Supreme commander in Asia - with real authority

ivanotter

All,

Interesting to see the opinions about SHAEF and Ike as supreme commander.

If we look at the Pacific war, we do see a different picture, I believe.

USN with King/Nimitz focused on fighting across the Pacific to Japan.

MacArthur (US Army) island hopping.

It seems to me that the reason for those two commands was political. The saving grace was perhaps that the US could afford to have two competing thrusts. The resources were there and going in to ’44 it was clear that the war could and would be won.

Now it was a matter of political consideration and thinking beyond the defeat of Japan.

Then we have the British efforts in Burma – with Lord Mountbatten as supreme commander. Stillwell as deputy and the Chinese question un-resolved. The US obsession with China is hard to understand.

It also looks to me as though Brooke et al were not really interested in Asia at all. Surely Germany first was not a bad idea but could there have been a middle-ground?

Here is the idea: Could there have been a supreme commander in Asia who actually had authority over the entire war against Japan?

If so, did it have to be US Navy? If it had to be US army it would have been MacArthur, but that would spell disaster I think

Any thoughts on that?
 

TDM

The problem is it's not just the negatives of service rivalry and politics that dictated the split in the Pacific.

The scale of the area in question and the fact that it really was two* separate** prongs that involved the navy at every level and in ways that the invasion of NWEurope really didn't. Conversely the war in Europe was in terms of wallie forces in an area is just more concentrated and inherently based around ground forces with air support. and the 2nd big service in play the air force still doing their own pretty separate strategic campaigns as well

So I think the war in Europe is just more suited to a single unified (single service) command than the war in Asia/pacific

On the compromising on Germany first, I think the attitude was more that not only was Germany the greater opponent, but that the nature of Japan and the Asian theatre meant the situation was kind of more static in the areas they could directly effect anyway. Also it was more a matter of force composition than priorities. Unless you are actually landing on the Japanese home islands you don't need an ground army invasion force anywhere near the scale of D-Day anywhere in the Pacific, and equally you don't need naval assets that can project force over umpteen 100,000 KmSq in Europe. (the war in the Atlantic war is largely separate, and then frankly pretty much over)


*and if you look at Burma it's kind of three as Port Morseby to Mandalay is 6500+ KM

**even if they do impact on each other, destroyed Japanese ships can't help in either one
 
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GuildedAgeNostalgia

If you created several more marine divisions, would you even need the US army in the Pacific (at least for the Central Pacific)?

And if Macarthur was killed/captured in the Phillipines, would there have been less political push for a army campaign through the Solomons, New Guinea, and the Phillipines?

And did the Australians have a good relationship with the US Navy?

I don't think that Burma or China would ever fall under it's command but I think you could see an American admiral as supreme Allied Commander in the entire Pacific if you find a way to take the army out of the offensive equation.
 

Paul_Sussex

Given the geographical scale, would a better comparison for the Pacific war (in terms of a joint command) be to look at the Eastern and Western Fronts?
 

ivanotter

All good comments.

It probably does not make it any easier that the navy had its own 'army' - USMC - and that MacArthur had his own 'navy'.

... and both had their own air force.

Interesting to see that if MacArthur is out of the picture (either killed on the PI or POW) the island hopping might not have happened. If that is so, it shows that Mac's campaign was to pacify him from a political perspective.

Rescuing Australia etc would be a part of the bigger picture, but could probably have been achieved by other means.

The Burma campaign of course saved India and was surely necessary in terms stopping Japan. However, a supreme commander for this could be said to be going overboard, especially as the campaign was rather small in number of divisions etc compared to other areas.
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
IMHO this would be liking asking the USSR and the Western Allies to choose a unified Supreme Commander for the war against Germany
 

Aber

ivanotter said:
The Burma campaign of course saved India and was surely necessary in terms stopping Japan. However, a supreme commander for this could be said to be going overboard, especially as the campaign was rather small in number of divisions etc compared to other areas.
Click to expand...
In which period?
IIRC it probably involved more divisions in combat until the invasion of the Philippines.
 

ivanotter

Mountbatten was supreme commander from August 1943. That should probably be the starting point.

1942-43
Allied forces: 150,000
Japan: R50,000

1944-45
Allied: 1,000,000
Japan: 350,000

(more or less - according to Wiki)

Not saying it was not important, but compared to other theatres, it was not a great theatre.
 

Scott Washburn

GuildedAgeNostalgia said:
If you created several more marine divisions, would you even need the US army in the Pacific (at least for the Central Pacific)?
Click to expand...
The role of the Marines is romanticized and exaggerated. There were 6 marine divisions in total. There were ultimately 30 US Army divisions in the Pacific (before any redeployment plans after VE Day). Some of those army divisions were employed in amphibious operations and landed alongside the marines in a few operations.
 

Johnrankins

NG. Solmans , Philippine Islands is likely to happen McArthur or no McArthur. Australia was our biggest ally in the region and they wanted to push the Japanese away from Australia and that means NG and the Solomans. For political reasons the PI were necessary as well.
 
McPherson

McPherson

Banned
Admiral Bloonbeard said:
Plan Chuckles?
Click to expand...

WWII Phonetic Alphabet | Saco

saconavy.net saconavy.net

Able
Baker
Charlie
Dog.

When Stark wrote the Plan Dog memo, he plonked for Plan Dog. What happened was Plan Charlie.

Since I had/have no respect for Stark, or Pound, or Popham, or Wavell or Mountbatten as military types (Phillips went down with Force Z.), the "Plan C." is "Chuckles" because the genius needed to retrieve their boneheaded mistakes (Slim, being the genius.) would need a sense of humor as well as a level head on his shoulders, to unsnarl the mess those clowns made of things.
 
Admiral Bloonbeard

Admiral Bloonbeard

McPherson said:

WWII Phonetic Alphabet | Saco

saconavy.net saconavy.net

Able
Baker
Charlie
Dog.

When Stark wrote the Plan Dog memo, he plonked for Plan Dog. What happened was Plan Charlie.

Since I had/have no respect for Stark, or Pound, or Popham, or Wavell or Mountbatten as military types (Phillips went down with Force Z.), the "Plan C." is "Chuckles" because the genius needed to retrieve their boneheaded mistakes (Slim, being the genius.) would need a sense of humor as well as a level head on his shoulders, to unsnarl the mess those clowns made of things.
Click to expand...
Bill Slim was in Persia at the time of the initial Japanese invasions and the British saw the Middle East as greater priority than the Pacific at the time

That being said, Slim would have been the best general for the ABDA command. He understood the importance of morale and saw morale more important than technology
 
McPherson

McPherson

Banned
Admiral Bloonbeard said:
That being said, Slim would have been the best general for the ABDA command
Click to expand...
Slim was needed further north. The CBI may have been a lower priority than the lend lease route through Persia into Russia, but ABDA was a lost cause, so why waste Slim, when it was a sacrifice posting? The Eastern Command clown club who goofed it all up and who would continue to goof up into 1944 were the bottom of the Allied barrel as far as commanders went, (Stillwell anybody?). To retrieve that fiasco *(Burma) was where Slim was needed, not down in Australia to be sidelined by MacArthur like Blamey was.
 
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