Blah Blah, Singapore holds, Blah Blah the atempt to take the DEI fails, Blah Blah, Burma, Blah Take Philippines early '43, Blah, Okinawa, Blah.
V-J Day. Japan surrenders in late 1943~ very early 1944.
The Pacific war is Over by February 1944. Liberty ships with tons of supplies start arriving in Vladivostok,
Ships, Planes, & Marines, are freed to go to the ETO.
?What effect will all this have on the ETO.? ?How much will this accelerate V-E Day?
Less than it initially appears.
The Marine formations are ill suited for the ETO, very little armor, heavy artillery, trucks, etc. (there is even a variance in uniforms since the Corps never got far enough North to need Cold Weather gear). They also have a very short logistical tail, relying almost completely for the Fleet for supplies (which makes sense, since the Corps IS part of the Navy, much as it hates to admit it). This was great in the Pacific since it allowed maximum bang for the buck, but it is a disaster in Europe. You can take the Army units in the Pacific and feed them in as replacement infantry battalions for units that have been chewed up, or even as individual replacements (which is the stupid option the Army would probably use) but if you try that with the Marines you'll have a munity; Marine rank & file believed (make that believe, present tense) to their soul that they are better than their Army counterparts. Intergrating them would be a bitch. Probably better served using the Marine formations somewhere in the Pacific than even trying to fit them into the ETO. By the time you get them requipped and trained for the ETO, it will be 1945, but the time you build up the tail it will be June of '45.
The Marines, with the amphibious experience they had COULD, especially with 3rd/5th/7th Fleets to back them up, been a very good shock unit for cracking beaches or ports, almost a seaborne paratroop unit. Marine close air support experience would have been very handy at Omaha, as long as they didn't have to go for more than a week-ten days before they were relieved by heavy units.
The Army units will be a help, by early '45 the Army was really starting to feel the "100 division" mindset that had been Marshall's guide from Day One. You would be getting a lot of combat vets, unfortunately, they would be vets in a very different kind of war. The Japanese were masters of fieldcraft and brave to the point of crazy, but the Germans, especially by late '44, are hard core professionals who rely on armor, artillery and tactics. It's sort of the difference between boxing in the Olympics and in the Pros. Guys in the Olympics are good, sometimes even great, but they are amateurs, the pros may not have the skills of the Olympic boxer, but they know how to hurt you.
Most of the AAF fighter aircraft in the Pacific were there because the ETO rejected them (P-39, P-38, P-40) as being not up to dealing with Luftwaffe. The Navy fighters were an open question, I'd imagine that the F6F & F4U would be excellent in the ground attack role (they were tough as hell and share engines with the P-47), and I would take a either of them vs. thebF-109 10 time out of 10, but they lack the range to assist in long range escort work being done by the P-51. The bombers would, of course, be very nice to have.
It would have been handy to throw an extra 700-800 fighters and dive bombers with close ground support experience at Normandy & Southern France, not to mention 12-14 more battleships, including the exceptional
Iowas, in the ground support role during the invasions.
Problem is, with the massive fleet available, the Allies might try something REALLY stupid, like a Balkan or (God forbid) Baltic invasion.
