From: thornley@mega.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Subject: Re: What if there had been no Pearl Harbor?
Keywords: WWII, Pearl Harbor
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 21:28:35 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.235812.21287@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> parasite@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Leslie Mills) writes:
>> (introduction deleted...)
>
>>(b) the attack on Pearl Harbor had been timed to happen on the day
>>after the declaration? 
>>
>
>Believe it or not, the Japanese arguably did the Americans a lot of good
>by destroying the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.  Here are my reasons
>(feel free to shoot them down):
>
>	- The American battleships (with layor upon layor of paint which
>	  burned with such devestating effect) were sunk in relatively
>	  shallow water, allowing most of them to be raised, and later,
>	  improved (better AA armament, better damage control procedures,
>	  and a better understanding of the battleship's new role come to
>	  my fevered mind).  Imagine what would have happened if the Japanese
>	  met the ill-prepared American fleet and defeated it in the
>	  high seas.
>
Certainly, but would the Japanese have defeated the fleet so decisively?
It is relatively easy to hit battleships at anchor (or, in the case of
_Nevada_, moving slowly on a predictable course), and much harder to
attack a fleet at sea firing anti-aircraft.  This seems to me a tradeoff;
the Japanese would certainly have inflicted less damage, but any ship
sunk would have been permanently lost.

>	- Aircraft carrior tactics were studied as the main branch of
>	  naval warfare (with the Pacific Battleship fleet inoperative,
>	  the debate which hampered the Japanese Navy no longer applied
>	  to the Americans, who had no other choice of tactics).
>
Only about half the American battleships were even at Pearl.  A few months
after the attack, the U.S. had a larger functioning battleship force than
the Japanese did.  Nimitz had a large battleship force operating off
California during the battle of Midway; he had the option of bringing it
into the battle, but decided not to.  Therefore, the U.S. shift to carrier
tactics was voluntary and not caused by lack of battleships.

>	- The Americans lost a great number of obsolete aircraft, but did
>	  not lose their aircrews.  (It is far faster and easier to
>	  build a new plane than to train a new pilot, a lesson the 
>	  Japanese did not learn until it was too late).
>
The Army really was committed to defending the Navy installations at Pearl,
and had about seventy of their most modern fighters and a few dozen modern
bombers at Pearl (as well as some real junk), to the detriment of other
possible build-ups and even some training.  Most of these were destroyed
on the ground.  This was a real loss, as the massive aircraft-building
programs had not appeared yet.  Later in the war, losing a hundred front-
line aircraft would be annoying; in 1941, it was serious.

>>(c) at Midway, despite the attack on Pearl Harbor occurring as it did
>>historically, they had achieved their goal of sinking the US carriers? 
>>
>>( valid considerations deleted for brevity's sake )
>
Midway was intended as a giant ambush to defeat the U.S. Navy more than it
was intended to take Midway.  Had the carriers been at Pearl, I would have
expected the Japanese to press more in the South, to cut Australia off
from U.S. support, as they started to do at Coral Sea.  In any case, had
the Japanese caught carriers at Pearl, Midway would been just one more
Japanese conquest rather than a decisive battle.
>
>Here's a thought that is nagging at my mind.  Would the Japanese surrendered
>if the Americans had developed the atomic bomb before they gained supremacy
>in the Pacific?  
>
>Here is the scenario that comes to my mind: the Japanese
>win the battle of Midway without loss of their carriors, or maintain the
>upper hand long enough to prevent the Americans from their "Island Hopping"
>campaign until 1945 (far-fetched, I know, the Americans outproduced Japan
>3-1 and less than 20% of their war effort was diverted to the Pacific).

By the end of 1943, the U.S. had built sufficient naval force that the
U.S. was able to advance through any Japanese resistance.  The only
question is the start line; with Midway, much of New Guinea, Guadalcanal,
etc. in U.S. hands, the drive started where it did historically.  The
juggernaut was going to be in existence by the end of '43, and nothing
was going to stop it thereafter.

>The Americans, desparate for a quick low-casualty (ie. few of American/
>Allied lives lost) end to the war decide to launch a Doolittle-like
>raid upon Japan.  Would Japan, her military might still strong, her conquests
>still intact, be shocked into surrender, or would the bombs only fan
>the flames of anger to a bezerker fury?
>
I think they'd continue to fight.  Surrender wasn't a popular option even
after two cities had been nuked, far more fire-bombed, the Navy and 
the aircraft largely destroyed, the economy wrecked, and steel plants
shelled by battleships.  Nor would a Doolittle raid with nukes be practical;
early nuclear weapons were far too large for any aircraft that could fit
on a carrier.  Much work went into designing aircraft that could carry
nuclear weapons and ships that could handle them until the problem was
basically solved by making physically smaller bombs.

DHT
From: kingsley@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com (Kingsley Morse)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 15:53:12 GMT
Subject: Re: Please Help
Organization: HP Western Response Center