Could ABDA powers have preemptively fortified Rabaul,Guadalcanal, New Guinea or Sumatra b4 12/7/41?

Could ABDA powers have preemptively fortified Rabaul, Guadalcanal, New Guinea or Sumatra b4 12/7/41?


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What a interesting thread!

First things first;

I'd argue that politics of coalition cooperation at this time, despite lack of any stated commitments or alliances from the United States, were such that U.S. forces being on British or Australian territory in the South Pacific is not politically impossible. British forces stationing in terrain in Sumatra, or Australians in the Dutch part of New Guinea should not be impossible either [I don't know if there were any good ports on the Dutch side of New Guinea].

I have been doing lots of research these past six months for a thread I want to do and yes there were reinforcements that could have been sent to Rabaul, Ambon, and Timor. The Australian had the brigades to defend these three places, it just that Australia in 1941 still depended on England to send a fleet, which was difficult to send since the British fleet was in two theaters at war, Mediterranean and Atlantic.

So where are the reinforcements? I'll explain. In 1941 the Australian could have build six more brigades up and could have train them to do home protection, releasing 4 brigades to be station at the three places I have mention plus sending another brigade to Singapore. This are the four brigades that could have been sent: the 28th Brigade could have been sent to Timor, the 29th Brigade to Rabaul which also would have the 11th Field Company R.A.E., and the 30th Brigade to Ambon. The 8 infantry division (Australian) would have all three brigades and its field artillery regiments. Also another brigade could have been sent to Singapore, the 5th Brigade. Now the 28th, 29th, and 30th brigades would each have a field artillery batteries to support them.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, there were other reinforcements that could have been sent to Singapore. Where? Easy Canada and New Zealand. Canada wanted to see its troops in action and not in protection duty in England. If the British had ask Canada to send a brigade to Singapore in early 1941, a good brigade could have been sent. In my research I found out that tanks and planes could have been sent if the government had force to build the twice of tanks and planes for both Canada and Russia but I am not going to write on it since its not propitiate for this thread.

Now if ABDA had started to train in early 1941 with its ships, by the time war came they would have been ready. Also in my opinion sending the destroyer tender and a submarine tender to Singapore and getting its refits there would have helped out the Asiatic fleet. The floating dry dock USS Dewey could have also been sent to Singapore with a seaplane tender. By the latest August all this could have helped out not only the Asiatic fleet but also the Dutch, Australian, British, Canadian, and also New Zealanders.
 
Also forgot to mention this New Zealand could have sent the 8th Brigade with the 3rd field artillery regiment and the Maori Pioneer Battalion to Singapore.
 
Basically I'm trying to figure out if there's an optimal way to position forces so they can do something towards defense and deterrence without being as exposed as the scattered ABDA forces were in OTL but at the same time minimize the numbers lost as PoWs.

A useful exercise. Trick is a number of key leaders need to be changed too. A lot of really bad decisions were made by key Allied leaders & those waste away the substantial forces that were in place.
 
Sending them to 5 indefensible spots to be sacrificed rather than concentrating them at one location in the Pacific where the Japanese never projected more than 5k troops at a time was foolish and a waste of manpower. 10k+ partially trained Australians would have been capable of fighting off 5k Japanese in Rabual which would have stopped the IJ advance down the Solomon Islands as well as toward New Guinea cold.[/QUOTE]

Sending them all toone place would result in the entire force being wiped out as support and evacuation was impossible on such a scale at short notice, besides atracting unwanted attention at the same time. The IJN could and would still commit its Original forces in the region, inlcuding the 144th Infantry Regiment,as well as a few platoons from the 55th Cavalry Regiment, a battalion from the 55th Mountain Artillery Regiment and a company from the 55th Engineer Regiment of the IJA werer committed in the OTL attack, which was more than enough to both chase the not battlefit Aussies away and eventually hunt them down to the last man.
 
New Guinea and Guadalcanal are highly unlikely to receive any kind of reinforcement even if such are available. Half of New Guinea is Dutch, and compared to the rest of the DEI it is of minor importance. If you are going to strengthen anything in the Solomon Islands it would be Tulagi, the actual seat of British government (and a useful anchorage) but nothing else pre war would have been considered to have value.

Infantry would help at Rabaul but what are needed are at least a couple of battalions of anti aircraft guns, at least a few sea coast guns, and a lot more aircraft (and modern ones) as well as some minefields, support ships and the like.
None of which are likely to be available.

Sumatra, particularly northern Sumatra (which is reasonably proximate to India) has some possibilities, especially as a stronger air presence could cause some problems for the Japanese push in Malaya and Burma. Question is where do the aircraft come from?
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
If you are going to strengthen anything in the Solomon Islands it would be Tulagi, the actual seat of British government (and a useful anchorage)

Did it have the space to host a large amount of aircraft on multiple airfields however? If it is reinforced, but the Japanese take Guadalcanal and are not immediately countered, Tulagi can probably be put under a bad air siege.
 
Did it have the space to host a large amount of aircraft on multiple airfields however? If it is reinforced, but the Japanese take Guadalcanal and are not immediately countered, Tulagi can probably be put under a bad air siege.

It has no room for airfields, which is why the Allies would have to build one where Henderson Field ended up in OTL. However Tulagi and Gavatu are ideal seaplane base locations (which is why Gavatu had one)
 
I have no idea how many islands we are covering in this area, must be hundreds. Only some are of strategic value, due to good harbours, airstrips and some supporting dockyard facilities. Others are strategic due to resources ie Oil, and thirdly due to their position, ie controlling a sea lane bottleneck. But the primary thing is they are Islands. No matter how well you fortify one, it has to be supplied by ship, and here's the rub, you have to control the seas!.

So any land forces are really only there to provide local security to the port, airfield or what ever. Land based aircraft with a ship killing potency become very important, but you still need a naval presence. Look at the Australian 23rd Brigade, and it was used correctly, as local security to ports and airfields. What was lacking was good ship killing aircraft and/or naval forces.

Any reinforcement has to be about providing naval forces and /or enough ship killing aircraft. And to give an indication of numbers of aircraft required, the Japanese 22nd Air Flotilla fielded about 90 aircraft, but was reinforced by another 45-50. Force Z, was a small fleet of 6 ships, many Japanese invasion forces were 30 odd ships. one squadron of 12 aircraft don't do it, see RAAF 13 Sqn.
 
That's kind of my idea with this thread. New Guinea (the whole island) seems like a good ultimate fallback position for US, Australians and maybe even some Dutch, and a later springboard for counteroffensive.
To me the island of New Guinea seems like a place bigger than Texas but consisting of either swamp or huge f-off mountains, blanketed in impenetrable tropical vegetation, and rife with horrendous diseases. As a bonus it had zero infrastructure, was virtually unpopulated, and most of the few inhabitants were not fully engaged with the 20th century.

As ultimate fallback positions or springboards go it's better than Alaska or Antarctica, but mainly by virtue of being closer to the action.
 
As others have said most of those islands are too big to be fortified, but what would be the impact of a few designated strong points being set up on those islands? Looking on a topographic map that central mountain range of New Guinea is seemingly begging to be used the way the Taliban used the White Mountains.
 
To me the island of New Guinea seems like a place bigger than Texas but consisting of either swamp or huge f-off mountains, blanketed in impenetrable tropical vegetation, and rife with horrendous diseases. As a bonus it had zero infrastructure, was virtually unpopulated, and most of the few inhabitants were not fully engaged with the 20th century.

As ultimate fallback positions or springboards go it's better than Alaska or Antarctica, but mainly by virtue of being closer to the action.

Most of the histories covering the fighting in the South Pacific make it extremely clear that no one really planned to do much of it there. However both sides found out that the enemy too has his plans.
 
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