Peleliu ditched for Iwo Jima

Commissar

Banned
As the tin says, Nimitz for whatever reason, decides MacArthur can make his own way to the Philippines and sends 1st Marine Division to grab Iwo Jima which is lightly held by 3,000 defenders, mostly IJAF personnel at this point in time.

So on September 15, 1st Marines land on and seize Iwo Jima within a few days.
 
I'm not so sure it'd be as easy as that. Besides, the lessons learned at Peleliu likely saved more Americans at Iwo Jima and Okinawa than were lost taking that island.
 
Fewer B-29 losses over Japan, Okinawa happened earlier than OTL... that's the two I can think of right now.

Marc A

P.S. It might be a bit far-fetched (I'm not a PTO buff...)
 
As the tin says, Nimitz for whatever reason, decides MacArthur can make his own way to the Philippines and sends 1st Marine Division to grab Iwo Jima which is lightly held by 3,000 defenders, mostly IJAF personnel at this point in time.

So on September 15, 1st Marines land on and seize Iwo Jima within a few days.

Why did they actually need to capture Peleliu? They could have had 2-3 subs surround it and starved it just like Truk.

And another thing when it comes to strategy, why the need to go up in the hills and flush every soldier out. Why after capturing most of Pelelius lowground and Okinawas northen part do they need to take the rest? Just build a defensive line and let the opponents starve to death
 

Commissar

Banned
Why did they actually need to capture Peleliu? They could have had 2-3 subs surround it and starved it just like Truk.

And another thing when it comes to strategy, why the need to go up in the hills and flush every soldier out. Why after capturing most of Pelelius lowground and Okinawas northen part do they need to take the rest? Just build a defensive line and let the opponents starve to death

Two words: Safe Rear
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Why did they actually need to capture Peleliu? They could have had 2-3 subs surround it and starved it just like Truk.

And another thing when it comes to strategy, why the need to go up in the hills and flush every soldier out. Why after capturing most of Pelelius lowground and Okinawas northen part do they need to take the rest? Just build a defensive line and let the opponents starve to death

Peleliu was, in retrospect, maybe the biggest mistake the U.S. made in the Pacific after December 31, 1941. Everyone agreed that the mission had been overtaken by events, but it was so far advanced that there was institutional momentum to simply be done with it. No one on the American side dreamed that it was going to be as bad as it turned out to be.

The reason for taking ALL of the island once you have landed is simple, they are islands. Peleliu was only five square miles in size, a 120mm gun could hit a target anywhere on the island for the water's edge (you could literally be in the lagoon on one side and fire at the far end and miss by overshooting the whole damned thing). So Peleliu left no option but to finish the job once it began. The situation on Okinawa was more complex, although similar. Japanese defenders could both sally out of the defenses on raids into what were effectively rear areas and do terrific damage and use artillery to harass forces far away from the MLR. There are also the continuous losses suffered by the defenders in any sort of siege warfare to consider, not to mention the fact that you would need to garrison the MLR with 15-20,000 fresh troops at all times (in trench warfare that means an available force of at least 40,000). The U.S. didn't have three divisions it could spare on a siege. There were also the continuous kamikaze attack against the supporting naval forces to be considered, forces that would have been required to remain on station to ensure the ocean side of the siege was maintained. Sieges absorb huge amounts of resources and take a very long time to be effective, not a good set of options when you are trying to end the damned war.

Once to lock up with an enemy force you kill it. (If only Bush the 1st had remembered this!).
 
Like he said, Peleliu was too small not to finish. Couldnt just leave the garrison on one end of the island like on New Britain. Biggest mistake was severe underestimation of defenders numbers. They actually outnumbered the attackers.

Problem was location. Dead center tween Marianas, Philippines, and New Guinea. Its that sore thumb that planners just hate having near the supply lines.

Bypassing it would have been the best choice, in hindsite. Taking Iwo early and easy in hindsite sounds pretty smart.
Like M A said, you save a lot of lives, the Japs dont learn as much about defensive tactics (which werent that good to begin with)
Okinawa gets taken sooner, by Marines who havent been thru the grinder twice.
Kamakazes might take a heavier toll, not sure how many AA and CAP advances wouldnt have been incorporated without a tighter timeline.

Biggest WI - what if Coronet/Olympic starts before the Bombs are ready?
 
Biggest WI - what if Coronet/Olympic starts before the Bombs are ready?

They knew the Bomb was going to show up, the Japanese were being starved out, and (IIRC) the US leaders had, aside from MacArthur, lost all inclination to actually invade by mid 1945. My feeling is that they would be more likely to follow Nimitz's strategy of taking Taiwan as another base for the B-29s. Combined with the Soviet invasion, the Japanese are going to surrender or die by 1946 anyways.
 
They knew the Bomb was going to show up, the Japanese were being starved out, and (IIRC) the US leaders had, aside from MacArthur, lost all inclination to actually invade by mid 1945. My feeling is that they would be more likely to follow Nimitz's strategy of taking Taiwan as another base for the B-29s. Combined with the Soviet invasion, the Japanese are going to surrender or die by 1946 anyways.

Supposing that the Manhattan project doesn't produce a bomb before ~1947 for whatever reason, Japan would neither have surrendered nor died before 1947. The Soviets were in no position to invade the home islands in 1945, nor would they be in such a position in the forseeable future. At that time, the United States was faced with two options--maintain a blockade for a possibly indefinite period of time against the Japanese, perhaps until they were expected to surrender in 1947, or invade with all due haste. It was a fork in the road, one-or-the-other.

Were the United States to engage in a blockade with the possibility of an invasion if Japan did not surrender, America would have to maintain a standing army and near full mobilization for two years without action. By this time remember, people are already getting weary of the war. Maintaining a 7-million man army in what's effectively peacetime will be very unpopular: a quick solution is needed. If the bomb wasn't available and an invasion wasn't launched by late 1945, it's likely Japan would have been able to negotiate a (harsh) peace.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Supposing that the Manhattan project doesn't produce a bomb before ~1947 for whatever reason, Japan would neither have surrendered nor died before 1947....

If the bomb wasn't available and an invasion wasn't launched by late 1945, it's likely Japan would have been able to negotiate a (harsh) peace.

This again? :rolleyes:

The B-29s were about to take out the Japanese rail system just after the A-bombs. Without the bombs, no more railroads. Their merchant marine is already gone. No way to move fuel or food. Millions of Japanese die in the winter of 1945-46. Maybe even tens of millions, if the Japanese don't surrender by late Spring of '46.

There would be no negotiations. And if it went on too long, there would have been no Japan, either.
 
This again? :rolleyes:

The B-29s were about to take out the Japanese rail system just after the A-bombs. Without the bombs, no more railroads. Their merchant marine is already gone. No way to move fuel or food. Millions of Japanese die in the winter of 1945-46. Maybe even tens of millions, if the Japanese don't surrender by late Spring of '46.

There would be no negotiations. And if it went on too long, there would have been no Japan, either.

I'm of course assuming that America goes ahead with its plans already on the table.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
No Bomb = Soviet Hokkaido & an extra 10 million dead Japanese civilians and God knows how many more dead Chinese civilians.

Japan was already starving in August of 1945, the data on that is beyond verified. The 8th AF was almost ready to begin missions against Japan in B-29's (8th AF fighters had already begun fighter sweeps over Kyushu) meaning that a Japanese City was going to suffer 10 square miles of burn-out EVERY NIGHT. American warships were SHELLING Japanese ports and sinking fishing sampans (not trawlers, they had been targeted for a year, sampans) and the 20th AF had just finished the most effective mining campaign ever undertaken, all of which ensured that virtually no seafood was getting to the Home Islands. The U.S. medium bomber force, fighter bombers, and carrier aircraft were all attacking anything that moved all the way down to hand-carts. Even AFTER the surrender, the Japanese harvest of 1945 was the worst on record (to the point that MacArthur demanded that Washington send "Bread or bullets" to deal with the mass starvation that was happening.

There is no way that Japan makes it to August 1946 without resorting to cannibalism. Even the IJA will be willing to surrender before it starts eating babies.

Supposing that the Manhattan project doesn't produce a bomb before ~1947 for whatever reason, Japan would neither have surrendered nor died before 1947. The Soviets were in no position to invade the home islands in 1945, nor would they be in such a position in the forseeable future. At that time, the United States was faced with two options--maintain a blockade for a possibly indefinite period of time against the Japanese, perhaps until they were expected to surrender in 1947, or invade with all due haste. It was a fork in the road, one-or-the-other.

Were the United States to engage in a blockade with the possibility of an invasion if Japan did not surrender, America would have to maintain a standing army and near full mobilization for two years without action. By this time remember, people are already getting weary of the war. Maintaining a 7-million man army in what's effectively peacetime will be very unpopular: a quick solution is needed. If the bomb wasn't available and an invasion wasn't launched by late 1945, it's likely Japan would have been able to negotiate a (harsh) peace.
 
But in this Alt Time Line, the Invasion of Japan might have been moved ahead by 3 months or more. Instead of October / Nov, we're looking at July and August.

The Invasion Planners didnt really take Japans civilian starvation into consideration. I am fairly certain they were aware of it, but I havent seen anything that makes me believe they factored it into any of their plans. They were just going to land wherever they could, as soon as they could.
If anything they were more concerned about the Russians getting a piece of Japan more than casualties on either side, right up til Intel started showing up that there were way more Jap Divisions in the landing areas than planned for.
 
But in this Alt Time Line, the Invasion of Japan might have been moved ahead by 3 months or more. Instead of October / Nov, we're looking at July and August.


That would only occur if the war in Europe ends 3 or more months sooner.

From the beginning of the planning, and that beginning began in all seriousness before Midway, the invasion of Japan depended on the redeployment of assets from the European theater. Everything from troops to planes to shipping had to be moved.

The Pacific theater simply didn't have enough of those assets to launch the invasion on it's own.
 

Cook

Banned
That would only occur if the war in Europe ends 3 or more months sooner.

From the beginning of the planning, and that beginning began in all seriousness before Midway, the invasion of Japan depended on the redeployment of assets from the European theater. Everything from troops to planes to shipping had to be moved.

The Pacific theater simply didn't have enough of those assets to launch the invasion on it's own.

Correct.

Much to the annoyance of Macarthur and Admiral King the policy for the Pacific was to hold the line while Europe was dealt with.
 

Deleted member 1487

No Bomb = Soviet Hokkaido & an extra 10 million dead Japanese civilians and God knows how many more dead Chinese civilians. /QUOTE]

I've consistently read that the Soviets did not have the lift capacity to invade any part of the home islands. Why wouldn't the US just wait for the Soviets to attacks on time historically speaking and just take the extra time to firebomb Japanese cities to ash?
 
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