History WorldWarII / WarInAsiaAndThePacific

Okinawa, however, is fairly well populated and part of the Home Islands proper [[note]]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).[[/note]] and the fighting there is marked by more [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled government-]][[FateWorseThanDeath sponsored]] [[DrivenToSuicide suicides]]—supposedly to avoid the kind of treatment that Chinese civilians might expect from Japanese troops. The actual reason is because High Command doesn't want the U.S. to score a propaganda victory by using well-treated civilians to prove their decency to noncombatants (which could erode their soldiers' will to fight). Okinawa marks the British return to the Pacific, as the end of the war in Europe allows the Royal Navy to send a task force to join the U.S. Pacific Fleet. It also marks the effective end of the Imperial Japanese Navy when the doomed and ultimately futile final sortie of the superbattleship ''Yamato'' is obliterated by overwhelming U.S. airpower.[[labelnote:*]]The plan was for ''Yamato'' to approach Okinawa, and then intentionally beach itself on the shore, essentially turning into what was termed an "unsinkable gun emplacement" which would use its firepower to be a thorn in the Americans' side until destroyed, and it's crew would fight on as infantrymen.[[/labelnote]] Since the word "Yamato" is a poetic name for the land of Japan and also its people, the ''Yamato'' had come to represent the navy and the nation. As a result, its loss symbolically became the day the Imperial Japanese Navy came to an end, even though it had already ceased to be a useful military force after Leyte Gulf.\\\

In May 1945, Germany surrenders and the war in Europe ends. 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. [[note]]Iwo Jima remains unpopulated to this day.[[/note]] General Kuribayashi, recognizing what the fall of Iwo Jima will mean, organizes a battle of attrition to delay it as long as possible and make the Americans rethink their invasion of Japan. For the only time in the war, American casualties (wounded and KIA) outnumber the Japanese, and it begins to dawn on American commanders just how difficult invading Japan will be.\\\

The "decisive battle" Yamamoto hoped for involved a complex operation to invade the island of Midway (plus some Alaskan islands the IJN thought to be more strategically significant than they really were) in June 1942, to force the USN to send its carriers to a fight to the death. But unfortunately for the IJN, American codebreakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and have a very good idea of what to expect, especially when they trick the Japanese into confirming their target. Midway thus becomes a trap for the IJN; the Japanese carriers arrive at a forewarned and heavily defended island and aren't even aware of the opposing U.S. carriers until long after the U.S. attack forces have launched. Again, the USN suffers tremendous losses, but they manage to organize a counterattack, consisting of a two-pronged strike of dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The torpedo bomber strikes are disasters; the outdated, slow TBD Devastators are fodder for Japanese fighters and AA guns, especially when they are forced to fly even ''slower'' and in straight, predictable lines while lining up for their torpedo runs against the carriers. Compounding this was the abysmal reliability of American torpedoes for the time meaning that the few Devastators that got through and managed to release could only watch as the torpedoes either missed or simply bounced harmlessly off the hulls of the carriers without doing damage. All in all, few if any critical hits were scored by American torpedoes against the Japanese carriers. Conversely, the dive bombers had much better luck: The Japanese fighters and gunners had been concentrating on the low-altitude torpedo planes, and had failed to take into account the SBD Dauntless dive bombers coming in from on high.[[note]]One Japanese survivor recounted that they had assumed, incorrectly, that they had just wiped out the American counterattack. No one even knew about the dive bombers until they heard the [[StukaScream banshee wail]] [[HellIsThatNoise of the Dauntless' dive brakes deploying]] as they rolled into their attack runs, at which point it was too late. Contrary to popular belief, however, the timing of the dive bombers arriving after the torpedo bombers was by complete ''chance.''[[/note]] The American Dauntlesses could not have arrived at a worse time for the IJN, as its next strike force was being refueled and rearmed, meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[MadeOfExplodium fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[CurbStompBattle The U.S. Navy fatally damages three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later (all would be scuttled within 24 hours), for the loss of one of their own]], in an action termed "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare" by historian John Keegan. Another blow that was dealt was not to a specific nation, but to a method of naval warfare itself: The Battle of Midway had been fought, and won, almost completely by naval and land-based aircraft, with no American or Japanese warship trading cannon fire. It served as visual proof that battleships were quickly becoming obsolete in the face of constantly-improving aviation and ordinance technology, and a clear sign that the time of the great iron monoliths lining up to exchange broadsides [[EndOfAnEra was quickly coming to an end]].\\\

* In 1945 the USA's forces are massing on Iwo Jima and the Ryukyus, ready to launch Operation ''Downfall'' later in the year (or in 1946). The Japanese economy is at a standstill as famine looms. To avoid the mutual butchery that could result from Operation ''Downfall'', the U.S. drops the first of their newly developed atomic bombs on [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki Hiroshima on August 6th]], provoking the Supreme War Council, the de facto Imperial Japanese high command, to begin an emergency meeting discussing the sudden disappearance of Hiroshima, a communications hub, and all lines that went through it. While Japanese High Command is aware from the outset the most likely culprit was a nuclear weapon, General Amami, head of the still-dogmatic "war faction" casts doubt on the veracity of the claimed "weapon of unparalleled destructiveness" and stalls by ordering a team led by Dr. Yoshio Nishina, the foremost expert on nuclear physics in Japan, to examine the are and identify the nature of the bombing that suddenly wiped out all communications in the area. Dr. Yoshio quickly confirms the usage of a nuclear weapon and sends back a haunting report on August 8th. Despite this, the war faction is not moved. From their own experiences with a nuclear weapons programme, they believe even the United States would be hard pressed to build a single bomb, and that more would be an impossibility. Prime Minister Togo's peace faction however, grows increasingly desperate, as they (as it turns out, rightly) believe more nuclear weapons are on the way.

* Acting ostensibly upon his promises at the Yalta Conference (that the USSR would help liberate the occupied territories of mainland East Asia within three months of the end of the war in Europe), Stalin orders the Red Army to perform the "Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation", which it does on August 8th, one day from the deadline set on the nineth by Germany's surrender on May 9th.[[labelnote:*]]May 8th in Europe, May 9th in Moscow.[[/labelnote]] The Red army had been building up the invasion force even before the end of the western front, and quickly overran the exhausted and lightly equipped IJA. In response, High Command once again calls a meeting on August 9th, this one focused entirely on the invasion of Manchuria, which would later be used by revisionist historians to claim it was really the Soviet invasion and not the bombs, that convinced Japan to surrender. Despite this, the meeting on August 9th marks no shift in the position of either the Peace or War factions as the meeting concludes at around 6 PM. The Soviet invasion accomplishes nothing... except to enable Soviet land grabs in the far east, including the still-disputed Southern Chishima islands, and to allow the Soviet Union to set the Communist Chinese on the road to victory, which were Stalin's true goals all along.

* Acting ostensibly upon his promises at the Yalta Conference (that the USSR would help liberate the occupied territories of mainland East Asia within three months of the end of the war in Europe), Stalin orders the Red Army to perform the "Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation", which it does on August 8th, one day from the deadline set on the nineth by Germany's surrender on May 9th.[[labelnote:*]]May 8th in Europe, May 9th in Moscow.[[/labelnote]] The Red army had been building up the invasion force even before the end of the western front, and quickly overran the exhausted and lightly equipped IJA. In response, High Command once again calls a meeting on August 9th, this one focused entirely on the invasion of Manchuria, which would later be used by revisionist historians to claim it was really the Soviet invasion and not the bombs, that convinced Japan to surrender. Despite this, the meeting on August 9th marks no shift in the position of either the Peace or War factions. The Soviet invasion accomplishes nothing... except to enable Soviet land grabs in the far east, including the still-disputed Southern Chishima islands, and to allow the Soviet Union to set the Communist Chinese on the road to victory, which were Stalin's true goals all along.
* Later the same day, on August 9th the USA drops a second atomic bomb upon Nagasaki, shocking the war faction and even Emperor Hirohito himself, who breaks the deadlock himself and declares his intention to announce his surrender to the United States, in light of the "new and most cruel bomb" of "incalcuable" destructive power, which had now been proven ''not'' to be an one-off. The pro-war members of High Command are cowed, but not all of Japan. The still-defiant IJA continues to fight on in mainland China while several junior officers instigate the "Kyujo Incident", an attempted coup just before the announcement of unconditional surrender. Nontheless, Hirohito begins his speech as planned on the 15th, a mere half week before the planned third atomic bomb would have struck Tokyo itself. American forces back off from Operation Downfall. The Second World War, is at last over.[[labelnote:*]]Excluding the Japanese holdouts on various pacific islands, who would continue to fight for nearly thirty years[[/labelnote]]

* In 1945 the USA's forces are massing on Iwo Jima and the Ryukyus, ready to launch Operation ''Downfall'' later in the year (or in 1946). The Japanese economy is at a standstill as famine looms. To avoid the mutual butchery that could result from Operation ''Downfall'', the U.S. drops the first of their newly developed atomic bombs on [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki Hiroshima on August 6th]], provoking the While Japanese High Command is aware from the outset the most likely culprit was a nuclear weapon, General Amami, head of the still-dogmatic "war faction" casts doubt on the veracity of the claimed "weapon of unparalleled destructiveness" and stalls by ordering a team led by Dr. Yoshio Nishina, the foremost expert on nuclear physics in Japan, to examine the are and identify the nature of the bombing that suddenly wiped out all communications in the area. Dr. Yoshio quickly confirms the usage of a nuclear weapon and sends back a haunting report on August 8th. Despite this, the war faction is not moved. From their own experiences with a nuclear weapons programme, they believe even the United States would be hard pressed to build a single bomb, and that more would be an impossibility. Prime Minister Togo's peace faction however, grows increasingly desperate, as they (as it turns out, rightly) believe more nuclear weapons are on the way.

* In 1945 the USA's forces are massing on Iwo Jima and the Ryukyus, ready to launch Operation ''Downfall'' later in the year (or in 1946). The Japanese economy is at a standstill as famine looms. To avoid the mutual butchery that could result from Operation ''Downfall'', the U.S. drops the first of their newly developed atomic bombs on [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki Hiroshima.]] Acting upon his promise to the USA (that the USSR would help liberate the occupied territories of mainland East Asia), and not wanting to be left out of the spoils of victory, Stalin orders the Red Army's Far Eastern Strategic Offensive Operation to be executed early - starting the the very next day. The day after the Soviet declaration of war and invasion, and two days after the first atom-bombing, the USA drops a second atomic bomb upon Nagasaki to speed up the Japanese surrender. While not strictly necessary it demonstrated the President Truman's ruthlessness in the name of [[RealPolitik Realpolitik]], as well as keeping the international focus on the USA's role in Japan's ultimate defeat [[note]] Interestingly, it looks like the Junta was pinning its last hopes for a negotiated peace on mediation through USSR - a simple refusal by the USSR would've been sufficient for them to start negotiating directly, but this wasn't what Stalin had promised and at the time nobody actually knew this for sure. [[/note]].
* With no hope of Soviet mediation, the Junta begins negotiating directly with the USA and surrenders on just one condition: the Emperor stays. The USA says "yes" to the surrender on behalf of the rest of the allies (who are now styling themselves the "United Nations") but "no" to any additional conditions (though they do decide to allow the Japanese to keep their emperor later). The Japanese cabinet has no choice but to agree and they agree to a cease-fire with all non-Soviet forces, the fighting in Guangdong and Hunan coming to an abrupt halt. What unfolds in Manchuria is a textbook offensive operation[[note]] literally. It featured prominently in most Soviet officer-training courses and was possibly the best-analysed operation of the war [[/note]] in accordance with pre-War Deep Battle doctrine, Soviet troops reaching the Sea of Zhili in just two weeks. Starving in various isolated 'pockets', more than a million Japanese soldiers throw down their weapons and surrender en masse when the Red Army's follow-on/mop-up forces threaten them with one-sided slaughter - a pretty good indication that the war was all but over, as the IJA had never backed down from one-sided slaughter previously. [[note]] The Soviets had already taken Southern Sakhalin island, and were just one day from attacking Hokkaido when Stalin called the operation off, probably for the same reason Eisenhower called off the US Advance on Berlin: why sacrifice troops unnecessarily when, unlike in the USSR, public opinion isn't fixated upon doing so as a symbolic end to four years of incredible suffering and sacrifice (and revenge) and the public isn't willing to pay the price? The Soviets' relative lack of experience and equipment for sustaining overseas operations likely influenced the decision to cancel the Hokkaido operation as well.[[/note]].

With Guadalcanal collapsing, Japanese High Command decides they absolutely ''need'' to take Wau to regain the strategic initiative in the Pacific. They gather the 51st Imperial Division in Indochina and have them board eight transport ships as a reinforcement flotilla. The plan is to move the vulnerable convoy behind a bad weather front as a shield against allied aircraft. And even if the flotilla is discovered by the Allies, [[SuicideMission High Command is fully prepared to lose ''half'' of their troops just getting to New Guinea.]] About 7,000 Japanese troops escorted by a convoy of destroyers and submarines leave safe waters on February 27th. What follows is nothing short of a massacre. Allied intelligence had again broken the codes of the Japanese and detected the buildup of troops. [=MacArthur=] has his air teams outfit their bombing craft[[labelnote:*]]Which were mainly the Martin B-26 [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Marauder]] and North American B-25 Mitchell, the same plane used in the Doolittle Raid.[[/labelnote]] with no less than [[MoreDakka 8 nose mounted .50 caliber machine guns]][[labelnote:*]]And sometimes even ''more''. While the B-25 was a fairly adequate-performing medium strategic bomber, it found a niche role as a ground attack craft and convoy hunter; crews often painted over its glazed nose and removed the bombsight equipment, and proceeded to stuff every gun they could find into them along with a rudimentary gunsight in the cockpit to aim the things. The "G" and "H" models took this even further by replacing the entire glazed section with a solid nose designed to hold 6-8 .50 caliber machine guns, and strapping a ''[[{{BFG}} 75mm]]'' cannon into the former bombardier access tunnel, along with as much extra gun packs and ordinance as they could carry. In some cases, a fully-laden Mitchell could see itself loaded with 8 fixed .50 calibers, plus up to 4 more on external "gun packs" and then adding an extra two by having the ventral gunner rotate and lock his turret forward, for a total of ''fourteen'' .50 caliber guns '''plus''' the 75mm cannon. To call these planes gunships would be an apt statement indeed.[[/labelnote]] in preparation. The bad weather shield works for the Japanese at first, but it dissipates by March 1st and then everything gets FUBAR. The convoy is spotted by an allied scout plane and a force of bombers and PT boats descends on the ships. Even with Japanese air cover, [[KillEmAll the Allies sink every one of the transport ships and 4 of the destroyers.]] Almost 3,000 Japanese troops sink to the bottom of the ocean. The rest are fished aboard the surviving destroyers and submarines in the night. About 1,000 men make it to New Guinea but were in no condition to begin a march to Wau. The rest return to Japanese ports aboard the destroyers.\\\

* In 1945 the USA's forces are massing on Iwo Jima and the Ryukyus, ready to launch Operation ''Downfall'' later in the year (or in 1946). The Japanese economy is at a standstill as famine looms. To avoid the mutual butchery that could result from Operation ''Downfall'', the U.S. drops the first of their newly developed atomic bombs on [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki Hiroshima.]] Acting upon his promise to the USA (that the USSR would help liberate the occupied territories of mainland East Asia), and not wanting to be left out of the spoils of victory, Stalin orders the Red Army's Far Eastern Strategic Offensive Operation to be executed early - starting the the very next day. The day after the Soviet declaration of war and invasion, and two days after the first atom-bombing, the USA drops a second atomic bomb upon Nagasaki to speed up the Japanese surrender. While not strictly necessary it demonstrated the President Truman's ruthlessness in the name of Realpolitik, as well as keeping the international focus on the USA's role in Japan's ultimate defeat [[note]] Interestingly, it looks like the Junta was pinning its last hopes for a negotiated peace on mediation through USSR - a simple refusal by the USSR would've been sufficient for them to start negotiating directly, but this wasn't what Stalin had promised and at the time nobody actually knew this for sure. [[/note]].

* In 1945 the USA's forces are massing on Iwo Jima and the Ryukyus, ready to launch Operation ''Downfall'' later in the year (or in 1946). The Japanese economy is at a standstill as famine looms. To avoid the mutual butchery that could result from Operation ''Downfall'', the U.S. drops the first of their newly developed atomic bombs on [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki Hiroshima.]] Acting upon his promise to the USA (that the USSR would help liberate the occupied territories of mainland East Asia), and not wanting to be left out of the spoils of victory, Stalin orders the Red Army's Far Eastern Strategic Offensive Operation to be executed early - starting the the very next day. The day after the Soviet declaration of war and invasion, and two days after the first atom-bombing, the USA drops a second atomic bomb upon Nagasaki to speed up the Japanese surrender. While not strictly necessary it demonstrated the President Truman's ruthlessness in the name of RealPolitik, as well as keeping the international focus on the USA's role in Japan's ultimate defeat [[note]] Interestingly, it looks like the Junta was pinning its last hopes for a negotiated peace on mediation through USSR - a simple refusal by the USSR would've been sufficient for them to start negotiating directly, but this wasn't what Stalin had promised and at the time nobody actually knew this for sure. [[/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 to the Chinese Communists. [[note]]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.[[/note]] Given the [[WeAreStrugglingTogether terrible interunit coordination]] that Jiang's forces have displayed so far—their offensive actions being limited to counterattacks, 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.\\\

For the next six months, the IJN and the allies fight a brutal land, sea and air battle for the uncompleted Japanese airbase on the island of Guadalcanal. This would expand into the fight for control of the entire Solomon Islands chain, lasting until November 1943. Much of the momentum of the southern offensive is 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 Japan can ill afford to lose and lacks the resources to replace. Another issue the Japanese faced was that their armies were woefully outclassed in terms of equipment: Most Japanese soldiers sported the bolt-action Arisaka rifle, a tried-and-true but slow firing bolt-action infantry rifle with a capacity of just five rounds, fed by stripper clip. Conversely, American infantrymen had the M1 Garand, a newer and more mechanically complicated design, but capable of a much higher rate of fire and fed by an eight round en-bloc clip. Additionally, in an interesting inversion of its weaknesses on the European Front, where it struggled against the heavier-armed and armored German Tiger and Panther tanks, the Sherman tank actually enjoyed a comfortable advantage over Japanese armor, which were both too lightly armed to penetrate the Sherman from the front, and too lightly armored to deflect the Sherman's 75mm cannons.[[note]]American tank crews in the Pacific actually started requesting more High Explosive ammunition over armor-piercing ammunition, because the 75mm AP rounds would actually go ''straight through'' the Japanese tanks without disabling them[[/note]]. Even then, however, the Japanese forces on Guadalcanal continue to be a serious threat to the airfield--now named "Henderson Field" by its new owners--and surrounding forces; artillery concealed in the jungle and caves on the nearby mountainside take every opportunity to rain shells upon Henderson Field, disrupting airfield operations and generally making life hard for the occupants, and it wouldn't be until February 1943 that the Guadalcanal Campaign would be officially concluded.\\\

In the Pacific, the year 1944 is turning out very poorly for the IJN. Powerful USN amphibious forces, backed by massed carrier-borne airpower, have already wrested control of most of the Solomon Islands from them, and Japanese bases throughout the Gilbert and Marshall Islands are rapidly collapsing as the USN drives north faster than the IJN can effectively reposition its defensive lines. The major Japanese base of Rabaul has been surrounded and rendered impotent by relentless air attack from Henderson Field and constant submarine presence- [=MacArthur=] is content to starve the Japanese out in a siege rather than give their soldiers a death in battle.[[note]] In an odd twist, the men of Rabaul actually faired better than most other Japanese Garrisons. Many of the Japanese conscripts that had been brought in to build the base had been farmers or fishermen. When the base was cut off, they simply resumed their old professions. Seeing this, the base commander began to re-organize the men under his command. Some troops were used as unskilled labor to clear farmland, others were organized into a fishing brigade to keep the men supplied with protein. Eventually, they'd managed to build up enough surplus that they began trading with the locals, exchanging vegetables and the like for chickens and pigs. By late 1944, Allied intelligence was bemused to discover that the base had been converted into a self-sufficient Agricultural and fishing community, complete with education centers to teach new trade skills, though without ammunition or war resources the base's combat-effectiveness remained fortunately low. By the time the war ended, the garrison on Rabul was eating ''better'' than most other Japanese units.[[/note]] Anticipating an imminent attack on its major fleet base at Truk, the IJN pulls the Combined Fleet closer to the Home Islands. This is wise, as in February 1944, a massive USN force of eight (!) aircraft carriers launches thousands of sorties on Truk over the course of several days, stopping only when nothing was left afloat, few aircraft still flyable, and no significant structures left standing. IJN leadership expected an attack but is stunned by how effortlessly their main Pacific base was reduced to ash.\\\

In the Pacific, the year 1944 is turning out very poorly for the IJN. Powerful USN amphibious forces, backed by massed carrier-borne airpower, have already wrested control of most of the Solomon Islands from them, and Japanese bases throughout the Gilbert and Marshall Islands are rapidly collapsing as the USN drives north faster than the IJN can effectively reposition its defensive lines. The major Japanese base of Rabaul has been surrounded and rendered impotent by relentless air attack from Henderson Field and constant submarine presence- [=MacArthur=] is content to starve the Japanese out in a siege rather than give their soldiers a death in battle.[[note]] In an odd twist, the men of Rabaul actually faired better than most other Japanese Garrisons. Many of the Japanese conscripts that had been brought in to build the base had been farmers or fishermen. When the base was cut off, they simply resumed their old professions. Seeing this, the base commander began to re-organize the men under his command. Some troops were used as unskilled labor to clear farmland, others were organized into a fishing brigade to keep the men supplied with protein. Eventually, they'd managed to build up enough surplus that they began trading with the locals, exchanging vegetables and the like for chickens and pigs. By late 1944, Allied intelligence was bemused to discover that the base had been converted into a self-sufficient Agricultural and fishing community, complete with education centers to teach new trade skills. By the time the war ended, they were eating ''better'' than most other Japanese units.[[/note]] Anticipating an imminent attack on its major fleet base at Truk, the IJN pulls the Combined Fleet closer to the Home Islands. This is wise, as in February 1944, a massive USN force of eight (!) aircraft carriers launches thousands of sorties on Truk over the course of several days, stopping only when nothing was left afloat, few aircraft still flyable, and no significant structures left standing. IJN leadership expected an attack but is stunned by how effortlessly their main Pacific base was reduced to ash.\\\

In the Pacific, the year 1944 is turning out very poorly for the IJN. Powerful USN amphibious forces, backed by massed carrier-borne airpower, have already wrested control of most of the Solomon Islands from them, and Japanese bases throughout the Gilbert and Marshall Islands are rapidly collapsing as the USN drives north faster than the IJN can effectively reposition its defensive lines. The major Japanese base of Rabaul has been surrounded and rendered impotent by relentless air attack from Henderson Field and constant submarine presence- [=MacArthur=] is content to starve the Japanese out in a siege rather than give their soldiers a death in battle.[[note]] In an odd twist, the men of Rabaul actually faired better than most other Japanese Garrisons. Many of the Japanese conscripts that had been brought in to build the base had been farmers or fishermen. When the base was cut off, they simply resumed their old professions. Seeing this, the base commander began to re-organize the men under his command. Some troops were used as unskilled labor to clear farmland, others were organized into a fishing brigade to keep the men supplied with protein. Eventually, they'd managed to build up enough surplus that they began trading with the locals, exchanging vegetables and the like for chickens and pigs. By late 1944, Allied intelligence was bemused to discover that the base had been converted into a self-sufficient Agricultural and fishing community, complete with education centers to teach new trade skills. By the time the war ended, they were eating ''better'' than any other Japanese unit.[[/note]] Anticipating an imminent attack on its major fleet base at Truk, the IJN pulls the Combined Fleet closer to the Home Islands. This is wise, as in February 1944, a massive USN force of eight (!) aircraft carriers launches thousands of sorties on Truk over the course of several days, stopping only when nothing was left afloat, few aircraft still flyable, and no significant structures left standing. IJN leadership expected an attack but is stunned by how effortlessly their main Pacific base was reduced to ash.\\\

In the Pacific, the year 1944 is turning out very poorly for the IJN. Powerful USN amphibious forces, backed by massed carrier-borne airpower, have already wrested control of most of the Solomon Islands from them, and Japanese bases throughout the Gilbert and Marshall Islands are rapidly collapsing as the USN drives north faster than the IJN can effectively reposition its defensive lines. The major Japanese base of Rabaul has been surrounded and rendered impotent by relentless air attack from Henderson Field and constant submarine presence- [=MacArthur=] is content to starve the Japanese out in a siege rather than give their soldiers a death in battle.[[note]] In an odd twist, the men of Rabaul actually faired better than most other Japanese Garrisons. Many of the men stationed there had been farmers before joining the military, and after they'd been cut off the troops began cultivating the land to grow their own food. By late 1944, Allied intelligence was bemused to discover that the base had been converted into, as one analyst put it, "a mostly self-sufficient Agricultural Colony". To keep the men occupied, they'd even set up education centers to teach trade skills. [[/note]] Anticipating an imminent attack on its major fleet base at Truk, the IJN pulls the Combined Fleet closer to the Home Islands. This is wise, as in February 1944, a massive USN force of eight (!) aircraft carriers launches thousands of sorties on Truk over the course of several days, stopping only when nothing was left afloat, few aircraft still flyable, and no significant structures left standing. IJN leadership expected an attack but is stunned by how effortlessly their main Pacific base was reduced to ash.\\\

With Guadalcanal collapsing, Japanese High Command decides they absolutely ''need'' to take Wau to regain the strategic initiative in the Pacific. They gather the 51st Imperial Division in Indochina and have them board eight transport ships as a reinforcement flotilla. The plan is to move the vulnerable convoy behind a bad weather front as a shield against allied aircraft. And even if the flotilla is discovered by the Allies, [[SuicideMission High Command is fully prepared to lose ''half'' of their troops just getting to New Guinea.]] About 7,000 Japanese troops escorted by a convoy of destroyers and submarines leave safe waters on February 27th. What follows is nothing short of a massacre. Allied intelligence had again broken the codes of the Japanese and detected the buildup of troops. [=MacArthur=] has his air teams outfit their bombing craft[[labelnote:*]]Which were mainly the Martin B-26 [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Marauder]] and North American B-25 Mitchell, the same plane used in the Doolittle Raid.[[/labelnote]] with no less than [[MoreDakka 8 nose mounted .50 caliber machine guns]][[labelnote:*]]And sometimes even ''[[UpToEleven more]]''. While the B-25 was a fairly adequate-performing medium strategic bomber, it found a niche role as a ground attack craft and convoy hunter; crews often painted over its glazed nose and removed the bombsight equipment, and proceeded to stuff every gun they could find into them along with a rudimentary gunsight in the cockpit to aim the things. The "G" and "H" models took this even further by replacing the entire glazed section with a solid nose designed to hold 6-8 .50 caliber machine guns, and strapping a ''[[{{BFG}} 75mm]]'' cannon into the former bombardier access tunnel, along with as much extra gun packs and ordinance as they could carry. In some cases, a fully-laden Mitchell could see itself loaded with 8 fixed .50 calibers, plus up to 4 more on external "gun packs" and then adding an extra two by having the ventral gunner rotate and lock his turret forward, for a total of ''fourteen'' .50 caliber guns '''plus''' the 75mm cannon. To call these planes gunships would be an apt statement indeed.[[/labelnote]] in preparation. The bad weather shield works for the Japanese at first, but it dissipates by March 1st and then everything gets FUBAR. The convoy is spotted by an allied scout plane and a force of bombers and PT boats descends on the ships. Even with Japanese air cover, [[KillEmAll the Allies sink every one of the transport ships and 4 of the destroyers.]] Almost 3,000 Japanese troops sink to the bottom of the ocean. The rest are fished aboard the surviving destroyers and submarines in the night. About 1,000 men make it to New Guinea but were in no condition to begin a march to Wau. The rest return to Japanese ports aboard the destroyers.\\\

In the Pacific, the year 1944 is turning out very poorly for the IJN. Powerful USN amphibious forces, backed by massed carrier-borne airpower, have already wrested control of most of the Solomon Islands from them, and Japanese bases throughout the Gilbert and Marshall Islands are rapidly collapsing as the USN drives north faster than the IJN can effectively reposition its defensive lines. The major Japanese base of Rabaul has been surrounded and rendered impotent by relentless air attack from Henderson Field and constant submarine presence- [=MacArthur=] is content to starve the Japanese out in a siege rather than give their soldiers a death in battle. Anticipating an imminent attack on its major fleet base at Truk, the IJN pulls the Combined Fleet closer to the Home Islands. This is wise, as in February 1944, a massive USN force of eight (!) aircraft carriers launches thousands of sorties on Truk over the course of several days, stopping only when nothing was left afloat, few aircraft still flyable, and no significant structures left standing. IJN leadership expected an attack but is stunned by how effortlessly their main Pacific base was reduced to ash.\\\

For the next six months, the IJN and the allies fight a brutal land, sea and air battle for the uncompleted Japanese airbase on the island of Guadalcanal. This would expand into the fight for control of the entire Solomon Islands chain, lasting until November 1943. Much of the momentum of the southern offensive is 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 Japan can ill afford to lose and lacks the resources to replace. Another issue the Japanese faced was that their armies were woefully outclassed in terms of equipment: Most Japanese soldiers sported the bolt-action Arisaka rifle, a tried-and-true but slow firing bolt-action infantry rifle with a capacity of just five rounds, fed by stripper clip. Conversely, American infantrymen had the M1 Garand, a newer and more mechanically complicated design, but capable of a much higher rate of fire and fed by an eight round en-bloc clip. Additionally, in an interesting inversion of its weaknesses on the European Front, where it struggled against the heavier-armed and armored German Tiger and Panther tanks, the Sherman tank actually enjoyed a comfortable advantage over Japanese armor, which were both too lightly armed to penetrate the Sherman from the front, and too lightly armored to deflect the Sherman's 75mm cannons.[[note]]American tank crews in the Pacific actually started requesting more High Explosive ammunition over armor-piercing ammunition, because the 75mm AP rounds would actually go ''straight through'' the Japanese tanks without disabling them[[/note]]. Even then, however, the Japanese forces on Guadalcanal continue to be a serious threat to the airfield--now named "Henderson Field" by its new owners, and surrounding forces; artillery concealed in the jungle and caves on the nearby mountainside take every opportunity to rain shells upon Henderson Field, disrupting airfield operations and generally making life hard for the occupants, and it wouldn't be until February 1943 that the Guadalcanal Campaign would be officially concluded.\\\

The jungle conditions in the Philippines prove brutal, and the Japanese troops suffer from heatstroke and various tropical diseases. Though they are in no position to capitalize on it, at one point late in the battle this causes American and Philippine forces to outnumber the Japanese two to one. The American forces are pressed back to the Bataan Peninsula, with General UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur commanding from the island fortress of Corregidor—earning him the unflattering nickname of "Dugout Doug". Roosevelt orders that [=MacArthur=], his family and staff be evacuated to Australia. The general promises "IShallReturn!" Soon after, the American forces on the Philippines surrender, and [=MacArthur=] spends most of the war working to advance towards and retake the islands where he has spent much of his career.\\\

-->-- '''Isoroku Yamamoto''', in a statement to the Japanese regarding the Japanese military's prospects of victory were they to declare war on the Allies.

-->-- '''Isoroku Yamamoto'''

But after their resounding victory at Imphal, the Allies' mechanized forces lead a mad dash to capture as many Japanese troops as possible and get to Rangoon before the monsoon season starts and bogs down the offensive for another few months. Racing from just-captured and barely-serviceable airfield to barely-serviceable and barely-secure airfield, getting virtually ''all'' their supplies by airplane because of the god-awful roads, a last-minute amphibious operation[[note]]Of the kind Jiang had been demanding, but had been refused because the transports and assault craft were needed for Operation '''Overlord'''[[/note]] takes Rangoon just days before a monsoon hits. Most of Japan's Burma force is out in the open, but the British are unable to follow up on this and push into Japanese-allied Thailand until the monsoon season ends and the floodwaters recede.\\\

To add onto this, the U.S. is still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, and morale is at an all-time low both in the military and on the home front. In April 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle comes up with a daring plan to rebuild morale and bring the fight back to the Japanese Empire: Take 24 B-25 Mitchell land-based medium bombers, load them on the carrier USS ''Hornet,'' and launch a symbolic strike of their own on the Japanese homeland. The raid, called the "Doolittle Raid" after Doolittle himself, involves stripping the bombers of everything not bolted down and not essential for flight, taking off from the ''Hornet,'' striking various targets in Japan, and landing in Chinese-held air bases for recovery. In practice, the plan goes much more roughly: To start, the sighting of a Japanese picket boat causes the planes to have to launch early, greatly reducing the range of the bombers. While the flight over the mainland goes mostly smoothly, another problem arises when it turns out many of the pre-planned Chinese airfields had been taken by the Japanese, and few of the planes had the fuel to divert to secondary airfields, resulting in a majority of the Mitchells having to crash land or their crews bail out. In the end, 3 American airmen were killed and 8 were captured by the Japanese. The damage itself had no strategic value; the planes were too few and too spread out to have a notifiable effect on the infrastructure, and Japanese propaganda mocked it, calling it the "Do-nothing Raid." However, in reality, both the Japanese public and the government had been shaken to the core, and the illusion of the Japanese home islands being impenetrable to foreign attack had been shattered completely, for the first time in ''centuries''. Due to the Americans concealing the fact that the planes had been launched from a carrier (not that the idea of strategic bombers taking off from an aircraft carrier was believable enough anyways)[[note]]Several military documents and communiques at the time referred to the takeoff point of the B-25 raiders (a.k.a. the U.S.S. ''Hornet'') as [[TheShangriLa "Shangri-La"]] in order to keep the fact that the planes were ship-launched secret, and further confound Japanese spies and codebreakers. In a humorously ironic twist, an American escort carrier built later in the war named the U.S.S. "''Shangri-La''" was used as a test platform for a navalized variant of the B-25 capable of launching from and landing on aircraft carriers, though the program was eventually cancelled since the B-25 was still too big to fit on the aircraft elevators and thus took up valuable deck space.[[/note]], the Japanese military believed the planes had come from either an American island base in the Pacific, or a Chinese airfield. This prompts the China Expeditionary Force to go on a new offensive in the hills of the 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 again forced to withdraw. The IJN, on the other hand, began making moves in the Pacific to take any American-held island base that held even a ''remote'' chance of housing strategic bombers within range of the homeland, moves that would eventually culminate in the Battle of Midway.\\\

The IJN's superiority in carrier, cruiser and destroyer tactics give them a near-unbroken string of naval victories until mid-1942, as Admiral Yamamoto [[CassandraTruth had warned would happen]]. Then, at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the USN engages two IJN carriers. Although suffering serious losses, the USN forces the IJN to turn back from Port Moresby and removes the threat to Australian–U.S. shipping lanes. This turns out to be more significant than anyone could imagine, as damage to two IJN carriers prevents their inclusion in the coming Battle of Midway while the famed American superiority in damage control enables the stricken carrier USS ''Yorktown'' to be back in action far sooner than anyone, especially the Japanese, expected. [[note]] Ironically, of the two Japanese carriers present, ''Zuikaku'' and ''Shoukaku'', only the latter sustained heavy damage, while the former would've been able to participate in the battle if the remaining air group of the ''Shoukaku'' had been absorbed into that of her sister. Unfortunately, Japanese carrier doctrine didn't allow this, so command didn't even consider the possibility. [[/note]]\\\

The "decisive battle" Yamamoto hoped for involved a complex operation to invade the island of Midway (plus some Alaskan islands the IJN thought to be more strategically significant than they really were) in June 1942, to force the USN to send its carriers to a fight to the death. But unfortunately for the IJN, American codebreakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and have a very good idea of what to expect, especially when they trick the Japanese into confirming their target. Midway thus becomes a trap for the IJN; the Japanese carriers arrive at a forewarned and heavily defended island and aren't even aware of the opposing U.S. carriers until long after the U.S. attack forces have launched. Again, the USN suffers tremendous losses, but they manage to organize a counterattack, consisting of a two-pronged strike of dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The torpedo bomber strikes are disasters; the outdated, slow TBD Devestators are fodder for Japanese fighters and AA guns, especially when they are forced to fly even ''slower'' and in straight, predictable lines while lining up for their torpedo runs against the carriers. Compounding this was the abysmal reliability of American torpedoes for the time meaning that the few Devastators that got through and managed to release could only watch as the torpedoes either missed or simply bounced harmlessly off the hulls of the carriers without doing damage. All in all, few if any critical hits were scored by American torpedoes against the Japanese carriers. Conversely, the dive bombers had much better luck: The Japanese fighters and gunners had been concentrating on the low-altitude torpedo planes, and had failed to take into account the SBD Dauntless dive bombers coming in from on high.[[note]]One Japanese survivor recounted that they had assumed, incorrectly, that they had just wiped out the American counterattack. No one even knew about the dive bombers until they heard the [[StukaScream banshee wail]] [[HellIsThatNoise of the Dauntless' dive brakes deploying]] as they rolled into their attack runs, at which point it was too late. Contrary to popular belief, however, the timing of the dive bombers arriving after the torpedo bombers was by complete ''chance.''[[/note]] The American Dauntlesses could not have arrived at a worse time for the IJN, as its next strike force was being refueled and rearmed, meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[MadeOfExplodium fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[CurbStompBattle The U.S. Navy fatally damages three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later (all would be scuttled within 24 hours), for the loss of one of their own]], in an action termed "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare" by historian John Keegan. Another blow that was dealt was not to a specific nation, but to a method of naval warfare itself: The Battle of Midway had been fought, and won, almost completely by naval and land-based aircraft, with no American or Japanese warship trading cannon fire. It served as visual proof that battleships were quickly becoming obsolete in the face of constantly-improving aviation and ordinance technology, and a clear sign that the time of the great iron monoliths lining up to exchange broadsides [[EndOfAnEra was quickly coming to an end]].\\\

For the next six months, the IJN and the allies fight a brutal land, sea and air battle for the uncompleted Japanese airbase on the island of Guadalcanal. This would expand into the fight for control of the entire Solomon Islands chain, lasting until November 1943. Much of the momentum of the southern offensive is 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 Japan can ill afford to lose and lacks the resources to replace. Another issue the Japanese faced was that their armies were woefully outclassed in terms of equipment: Most Japanese soldiers sported the bolt-action Arisaka rifle, a tried-and-true but slow firing infantry rifle with a capacity of just five rounds, fed by stripper clip. Conversely, American infantrymen had the M1 Garand, a newer and more mechanically complicated design, but capable of a much higher rate of fire and fed by an eight round en-bloc clip. Additionally, in an interesting inversion of its weaknesses on the European Front, where it struggled against the heavier-armed and armored German Tiger and Panther tanks, the Sherman tank actually enjoyed a comfortable advantage over Japanese armor, which were both too lightly armed to penetrate the Sherman from the front, and too lightly armored to deflect the Sherman's 75mm cannons.[[note]]American tank crews in the Pacific actually started requesting more High Explosive ammunition over armor-piercing ammunition, because the 75mm AP rounds would actually go ''straight through'' the Japanese tanks without disabling them[[/note]]. Even then, however, the Japanese forces on Guadalcanal continue to be a serious threat to the airfield--now named "Henderson Field" by its new owners, and surrounding forces; artillery concealed in the jungle and caves on the nearby mountainside take every opportunity to rain shells upon Henderson Field, disrupting airfield operations and generally making life hard for the occupants, and it wouldn't be until February 1943 that the Guadalcanal Campaign would be officially concluded.\\\

As the American navy approaches the Philippines and the invasion force unloads, what's left of the Imperial Navy sallies forth for one last, titanic battle against the American fleet in October 1944—the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Knowing the loss of the Philippines would cut the Home Islands off from its captured South Pacific oilfields, the plan is as much a desperate attempt to give the Americans a black eye as it is to ensure the Emperor's ships don't face the indignity of being sunk in port. With almost no veteran pilots left, the carriers are used as a decoy—the U.S. forces not knowing that the 4 carriers had very few planes on board. Meanwhile, the still-potent surface fleet, without a single plane available to provide cover, splits in two to approach the Gulf from both the South and the North. The hope being that the division of forces along with the decoy carrier force would lead the Americans to miss one of the surface fleets, which could then shell the beacheads and stop the invasion. Despite the decoy force luring away a large number of ships—most notably, Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet—and the North half of the surface fleet coming very near to its objective, in the end the majority of Japanese ships were sunk or damaged with minimal USN losses [[note]]One of the most notable confrontations being the Battle off Samar, where "Taffy 3", a bunch of escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts, successfully fought off a fleet led by the battleship ''Yamato'' (a ship that weighed more than all Taffy 3 put together), enough to make the Japanese think they were fighting the American Third Fleet, or that the Third Fleet was on its way to reinforce Taffy 3. The fight was nicknamed "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors"[[/note]]. Far more effective is the new Japanese tactic of attacking ships by deliberately crashing airplanes into them. 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 hundred-thousand strong Japanese force redeployed at the last minute from China to defend it. 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.\\\

Okinawa, however, is fairly well populated and part of the Home Islands proper [[note]]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).[[/note]] and the fighting there is marked by more [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled government-]][[FateWorseThanDeath sponsored]] [[DrivenToSuicide suicides]]—supposedly to avoid the kind of treatment that Chinese civilians might expect from Japanese troops. The actual reason is because High Command doesn't want the U.S. to score a propaganda victory by using well-treated civilians to prove their decency to noncombatants (which could erode their soldiers' will to fight). Okinawa marks the British return to the Pacific, as the end of the war in Europe allows the Royal Navy to send a task force to join the U.S. Pacific Fleet. It also marks the effective end of the Imperial Japanese Navy when the doomed and ultimately futile final sortie of the superbattleship ''Yamato'' is obliterated by overwhelming U.S. airpower.[[labelnote:*]]The plan was for ''Yamato'' to approach Okinawa, and then intentionally beach itself on the shore, essentially turning into what was termed an "unsinkable gun emplacement" which would use its firepower to be a thorn in the Americans' side until destroyed.[[/labelnote]] Since the word "Yamato" is a poetic name for the land of Japan and also its people, the ''Yamato'' had come to represent the navy and the nation. As a result, its loss symbolically became the day the Imperial Japanese Navy came to an end, even though it had already ceased to be a useful military force after Leyte Gulf.\\\

The Australians choose to solve their supply problem by drafting 16,000 native Papuan plantation workers into the war effort. Some are promised the length of their indentured servitude will be cut, or they'll receive monetary payment, [[ILied only to find these promises broken after the war.]] Others are told that the work they would be doing [[RecruitersAlwaysLie would be significantly easier than the grueling plantation work that was their daily life.]] Others are drafted at gunpoint. The porters head to supply drop zones in the jungle after Allied planes pass overhead and gather every ounce of food and ammunition they can carry. Backs bent under the strain, now comes the hard part. [[RidiculouslyDifficultRoute The Kokoda Track stretches 100 miles from end to end. It winds through dense jungles and ascends as high as 7,000 feet- roughly as high as the Appalachians. Again, there are no roads to their destination, only foot paths.]] [[WalkIntoMordor The porters take as much as they can physically carry up these tracks through the grueling heat and humidity, all the way to the front lines of a war zone, collapsing from exhaustion, hunger, and disease when they make their deliveries.]] The Australian medics at the front will write that these porters arrive in worse shape than the Australian war wounded. \\\

To add onto this, the U.S. is still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, and morale is at an all-time low both in the military and on the home front. In April 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle comes up with a daring plan to rebuild morale and bring the fight back to the Japanese Empire: Take 24 B-25 Mitchell land-based medium bombers, load them on the carrier USS ''Hornet,'' and launch a symbolic strike of their own on the Japanese homeland. The raid, called the "Doolittle Raid" after Doolittle himself, involves stripping the bombers of everything not bolted down and not essential for flight, taking off from the ''Hornet,'' striking various targets in Japan, and landing in Chinese-held air bases for recovery. In practice, the plan goes much more roughly: To start, the sighting of a Japanese picket boat causes the planes to have to launch early, greatly reducing the range of the bombers. While the flight over the mainland goes mostly smoothly, another problem arises when it turns out many of the pre-planned Chinese airfields had been taken by the Japanese, and few of the planes had the fuel to divert to secondary airfields, resulting in a majority of the Mitchells having to crash land or their crews bail out. In the end, 3 American airmen were killed and 8 were captured by the Japanese. The damage itself had no strategic value; the planes were too few and too spread out to have a notifiable effect on the infrastructure, and Japanese propaganda mocked it, calling it the "Do-nothing Raid." However, in reality, both the Japanese public and the government had been shaken to the core, and the illusion of the Japanese home islands being impenetrable to foreign attack had been shattered completely, for the first time in ''centuries''. Due to the Americans concealing the fact that the planes had been launched from a carrier (not that the idea of strategic bombers taking off from an aircraft carrier was believable enough anyways), the Japanese military believed the planes had come from either an American island base in the Pacific, or a Chinese airfield. This prompts the China Expeditionary Force to go on a new offensive in the hills of the 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 again forced to withdraw. The IJN, on the other hand, began making moves in the Pacific to take any American-held island base that held even a ''remote'' chance of housing strategic bombers within range of the homeland, moves that would eventually culminate in the Battle of Midway.\\\

Tactical success aside, [[NiceJobFixingItVillain the Navy and the Cabinet soon realize they have made a mistake]]. 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 U.S. wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire, or even using the conflict as a pretext for a war with Japan]].[[note]]Yes, the Japanese logic here was a bit fuzzy. Also, while the American business community might have been a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China, the U.S. wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake. ([[BananaRepublic At least, not at that point]].)[[/note]]In fact, their "preemptive" offensive has [[SelfFulfillingProphecy generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the American public,]] the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as [[ThisIsUnforgivable "A date which will live in infamy".]] This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported U.S. involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly antiwar public, to [[ThisMeansWardeclare war on Japan]] and bring the U.S. into the Western 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 U.S.'s strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage.[[note]]ca.30% of World GDP to Japan's ca.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. The imbalance was even greater than the simple 10:1 GDP and industrial-production statistics indicate, however, given the principle of 'economies of scale'. While Japan's ''junta'' did have ''some'' idea of their massive commercial–industrial inferiority, they convinced each other that it didn't matter because the U.S. would (quickly, if not ''immediately'') back down rather than actually fight a war against them.[[/note]] But these officers were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway.[[note]]Yamamoto had planned for the Japanese embassy to formally notify the U.S. that they were breaking off negotiations 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to avoid angering the American public too much. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time. The United States were notified 55 minutes ''after'' the attack began, making the operation (look like) a sneak attack and effectively turning what was supposed to be a polite, yet prompt cutting of ties into a proverbial spitting in the face of someone you just sucker-punched. Contrary to popular belief, neither the embassy's "declaration of the cessation of diplomatic negotiations" nor the navy's operation was a declaration of war, as an official War (with a capital W) was not something Japan's ''junta'' wanted.[[/note]]\\\

Tactical success aside, [[NiceJobFixingItVillain the Navy and the Cabinet soon realize they have made a mistake]]. 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 U.S. wasn't at all interested in helping Britain maintain her Empire, or even using the conflict as a pretext for a war with Japan]].[[note]]Yes, the Japanese logic here was a bit fuzzy. Also, while the American business community might have been a bit upset by Japan nationalising some of their assets in China, the U.S. wouldn't care to fight a huge war just for their sake. ([[BananaRepublic At least, not at that point]].)[[/note]] [[SelfFulfillingProphecy In fact, their "preemptive" offensive has generated huge outrage and calls for revenge among the American public,]] [[ThisIsUnforgivable the attack on the fleet in particular being reviled as "A date which will live in infamy".]] [[ThisMeansWar This makes it possible for President Roosevelt, who personally supported U.S. involvement in the the wider war but previously had to contend with a staunchly antiwar public, to declare war on Japan and bring the U.S. into the Western 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 U.S.'s strong isolationist lobby, not to mention its ''overwhelming'' material advantage.[[note]]ca.30% of World GDP to Japan's ca.3% and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression. The imbalance was even greater than the simple 10:1 GDP and industrial-production statistics indicate, however, given the principle of 'economies of scale'. While Japan's ''junta'' did have ''some'' idea of their massive commercial–industrial inferiority, they convinced each other that it didn't matter because the U.S. would (quickly, if not ''immediately'') back down rather than actually fight a war against them.[[/note]] But these officers were [[MyCountryRightOrWrong duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders anyway.[[note]]Yamamoto had planned for the Japanese embassy to formally notify the U.S. that they were breaking off negotiations 30 minutes before the attack commenced, to avoid angering the American public too much. However, the Japanese embassy did not decipher the code in time. The United States were notified 55 minutes ''after'' the attack began, making the operation (look like) a sneak attack and effectively turning what was supposed to be a polite, yet prompt cutting of ties into a proverbial spitting in the face of someone you just sucker-punched. Contrary to popular belief, neither the embassy's "declaration of the cessation of diplomatic negotiations" nor the navy's operation was a declaration of war, as an official War (with a capital W) was not something Japan's ''junta'' wanted.[[/note]]\\\