History WorldWarII / WarInAsiaAndThePacific

The Pacific war is an island war, something the world has never seen before or since. It is a long distance war, waged largely by air and sea power, but mostly it is a struggle for island bases that have no strategic value of their own other than as stepping stones that can be used to carry the war to the enemy. Most have no strategic resources and their tiny native populations are mostly neutral and indifferent to the titanic clash surrounding them. Only the largest archipelagos like the Philippines and Indonesia have resources worth fighting over and populations with vested interests in the outcome. Unlike a land war, island bases and supply lines can easily be cut off, effectively allowing the Allies to make their entire garrisons prisoners of war without fighting them, defeating them or even feeding them. In this environment, relatively small battles and conquests can carry huge strategic implications, and the fighting will be intense and brutal compared to the European theater's more traditional front line warfare.

The Pacific war is an island war, something the world has never seen before or since. It is a long distance war, waged largely by air and sea power, but mostly it is a struggle for island bases that have no strategic value of their own other than as stepping stones that can be used to carry the war to the enemy. Most of these islands have no strategic resources and their tiny native populations are mostly neutral and indifferent to the titanic clash surrounding them. Only the largest archipelagos like the Philippines and Indonesia have resources worth fighting over and populations with vested interests in the outcome. Unlike a land war, island bases can easily be cut off, effectively allowing the Allies to make their entire garrisons prisoners of war without fighting them, defeating them or even feeding them. Here even relatively small battles and conquests can carry huge strategic implications.

In the southern Pacific, the Japanese offensive is slowed when an Allied flotilla intercepts the Japanese landing force intended for Southern New Guinea, forcing them to turn back. An overland advance southwards through the mountains is halted by a scratch force of Australian militiamen and regulars, and the Americans retake the airbase on the island of Guadalcanal. Much of the momentum of the southern offensive was lost due to the unanticipated effect of [[LaResistance partisan and guerrilla resistance]], particularly in the Philippines, while the Guadalcanal campaign turns into a six-month meat grinder of horrific foot-slogging battles and fierce nighttime naval engagements that consumes ships, airplanes and men that Japan can ill afford to lose and lacks the resources to replace. US and Australian forces will eventually go on to liberate the rest of New Guinea together and then part company, the Australians driving west into Indonesia while the US turns north towards the Philippines.

The Emperor himself calls it quits and gives his support for unconditional surrender on August 14, effectively commanding his subjects to accept his decision in his first-ever radio broadcast to the whole Empire. Following a failed last-minute coup by generals who wish to continue the war, a [[DrivenToSuicide wave of suicides amongst his civil and military servants]] precedes the formal surrender, which is signed on September 2.

The Pacific war is an island war, something the world has never seen before or since. It is a long distance war, waged largely by air and sea power, but mostly it is a struggle for island bases, places which for the most part have no strategic value of their own other than as stepping stones that can be used to carry the war to the enemy, with tiny native civilian populations that are mostly neutral and indifferent to the titanic clash surrounding them. Unlike a land war, island bases can be cut off, effectively allowing the Allies to make their entire garrisons prisoners of war without defeating them or even feeding them. Here even relatively small battles and conquests can carry huge strategic implications.

The Navy and the Cabinet were, however, wrong. This was partly a failure of the Japanese intelligence services, which were weak, but more fundamentally [[EvilCannotComprehendGood a failure to understand the motivations of their now-enemies]]. [[{{Irony}} The USA wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire.]] [[hottip:*: Sure, the business community might be a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China. But the USA wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake.]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their 'preemptive' offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the US public, the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as 'A date which will live in infamy'. This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported US involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly anti-war public, to bring the US into the Allied camp.]] He also mandates [[ItsPersonal massively increased investment to make the ridiculously large "Two Ocean Navy" (as laid out in 1940) a reality in just three years, stating his intention to take the war to Japan]]. [[OnlySaneMan Rational officers]] like Admiral Yamamato had understood the nature of the US's strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage[[hottip:*: c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. It's not like Japan didn't have 'some' idea of their massive commercial-industrial inferiority, but they hoped to win the war before it became a factor. More importantly, the US leads the world in three very important industrial categories: Transportation equipment, Heavy construction equipment, and machine tools, all of which allow them a huge logistical advantage vital when fighting across trans-oceanic distances.]], but were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway[[hottip:*: Also, Yamamoto had planned that Japan formally notify the USA that they were breaking off negotiations 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to prevent the American public from being as enraged. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time, and the United States were notified [[EpicFail 55 minutes after the attack began,]] causing it to look like a total sneak attack. Contrary to popular belief it was not a declaration of war.]].

The Navy and the Cabinet were, however, wrong. This was partly a failure of the Japanese intelligence services, which were weak, but more fundamentally [[EvilCannotComprehendGood a failure to understand the motivations of their now-enemies]]. [[{{Irony}} The USA wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire.]] [[hottip:*: Sure, the business community might be a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China. But the USA wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake.]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their 'preemptive' offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the US public, the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as 'A date which will live in infamy'. This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported US involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly anti-war public, to bring the US into the Allied camp.]] He also mandates [[ItsPersonal massively increased investment to make the ridiculously large "Two Ocean Navy" (as laid out in 1940) a reality in just three years, stating his intention to take the war to Japan]]. [[OnlySaneMan Rational officers]] like Admiral Yamamato had understood the nature of the US's strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage[[hottip:*: c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. It's not like Japan didn't have 'some' idea of their massive commercial-industrial inferiority, but it would seem they genuinely didn't believe that it would be a factor.]], but were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway[[hottip:*: Also, Yamamoto had planned that Japan formally notify the USA that they were breaking off negotiations 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to prevent the American public from being as enraged. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time, and the United States were notified [[EpicFail 55 minutes after the attack began, causing it to look like a total sneak attack.]].

Hitler promptly commits one of the greatest strategic blunders of all time by declaring war on the United States in support of his ally, clearing the way for Roosevelt to have the US join the fight in Europe with complete domestic political support. Thus, as 1941 comes to a close, the Germans, who six months before only faced the British Empire and its Commonwealth, are now at war with the three most powerful non-Axis nations on Earth. Econometrics - the discipline of assigning concrete figures to economic factors - tells us that at this point the defeat of the Axis is inevitable, their poor decision-making having doomed them. [[hottip:*: The 'Axis' share of world GDP and population standing at less 20% on both counts and decreasing, relative to Allied-Soviet shares of over 60% and 80% respectively. This manifested itself in total armoured vehicle, airplane, and warship production figures of at least four-to-one, three-to-one, and four-to-one respectively. These are only the ''final'' figures, note; in '44-'45 Axis production was severely disrupted by strategic bombing and the loss of strategic resources, whereas contemporary Allied-Soviet production dropped off due to a simple lack of need.]] However, it isn't immediately apparent that Japanese are bound to lose, [[CurbStompBattle since they promptly sweep the Allies nearly out of the Pacific.]] On the same day as the attack on the US fleet, Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces seize the foreign concessions in China and Guam island and launch an amphibious invasion of the American Philippines and British Malaya. Within just a couple of months these are all secured for Japan, and the Japanese sweep outward to take the entire Dutch East Indies and most of Burma. Six months of uninterrupted victories leave Japan the master of East Asia and the western Pacific.

Saipan (and nearby Tinian, captured soon after) are close enough to allow US bombers to strike the Japanese Home Islands. This is initially of limited effectiveness, as strong winds and the intensely crowded nature of Japanese urban-industrial areas makes precision bombing nigh-impossible. Once someone suggests using [[KillItWithFire fire-bombs]] (sound familiar?) to set the cities ablaze, the bombing becomes highly effective and the war has in a sense finally come full circle as the second-most vocal country to decry Japanese "terror bombing" in China - next to the Chinese themselves, obviously - is now deliberately targeting civilians themselves. Like many contemporary Chinese buildings, most Japanese buildings of the time used a lot of cheap but (highly) flammable materials - wood, bamboo, rattan, rice paper - in their construction. The fire-bombing campaign - exemplified by [[TheTokyoFireball The Great Tokyo Fire Raid]] (wherein a third of Tokyo was destroyed to the tune of 100 000 civilian deaths) - is ''horrifically'' effective, razing entire towns practically overnight and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Saipan (and nearby Tinian, captured soon after) are close enough to allow US bombers to strike the Japanese Home Islands. This is initially of limited effectiveness, as strong winds and the intensely crowded nature of Japanese urban-industrial areas makes precision bombing nigh-impossible. Once someone suggests using [[KillItWithFire fire-bombs]] (sound familiar?) to set the cities ablaze, the bombing becomes highly effective and the war has in a sense finally come full circle as the second-most vocal country to decry Japanese "terror bombing" in China - next to the Chinese themselves, obviously - is now deliberately targeting civilians themselves. Like many contemporary Chinese buildings, most Japanese buildings of the time used a lot of cheap but (highly) flammable materials - wood, bamboo, rattan, rice paper - in their construction. The fire-bombing campaign - exemplified, perhaps, by The Great Tokyo Air Raid (wherein a third of Tokyo was destroyed to the tune of 100 000 civilian deaths) - is ''horrifically'' effective, razing entire towns practically overnight and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

The Navy and the Cabinet were, however, wrong. This was partly a failure of the Japanese intelligence services, which were weak, but more fundamentally [[EvilCannotComprehendGood a failure to understand the motivations of their now-enemies]]. [[{{Irony}} The USA wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire.]] [[hottip:*: Sure, the business community might be a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China. But the USA wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake.]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their 'preemptive' offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the US public, the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as 'A date which will live in infamy'. This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported US involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly anti-war public, to bring the US into the Allied camp.]] He also mandates [[ItsPersonal massively increased investment to make the ridiculously large "Two Ocean Navy" (as laid out in 1940) a reality in just three years, stating his intention to take the war to Japan]]. [[OnlySaneMan Rational officers]] like Admiral Yamamato had understood the nature of the US's strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage[[hottip:*: c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. It's not like Japan didn't have 'some' idea of their massive commercial-industrial inferiority, but it would seem they genuinely didn't believe that it would be a factor.]], but were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway[[hottip:*: Also, Yamamoto had planned that the United States would be delivered the declaration of war 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to prevent the American public from being as enraged. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time, and the United States were notified [[EpicFail 55 minutes after the attack began, causing it to look like a total sneak attack.]].

After the fall of France, Japan took the opportunity to effectively seize the French colony of Indochina - including modern-day Cambodia and Vietnam - as part of their blockade strategy, ostensibly at the "invitation" of the [[LesCollaborateurs collaborationist Vichy government]]. Thailand, fully aware of which way the wind is blowing, becomes a Japanese client state. President FranklinDRoosevelt, worried about Japanese expansion in Asia, has been looking for an excuse to act against them for a while now. He manages to get the United States to restrict all steel and oil exports to Japan in an embargo in an attempt to bring them to the negotiating table concerning China. Since the US is Japan's #1 supplier of both essential commodities, the Japanese government is forced between a rock and a hard place; they cannot be seen as backing down to the US, but they don't have the strength to take them on and win. With Holland having fallen to the Germans and Britain preoccupied elsewhere, the Imperial Navy again proposes, for the umpteenth time, their plan to strike south to seize the oil supplies and rich natural resources of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and British Malaya.

Planned for October, there is no attempt to disguise the planned invasion's timing or purpose - not that the Imperial Cabinet has a great track record in accurately anticipating ''anyone'' else's actions thus far. Christened ''[[MeaningfulName Operation Downfall]]'', it is expected to more than ''double'' the total number of Allied military casualties.[[note]]By double, they mean for the ''entire course of the war in all theatres'' incurred by the U.S. Some estimates put the potential number of American casualties as high as 1.25 million, with over 350,000 fatalities.[[/note]] Japanese civilian casualties are expected to surpass Chinese levels, quite a feat considering Japan has only one tenth of China's total population. The Guomindang is on the verge of launching its own offensive downriver to seize Jiang's old power-base in the the lower Yangtze, and hopefully up to the Yellow river from there - they fear that the Soviets will turn all the land, weapons and equipment they liberate from the Japanese straight over to the Chinese Communists. [[hottip:*:Stalin doesn't for the most part, as he wouldn't mind Jiang winning the civil war. He does, however, turn all the captured Japanese equipment, weapons and ammo over to the north Chinese Communist parties - just to hedge his bets.]] Given the [[WeAreStrugglingTogether terrible inter-unit coordination]] that Jiang's forces have displayed so far - their offensive actions being limited to counter-attacks, and with the Japanese Intelligence services knowing virtually their every move - the Japanese doubt that the Nationalist Party forces will get very far despite their own (total) lack of air cover and (chronic) supply problems.

Saipan (and nearby Tinian, captured soon after) are close enough to allow US bombers to strike the Japanese Home Islands. This is initially of limited effectiveness, as strong winds and the intensely crowded nature of Japanese urban-industrial areas makes precision bombing nigh-impossible. Once someone suggests using [[KillItWithFire fire-bombs]] (sound familiar?) to set the cities ablaze, the bombing becomes highly effective and the war has in a sense finally come full circle as the second-most vocal country to decry Japanese "terror bombing" in China - next to the Chinese themselves, obviously - is now deliberately targeting civilians themselves. Like many contemporary Chinese buildings, most Japanese buildings of the time used a lot of cheap but (highly) flammable materials - wood, bamboo, rattan, rice paper - in their construction. The fire-bombing campaign is ''horrifically'' effective, razing entire towns practically overnight and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Planned for October, there is no attempt to disguise the planned invasion's timing or purpose - not that the Imperial Cabinet has a great track record in accurately anticipating ''anyone'' else's actions thus far. Christened ''[[MeaningfulName Operation Downfall]]'', it is expected to more than ''double'' the total number of Allied military casualties. Japanese civilian casualties are expected to surpass Chinese levels, quite a feat considering Japan has only one tenth of China's total population. The Guomindang is on the verge of launching its own offensive downriver to seize Jiang's old power-base in the the lower Yangtze, and hopefully up to the Yellow river from there - they fear that the Soviets will turn all the land, weapons and equipment they liberate from the Japanese straight over to the Chinese Communists. [[hottip:*:Stalin doesn't for the most part, as he wouldn't mind Jiang winning the civil war. He does, however, turn all the captured Japanese equipment, weapons and ammo over to the north Chinese Communist parties - just to hedge his bets.]] Given the [[WeAreStrugglingTogether terrible inter-unit coordination]] that Jiang's forces have displayed so far - their offensive actions being limited to counter-attacks, and with the Japanese Intelligence services knowing virtually their every move - the Japanese doubt that the Nationalist Party forces will get very far despite their own (total) lack of air cover and (chronic) supply problems.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Army has mobilized just shy of half a million men for a final offensive to crush the Guomindang - 'Operation Ichigo'. With one bold stroke they hope to secure Jiang's holdouts in the mid-Yangzi and go on to push upriver and capture the upper-Yangzi Sichuan Basin. If they can take the latter, the last scrap of Jiang's old power-base, his tentative hold over his regime will collapse and his warlord allies will abandon him. Even if they don't join Japan's friendly Chinese national government, if they have any sense they will at least cease open hostilities rather than be wiped out one by one. With China secured for Japan, up to a million veterans of the seven-year 'China Incident' will be freed up for duties elsewhere and the Allies may well sue for peace rather than go to all the trouble of defeating them and their Chinese Allies in detail. The most optimistic outcome would see Japan's Burma force successful as well - it is slated to fight through the Himalayas and into Guomindang-allied Yunnan province, and westwards into British India proper.

At least, this is the plan presented to the Emperor; the real plan is far more realistic, which speaks volumes. The Army is confident only in its ability to take the mid-Yangzi, linking up the railways from Beijing down to Guangzhou and capturing or rendering unsafe the forward airbases Chennault's Air Force Army is operating from in the process. Mindful of his forces' deterioration and the inevitability of Allied Victory, Jiang had been highly critical of Marshall's decision to give Chennault forces enough to antagonise the Japanese into making a grand offensive - at least, not without giving his troops the weapons, training, and equipment needed for them to hold such an offensive off. Chennault actually has half as many planes as the Imperial Army does in China now, a serious problem for the Empire given the huge amounts of territory and the number of strategic fire-bombing missions they have to defend. The result has been chaos in the occupied territories as Japan has neither sufficient radar installations, anti-air artillery, or planes to defend their lines of communication and supply properly. Thus, Operation Ichigo is the solution.

Worse still, when Chennault tries to use his planes to disrupt the Japanese offensive Marshall tells him to pull his forces back to Chongqing and reduce his operations - though US High Command initially didn't realise the scale of the offensive, they soon come to believe that it might mean the end of the Guomindang. Roosevelt soon looks to cut his losses in the run-up to the US Election of November 1944. Roosevelt's opponent, John Dewey, relentlessly criticises Roosevelt's conduct of the war and lambastes him for not providing Jiang with enough support. By way of response, Roosevelt allows the publication of a series of previously-censored articles which are highly critical of Jiang, the Guomindang, and their forces. If China loses, Roosevelt says, it will be their own fault - and Marshall will ensure the USA's losses will have been minimal. Jiang, accordingly, is absolutely furious but has to bite his tongue, insisting only on the resumption of lend-lease deliveries and the dismissal of Stilwell.

Planned for October, there is no attempt to disguise the planned invasion's timing or purpose - not that the Imperial Cabinet has a great track record in accurately anticipating ''anyone'' else's actions thus far. Christened ''[[MeaningfulName Operation Downfall]]'', it is expected to more than ''double'' the total number of Allied military casualties. Japanese civilian casualties are expected to surpass Chinese levels, quite a feat considering Japan has only one tenth of China's total population. The Guomindang is on the verge of launching its own offensive downriver to seize Jiang's old power-base in the the lower Yangzi, and hopefully up to the Yellow river from there - they fear that the Soviets will turn all the land, weapons and equipment they liberate from the Japanese straight over to the Chinese Communists. [[hottip:*:Stalin doesn't for the most part, as he wouldn't mind Jiang winning the civil war. He does, however, turn all the captured Japanese equipment, weapons and ammo over to the north Chinese Communist parties - just to hedge his bets.]] Given the [[WeAreStrugglingTogether terrible inter-unit coordination]] that Jiang's forces have displayed so far - their offensive actions being limited to counter-attacks, and with the Japanese Intelligence services knowing virtually their every move - the Japanese doubt that the Nationalist Party forces will get very far despite their own (total) lack of air cover and (chronic) supply problems.

The Navy and the Cabinet were, however, wrong. This was partly a failure of the Japanese intelligence services, which were weak, but more fundamentally [[EvilCannotComprehendGood a failure to understand the motivations of their now-enemies]]. [[{{Irony}} The USA wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire.]] [[hottip:*: Sure, the business community might be a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China. But the USA wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake.]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their 'preemptive' offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the US public, the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as 'A Day that will Live in Infamy'. This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported US involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly anti-war public, to bring the US into the Allied camp.]] He also mandates [[ItsPersonal massively increased investment to make the ridiculously large "Two Ocean Navy" (as laid out in 1940) a reality in just three years, stating his intention to take the war to Japan]]. [[OnlySaneMan Rational officers]] like Admiral Yamamato had understood the nature of the US's strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage[[hottip:*: c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. It's not like Japan didn't have 'some' idea of their massive commercial-industrial inferiority, but it would seem they genuinely didn't believe that it would be a factor.]], but were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway[[hottip:*: Also, Yamamoto had planned that the United States would be delivered the declaration of war 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to prevent the American public from being as enraged. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time, and the United States were notified [[EpicFail 55 minutes after the attack began, causing it to look like a total sneak attack.]].

The Navy and the Cabinet were, however, wrong. This was partly a failure of the Japanese intelligence services, which were weak, but more fundamentally [[EvilCannotComprehendGood a failure to understand the motivations of their now-enemies]]. [[{{Irony}} The USA wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire.]] [[hottip:*: Sure, the business community might be a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China. But the USA wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake.]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their 'preemptive' offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the US public, the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as 'A Day that will Live in Infamy'. This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported US involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly anti-war public, to bring the US into the Allied camp.]] He also mandates [[ItsPersonal massively increased investment to make the ridiculously large "Two Ocean Navy" (as laid out in 1940) a reality in just three years, stating his intention to take the war to Japan]]. [[OnlySaneMan Rational officers]] like Admiral Yamamato had understood the nature of the US's strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage[[hottip:*: c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. It's not like Japan didn't have 'some' idea of their massive commercial-industrial inferiority, but it would seem they genuinely didn't believe that it would be a factor.]], but were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway[[hottip:*: Also, Yamamoto had planned that the United States would be delivered the declaration of war 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to prevent the American public from being as enraged. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time, and the United States were notified [[EpicFail 55 minutes after the attack began]], causing it to look like a total sneak attack.]].

The Navy and the Cabinet were, however, wrong. This was partly a failure of the Japanese intelligence services, which were weak, but more fundamentally [[EvilCannotComprehendGood a failure to understand the motivations of their now-enemies]]. [[{{Irony}} The USA wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire.]] [[hottip:*: Sure, the business community might be a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China. But the USA wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake.]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their 'preemptive' offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the US public, the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as 'A Day that will Live in Infamy'. This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported US involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly anti-war public, to bring the US into the Allied camp.]] He also mandates [[ItsPersonal massively increased investment to make the ridiculously large "Two Ocean Navy" (as laid out in 1940) a reality in just three years, stating his intention to take the war to Japan]]. [[OnlySaneMan Rational officers]] like Admiral Yamamato had understood the nature of the US's strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage[[hottip:*: c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. It's not like Japan didn't have 'some' idea of their massive commercial-industrial inferiority, but it would seem they genuinely didn't believe that it would be a factor.]], but were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway.

[[folder:East Asian Co-prosperity, and Attack Plan South]]
The ImperialJapan is going nowhere fast. On paper, the Empire and its puppets control a fifth of China, half her population and almost all her industry. In reality, occupied China teems with bandits and guerrillas, and one only has to travel twenty miles from a railroad or river to find territory beyond Imperial control. On paper, the Republic's troops outnumber those of the Empire and her allies by three-to-one; in reality, only half of these troops answer to the central government led by the Guomindang ([[WhyMaoChangedHisName aka the 'Kuomintang']]), Jiang's Chinese Nationalists. Only a fifth of 'those' forces, moreover, can be relied upon to obey him or fight properly. The superiority of Japanese equipment, training, unit organisation and command structure - [[DeathFromAbove not to mention air-power]], which is being used to level Chinese towns and cities more or less with impunity (typically by [[KillItWithFire fire-bombing]] them) - has counted for nothing in the face of China's vast size and massive population. For instance, the Chinese have virtually no anti-tank weapons, but the Japanese have virtually no tanks in working order that they can bring to where they are needed, except in the on-and-off meat-grinder battles which rage through the hills of southern and central China. In a relatively unmolested, rural and mountainous province of north-central China, a young Communist official is slowly offing his rivals and building up a power base for himself. He eventually becomes the leader of the socialist commune there, the largest in the country, and uses his clout as a warlord to secure his appointment as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. His name is MaoZedong.

After the fall of France Japan took the opportunity to effectively seize the French colony of Indochina - including modern-day Cambodia and Vietnam - as part of their blockade strategy, ostensibly at the "invitation" of the [[LesCollaborateurs collaborationist Vichy government]]. Thailand, fully aware of which way the wind is blowing, becomes a Japanese client state. President FranklinDRoosevelt, worried about Japanese expansion in Asia, has been looking for an excuse to act against them for a while now. He manages to get the United States to restrict all steel and oil exports to Japan in an embargo in an attempt to bring them to the negotiating table concerning China. Since the US is Japan's #1 supplier of both essential commodities, the Japanese government is forced between a rock and a hard place; they cannot be seen as backing down to the US, but they don't have the strength to take them on and win. With Holland having fallen to the Germans and Britain preoccupied elsewhere, the Imperial Navy again proposes, for the umpteenth time, their plan to strike south to seize the oil supplies and rich natural resources of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and British Malaya.

After six months of planning and training under the supervision of Admiral Yamamoto, a task-force based around six aircraft carriers moves out under complete secrecy and on December 7, 1941, catch the Americans completely off guard, wrecking much of the American Pacific fleet. Unfortunately (for them), the US aircraft carriers are at sea, and the commander of the task-force and Yamamoto's subordinate, Admiral Nagumo, is correspondingly cautious, choosing to withdraw rather than launch a third wave of bombers against the base facilities themselves (which would leave the task-force vulnerable to a carrier-based counter-attack). Thus Pearl Harbour's drydocks, machine shops, naval headquarters, storehouses and fuel reserves - without which the remnants of the fleet could have been left stranded - are left intact. [[hottip:*: Destroying the fleet itself took priority, as the aim of the attack was 'Shock and Awe'; sinking the battle force was rightly considered more impressive than wrecking their repair and resupply facilities. The task-force was not trained for the latter objective, which hadn't even been contemplated in the battle plan, which focused entirely on the symbolically important battleships to the extent that even the US Pacific fleet's large cruiser force barely received any consideration. In any event nearly a third of the task-force's aircraft were destroyed in the first two waves, and the remainder would have been insufficient to do significant damage to the huge port facilities in any case. Later events would prove that destroying a major industrial facility required a lot more airpower than any navy had available in 1941.]] All things considered, the attack hasn't done a great deal of (permanent) damage, as many of the ships can be - and are - repaired and returned to service with a year or so; only three ships are completely out of commission, and a lot of material is salvaged from them, the blessing in disguise of an enemy attacking a fleet at anchor in a shallow harbor. [[hottip:*: Also, with their battleships out of action, the US Navy is forced to put all its faith into the new and untested aircraft carriers. Though born of necessity at the time, they have inadvertently invented the carrier task-force concept, a doctrine that rules naval strategy to this day.]]

This is more-or-less exactly what they do, giving the Guomindang only a fraction of the aid they give Britain or the Soviets[[hottip:*: Stalin, admittedly, ''needs'' to be 'bribed' so that he can be kept on-side. The Cairo Conference was the only meeting of the Allied leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt) that Chiang attended - Stalin was very coy about his attendance and refused to come if Jiang was present, officially because he didn't want to offend Japan.]] and turning down Jiang's calls for American troops. Moreover, the Lend-Lease supplies they 'do' send to Jiang are largely consumed by their own forces. Stilwell's on-loan Guomindang divisions (in India) get most of the army equipment meant for the Guomindang at large, and Claire Chennault's Far Eastern USAF group get much of what does make it to China proper. The US does, however, give the Guomindang enough money in the form of low- (and some no-)interest loans to keep their government ticking over - for a while. After four years of cripplingly expensive total war, the Guomindang has been forced to decentralise its administration and tax-collection to the regional and local level, arbitrarily conscript peasants, and print money in order to survive. The consequences have been mounting governmental corruption and monetary inflation. The loans help stave off the Guomindang's imminent implosion, but it isn't enough to allow them to reform and recentralise (and the huge cash inflow the loans constitute actually makes the inflation worse). Consequently, the Guomindang's administrative and fighting efficiency continues to slowly but inexorably deteriorate.

The US also loads 24 land-based medium bombers on a carrier to launch a symbolic strike of their own on Japan itself, the 'Doolittle Raid'. Although the damage caused by the bombing is negligible, the Japanese people are spooked that the Americans can hit them even now, after all the measure that have (supposedly) been taken in the name of the defence of the Japanese Nation. This prompts the China Expeditionary Force to go on a new offensive in the hills of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, with the aim of capturing or destroying all airbases within strategic-bombing range of Japan. The operation is a success insofar as the airbases are all cut off or destroyed, but as usual the Japanese overstretch their supply lines and are forced to withdraw again. For their part, the Imperial Navy seeks a decisive battle with the US Pacific Fleet, in the hope that its (certain, of course) destruction will buy them a year or two of breathing space (or even, the more optimistic among the Imperial Cabinet hope, a negotiated peace). The US has also committed itself to a 'Europe-first' strategy by this time, one that has decided the USA's use of Jiang and the Guomindang - they consider his regime too weak, inefficient and politically unreliable to be trusted with the kind of resources they would need to fight Japan on equal terms. The US Navy's argument - that it'd be cheaper to simply prop the Guomindang up with the bare minimum of support needed to keep them in the fight and use the Pacific fleet to 'Island Hop' into a position where they can blockade or even invade the Japanese Home Islands - wins out, though the US works hard to keep up the appearance of Sino-American solidarity for now.

The Imperial Army's advances into Burma showcase some serious issues with the tentative Sino-British-American alliance. For one thing, Stilwell immediately overrides his commanders' objections[[hottip:*: which he sees as stemming from cowardice. He also believes said cowardice is the product of a backwards culture of effeminacy and fatalism that it is his destiny to counter by a progressive, manly commitment to the offensive.]] and orders his on-loan Guomindang divisions to drive back the Japanese offensive by way of a counter-attack - even though his forces are outnumbered three-to-one, have no air-cover or air-support, have no artillery, lack communication equipment, and are not supported by their British allies (who think it's a spectacularly stupid idea). It fails, and Jiang goes over Stilwell's head to order his encircled forces to make a break-out and retreat. The Japanese advance soon cuts the Burma road, China's sole remaining transport link to the rest of the Allied-aligned world. Its loss forces the Americans to fly everything from Bazookas to bandages over 'the Hump' of the Himalayas in order to meet their Lend-lease commitments. As Guomindang troops and the Sepoys of the British Indian Army bring the offensive to a halt in the Himalayan foothills, [[MahatmaGandhi Gandhi and the Indian National Congress]] declare the start of the Quit India movement - [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which advocates Britain's immediate withdrawal from India]] to make room for Indian Independence. Gandhi and the Congress are promptly imprisoned for the duration of the war, and acts of open rebellion and sabotage are quite brutally suppressed. However, Jinnah and the Indian Muslim League declare their loyalty to the British Raj and give the war effort their full support - their proposal of an independent or autonomous Indian-Muslim State (AKA the modern nation of Pakistan) being taken seriously as a consequence.

Like the Chinese (but nowhere near as badly), the Anglo-Indian army is a bit short on equipment and weaponry, however, and this is where the Americans come in again. Jiang keeps Stilwell on as commander of his stranded forces, despite his incompetence. Jiang can hardly ask for his troops back 'now', as that would be politically awkward and besides, Stilwell is useful because he is pretty much the only US commander who demands that Jiang be given any measure of lend-lease material and support. Moreover, Jiang but doesn't trust the British not to use his troops like they do the Sepoys - in the defense of their Empire, and not China. Thus, Stilwell sees to it that the US Army educates, trains, equips Jiang's forces to its own standards - though the US Army sees that they are kept on the wrong side of the Himalayas. US forces begin to hop in earnest from strategically-important island to island, avoiding fighting non-essential battles and winning each one. However, this comes at what the Americans consider frightful costs in the face of China-veteran garrisons, who fight almost literally to the last man rather than surrender. The war in the eastern Pacific quickly comes to mirror that in the west - the mutual, deep-seated (racial) hatred and animosity on virtually all sides means that [[LeaveNoSurvivors quarter is rarely asked or given]].

At least, this is the plan presented to the Emperor; the real plan is far more realistic, which speaks volumes. The Army is confident only in its ability to take the mid-Yangzi, linking up the railways from Beijing down to Guangzhou and capturing or rendering unsafe the forward airbases Chennault's Air Force Army is operating from in the process. Mindful of his forces' deterioration and the inevitability of Allied Victory, Jiang had been highly critical of Marshall's decision to give Chennault forces enough to antagonise the Japanese into making a grand offensive - at least, not without giving his troops the weapons, training, and equipment needed for them to hold such an offensive off. Chennault actually has half as many planes as the Imperial Army does in China now, a serious problem for the Empire given the huge amounts of territory and the number of strategic fire-bombing missions they have to defend. The result has been chaos in the occupied territories as Japan has neither sufficient radar installations, anti-air artillery, or planes to defend their lines of communication and supply properly. Thus, Operation Ichigo is the solution. It's worth noting that even if 'Ichigo' does succeed beyond High Command's wildest dreams, Japan will still lose the war. It's only a matter of time before the American Navy manages to blockade and maybe even launch an invasion of Japan itself, and the American air forces are only a couple of islands and a few months away from being able to launch strategic-bombing raids on the Home Islands themselves. High Command can hardly claim ignorance of the offensive's futility, as their other big project is wrangling out a defense plan for the Home Islands [[WeAreStrugglingTogether with the co-operation of the Navy]], [[TakingYouWithMe but they go ahead with it anyway]].

Ichigo is super-effective. The Guomindang's Henan salient - which has to be supplied by ox-cart, as the Japanese hold the railway network at either end of it - is eliminated in mere months, having held out for seven years. Changsha is captured, again, but the Japanese hold onto it this time as they regroup and then concentrate virtually all their artillery and armoured forces to take the Guangzhou-Changsha railroad, fanning out into the mountains to take out the Allied airbases from there. Jiang tries to get his forces recalled from Burma but Stilwell refuses, as Marshall has told him that Jiang doesn't need them.

Stilwell, moreover, has been trying to get Jiang to committing more troops to help out in the Allied offensive in Burma. To do so, he has been withholding lend-lease supplies for months now, such that even Chennault (with whom he has a very thorny relationship) is short on spare parts and fuel, and complains about Stilwell's conduct to Marshall. Worse still, when Chennault tries to use his planes to disrupt the Japanese offensive Marshall tells him to pull his forces back to Chongqing and reduce his operations - though US High Command initially didn't realise the scale of the offensive, they soon come to believe that it might mean the end of the Guomindang. Roosevelt soon looks to cut his losses in the run-up to the US Election of November 1944. Roosevelt's opponent, John Dewey, relentlessly criticises Roosevelt's conduct of the war and lambastes him for not providing Jiang with enough support. By way of response, Roosevelt allows the publication of a series of previously-censored articles which are highly critical of Jiang, the Guomindang, and their forces. If China loses, Roosevelt says, it will be their own fault - and Marshall will ensure the USA's losses will have been minimal. Jiang, accordingly, is absolutely furious but has to bite his tongue, insisting only on the resumption of lend-lease deliveries and the dismissal of Stilwell.

[[folder:Japan fights on]]
'Operation Ichigo' is a success, sort of. The Empire has its Seoul-Beijing-Guangzhou rail line, though most of the line south of Wuhan-Changsha is torn up or destroyed, and most of the Allied airfields in China have been captured or abandoned, for all the good that does them. The advances into the Chongqing Basin and British India haven't materialised, though, and the IJA doesn't have the strength or the supplies to do anything but hold its positions. The offensive has not been an unmitigated disaster for Jiang - Stilwell has been dismissed, and he has a reliable supply of lend-lease material now and even though his loyal forces have taken a mauling, several regional warlord 'allies' have taken critical losses. Much of their authority has been sapped or dissipated to warlords at the local level. A lot of this is due to Jiang's politicking - at the same time the USA was holding back lend-lease material from Jiang, Jiang himself was refusing to send ammunition or aid to his 'allies' on the front lines. A doomed-to-failure offensive directed at capturing Chongqing is launched by a faction of rogue Japanese generals. It not only fails, but goes on to backfire spectacularly as the Guomindang's opportunistic counter-attacks turns into a counter-''offensive'', precipitated by success upon success at the tactical level, that actually forces the Japanese to retreat and abandon their precious Wuhan-Guangzhou railroad. Not at all coincidentally, the Burmese front is also moving again after years of stalemate. The long-planned Sino-Anglo-Indian offensive, something Jiang and the British have been meaning to get around to for years now, gets off to a shaky start as organisational issues come to a head, but after their victory at Imphal the Allies begin a steady advance through Burma and into Japanese-allied Thailand.

Saipan (and nearby Tinian, captured soon after) are close enough to allow US bombers to strike the Japanese Home Islands. This is initially of limited effectiveness, as strong winds and the intensely crowded nature of Japanese urban-industrial areas makes precision bombing nigh-impossible. Once someone suggests using [[KillItWithFire fire-bombs]] (sound familiar?) to set the cities ablaze, the bombing becomes highly effective and the war has in a sense finally come full circle as the second-most vocal country to decry Japanese "terror bombing" in China - next to the Chinese themselves, obviously - is now deliberately targeting civilians themselves. Like many contemporary Chinese buildings, most Japanese buildings of the time used a lot of cheap but (highly) flammable materials - wood, bamboo, rattan, rice paper - in their construction. The fire-bombing campaign is ''horrifically'' effective, razing entire towns practically overnight and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. What's left of the Imperial Navy sallies forth for one last battle against the Americans and despite one portion of the fleet coming very near to its objective, is promptly annihilated in history's largest naval engagement, the 'Battle of Leyte Gulf'. American soldiers return to the Philippines in late 1944, landing amidst much rejoicing and partisan warfare, and after several brutal months of combat they wrest control of most of their former colony from the Japanese. The fighting on Luzon in particular (the largest island) is incredibly one-sided in favor of the Americans, though their MoreDakka approach causes an awful lot of collateral damage to the (not great, but still) local infrastructure. By now, even the Japanese citizenry, like their German counterparts, begin to suspect that they are losing. IJA High Command quietly admits to itself that China is lost and begins drawing forces back to the Home Islands while they still can, giving the [[BelievingTheirOwnLies totally unnecessary]] anti-invasion fortification-building program top priority.

The fighting is savage and horrific, bloody and slow, and sees the first use of the terrifying ''Tokko'' [[hottip:*: Short for 'tokubetsu kogeki', literally 'special attack'. The use of such an innocuous, euphemistic term for a SuicideAttack was done to avoid alarming the Emperor or the general populace]] or 'Kamikaze' attacks, which amaze and horrify the Allies at just how far the Japanese are willing to go in their country's defence. The sinking of almost all of food-importing Japan's merchant fleet and the impact of air-raids on agriculture - it's hard to plow a rice paddy when it's full of shrapnel - is [[FromBadToWorse compounded by domestic crop failures]]. His majesty's subjects are now trying to survive on 1200 calories a day. [[SarcasmMode It's not all bad, though]], as the government publishes a helpful series of articles on how to stave off hunger by padding out one's diet with sawdust, insects and mice. Not everyone is this desperate, though; the general figure conceals some very stark regional contrasts. Many areas, particularly in the countryside, see people eating only a few hundred calories under their daily 2000. But others, especially in the now-devastated urban centers, see dearth[[hottip:*: i.e. not just 'not much food' or 'some, but it's mice and sawdust-bread again' - but nothing. Zero edible material]]. Urban depopulation results as people move to the countryside in the hundreds of thousands. By early 1945, Allied air and naval forces roam Japanese shores and skies virtually at will, shooting up or sinking just about everything that dares to move in daylight. But the Japanese still refuse to give up.

Even as the Empire crumbles, the government pulls every available boat, plane and tank in the Empire back to the 'Home Islands' and conscripts as much of the able-bodied population as can be spared into work details and [[HomeGuard citizen militias]] in anticipation of the Allied invasion. What petrol remains is issued to the newly-formed kamikaze speedboat and human-piloted torpedo flotillas; the airforce has long since claimed the last of the aviation fuel for its kamikaze squadrons. The Army and Navy continue to squabble over who should get first priority on 'lunge-mine' [[hottip:*: an anti-tank grenade [[XOnAStick on a stick]] production - the Navy wants them for its kamikaze scuba divers, the Army for their anti-tank kamikaze troops. On paper, the [[HomeGuard Volunteer Fighting Corps]] is more than capable of fending off the invasion on its own; in reality, there are few weapons and even less ammunition to go around, so the teenaged and elderly recruits are taught how to fight with knives, spears and petrol-free {{Molotov Cocktail}}s. Others are simply handed a grenade and told to [[YouKnowWhatToDo make their deaths meaningful]].

A new weapon, a bomb of immense explosive force, has been developed to support the landings. In the American state of New Mexico, a multinational team of scientists headed by Robert Oppenheimer have test-detonated the [[AtomicHate first nuclear bomb]]. After witnessing the destructive power of the prototype, some dare to hope that the threat of its use may be enough to force Japanese surrender. The Allies ask Japan to surrender unconditionally; unsurprisingly, they refuse. In response, a nuclear bomb is dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The combat debut of nuclear weapons results in an immediate 70,000 to 80,000 civilian casualties, and at least as many again will succumb to radiation over the months and years that follow. Another bomb dropped on the city of Nagasaki on August 9 has much the same effect. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union honours its promises to the Allies and declares war on Japan in violation of their Non-Aggression Pact of 1941, the war-hardened mechanised columns of the Red Army making short work of Japan's ill-equipped Manchurian/North-China Army Group, which has been weakened by years of neglect in favour of first the China Expeditionary Force and now the Home Islands Defence Force. The Allies bargain for the southern half of Korea as they tell the Showa Emperor[[hottip:*: styled after the Chinese Emperors of old, 'Showa' was the 'reign name' of Emperor Hirohito. Thus 'the Showa Emperor', much like 'the Qianlong Emperor']] that there are more such atom bombs to come, as if the imminent threat of invasion from two directions at once - the Soviets are themselves poised to invade and have good chance of taking Hokkaido - weren't enough. The Emperor himself calls it quits and gives his support for unconditional surrender on August 14, effectively commanding his subjects to accept his decision in his first-ever radio broadcast to the whole Empire. Following a failed last-minute coup by generals who wish to continue the war, a [[DrivenToSuicide wave of suicides amongst his civil and military servants]] precedes the formal surrender, which is signed on September 2.

[[folder:East Asian Co-prosperity and awakening the sleeping giant]]

[[folder:''Atomic Climax'']]

But to everyone's increasing exasperation, Japan fights on. The Americans continue to island-hop closer to their 'Home Islands', capturing the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa to aid the strategic bombing campaign and planned invasion. The civilian population of the former island had been evacuated, primarily because survival on Iwo Jima was so tenuous (there is no source of fresh water other than rain) that there weren't many civilians to evacuate. [[hottip:*:Iwo Jima remains unpopulated to this day.]] Okinawa, however, was fairly well populated and part of the Home Islands proper[[hottip:*: the Ryukyu islands were annexed less than a century previously, arguably being Japan's first overseas colony (after Ezo/Hokkaido, which was then and is now generally accepted as part of the 'Home Islands')]] and the fighting there was marked by more [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled government-]][[FateWorseThanDeath sponsored]] [[DrivenToSuicide suicides]] - supposedly to avoid the kind of treatment that Chinese civilians might expect from Japanese troops, but actually because High Command didn't want the USA to score a propaganda victory by using well-treated civilians to prove their decency to non-combatants (which could erode their soldiers' will to fight).

But to everyone's increasing exasperation, Japan fights on. The Americans continue to island-hop closer to their 'Home Islands', capturing the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa to aid the strategic bombing campaign and planned invasion. The civilian population of the former island was evacuated courtesy of the 'American Sympathiser' General Kuribayashi, whom Army High Command [[TheUriahGambit had ordered to defend the island to the death.]] Okinawa, however, was fairly well populated and part of the Home Islands proper[[hottip:*: the Ryukyu islands were annexed less than a century previously, arguably being Japan's first overseas colony (after Ezo/Hokkaido, which was then and is now generally accepted as part of the 'Home Islands')]] and the fighting there was marked by more [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled government-]][[FateWorseThanDeath sponsored]] [[DrivenToSuicide suicides]] - supposedly to avoid the kind of treatment that Chinese civilians might expect from Japanese troops, but actually because High Command didn't want the USA to score a propaganda victory by using well-treated civilians to prove their decency to non-combatants (which could erode their soldiers' will to fight).

In the Pacific, the Americans capture the island of Saipan after a terrible land and sea battle. The Japanese defense plan is desperate and mostly involves shore-based aircraft, as the Americans outnumber them three to one in carriers, a sure sign that they're about to be crushed under the weight of US industrial production. The sea battle, officially known as the 'Battle of the Philippine Sea', is quickly dubbed the 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot' when US pilots equipped with a new generation of carrier-borne fighters [[CurbStompBattle shoot down nearly 500 aircraft with virtually no losses of their own]], effectively exterminating the last of Japan's trained naval aviators. The US Navy in turn loses approximately 100 aircraft (mostly due to running out of fuel) in their own counter-strike, but manage to sink one Japanese carrier and seriously damage three others. Adding injury to further injury, two more Japanese carriers go down at the hands of US submarines, though the loss of their carriers matters little by this point since the Japanese no longer have the pilots to man them. The land battle is the usual horrific slog against deeply entrenched and fanatical Imperial defenders, though Saipan is different in that it is the first island taken to contain a significant population of Japanese civilians. At the Emperor's tacit insistence, most of them [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]], horrifying all observers.

The tide of battle has turned in the Pacific as well at the end of Japan's six month window of strategic advantage, as Admiral Yamamoto [[CassandraTruth warned would happen]]. In the mid-Pacific, a Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet and capture the island of Midway leads to disaster, as American code-breakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and know their fleets' every move. Even better, American dive bombers just happen to catch the Imperial Japanese Navy at a moment when all its planes are being reloaded for an another attack--meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[MadeOfExplodium fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[CurbStompBattle The US Navy sinks three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later, at the loss of only one of its own]]. The IJN is broken as an offensive threat and the balance of power in the Pacific permanently shifts to the United States - though it would be months before this became apparent.[[hottip:*:It's worth noting that modern scholarship has shown that the Japanese invasion force had virtually no chance of capturing Midway regardless of how the naval battle turned out: They lacked the amphibious vehicles necessary to traverse Midway's surrounding lagoon and were thoroughly outgunned by the American defenders - a reality underscored when the same unit was later slaughtered virtually to the last man in a futile charge against a much smaller Marine detachment on Guadalcanal. Even at this relatively ear;y stage of the war the Japanese simply lacked sufficient resources to project an effectively landing force that far across the Pacific, or sustain it once it got there. Ultimately they were defeated by distance.]]

After six months of planning and training under the supervision of Admiral Yamamoto, a task-force based around six aircraft carriers moves out under complete secrecy and on December 7, 1941, catch the Americans completely off guard, wrecking much of the American Pacific fleet. Unfortunately (for them), the US aircraft carriers are at sea, and the commander of the task-force and Yamamoto's subordinate, Admiral Nagumo, is correspondingly cautious, choosing to withdraw rather than launch a third wave of bombers against the base facilities themselves (which would leave the task-force vulnerable to a carrier-based counter-attack). Thus Pearl Harbour's drydocks, machine shops, naval headquarters, storehouses and fuel reserves - without which the remnants of the fleet could have been left stranded - are left intact. [[hottip:*: Destroying the fleet itself took priority, as the aim of the attack was 'Shock and Awe'; sinking the fleet's ships was rightly considered more impressive than wrecking their repair and resupply facilities. The task-force was not trained for the latter objective, which hadn't even been contemplated in the battle plan, which focused entirely on the symbolically important battleships. In any case, nearly a third of the task-force's aircraft were destroyed in the first two waves, and the remainder would have been insufficient to do significant damage to the huge port facilities in any case. Later events would proved that destroying a major industrial facility would require a lot more airpower than any navy had available in 1941.]] All things considered, the attack hasn't done a great deal of (permanent) damage, as many of the ships can be - and are - repaired and returned to service with a year or so; only three ships are completely out of commission, and a lot of material is salvaged from them, the blessing in disguise of an enemy attacking a fleet at anchor in a shallow harbor. [[hottip:*: Also, with their battleships out of action, the US Navy is forced to put all its faith into the new and untested aircraft carriers. Though born of necessity at the time, they have inadvertently invented the carrier task-force concept, a doctrine that rules naval strategy to this day.]]

The Imperial Army's advances into Burma showcase some serious issues with the tentative Sino-British-American alliance. For one thing, Stilwell immediately overrides his commanders' objections[[hottip:*: which he sees as stemming from cowardice. He also believes said cowardice is the product of a backwards culture of effeminacy and fatalism that it is his destiny to counter by a progressive, manly commitment to the offensive.]] and orders his on-loan Guomindang divisions to drive back the Japanese offensive by way of a counter-attack - even though his forces are outnumbered three-to-one, have no air-cover or air-support, have no artillery, lack communication equipment, and are not supported by their British allies (who think it's a spectacularly stupid idea). It fails, and Jiang goes over Stilwell's head to order his encircled forces to make a break-out and retreat. The Japanese advance soon cuts the Burma road, China's sole remaining transport link to the rest of the Allied-aligned world. Its loss forces the Americans to fly everything from Bazookas to bandages over 'the Hump' of the Himalayas in order to meet their Lend-lease commitments. As Guomindang troops and the Sepoys of the British Indian Army bring the offensive to a halt in the Himalayan foothills, [[MahatmaGandhi Gandhi and the Indian National Congress]] declare the start of the Quit India movement - [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which advocates Britain's immediate withdrawal from India]] to make room for Indian Independence. Gandhi and the Congress are promptly imprisoned for the duration of the war, and acts of open rebellion and sabotage are quite brutally suppressed. However, Jinnah and the Indian Muslim League declare their loyalty to the British Raj and give the war effort their full support - their proposal of an independent or autonomous Indian-Muslim State being taken seriously as a consequence.

To raise morale, and curb spying, the US promptly herds all ethnic-Japanese living on the west coast into internment camps and expropriates all their assets.[[hottip:*: Except Hawaii, of course, where ethic Japanese make up a majority of the non-native population.]] The US does, however, allow Japanese-Americans to serve with its armed forces - but only in the European theatre, except for some who serve in non-combat roles as translators. Roosevelt is keen to capitalise on the strength of the American people's anti-Japanese hatred, so he gets Chief-of-Staff George Marshall to assign the US Army to help the Guomindang in their fight against the Imperial Japanese Army. Somewhat cynically, Marshall appoints the newly-promoted General Stilwell to head up the US Army's Expeditionary Force to China but doesn't actually give him any men. From the USA's standpoint, it makes no sense to give the Guomindang any more support than necessary for their ally to survive in their role as meatshield.

The tide of battle has turned in the Pacific as well at the end of Japan's six month window of strategic advantage, as Admiral Yamamoto [[CassandraTruth warned would happen]]. In the mid-Pacific, a Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet and capture the island of Midway leads to disaster, as American code-breakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and know their fleets' every move. Even better, American dive bombers just happen to catch the Imperial Japanese Navy at a moment when all its planes are being reloaded for an another attack--meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[MadeOfExplodium fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[CurbStompBattle The US Navy sinks three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later, at the loss of only one of its own]]. The IJN is broken as an offensive threat and the balance of power in the Pacific permanently shifts to the United States - though it would be months before this became apparent.[[hottip:*:It's worth noting that modern scholarship has shown that the Japanese invasion force had virtually no chance of capturing Midway regardless of how the naval battle turned out: They lacked the amphibious vehicles necessary to traverse Midway's surrounding lagoon and were thoroughly outgunned by the American defenders - a reality underscored when the same unit was slaughtered virtually to the last man in a futile charge against a much smaller Marine detachment on Guadalcanal. Even at this relatively ear;y stage of the war the Japanese simply lacked sufficient resources to project an effectively landing force that far across the Pacific, or sustain it once it got there. Ultimately they were defeated by distance.]]

The tide of battle has turned in the Pacific as well at the end of Japan's six month window of strategic advantage, as Admiral Yamamoto [[CassandraTruth warned would happen]]. In the mid-Pacific, a Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet and capture the island of Midway leads to disaster, as American code-breakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and know their fleets' every move. Even better, American dive bombers just happen to catch the Imperial Japanese Navy at a moment when all its planes are being reloaded for an another attack--meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[MadeOfExplodium fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[CurbStompBattle The US Navy sinks three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later, at the loss of only one of its own]]. The IJN is broken as an offensive threat and the balance of power in the Pacific permanently shifts to the United States - though it would be months before this became apparent.[[hottip:*It's worth noting that modern scholarship has shown that the Japanese invasion force had virtually no chance of capturing Midway regardless of how the naval battle turned out: They lacked the amphibious vehicles necessary to traverse Midway's surrounding lagoon and were thoroughly outgunned by the American defenders - a reality underscored when the same unit was slaughtered virtually to the last man in a futile charge against a much smaller Marine detachment on Guadalcanal. Even at this relatively ear;y stage of the war the Japanese simply lacked sufficient resources to project an effectively landing force that far across the Pacific, or sustain it once it got there. Ultimately they were defeated by distance.]]

The tide of battle has turned in the Pacific as well at the end of Japan's six month window of strategic advantage, as Admiral Yamamoto [[CassandraTruth warned would happen]]. In the mid-Pacific, a Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet and capture the island of Midway leads to disaster, as American code-breakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and know their fleets' every move. Even better, American dive bombers just happen to catch the Imperial Japanese Navy at a moment when all its planes are being reloaded for an another attack--meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[MadeOfExplodium fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[CurbStompBattle The US Navy sinks three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later, at the loss of only one of its own]]. The IJN is broken as an offensive threat and the balance of power in the Pacific permanently shifts to the United States - though it would be months before this became apparent.

[[folder:The ''other'' visible tide also turns]]