Japanese Occupied Australia

Good grief Charlie Brown, all this person wants is "what would happen IF the Japanese did take Australia" and everyone wants to talk about "how it's not possible". Just answer the god-damn question or don't answer at all.

So, maybe this will help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere#The_Land_Disposal_Plan there's a section on Australia and colonization plan (obviously very preliminary) and a map of the agreement between Germany and Japan on dividing the world along the 70 degree East longitude. I don't know if Germany would actually receive southern Australia, perhaps German (and other Aryan) Australians would be allowed limited self-rule and left alone as far as "death camps" and such. But we know at the end of the day Germany and Japan will turn on each other as surely as Stalin and Hitler knew their day would come.
 
Good grief Charlie Brown, all this person wants is "what would happen IF the Japanese did take Australia" and everyone wants to talk about "how it's not possible". Just answer the god-damn question or don't answer at all.
To be in this forum, a WI must be plausible, and Japan taking Australia just isn't.
 
To be in this forum, a WI must be plausible, and Japan taking Australia just isn't.

That's not always been the case, I've seen a lot of WI's where the POD might be "handwaving" but the resultant question is reasonable and it stays. If there's a disagreement and it deserves to be in ASB then it should have been moved. But to continue to be unhelpful to someone seeking some help with an answer is just a dick move.
 
Good grief Charlie Brown, all this person wants is "what would happen IF the Japanese did take Australia" and everyone wants to talk about "how it's not possible". Just answer the god-damn question or don't answer at all..
For what its worth I agree with you.

Having said that I think why and how Japan came to occupy Australia will have a great deal of influence on what they do during the occupation.

The reasons for invading Australia are:

1) Defeat one of your enemies;
2) Deprive the Americans of a base they can use to attack the East Indies from;
3) Exploit Australia's economic resources: raw materials for Japanese industry; food and clothing for the Japanese people.

No 3 would be the most important because any scenario where the Japanese can actually mount a full-scale invasion is one where they have a much bigger economy and they would need all the raw materials they could get to feed their factories.

So, maybe this will help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere#The_Land_Disposal_Plan there's a section on Australia and colonization plan (obviously very preliminary) and a map of the agreement between Germany and Japan on dividing the world along the 70 degree East longitude. I don't know if Germany would actually receive southern Australia, perhaps German (and other Aryan) Australians would be allowed limited self-rule and left alone as far as "death camps" and such. But we know at the end of the day Germany and Japan will turn on each other as surely as Stalin and Hitler knew their day would come.
I read the Wikipaedia article and thought it was very interesting.

I think the Japanese would send even more of their own people to Australia in a timeline where they were able to invade and occupy the country. They would want somewhere to settle the overspill of their larger population. Australia might be thought better than Korea or mainland China as there were fewer unfriendly natives to deal with.
 
Fewer natives, but the natives would be more resistant, and in many cases, better armed too.

There wouldn't be many Australians left after the Japanese reprisals.

I read in one book that the Japanese killed 300,000 Chinese civilians in reprisals for the Doolittle raid.
 
The Aussies aren't wilting violets you know. They'll be restive, and many will be armed, particularly the farmers, and once you add in the fact that the terrain will be totally unfamiliar to the Japanese, and you end up with an occupiers nightmare.
 
The reasons for invading Australia are:

1) Defeat one of your enemies;
2) Deprive the Americans of a base they can use to attack the East Indies from;
3) Exploit Australia's economic resources: raw materials for Japanese industry; food and clothing for the Japanese people.

No 3 would be the most important because any scenario where the Japanese can actually mount a full-scale invasion is one where they have a much bigger economy and they would need all the raw materials they could get to feed their factories.

I read the Wikipaedia article and thought it was very interesting.

I think the Japanese would send even more of their own people to Australia in a timeline where they were able to invade and occupy the country. They would want somewhere to settle the overspill of their larger population. Australia might be thought better than Korea or mainland China as there were fewer unfriendly natives to deal with.
On the other hand Australia was half way across the Pacific, with the U.S. on its flank, that would make it very vulnerable to isolation, as well as making shipping costs higher. Whereas China was right next door, and nearly as importantly, already had a Japanese army in place.
The Australians much like New Zealand ate a very different diet frorm the Japanese, and much of Australia was very barren, not exactly suited for growing rice, or even the sort of rice Japanese actually liked. Whereas China................ and they had a population which was skilled in growing rice.
Australia's economy was based largely on sheep dairy and wheat. Contrary to what you may have heard the Japanese did not eat a lot of mutton Cheese and butter.
As for raw materials, with the exception of Coal and Zinc Australia largely didn't produce any.
So to answer Napoleonrules, the reason I didn't answer the original question. is because I think what would happen if the Japanese conquered Australia, is that they would eventually wake up, realise it had been a silly waste of time, and bugger off back to the Japanese Empire.
 
Good grief Charlie Brown, all this person wants is "what would happen IF the Japanese did take Australia" and everyone wants to talk about "how it's not possible". Just answer the god-damn question or don't answer at all.

So, if someone comes in here and asks "What if Hitler gay-marries Stalin?" we should humor them instead of explaining why their scenario is invalid?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
As pointed out, unless this is a vastly different world up to 1941-42

Hey, guys.
Disregarding how it came to be, what would live be like for Australians under Japanese occupation? I have read a while ago, that enslavement and extermination was planned for both Australia and New Zealand, but also, that Germany wanted South Australia and Tasmania to be left for German-Australians.

What would life be like in SA and TAS? Would Germany appoint a German leader to send to Govern these areas, or would a local be incharge?

Again, I don't want answers like, "ASB, they wouldn't invade". We're by passing how they invaded, and we're looking at occupied Australia.

Cheers, Fat. (Also, please don't take offence to my name)

As pointed out, unless this is a vastly different world up to 1941-42, it's not going to happen.


By the spring of 1942 (historically), Allied forces in Australia proper amounted to:
  • US 32nd and 41st infantry divisions, plus various separate brigades, regiments, battalions, etc.
  • Australian 6th and 7th AIF divisions; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th AMF divisions; the 1st and 2nd AMF cavalry divisions; the AIF 1st Armoured Division (essentially a motorized cavalry and training formation, but with increasing numbers of modern tanks, both US M3 lights and M3 mediums that were heavier than anything the IJN could get to Australia); various and sundry separate brigades, regiments, battalions, etc for port and AA defense; the VDC (basically a part-time home guard) of some 50,000 men, the vast majority of whom were WW I veterans, so quite capable of facility security, coastwatcher, and similar roles;
  • the USAAF's 5th Air Force, with a cadre of the bombardment and pursuit groups that had fought in the PI and NEI, plus additional units that came straight to Australia from the US, and the remainder of the USN's Patwing 10, from the Asiatic Fleet - the units that got out of the PI, USN and USAAF, were all being refilled with personnel from the US and reequipped with modern aircraft;
  • the RAAF, which had multiple training and second-line security and ASW squadrons in Australia even before the war broke out in 1941, and which was organizing combat squadrons as quickly as the equipment - Tomahawks, Hudsons, and Catalinas - could be readied as it came in from the US;
  • the Southwest Pacific naval forces, including the RAN, the USN (reorganizing around the cadre of the Asiatic Fleet, including the submarine forces), the RNN's survivors, etc.
Remember the sum total of the expeditionary forces the Japanese organized for the initial offensive in 1941-42 amounted to less than 12 IJA divisions, of which no more than 4.5 were ever afloat at the same time, and you have an idea of the correlation of forces between the IJA's best effort and the realities of the Allied forces in Australia by the time the IJN could even have contemplated an operation...

An considering the Japanese gave up on an amphibious operation against Papua after Coral Sea in May, and couldn't even muster enough force to take Milne Bay from the grand total of two infantry brigades and two fighter squadrons there when they attacked in August, and the realities intrude.

If the Japanese had really wanted to plant their flag in Australia for whatever reason, they might have been able to occupy the Darwin area, in the NT, early in 1942, but that would have precluded something else - Rabaul, probably, or NE New Guinea.

And then they starve there in the face of the Allied air and seapower available in the theater by the summer.

Sometime in the fall, the Australians stage an overland assault with the I Corps (6th and 7th divisions, plus an armoured brigade) and drive the IJA force - a brigade, maybe - into the sea.

Best,
 
So if a lodgement occurred the massing Australian and US forces wouldn't really allow an occupation routine to develop. That drives both Japanese behaviour as well as the locals, the Japanese are probably very brutal and the locals fight back knowing that the military is on the way a bit like the risings in Occupied Europe as the WAllied invasion loomed.
 
On the other hand Australia was half way across the Pacific, with the U.S. on its flank, that would make it very vulnerable to isolation, as well as making shipping costs higher. Whereas China was right next door, and nearly as importantly, already had a Japanese army in place.
The Australians much like New Zealand ate a very different diet frorm the Japanese, and much of Australia was very barren, not exactly suited for growing rice, or even the sort of rice Japanese actually liked. Whereas China................ and they had a population which was skilled in growing rice.
Australia's economy was based largely on sheep dairy and wheat. Contrary to what you may have heard the Japanese did not eat a lot of mutton Cheese and butter.
As for raw materials, with the exception of Coal and Zinc Australia largely didn't produce any.
So to answer Napoleonrules, the reason I didn't answer the original question. is because I think what would happen if the Japanese conquered Australia, is that they would eventually wake up, realise it had been a silly waste of time, and bugger off back to the Japanese Empire.

I wrote that in the context of a Japan that had more manufacturing industry and a larger merchant marine plus a bigger population. If it was on the 10-fold scale suggested by MattII they wouldn't have stopped at Australia. They would have taken Ceylon, Madagascar, Aden and gone into the Persian Gulf because with an economy that big they would have needed the middle eastern oil. In the Pacific they would have followed up Midway with an invasion of Hawaii. Then they would have occupied all the south pacific islands and New Zealand.

I admit that it sounds far fetched. A 10-fold increase in the size of the Japanese economy and a 50% increase in the population of Japan in 1941 (i.e. the economy and population Japan had by the 1980s) is ASB territory with a 1900 POD. But with those resources the entire Indian and Pacific Oceans are within Japan's grasp.
 
Hey, guys.
Disregarding how it came to be, what would live be like for Australians under Japanese occupation? I have read a while ago, that enslavement and extermination was planned for both Australia and New Zealand, but also, that Germany wanted South Australia and Tasmania to be left for German-Australians.

What would life be like in SA and TAS? Would Germany appoint a German leader to send to Govern these areas, or would a local be incharge?

Again, I don't want answers like, "ASB, they wouldn't invade". We're by passing how they invaded, and we're looking at occupied Australia.

Cheers, Fat. (Also, please don't take offence to my name)


The problem is that any occupation force will be quickly decimated by the Drop Bears of which outsiders have little or no knowledge

Then it is a simple job of mopping up the survivors
 
So if a lodgement occurred the massing Australian and US forces wouldn't really allow an occupation routine to develop. That drives both Japanese behaviour as well as the locals, the Japanese are probably very brutal and the locals fight back knowing that the military is on the way a bit like the risings in Occupied Europe as the WAllied invasion loomed.

I agree

Surely any such invasion would result in the better AID and NZ units (mostly from North Africa) returning to the theatre - (probably with some commonwealth freinds in tow and a USMC Division or 2) - the Premier AID and NZ formations were arguably among the best soldiers in the world at the time and by the standards of the day very well equipped - particularly in artillery and transport etc

The OP Handwaving the hows and whys of an invasion won't fly on this forum - invading Oz might work on HoI3 (a game I do enjoy - but then I have sucessfully invaded the UK when playing Germany) when playing against the AI but the reality is slightly different.
 
To try and answer the original question with some doses of reality - the Japanese take Darwin and some surrounding territory early on, and get New Guinea with a successful Coral Sea battle. If I recall correctly there was some evacuation of civilians from Darwin, and I assume there would be more if invasion was truly seen as imminent. I would expect the treatment of the Australians who were caught behind Japanese lines to be quite unpleasant. The men would be drafted for slave labor, at least some women "volunteered" for duty as comfort women, crap rations for all whites and so forth. To the extent that any folks living in rural areas sabotaged or otherwise upset the Japanese, there would be brutal reprisals. The Japanese might attack more isolated outback stations from the air, the RAAF and USAAF could do little about this, and all the civilian firearms in the world won't help. I envisage a "belt" of destruction around Japanese held territory where bush rangers could live but little else.

When the Allies take back the Japanese held areas, there will be the usual fight to the death/destroy everything reaction on the part of the Japanese. This will result in the deaths of a lot of the surviving Australians, either being caught in the middle or deliberate execution or use as shields (see the Japanese actions in Manila as an example). Between worked to death, executed in reprisal, starved, killed at the end the bulk of the Australians in the occupied zone will not survive.

Now, in the ASB situation where Japan and Germany win, and Japan now "owns" Australia I don't see the Japanese setting up death camps. Early on between fighting, reprisals, and so forth, there will be a lot of ugliness. Once things settle down white Australians, like whites/non-Japanese everywhere, will be second class citizens at best. Australia and Australians will be economically exploited and as more Japanese immigrate will be even more "second class". As far as the aborigines go, to the extent they stay out of the way in the middle of nowhere, good for them. Given how primitive they would seem to the Japanese, their status would not be good - here turning natives against the whites (like in PI, Indochina, DEI) really has no potential.
 
Darwin is a dead-end occupation, like the Channel Islands were for Germany. Sure it's technically on their soil, but its connection with the rest of the country is rather tenuous, consisting of pretty much only bush tracks.

As for seeming primitive, maybe, but they have a pretty good industrial base.
 
Good grief Charlie Brown, all this person wants is "what would happen IF the Japanese did take Australia" and everyone wants to talk about "how it's not possible". Just answer the god-damn question or don't answer at all.

....

Amen

While plausibility answers can be useful the endless niggling, often over irrelevant historical points, or based on errors, are annoying and often derail a potentially useful thread.
 
Except that as so often is the case, the details of how it came to be are necessary to decide what actually happens next.
 
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