The Japanese Invade and Occupy Australia In WW2

The argument here has been if they could invade and HOLD Australia, with at least one poster claiming that the invasion would rapidly bring the Australian government to capitulation. That is a much broader sort of action than you have proposed.

Well, I think you've beaten down the arguments in favor of overall invasion; I don't want folks to get the impression that Australia's an impregnable rock. ;)
 

Markus

Banned
I

What would have to happen for the Japanese to possibly invade and occupy a region of the country? I doubt the Japanese could have controlled ALL of Australia..but I can imagine perhaps the northern most region possibly?

What do some people think?

I think the northern most region is the least valuable and most isolated one in Australia. And that was plainly obvious in 1941/42. So aside from the great logistical difficulties and the unwillingsness of the IJA to provide troops there would be nothing to gain.
 
I think the northern most region is the least valuable and most isolated one in Australia. And that was plainly obvious in 1941/42. So aside from the great logistical difficulties and the unwillingsness of the IJA to provide troops there would be nothing to gain.

Was there a rail link to Darwin, or did it depend on ships? IIRC , quite a lot of Australian town on on near the coast had no long-distance overland links until they built roads for those supertrucks well after WW2...

If it doesnt have a rail link, the Japanese can probably take it, but then what? They cant get anywhere... If it does, the allies are going to attack them up it..so they are screwed either way...
 

burmafrd

Banned
Only way would be for IJN to delete one of the other operations at the beginning of the war- Phillipines, Malaya, etc. And for what reason?
And of course the logistics nightmare would have brought them to defeat even sooner then OTL. By mid 1942 we had our 2 Divisions there and the Australians had I think one or two. At that point for the IJN to scrape up the transports and freightors to get there would have been a huge strain just for a couple of divisions; look how tough Guadalcanal was for them. And we will not even get into the oil situation.
 

Markus

Banned
Was there a rail link to Darwin, or did it depend on ships? IIRC , quite a lot of Australian town on on near the coast had no long-distance overland links until they built roads for those supertrucks well after WW2...

If it doesnt have a rail link, the Japanese can probably take it, but then what? They cant get anywhere... If it does, the allies are going to attack them up it..so they are screwed either way...

No RR-line to the "rest" of Australia was build until after 2000. IIRC Alice Springs was the "next" railhead.
 
Musing here, what could happen after a Japanese victory at Midway? One consideration is that the Japanese landing at Midway would be an ugly defeat for the Japanese. This would probably lead to the IJA and IJN reconsidering their amphibious doctrines. So, likely no landings near Darwin's defenses.

Japan's movements into the Soloman Islands are unopposed by the USN and RAN, as CVs Saratoga and Wasp can't be risked against what could easily be 6 IJN carriers.

The IJN could launch another carrier raid against Darwin sometime after the Midway operation. Perhaps even threaten an invasion to take Darwin.

What does the Australian government do in this situation? The Japanese are still running amok in the Pacific. The USN is stuck with raiding and defending the eastern Pacific. Do we see problems between Australia, Great Britain, and the USA? Added to that, defeat at Midway could affect the level of US participation in Operation Torch. It might even mean additional CVEs being pulled out of the Atlantic and sent to the Pacific.

Also, let's consider China. Burma has already fallen to the Japanese and the KMT has lost their last overland connection to the outside world. Add a Japanese victory at Midway with attacks on northern Australia and the Australia-US link being threatened. Does the KMT consider a truce with the Japanese?

Now before the usual suspects start hyper-ventilating and drooling on their keyboards, I am not proposing this all leads to an Axis victory. I am merely asking what might happen if the Allied situation in Asia and the Pacific still looks dreadful into the summer of 1942.
 
While we are musing about Japan poking into Australia, a really big place, they are about to lose Guadalcanal, a relatively small island in the Solomons. Although they would prefer to have it back, a relatively small group of US Marines refuse to give it back. Very soon, a number of new decks of Essex class carriers will bring new Corsair and Hellcat fighters to fly along with P-38 fighters in the theater. Unless you presume that every battle mirrors the ineptitude and incompetence of the Battle of Singapore, I believe that the Japanese visiting Australia will be in for a bad time.
 
Dilvish, I would see more troops and planes sent to Australia. Certainly Britain could send a couple of divisions, they have ample troops sitting at home doing not much. It would of course probably rule out any 1943 invasion of France, but thay'd be quite happy with that.
It might delay Torch, but that isn't going to make a huge difference, NA will still be cleared in 43.
In OTL, an invasion of Australia was seen as impossible after Midway, so there wasnt the pressuer to send tropps (except in the monds of certain self-serving Australian politicos...), but if the threat was seen as realistic, much more could be done, other things could be postponed without too many issues. (an actual landing in Oz would be seen as very serious in the UK, due to the public reaction. Countries like Malaya, Burma, are one thing, a country with close links and so many family connections as Oz is something else entirely.)
 

Markus

Banned
While we are musing about Japan poking into Australia, a really big place, they are about to lose Guadalcanal, a relatively small island in the Solomons. Although they would prefer to have it back, a relatively small group of US Marines refuse to give it back. ...

That relatively small group was actually a quite well supplied division that outnumbered the Japanese at any given time of the entire campaign.
 

CalBear

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Donor
Monthly Donor
That relatively small group was actually a quite well supplied division that outnumbered the Japanese at any given time of the entire campaign.


Not sure I would agree with the well supplied part. They were low on chow most of the time in the early days, to the point that they were eating the Japanese rations they had captured. They always had plenty of ammo, and barely enough avgas, but to call them well supplied, especially by U.S. or UK standards, is a bit of an overstatement.
 

Hyperion

Banned
MarkA and Hyperion, er, yeah, there were, eventually, lots of things at Australia. But, my ATL gets around that by having the invasion be before that - in the first wave, subbed for the Philippines. Back then, the British had taken most of the good stuff to fight in Europe;

There is, I think, a misunderstanding of what Australia's like. Population-wise, it's more like a bigger American state. Why would they need to invest the whole continent? The bigger cities would be probably be quite enough from their POV.

Wouldn't the gas-minimizing course have been to curtail their aggression? They could also have come to a understanding with the US or attacked the Dutch East Indies, with other attacks held in reserve once they saw who joined the Dutch? FDR would've had a much tougher sell in Congress. There you go - not one, but THREE more efficient ways.

Which do several things which you have failed to research.

The Japanese did not have the logistics or the resources to get an invasion force as far down as Sydney until several months after the war started, US intervention or not. Rabaul wasn't even taken until the beginning of February, and landings in New Guinea didn't begin until up into March.

Also you fail to research Japanese army opinions. Japanese army high command strongly refused to invade Australia due to the lack of troops to launch a major attack, let alone a prolonged occupation. Five divisions, minimum, where required, not counting support troops, air units, and massive amounts of shipping to support the IJN ships needed.

This also assumes the Australians, Dutch, British, and even the US sit back and to absolutely nothing.
 

Markus

Banned
Not sure I would agree with the well supplied part. They were low on chow most of the time in the early days, to the point that they were eating the Japanese rations they had captured. They always had plenty of ammo, and barely enough avgas, but to call them well supplied, especially by U.S. or UK standards, is a bit of an overstatement.

I meant they were quite well supplied compared to their enemy. They did not have a steady and secure flow of supplies like in later operations but even at bad times supplies kept trickling at a rate that was "good enough".
 
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