6th Recon moved to Muroc AAF and began flying maritime patrols against that possibility.
Absolutely. They had the fuel stores, but the logistical chain would have been painfully long even for a quick surgical strike. Pearl Harbor used nine fast oilers; all ten thousand GRT Kawasaki types capable of just under twenty knots. Assuming a raid on the California coast would have required something like twice the Pearl logistics Japan could have just scraped it together. There were thirteen Kawasakis (several still undergoing conversion as of Pearl) another oiler to a virtually identical plan from Harima, and four others that came fairly close. (There were also several more near sisters in civilian service.) That said, it would require every first rate oiler in the Imperial Navy to pull it off. Everything else is a combination of the smaller, older, and slower. Add to this . . . stretch . . . the virtual certainty of detection and significant attrition and the operation becomes too costly to justify very quickly. It's quite unlikely any raid could have found enough targets to make the math work. Since Pearl was, by then, the primary fleet base there simply wouldn't be enough targets to make the raid worthwhile but there would be too many airbases to suppress or sneak under. While horizontal bombers had abysmal rates against ships at sea I would guess that a few hundred B-17s dropping on lead in formation might be able to hit something. Maybe. (If they'd though to try it.) Even a blind turkey can find an acorn in the woods once in a while, and the West Coast had an awful lot of turkeys to send out pecking around.
Subs could be and were used to harass or scare populations...or send a message...A few shells into Sydney and away!
They certainly had some fuel reserves but I doubt they had enough to mount an operation of the size implied above to the US West Coast. For one thing at least the way I read it we are talking about more than a simple carrier raid. Assuming the twice the PH log effort seems low end to me as well. The distance is almost double but some of the PH ships didn't need refueling from what I recall all of them would need it in this scenario. There's also the question of what route they could take to minimize the chance of discovery. Having the oilers with them would also mean cruising at slower speeds, this would conserve fuel as far as it goes but would likely require a longer route as well. Then when you note that Midway burned up an amount of fuel that was roughly equal to half the pre war naval stock pile it remains a serios question.
Bah, a bit of ingenuity is all that is needed. Columbus discovered America without any Oil, and the British invaded without Oil. Someone just needed to add a little rigging on their ships, to bring back the meaning of "sailors" The Nip fleet is spotted off San Francisco...
At least one US sub ended up doing that during the war to get back to PH if I recall correctly. However I suspect speed undersail for the Yamato would have it arriving soon.
U-Boat 853 was sunk off the coast of Block Island (near Point Judith, RI). After Donitz issued all vessels return to base, it took out a merchant ship and was hunted. It took 16 hours to drop to the bottom of the sound.
Attack is different than Invasion. Most of us are talking about an Invasion. They were certainly capable of attacking the West Coast. The aircraft carrier submarines (l-400 class Subs) were specifically built for this. They had planned on taking out the Panama Canal with them and eventually doing limited coastal attacks along the Western and Eastern seaboard. As the Germans learned trying to take England, it is very difficult to cross water with your huge ground army. If Japan attempted an invasion with the resources they had in 41, you would have some half-assed mickey mouse invasion that would fail to break a beachhead or be destroyed with any counter attack (As what happen when they invaded Alaska).
True but the OP specified So not an invasion but a "massive attack". I would think we are talking PH size or more.
As far as the What If scenarios goes: Every mother's son in the US had a gun and knew how to shoot, often to feed themselves. An exaggeration, but the Japanese Army would not have lasted a month in the US. Tactics that cowed other cultures, would have just seriously pissed off the average US citizen.
Then yes I would say they could stage an attack. I mean they floated several hundred or so Fu-Go fire baloons over the US mainland. Not very effective but technically that is a large attack.
I recall reading about that, but I think it was an S-boat prior to the war, had an engine breakdown and rigged sails to get to Pearl.
As I understand it the "Dry I" USS Intrepid, rigged a sail off a radar mast once and made a knot or two. Awfully hard to conduct flight operations like that though. Got the wind going the wrong way, for starters. Still, the idea has some merit. Maybe I'll model a Kongo with sails.
Or not. Matter of semantics I guess. They launched ~9,000 I believe and ~1,000 may have reached the US but over a span of several months. Since we were discussing an early war naval effort I'm not at all sure this would count. A single cruiser could have probably put more weight of fire on US soil than the balloons did as well. Indeed the 2 subs that shelled the US may have done more damage and subs could potentially have landed a lot more explosives over the course of the war.
