Did US forces in philippines in 1941 have meaningful offensive capability?

[raharris1973]

Samuel Eliot Morison and later political scientist John Mueller have
made the argument that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, although
intended to guard the flank of the southward advance into the East
Indies and Malaya,was actually superfluous to that campaign (and the
battle for the Philippines) because the US Pacific fleet units at
Pearl were not in shape to intervene effectively in western Pacific
waters. *They further argue that even if the US had the freedom of
action to try to send the Pacific fleet to Asia after December 8th,
the chances of major fleet and crew losses in deep waters in the areas
of the Japanese mandates were high, and the chances of of successfully
preventing Japanese conquests of the Indies and Malaya (and
Philippines) by such a desperate intervention were *nil*.
The thing that Mueller and Morison both left out of their analyses was
what US forces in the Philippines were capable of doing in Southeast
Asia.
The US had growing ground and air forces in the Philippines, and the
Asiatic Fleet in its waters. *The platforms there were generally
inferior in quantity and quality to those available in Hawaii and
CONUS (except for some bomber aircraft), but they were all positioned
much closer to the scene of Japanese fighting with the British and
Dutch than the forces at Pearl.
Supposing the Japanese attack the British and Dutch throughout
Southeast Asia by December 8th, 1941, while leaving US territories and
assets alone, and add some of the forces they actually allocated to
the Pearl and Philippines attacks to strengthen the Indies, Malaya and
New Guinea attacks, what risks would this have imposed on the Japanese
in the *near* term, like through March-April 1942?
Further supposing that the Americans make the political decision to
declare war within a week of 8 December, begin providing immediate
covert support and are willing to use all available forces in any
operations no matter how high the risk to aid the British and Dutch
and oppose the Japanese from say the 18th of December onward, could
they make themselves into a critical threat to Japanese operations, or
just a mere annoyance?
To sketch it out further, let's assume that from the 9th of December,
the US command in the Far East begins full intelligence sharing with
the British and Dutch, and permits their units to take refuge in
Philippine terrritory and waters if it becomes tactically necessary
and proper? *Further, US fleet units that may happen to be in British
and Dutch Southeast Asian ports do not retreat from the combat zones
and fire on the Japanese if fired upon. *Finally, in the most
aggressive initial policy, from the 8th through the 18th, US submarine
commanders are authorized to attack Japanese vessels from submerged
positions where there is plausible deniability and this can be
attributed to British submarines.
After 18 December, open participation by fleet and air units is
authorized.
If under these circumstances, the Japanese stay focused on their
territorial and force-on-force objectives against the British and
Dutch, do not escalate against the Americans and only fire on American
units that fire on them in the middle of combat zones outside US held
territory (ie, the Philippines and Guam), at least through the rest of
December, would Japanese progress in occupying the Indies, Malaya and
Singapore *have been any less than in real life?
I say no. *If the Japanese remained sanguine about flank threats their
conquest of the British and Dutch empires in Southeast Asia would have
remained on the historical schedule or ahead of it. *The main
difficulty they would face longer term would simply be that when the
Japanese turn to deal with the Americans in the Philippines, the
Philippines can be defended for longer. *However, *effective* use of
U.S. assets from east of the international dateline to help the
Philippines before May 1942 would be impossible, and such forces even
for the remainder of 1942, or through the fall at least, would *be at
most an irritant rather than a decisive block to Japanese forces in
the Philippines, and could achieve this irritating effect, only at
high risk to themselves.

*

[raharris1973]

http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/is1991-2.pdf

Mueller also quotes Samuel eliot Morison to boost his case

[KyleB]

Seriously though, the Japanese couldn't afford to leave the Americans alone. The aircraft in the Philippines and the navy at Pearl were very strong on paper. The war was going to happen anyway, so the Japanese did the semi-rational thing by hitting the US with a preemptive strike.

[jony663]

The American submarines were not capable of anything but close inshore patrols. The S Boats were almost as dangerous to there crews than to the enemy.

[CalBear]

Uh, no, they weren't. In point of fact they served throughout the War and gave very good service. In the war's first year the S-boats WERE the U.S. Submarine force, fighting in deplorable conditions, with insufficient support, and in constant danger.

They achieved numerous kills (48 in total), and as the far longer range and more modern fleet boats came into service in the Pacific were sent off to the Aleutians where they served as the main U.S. offensive force until late 1943.

It should also be noted that, unlike their far more modern sisters, the S Boats Mk 10 torpedo actually worked as advertized.

[Cook]

Originally Posted by raharris1973

Samuel Eliot Morison and later political scientist John Mueller have made the argument that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, although intended to guard the flank of the southward advance into the East Indies and Malaya,was actually superfluous to that campaign (and the battle for the Philippines) because the US Pacific fleet units at Pearl were not in shape to intervene effectively in western Pacific waters.

Morrison and Mueller overlook the fact that the principal targets of the attack on Pearl Harbour were the US aircraft carriers Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga. Enterprise was delivering aircraft to Wake Island and returned to Pearl on the afternoon of December 7th, Lexington was conducting a similar mission to Midway Island and the Saratoga was on the West Coast of the United States undergoing an overhaul. Had the Enterprise and Lexington (or worse, all three) been in port they’d have been destroyed and the Pacific War would have been considerably harder for the allies.

An attack on the Southern Resource Area without attacking Pearl Harbour risked having the American’s challenging the forces attacking Malaya, The Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies.

[Comablack]

Even if everything goes perfectly there still completely hosed in 43 when new construction roll's of the slipways. Unless of course you actually believe the IJN is capable of sending the Kido Butai around the S. America to hit all those nice shipyards in the Gulf and East coast. They truly have no way of interfering with the production capacity of the US in any significant way,

As for the capacity of the US forces in the Philippines to conduct offensive ops, Even pinprick attacks by DD/CL groups in a raider role combined with the S boats in choke points and B-17's bombing IJN/IJA bases has the capacity to severely shortstop Japanese trade thru the Philippine Sea and the surrounding waters.

[raharris1973]

Block quote from Herbert Feis article on pre-Pearl Harbor commitment to counter Japanese attacks on British and Dutch as well as American possessions in Southeast Asia, with attached map:

On November 5 [1941], the same day that the Japanese government decided to go to war if its final proposals (A or B) were rejected, Stark and Marshall (with Chiang Kai-shek’s appeal before them) summed up of their judgment of the line to be held. Their memorandum to the President advised that:
(a) …language on the priority of Germany first….
(b) War between the United States and Japan should be avoid while building up defensive forces in the Far East, until such time as Japan attacks or directly threatens territories whose security to the United States is of very great importance. Military action against Japan should be undertaken only in one or more of the following contingencies: (1) A direct act of war by Japanese armed forces against the territory or mandated territory of the United States, the British Commonwealth, or the Netherlands E ast Indies; (2)The movement of Japanese armed forces into Thailand west of 1000 east, or South of 100 North; or into Portuguese Timor, New Caledonia, or the Loyalty Islands.
(d) Considering world strategy, a Japanese advance against Kunming, into Thailand except as previously indicated, or an attack on Russia would not justify intervention by the United States against Japan
The President followed this traced line…
On this next day, November 7, the President asked the Cabinet for advice. …[T]he cohesion between our own activities in that [Southwest Pacific] area was noted with satisfaction…The President took a poll, asking whether the people would back the government up if it struck at Japan in case it attacked English or Dutch territories in the Pacific. All the Cabinet was of the opinion that it would. It was agreed that speeches should be made to acquaint the country with the situation.
footnotes
1 The thought was that any movement of this kind would be a plan to go into the Gulf of Siam, on the way to attack the Malay-Kra Peninsula
2 Stimson diary entry for November 7, written statement by Hull in Pearl Harbor Attack

See also, historian's journal article arguing the US had made a secret commitment to backstop the British and Dutch Empires as early as autumn 1940, and that this was communicated to the Japanese that year.

The Origin of FDR's Promise to Support Britain Militarily in the Far East: A New Look
Author(s): Frederick W. Marks, III
Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 447-462

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3639415

[jony663]

Originally Posted by CalBear

They achieved numerous kills (48 in total), and as the far longer range and more modern fleet boats came into service in the Pacific were sent off to the Aleutians where they served as the main U.S. offensive force until.

I would like to know were you found this number of kills. The US Navy used them as training boats as quickly as possible.

They could of been useful in PI if they were off the right beaches, but they were not offensive weapons.

[Gridley]

Originally Posted by jony663

I would like to know were you found this number of kills. The US Navy used them as training boats as quickly as possible.

They could of been useful in PI if they were off the right beaches, but they were not offensive weapons.

OK, I think we need to get more specific.

On 12/7/41 the US Asiatic Fleet had SubRon 20 with 29 boats. These would be the ones available for immediate operations around the PI.

By hull number these were:

SS-141 to -146 "S-1" class
SS-172 to -178 "Porpoise" class
SS-182 to -197 "Salmon" and "Sargo" classes.

The S-1's were small, old (built in the early 1920's) and were basically just as your describe.

The Porpoise class were built in the mid 1930's and were much better boats, though still not great.

The Salmons and Sargos, however, were new boats - late 1930s, and continued in fleet service through the end of the war. USS Seawolf was an ace boat with 18 credited kills when she was lost to friendly fire. USS Swordfish was lost on a war patrol in early 1945. They were definitely effective offensive weapons.

[Snake Featherston]

They had neither meaningful offensive nor defensive capability, the build-up that was ongoing was to be completed sometime around the summer of 1942. The Japanese timed the assault perfectly and that timing was aided by the mistakes of Dugout Doug.

[sloreck]

US bombers in the PI could be effective for a while against Japanese facilities on Formosa - not war winning but could inflict losses that would be a nuisance.US subs and lighter naval forces could serious disrupt the flow of raw materials (oil, etc) from conquered British/Dutch SEA colonies as well as rice from Indochina. All shipping from the "southern resource area" had to pass close by the PI, even PT boats could have been used against convoys/merchant ships. This reality of shipping lanes is why the Japanese had to take the PI to protect raw materials coming from Dutch East Indies, Borneo, Malaya - the PI in & of themselves did not matter.

Even if America let Japan take British & Dutch colonies, as long as the US had the PI they could choke off supplies whenever they wanted to - so the PI had to go. Of course, this meant war with the US & the US fleet which logically led to Pearl Harbor. After the complete oil embargo by the US (and UK & Netherlands) of August 1941, the Japanese either had to end the war in China or seize resources to continue that war - they chose poorly.

The vulnerability of the maritime supply lines from the "southern resource area" to Japan was amply demonstarted OTL by the US submarine campaign's effectiveness once proper tactics and torpedoes had been implemented - in essence "stuff" accumulated in the captured territories but could not be brought to Japan which was starving industrially and literally.