Grand Strategy in the Pacific War

From Pearl to V-J Day: World War II in the Pacific, a symposium sponsored by the Air Force History and Museums Program and the Air Force Historical Foundation, 1995.

I've noted some parts I found really interesting.

Japanese spies not tried

In the early summer of 1941, FDR “ordered the dropping of charges against high-ranking Japanese naval officers caught developing the largest Japanese spy ring ever uncovered in the United States. Instead of being tried, as legal authorities wanted them to be, the men were expelled. There's certainly very good recent evidence that the American people are inclined to pay attention to dramatic trials in southern California. Nothing could have whipped up anti-Japanese sentiments more than a major espionage trial in Los Angeles in the summer and fall of 1941; but Roosevelt, assured by Nomura that such a trial would ruin relations between Japan and the United States, decided that it wouldn't be held.”

Germany first

There was a “tentative agreement ...that if the United States was drawn into the war after all and if Japan joined Germany, Germany's defeat would take priority over Japan's.” This was an agreement reached with the British.

Unconditional Surrender

”In the first place, president Roosevelt's prior investment of time and energy in trying to avoid war altogether served to reinforce his insistence on unconditional surrender as the aim of American policy once Japan attacked and Germany had joined her.”

The author says there were even clues in FDR's address to Congress about war, when FDR referred to “win through to absolute victory” and that the country would make sure that “this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”

The author says the demand for unconditional surrender was made by wartime leaders looking to the post-war world, to make sure that there would be no more wars with Germany or Japan.

”Anyway, Japan's extraordinarily stupid way of initiating hostilities with the United States ensured the support of a united American people in the attainment of that goal [unconditional surrender].” Basically, by attacking Pearl Harbor in the way that ended up happening, Japan succeeded in uniting the American people, who would then stand behind a demand for unconditional surrender.

The British and the Chinese were slackers

”The third factor that would hinder the American's Pacific objective was the reluctance of the British and the Chinese to do much of anything. The British held this view until 1944 because they preferred to concentrate their effort elsewhere and, in any case, they viewed American political and military projects in the area as crazy. In China, the Nationalists preferred, when the Americans entered the war, to sit it out and husband their resources to crush the Communists after the defeat of the Japanese.”

The size of the Pacific Theater

...”each of the two main theaters in the Pacific included an area substantially larger than the European and the Mediterranean theaters of operations together.”

U.S. successes caused China trouble.

The author says that two successes of the U.S. caused China trouble. One was how effective our subs were in sinking Japanese merchant ships. The author says this led the Japanese to try to complete a railroad that would link French Indochina to Thailand and to Malaya.

The other problem was the U.S. use of airfields in China to attack the Japanese, which led the Japanese to step up their attacks in China in order to neutralize those same airfields.

Bombing and Isolation would not cause surrender

The author believes that neither continued bombing nor isolation by mining and submarine warfare would have caused Japan to surrender. He says that Japanese soldiers who had already ceased to receive supplies on the various islands they were fighting on continued to fight and refused to surrender no matter how low their supplies fell.

He also notes that Japan still had five to seven million soldiers deployed in China and other areas, and that only occupation of the home islands by some means would lead to their surrender.

Japan's Plans for Countering the Invasion

The author notes that the Japanese high command had plans to try to repel and invasion of the home islands, or, at the very least, make the cost as high to the U.S. as possible. A decrypted message from July 7, 1945, had these parts:

”1. The battle will be, literally, the decisive battle, a fight to the finish. it is fundamentally contradictory for Japanese forces disposed along the coast-whatever tactical difficulties may arise-to count on continuing the struggle by retreating.”

”2. If a landing on Japan proper is attempted, a full scale offensive will be launched with the intention of utterly destroying Allied forces at sea or on beaches.”

”3. Japanese troops must in no event resign themselves to the defensive, no matter what points may be taken by Allied forces.”

4. For the High Command on down, emphasis must be laid on (i) prompt decisions, (ii) strategical concentrations wherever there is a major operation of decisive battle, and (iii) hold offensive action.”

”5. Japanese air and sea forces must make every effort to annihilate the Allied invading forces at sea.”

There is also reference made to another decrypted communication which talked about the anti-tank tactics the Japanese were going to use, especially the use of suicide squads.

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