Midway First

I VERY much doubt evacuating Midway would ever be considered. Japan is just too far away to supply the ships to stay in the area. Attacking the decoy attacks or maybe trying to slip in and attack the invasion fleet might be a possibility.

It truly is a shame that the Saratoga was not finished in time to join with the other carriers IOTL.
 
The biggest problem with abandoning Midway allows the Japanese to send long range sea planes to look at what is happening at Pearl Harbor. The very idea of that plus the Japanese would have the ability to launch small scale harassment raids on Pearl would not be acceptable to the American High Command.
 
The Kido Butai probably remains an intact and effective force till sometime in mid-43, Early-44 at the absolute most, when it gets torn apart in similar odds vs the American carriers. By my math, by November 43 you've got something like seven additional Essex classes to play with, which gives the Americans something like twelve fleet carriers vs eight fleet carriers for the Japanese. Assuming they don't bring Wasp over from the Atlantic as well or bum an armored carrier off the Brits.

Of course, this does kind of assume that both sides proceed to take their entire navies into port and just wait that long.

The biggest problem with abandoning Midway allows the Japanese to send long range sea planes to look at what is happening at Pearl Harbor. The very idea of that plus the Japanese would have the ability to launch small scale harassment raids on Pearl would not be acceptable to the American High Command.

Well you wait for the Japanese fleet to head home then roll up with your five carriers and a regiment of Marines.
 
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The biggest problem with abandoning Midway allows the Japanese to send long range sea planes to look at what is happening at Pearl Harbor. The very idea of that plus the Japanese would have the ability to launch small scale harassment raids on Pearl would not be acceptable to the American High Command.

Radars on Kauai and Oahu would make any such missions fairly costly. In Operation K the Japanese were trying to slip in once for a peek. But over the course of many weeks, the cost would get too high.
 
To take and island you need battleships and cruiser along with the carriers to do the bombardment. As for one regiment they would be wading in from the outer reef under machine gun and rifle fire. Not mention the Marines built a lot of defense and in a hurried evacuation a good percentage of those defenses will be left intact. I cannot see the marines making that kind of assault with just one marine regiment. The odds are that marines would expect to take serious loses in the first attack waves. So at least one regiment to back them up would be necessary. As for recons over Hawaii, if the Japanese do the recon flights at night you will not have an easy time shooting the planes down. AAA will take out a percentage of the recon planes say on in ten and with no night fighters the job of keeping the Japanese recon plane out of the skies over Hawaii. If you add on just dropping a few bombs every now and then, bombings that Toyko Rose would report on. It is just better to hold on to the island. Check out the book Shattered Sword, it talks about the defense and what the marines had on the island were impressive for the time.
 

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To take and island you need battleships and cruiser along with the carriers to do the bombardment. As for one regiment they would be wading in from the outer reef under machine gun and rifle fire. Not mention the Marines built a lot of defense and in a hurried evacuation a good percentage of those defenses will be left intact. I cannot see the marines making that kind of assault with just one marine regiment. The odds are that marines would expect to take serious loses in the first attack waves. So at least one regiment to back them up would be necessary. As for recons over Hawaii, if the Japanese do the recon flights at night you will not have an easy time shooting the planes down. AAA will take out a percentage of the recon planes say on in ten and with no night fighters the job of keeping the Japanese recon plane out of the skies over Hawaii. If you add on just dropping a few bombs every now and then, bombings that Toyko Rose would report on. It is just better to hold on to the island. Check out the book Shattered Sword, it talks about the defense and what the marines had on the island were impressive for the time.
For the time?

They would be pretty impressive NOW.

Place was a hedge hog.
 
To tell the truth I am not sure that American could get that much firepower together in 42. Given the various other problems the Americans were facing.
 
when I first read the thread title, I thought the OP was going to ask 'WI instead of attacking Pearl Harbor, the Japanese made it's first attack an assault on Midway, with an eye to capturing it and then hoping to lure the US fleet out from Pearl to face the combined Japanese navy"... which seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of gain, I suppose... :)
 
Try I guess it could be read that way but at the time I was thinking of the operations being conducted at the time and not Pearl Harbor.
 
First, in this TL there is no Aleutians attack. In all the books i have read i have never came across any statements that Nimitz intended to do what it is said above, especially the bit about evacuating Midway. He wanted to fight at Midway because he saw the opportunity for ambush, plain and simple. Probably if he would actually evacuate Midway instead of fighting with his absolutely intact (in this TL) four carriers vs. six japanese will cost him his seat the moment King finds out. His instruction in regards to Midway were primarily not to lose the carriers, and quote "if things got rough, to let Midway fall" to conserve the carriers (if they sustained too many losses/damage), which btw shows his evaluation of Midway garrison's ability to repel the japanese invasion. On the other hand, he was also confident that Midway could have been recaptured later if this was to happen. But i do not think it would have been so simple, the USN in 1942 was not the one of 1944, Tarawa would be nothing compared to what an american invasion of Midway would have been. I know what you are going to say, this proves that the JAPANESE coudn't have taken Midway, becasue of the littany of arguments about doctrine and support and all that that imo are largely mistaken, as i pointed on several occassions. 1942 is not 1944! The main thing is the japanese do not fight like the americans, whether invading or defending they usually fight to the last. Midway could possibly be another Wake for the americans, but if they try to take it back, it would be a double or triple Tarawa for them.

But anyway, the whole point of Midway from the japanese side was to destroy the US fleet, not taking the island. If they would somehow win the naval battle (while suffering heavy losses themselves), they probably give up invading Midway, maybe just bombard it with Kurita's cruisers but not try the invasion.

On another note, one other way to actually butterfly away the Coral Sea and perhaps the Aleutians operation too is to have Kido Butai discover Somerville on the morning of 5th of April. Over one hundred japanese carrier aircraft will gun for him, most of his force will share Cornwall and Dorsetshire's fate, it will be an overwhelming victory for Kido Butai, but they would still lose two or 3 dozen aircraft to all causes, so even if they want to sent Cardiv5 to the Coral Sea they couldn't because they would need time to replenish losses.
 
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