Makin Island question?

[hzn5pk]

Question: Could the US Marine raiders and navy subs plus additional reinforcements have captured and turned Makin Island into an air base in Aug of 1942? Could this be done and still have the operations on Guadalcanal go forward as well?

The forces were 211 raiders against 71 Japanese.

If the raiders were resupplied by the subs, eliminated opposition, could the US have kept Makin Island with additional subs and or float planes bringing in reinforcements to set up anti-aircraft and establish a base?

What would be the Japanese counterstrike? Japanese would reinforce other islands, but would they try a counter strike.

What would the USA do? Would this speed up the central thrust by Nimitz by a few months?

 

[Raferty]

They could have easily taken it with the raiding force. There is no way however that it could have been kept, let alone turned into an air base.

Makin Island was in the Gilbert Islands, and it was the northern most of them, I believe. The USN did not have naval superiority in August of 1942 or anything approaching it. Midway was an important victory, but the IJN was actually worn down way more by the extended combat in the Solomons near Guadalcanal, losing most of their experienced pilots there, and even after, still maintained a formidable surface fleet. The USN in 1942 was not ready to do much more than to defend the shipping lanes to Australia and to stave off defeat. The Japanese counterattack would wipe out the American forces trying to make Makin a base.

 

[hzn5pk]

Ok, the USN has one more trick up its sleeve for the Makin Island operation. Two carriers, the USS Yorktown and USS Hornet are available to cover the operation. The USS Yorktown survives Midway without damage or is just limited to bomb hits of the first strike and does not take the torpedo hits of the Hiryu's second strike or the sub. Basically, either the flight to nowhere from the Hornet is able to switch coarse and find and hit the Hiryu or the Saratoga is able to join the battle and finds Hiryu. The decision is then made after Midway to just do more repairs on Yorktown for another couple of weeks, not to send it back to the west coast for extensive repair and overhaul. Same for the Hornet, minor refit and upgrade and it accompanies Yorktown to the fight in Makin.

So if the USA has two carrier air groups covering and support ships, would this be enough to hold Makin until an airstrip and adequate anti-air defenses can be established? It should be.

So does this speed up Nimitz's time table for the central Pacific? What is the next island to go? Is it still Tarawa or does the USN go for the Marshall's? Japan is going to reinforce, so the next island even if it is not Tarawa, the USN will receive its baptism under fire for amphibious landings.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...
So if the USA has two carrier air groups covering and support ships, would this be enough to hold Makin until an airstrip and adequate anti-air defenses can be established? It should be.

....

Have to take a look at the differences between Guadalcanal & Makin islands in terms of distance from established supporting bases. @ the former the USN had a advantage. I suspect the IJN would have the advantage in the case of Makin. Truk is a hell of a lot closer to making than the Solomon islands. I also suspect the Japanese could cover Makin with interceptor plane cover from nearby islands, something they were never able to do at Guadalcanal.