Hawaiian Statehood 1940

An idle thought just struck me, what it Hawaii became a state before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?

I don't think it'd stop the attack but I wonder how the American public would react to it happening to a state rather than a territory?
 
I can't imagine Americans reacting much more aggressively than they did. Territory or State, Hawaii was US soil and everybody killed was a US citizen.

Now, it the Japanese had been able to follow up with an invasion and occupation of the Islands, this might be different. It's one thing for an enemy to wrest a non-voting territory from us, quite another to occupy a one of the 50 (49?) States. Assuming the Japanese followed their typical brutal practices in administering the island, there would be hell to pay when we got back at the Home Islands. Two nukes might not be enough.
 
It's one thing for an enemy to wrest a non-voting territory from us, quite another to occupy a one of the 50 (49?) States.

That would be 48. Hawaii would be the 49th state.

An interesting thing domestically would be that Hawaii could not be governed under martial law, which it was for most of the war.
 
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