Days of Infamy: Invasion, Occupation, and Liberation of Hawaii (1941-1943)
- Thread starter Alterwright
- Start date
Looks like it could fit in as a kind of "eye-witness" photo to a real attack on a Japanese occupied Pearl Harbor, that's for sure.
The Hawaiian Campaign in Color: 1943
^^^ --- US Marines in action on Oahu, laying down suppressive fire on a Japanese position overlooking a road on the way to Honolulu. Fighting was just as fierce as it was in 1941-1942, with the tables turned on the Japanese as they fought in entrenched positions expertly hidden from view.
^^^ --- Life Magazine correspondent Bill Taylor took this photo of Marine PFC. George Delany taking a smoke break with his pipe after just incinerating a hidden Japanese bunker, with soldiers still burning alive inside. When the correspondent asked why he was taking a smoke break at that moment, next to the fire of a burning bunker with a flamethrower still on him, the marine said nothing, merely flashing the camera with a apathetic glare.
^^^ --- A wounded marine is assisted by another as he gives him water in the humid weather of Hawaii. Some marines succumbed to the unexpectedly harsh conditions of the fighting in Hawaii in 1943. With some still considering Hawaii a kind paradise, they were unprepared for the drastically different conditions that occupation had done to the island.
^^^ --- A marine poses with a captured Japanese heavy machine-gun. The Liberation of Hawaii was one of the first circumstances of US troops taking trophies off dead or dying Japanese soldiers. Katana, pistols, and Rising Sun flags were highly coveted. To the shock of some marines fighting on Oahu, however, they also found Japanese soldiers with trophies of their own, namely captured American weapons and Coca Cola bottles.
^^^ --- US Marines in action on Oahu, laying down suppressive fire on a Japanese position overlooking a road on the way to Honolulu. Fighting was just as fierce as it was in 1941-1942, with the tables turned on the Japanese as they fought in entrenched positions expertly hidden from view.
^^^ --- Life Magazine correspondent Bill Taylor took this photo of Marine PFC. George Delany taking a smoke break with his pipe after just incinerating a hidden Japanese bunker, with soldiers still burning alive inside. When the correspondent asked why he was taking a smoke break at that moment, next to the fire of a burning bunker with a flamethrower still on him, the marine said nothing, merely flashing the camera with a apathetic glare.
^^^ --- A wounded marine is assisted by another as he gives him water in the humid weather of Hawaii. Some marines succumbed to the unexpectedly harsh conditions of the fighting in Hawaii in 1943. With some still considering Hawaii a kind paradise, they were unprepared for the drastically different conditions that occupation had done to the island.
^^^ --- A marine poses with a captured Japanese heavy machine-gun. The Liberation of Hawaii was one of the first circumstances of US troops taking trophies off dead or dying Japanese soldiers. Katana, pistols, and Rising Sun flags were highly coveted. To the shock of some marines fighting on Oahu, however, they also found Japanese soldiers with trophies of their own, namely captured American weapons and Coca Cola bottles.
One thing about Honolulu: it would go down as the Marines' first real urban battle in their history.
And once the Central Pacific Campaign gets going, there's going to be a battle similar to OTL's Tarawa, where mistakes made in a successful invasion cost many Marines their lives. It'll happen at either Midway, Wake, Johnston, or Palmyra.
And once the Central Pacific Campaign gets going, there's going to be a battle similar to OTL's Tarawa, where mistakes made in a successful invasion cost many Marines their lives. It'll happen at either Midway, Wake, Johnston, or Palmyra.
Deleted member 2186
Doubt it will be on Midway, most likley if the Japanse have a garrison it will be visited by a lot of shore bombardments from US naval ships and attack by carrier aircraft and even land base bombers from liberated Hawaii.
That's right. Honolulu and all the other urbanized areas of Hawaii would be the Marines' first real taste of urban combat. Manila in our timeline was a first for the Marines, and that type of fighting was brutal. In this timeline, when the US eventually gets to the Philippines, they'll use that experience.
Marines didn't go to the Philippines; Ol' Dugout Doug didn't want them around. Liberation of the Philippines on the ground was an all-Army affair, even though the Aussies offered two divisions to help out. (though he did want 1st Marine Division for Korea-and got it)
What? Why? Even the Australians offered help? Why wouldn't the anyone want the Marines or the Aussies in the Philippines? Were they simply not deployed there due to other operations?
Given this is Douglas MacArthur of whom we write, it's quite possible he wanted to make it perfectly clear that this was an ARMY Victory and a US ARMY Victory at that - all the better to wipe away the fact that it was old Douglas & troops who had lost the Philippines in the first place (since MacArthur was almost certainly arrogant enough to pass up useful reinforcements based on pure symbolism).
Jeez I didn't think it would be like that! I knew MacArthur was an egoist, but I guess I didn't realized in carried over into detailed planning for who would get to got the Philippines!
I'm curious now. Did anyone in the Marines offered to be apart of the invasion of the Philippines? Did anyone there push for participation or was that just out of the question? And in fact the possible inclusion of Australians helping out in the invasion really surprises me! I had no idea the Australians offered their help, and with 30,000-50,000 to boot too.
Deleted member 2186
There is a good ALT novel out there called MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan Paperback which gives you the feeling reading it that MacArthur only thinks about MacArthur.
“General Patton once said he was ordered by God to destroy the Nazis.
When MacArthur heard this, he was confused—he had never sent any such order.”
The Aussies offered their I Corps of two divisions and an armored brigade. One plan had them landing at Aparri, Northern Luzon, and driving south through the Cagayan Valley. That would've denied Yamashita's Army a large rice-growing area, and cut his food supply considerably-reducing them to what they had taken with them or had already prepositioned.
So then who was tasked of taking this area from the Japanese on Luzon?
U.S. I Corps: 32nd, 33rd, 37th, and 43rd IDs and 158th RCT. Elements of the 11th Airborne Division dropped on Aparri on 23 June 45 and pushed south to link up with the 37th ID.