The Japanese take Darwin in World War II.

The infrastructure in QLD beats the Japanese sea route to Darwin. The defensive assets on the east coast will be able to build up to a level to suppress raids from Darwin faster than the reverse.

The biggest advantage is that it takes the DEI off the front line.
 
A half dozen radar stations and airstrips will degrade any threat fairly quickly.

They'll have to leapfrog build them up the coasts of Australia under constant Japanese air attack; it's going to take months at best and probably not until 1943 or perhaps even 1944 at worst, especially given the U.S. will be more interested in a Central Pacific thrust without MacArthur.

It doesn't take much to down a Nell, Betty or Sally. Zeros will be hard pressed to reach these targets.
The infrastructure in QLD beats the Japanese sea route to Darwin. The defensive assets on the east coast will be able to build up to a level to suppress raids from Darwin faster than the reverse.

The biggest advantage is that it takes the DEI off the front line.

Sure, except for the fact there is no more than twenty American P-40s and only 17 heavy anti-aircraft guns in Australia for the next few months.

The Japanese failed to suppress Port Moresby from Lae.

Yes, because they couldn't separate the link to Australia. Occupying Darwin does exactly that.
 
They'll have to leapfrog build them up the coasts of Australia under constant Japanese air attack; it's going to take months at best and probably not until 1943 or perhaps even 1944 at worst, especially given the U.S. will be more interested in a Central Pacific thrust without MacArthur.




Sure, except for the fact there is no more than twenty American P-40s and only 17 heavy anti-aircraft guns in Australia for the next few months.



Yes, because they couldn't separate the link to Australia. Occupying Darwin does exactly that.

No it doesn't because all of the targets you are listing are well beyond fighter range meaning the Japanese bombers flying out of Darwin will be make very long range unescorted raids. They may achieve a few initial successes through surprise but eventually they will get chewed to pieces by Allied air defenses and the brutal operating environment. Additionally, maintaining a robust bomber force at Darwin will be logistically challenging. The Japanese will have to bring in all of the fuel, bombs, engines, spare parts, and everything else in order to maintain a force of fewer than 100 bombers (they never had that many Rabual). They will suffer low in commission rates (something that plagued Japanese at forward bases just about everywhere) and high attrition rates because they will be making unescorted raids and unescorted raids tended to get beaten up badly.

Frankly, you sound like pre-war bomber baron.
 
BTW, Rabual is closer to Brisbane than Darwin and it is less than 100 miles further to Sydney. The Japanese did not raid those ports from Rabual, why is their possession of Darwin suddenly such a game changer in this regard?
 
Also, your statement that Japanese possession of Darwin threatens Exmouth Gulf and the air link to Ceylon is more than a tad overblown. That air link didn't exist until June 1944 and even then it consisted of a grand total of two Qantas Liberators. Even if Japanese possession of Darwin does prevent that from happening it only makes the air link from Ceylon to Australia less convenient, not impossible because starting in July 1943 Qantas PBYs began flying to Ceylon from Fremantle.
 
No it doesn't because all of the targets you are listing are well beyond fighter range meaning the Japanese bombers flying out of Darwin will be make very long range unescorted raids.

With what? There are only 17 heavy AA guns and about twenty modern fighters in Australia in early 1942.

They may achieve a few initial successes through surprise but eventually they will get chewed to pieces by Allied air defenses and the brutal operating environment. Additionally, maintaining a robust bomber force at Darwin will be logistically challenging. The Japanese will have to bring in all of the fuel, bombs, engines, spare parts, and everything else in order to maintain a force of fewer than 100 bombers (they never had that many Rabual). They will suffer low in commission rates (something that plagued Japanese at forward bases just about everywhere) and high attrition rates because they will be making unescorted raids and unescorted raids tended to get beaten up badly.

As stated, the Allies have nothing to throw at Japanese bombers for several months and any logistical strain is more than made up for by the fact B-17s and B-24s staging out of the Darwin area can't bomb/mine oil facilities in Indonesia nor launch commando raids into Timor that tied down 20,000 Japanese soldiers.

BTW, Rabual is closer to Brisbane than Darwin and it is less than 100 miles further to Sydney. The Japanese did not raid those ports from Rabual, why is their possession of Darwin suddenly such a game changer in this regard?

Because now they don't have Darwin or Port Moresby in their way, and now directly control the approaches to Port Moresby.
 
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The Japanese don't have to move South, as naval and air units operating from the area do it for them.Japanese bombers based in Darwin could've hit any target in Queensland all the way to Brisbane, including the docks in the aforementioned Brisbane and Townsville where war supplies were shipped, while in the west they could hit any target down to Exmouth, threatening the air link to India. Control of Darwin means New Guinea cannot be held since Port Moresby is cut off, and thus the Solomons as well. No overland invasion of Darwin is practical, given the sheer distance of desert that must be crossed; it'd take years to build the airbases and infrastructure to support such. An amphibious invasion is much the same, as attacking from the east would require advancing into the narrow Torres strait while the Japanese have air superiority thanks to Darwin and Ambon, while the Solomons and lack of airbases on the West would also mean combating Japanese air superiority or waiting at least until sometime in 1943 to get the air bases needed.
Meanwhile, the oil in the Dutch East Indies is burning, because you cancelled the invasions of Bali and Timor to run this Darwin thing, and even if you find the shipping and logistics and luck to make the Darwin thing work, Bali and Timor are actually closer and handier for the Allies to use for bombing Dutch East Indies oil than Darwin is...
 
The Japanese failed to suppress Port Moresby from Lae.

Yes, because they couldn't separate the link to Australia. Occupying Darwin does exactly that.
I don't see how because AFAIK Port Moresby wasn't supplied via Darwin, it was supplied via ports on Australia's east coast.

Japanese bombers based at Darwin might be able to reach ports in Queensland and New South Wales, but my suspicion is that the Japanese won't be able to deploy enough to be more than a nuisance regardless of the weakness of Australia's AA defences at the time.
 
I don't see how because AFAIK Port Moresby wasn't supplied via Darwin, it was supplied via ports on Australia's east coast.

Japanese bombers based at Darwin might be able to reach ports in Queensland and New South Wales, but my suspicion is that the Japanese won't be able to deploy enough to be more than a nuisance regardless of the weakness of Australia's AA defences at the time.

For a pretty good contemporary example, see the shutting down of summertime convoys on the Northern route to the USSR in 1942; Allied planners aren't going to risk sending convoys to New Guinea when the Japanese are already entrenched with air bases at both Darwin and in the Solomons.

Meanwhile, the oil in the Dutch East Indies is burning, because you cancelled the invasions of Bali and Timor to run this Darwin thing, and even if you find the shipping and logistics and luck to make the Darwin thing work, Bali and Timor are actually closer and handier for the Allies to use for bombing Dutch East Indies oil than Darwin is...

With what air bases, what bombers and what forces to even maintain Allied control of Timor in the first place?
 

GarethC

Donor
Logistics, logistics, logistics. My kneejerk is that this is a terrible idea, not because the Japanese military can't take Darwin, but because they really don't want to try to hold it. It's like Midway, only without the opportunity to bring the USN to battle, which did make some sort of sense if the execution hadn't been so shambolic. Well, maybe they can get food locally, but every bullet, bomb, and bandage has to be shipped in.

For the IJA to maintain a bomber force at Darwin, what sort of tonnage per week are we looking at of avgas, bombs, parts etc?

Where are the likely places to draw that sealift from? What will be the opportunity cost compared to OTL of that redeployment?

Alice-Darwin is about 700nm. That's close enough for Wellingtons and Hudsons to mine the harbour, isn't it?

Fremantle-based submarines still have a fair old transit to get to the Timor Sea instead of interdicting transport in the DEI, but there's no need to pass through the various chokepoints of the Malay Barrier, which makes the ASW task harder for the IJN.

In the event that the IJA finds itself running out of everything, would the General in-theatre actually surrender?
 

nbcman

Donor
With what? There are only 17 heavy AA guns and about twenty modern fighters in Australia in early 1942.
No 1 Squadron Lockheed Hudsons - Singapore
No 2 Squadron Lockheed Hudsons - Darwin
No 3 Squadron P40s - Med
No 4 Squadron Wirraways - Canberra (note that a Wirraway pilot of No 4 Squadron shot a Zero down over New Guinea in 1942)
No 5 Squadron Wirraways - Melbourne

No 6 Squadron Lockheed Hudsons - Melbourne
No 7 Squadron Training with Hudsons- Melbourne
No 8 Squadron Lockheed Hudsons - Disbanded on Batavia
No 9 Squadron Various Amphibians - on RAN Cruisers
No 10 Squadron - ASW duties in Britain
No 11 Squadron Catalinas - Port Moresby
No 12 Squadron Wirraways - Darwin
No 13 Squadron Lockheed Hudsons - Darwin
No 14 Squadron Lockheed Hudsons - Perth
No 22 Squadron Wirraways - Richmond NSW
No 23 Squadron Wirraways / Hudsons - Brisbane
No 24 Squadron Wirraways / Hudsons - Rabual
No 25 Squadron Wirraways / Buffalos - Pert
h
No 30 Squadron Beaufighters (forming March) - Townsville
No 75 Squadron Kittyhawks (formed March) - Townsville
No 76 Squadron Kittyhawks (formed March) - Townsville
No 77 Squadron Kittyhawks (formed March) - Darwin

US 49th Fighter Group - Darwin
US 8th Fighter Group - Townsville


For your convenience, I've underlined the Wirraway equipped groups who were used as provisional fighters as well as bolded the fighter groups, including the Americans that arrived in March, who were in Australia. Note that the Japanese were still invading the NEI during the first few months of 1942 so there wasn't anything available to invade Darwin until after April 1942 - and it may have been late April or May after the ships which took part in the Indian Ocean raid were available. Unless you are proposing the Japanese bypass parts of the NEI to grab Darwin earlier?

As stated, the Allies have nothing to throw at Japanese bombers for several months and any logistical strain is more than made up for by the fact B-17s and B-24s staging out of the Darwin area can't bomb/mine oil facilities in Indonesia nor launch commando raids into Timor that tied down 20,000 Japanese soldiers.

Nothing other than multiple RAAF bomber squadrons noted above and these US bombers, note that I did not include US bomber groups and fighter groups above that technically were stationed in Australia after they withdrew from the Philippines during this time frame as those groups were ground down from the fighting at the beginning of the year:

US 3d Operations Group B-25 (arrived April) - Darwin
US 22d Operations Group B-26 (arrived March) - Townsville
US 38th Bombardment Group B-27 (arrived February) - Brisbane

Because now they don't have Darwin or Port Moresby in their way, and now directly control the approaches to Port Moresby.

If Japan couldn't 'control the approaches' to Port Moresby from a far closer airbase (Rabual - 800 km) how the heck are bombers from Darwin (1800 km) going to do it? Note that the Japanese bombers would be unescorted but the US and Australian fighters could interdict them from Townsville, Port Moresby and Cairns (if they hardened the runway earlier there).

EDIT: Although an invasion of Darwin would could butterfly away one of the great stories of WW2: Gunner the Early Warning Dog
 
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With what air bases, what bombers and what forces to even maintain Allied control of Timor in the first place?
You already established that for the purposes of this discussion that air bases and bomber availability is simply assumed, with your assertion that the Imperial Japanese can run dozens and dozens of bombers out of Darwin...
And the allies have control of Timor and Bali because they started off this scenario with control of it, and you cancelled the original timeline invasion. At least on Timor there was a Dutch-Australian force in place to control Timor in December of 1941.
 
For a pretty good contemporary example, see the shutting down of summertime convoys on the Northern route to the USSR in 1942; Allied planners aren't going to risk sending convoys to New Guinea when the Japanese are already entrenched with air bases at both Darwin and in the Solomons.
With what air bases, what bombers and what forces to even maintain Allied control of Timor in the first place?

There is a big differance between having a convoy under basically 24 hour daylight and only a couple of hundred Kilometers from well supplied air bases, with a group of large surface ships ready to attack on short notice, Verses flying up to a 1000 Kilometers with both day and night this at time of year almost equal and no surface units anywhere close to the shipping lanes. Not to mention Japanese maintenace was no where close to what German was.
 
1. Even if it takes only a relatively small force to take and garrison Darwin, where do they come from? It's not like the Japanese had tons of spare troops in early-mid 1942 with no other missions. Don't forget this includes the pilots, aircrew and ground staff to keep the airfields working and fix planes etc. Oh, also the service troops to repair and maintain gear, cook meals and so forth. Oh wait, also naval personnel to manage convoys and run the shore establish for the ships (even tugs and small ASW vessels) that need to be kept at Darwin.
2. EVERYTHING needs to be shipped in. All sorts of fuel, food, ammunition, spare uniforms, medical supplies, etc. Sure you can strip Darwin bare, let the locals who did not evacuate starve, but local resources are quite limited. I would expect that local infrastructure such as any oil/fuel storage facilities, docks, airfields have been destroyed to a greater or lesser extent as well as most vehicles either driven away or wrecked. Now you need to bring in more "stuff" to fix things, and BTW if you don't have oil storage facilities you need to bring all POL in in barrels, which is inefficient and a good deal of effort to use.
3. Air raids: Even the Wirraway can shoot down unescorted bombers. Japanese bombers were not very good at absorbing battle damage and the Betty was nicknamed the "lighter" by both Allied and Japanese pilots due to its tendency to catch fire rather easily. While a nuisance, between defenses, the small force, and the reality that each raid takes a huge logistic load, bombing raids will not seriously disrupt the supply chain.

As many other posters have pointed out, Japan was short of everything needed to fight the war, even with their conquests and rolling 6's early on. To take Darwin and hold it they have to forego something/somethings else, they cannot simply add it to their "to do" list. Simply not taking this or that island, most of which were undefended, won't give you enough force to do this, you need to give up something(s) major. Is taking Darwin worth that? IMHO one thing taking Darwin might do is give more impetus to the Central Pacific campaign, as the forces used for New Guinea and Mac's route to the PI are used to eject the Japanese from Darwin, and New Guinea, at least the western part, is left to whither on the vine. This may bring USAAF and naval forces closer to Japan sooner than OTL.
 
For a pretty good contemporary example, see the shutting down of summertime convoys on the Northern route to the USSR in 1942; Allied planners aren't going to risk sending convoys to New Guinea when the Japanese are already entrenched with air bases at both Darwin and in the Solomons.
That's a pretty bad contemporary example IMHO.

The distance between the summertime Arctic Convoy route and the German air bases in Norway was considerably shorter than the distance between Darwin and the convoy routes to New Guinea. It's about 1,100 miles from Darwin to Port Moresby and 1,050 miles from Darwin to Cairns.

As far as I can see Darwin is simply too far away from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to influence those campaigns.
 
With what? There are only 17 heavy AA guns and about twenty modern fighters in Australia in early 1942.



As stated, the Allies have nothing to throw at Japanese bombers for several months and any logistical strain is more than made up for by the fact B-17s and B-24s staging out of the Darwin area can't bomb/mine oil facilities in Indonesia nor launch commando raids into Timor that tied down 20,000 Japanese soldiers.



Because now they don't have Darwin or Port Moresby in their way, and now directly control the approaches to Port Moresby.

Have you actually look at a map? Darwin is hundreds of miles west of Port Moresby. The major garrison on Rabaul is closer. It's roughly 1,800 kilomoters from Darwin to Port Moresby, while the large Japanese garrison of Rabaul was only 800 kilometers.

Taking Darwin does nothing to stop ships coming from the west coast of the US or Hawaii, and it certainly doesn't impact Rabaul, Coral Sea, or the Solomons or New Caledonia.

Please actually look at a map and do some actual research before embarrassing yourself like this.
 
Of course, such a move COULD provoke a completely disproportionate response. See, e.g., the American/Canadian Aleutian campaign. A Japanese toehold on Australia would have certainly panicked the population and forced the government to respond all out of proportion to the act danger.

In a war game scenario, I'd absolutely let the Japanese sit there, sinking their supply convoys and using them for aerial target practice. In real life, not so simple.
 
I'd like to point out that the Japanese wouldn't just take Darwin, they'd pinch-off the entire Top End to the Roper and Adelaide rivers, indeed both are navigable some distance inland. The NT railway extended some 300 miles south of Darwin, so they could support forces well away from the port.

That said, the Top End is virtually an island, but instead of being surrounded by water it's surrounded by thousands of miles of empty, EMPTY, desert. As such counter offensives need to be seen in that light, attacking a huge, isolated island.
 
Strange nobody has mention this real/fake map of a Japanese invasion of Australia.

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For a pretty good contemporary example, see the shutting down of summertime convoys on the Northern route to the USSR in 1942; Allied planners aren't going to risk sending convoys to New Guinea when the Japanese are already entrenched with air bases at both Darwin and in the Solomons.
I wasn't able to put this in my last reply for time reasons.

Although you wrote "see the shutting down of summertime convoys on the Northern route to the USSR in 1942," I think that you are referring to the period March to November 1943 when no Arctic convoys were run.

However, they weren't suspended because of the threat of air attack, they were suspended because of the Tirpitz. They were resumed because she was put out of action for 6 months by the midget submarine attack of September 1943.

There was a gap between PQ17 in July 1942 and PQ18 in September. However, that was because the RN wanted to provide the strongest possible escort to the August Convoy ton Malta, better know as Operation Pedestal and the presence in northern Norway of an insignificant German boat called Tirpitz.
 
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