The Pacific War begins without the Pearl Harbour raid. USN actions?

[Tonrich]

It is an interesting question.

Do we assume that Japan was strides ahead in carrier tactics? Japan also had its battleship cheerleaders, looking for the decisive battle.

Good question and I'm not expert enough to be able to answer that. However the Kongo class battle cruisers were designed to run at high speed with the carrier groups to offer big gun 'protection' so I'd have to say 'Yes I think so'. They were at least thinking ahead of the US at that time.

From the point that PH happened the US used hit and run tactics with small fast carrier task groups learning their trade so to speak. I think there was a lot of doctrine development happening for the 4 1/2 months from PH to the Coral Sea. Pilots and staff were getting experience which was invaluable in the coming years.

 

[Driftless]

BEFORE the Japanese control Rabaul, Ambon and the Celebes and no ground-based air at Davao the Navy does not have the shipping to resupply the PI or conduct significant operations in WESTPAC.

With no Pearl Harbor, but the Philippines under deep duress and likely to fall, does the US move to better secure a path to Australia? Secure the great harbor of Rabaul to be used to keep the Japanese at arms-length and also to threaten their hold on the Marshall's and Gilbert's?

 

[David T]

Japan beginning the Pacific War with the US without Pearl Harbor and a perceived stab in the back during negotiations sets up the possibility that Japan could actually win---in the sense of getting a favorable treaty negotiation settlement after winning a few major battles, Russo-Japanese war style.

I just don't see this. 'They only attacked the Philippines so we'll agree to a negotiated settlement after a few defeats"? There is absolutely no chance of this. It would be politically suicidal for FDR even to consider this. After all, he rejected any idea of a negotiated peace with Germany even though Germany did not attack Pearl Harbor. You write: " Without Pearl, there's no bottomless reserve of will like there was OTL for the US vs Japan (the US did NOT have a bottomless reserve of will against Germany, which is a big reason why its strategy against Germany was so conservative),." If by that you mean there wasn't an all-out invasion of western Europe until 1944, well, first of all the UK's objections did play a role there, and secondly, not launching a potentially suicidal attack in 1943 does not mean lack of "bottomless reserve of will" to defeat Germany once it was possible to do so.

Yes, Russia agreed to peace with Japan. Russia was facing an internal revolution and was hardly the industrial superpower in 1905 that the US was in the 1940's.

 

[GarethC]

NOTE: Macarthur's failure lay in failing to respond effectively to the news of the Pearl Harbor attack. If Japan does not attack Pearl Harbor, the first notice the US gets of Japanese hostility is when Japanese forces strike without warning in the Philippines. Since the USAFFE don't have the fleet of patrol aircraft it would take to detect the incoming Japanese, nor any radar sets, it will be very hard to blame Macarthur for the surprise.

The FEAF has B-17s for reconnaissance and radar sets for air defence - the latter detected the OTL raid but the ground control failed to manage the three pursuit squadrons that were airborne to an intercept, so that half of the former were wiped out on the ground.

It's all down to the Carrier Striking Fleet. If Nagumo is spotted (OTL, going to Hawaii he was off the regular shipping lanes and it is unsurprising that he managed to stay out of contact), then there may be even more warning than OTL for the Philippines if Fuchida leads the first wave towards Clark Field and Subic Bay and sails blithely by a B-17 out for a stroll of a Sunday morning. Having said that, Nagumo can put up ~50 fighters as raid escort that actually may well outnumber an intercepting force, with catastrophic results for the defenders. So you probably can write the story you want to write and not be too far wrong anyway, with success for either side determined by authorial fiat and readership disbelief unsuspended.

 

[EWHM]

I just don't see this. 'They only attacked the Philippines so we'll agree to a negotiated settlement after a few defeats"? There is absolutely no chance of this. It would be politically suicidal for FDR even to consider this. After all, he rejected any idea of a negotiated peace with Germany even though Germany did not attack Pearl Harbor. You write: " Without Pearl, there's no bottomless reserve of will like there was OTL for the US vs Japan (the US did NOT have a bottomless reserve of will against Germany, which is a big reason why its strategy against Germany was so conservative),." If by that you mean there wasn't an all-out invasion of western Europe until 1944, well, first of all the UK's objections did play a role there, and secondly, not launching a potentially suicidal attack in 1943 does not mean lack of "bottomless reserve of will" to defeat Germany once it was possible to do so.

Yes, Russia agreed to peace with Japan. Russia was facing an internal revolution and was hardly the industrial superpower in 1905 that the US was in the 1940's.

David, the Allies in the West used the Broad Front strategy, which was a very low variance strategy that didn't really allow space for the Germans to inflict any major reverses. It was a strategy aimed at avoiding an incidents where the US would take massive casualties beyond the will of the population to endure at the expense of losing opportunities to end the war far more quickly. Blitzkrieg for instance, is the antithesis of this strategy.
The way the US can get into really big trouble in this scenario is being drawn into precisely the sort of 'Decisive Naval Battle' that the Japanese had been planning for and for lack of a better word, 'rolling poorly'. Then if the Japanese offer the US a peace treaty where the US doesn't give up anything but recognizes the current status quo in the Pacific, perhaps even accelerating the independence earlier of the Phillipines---or perhaps even making the Philippines like Belgium in Europe, where both the US and Japan agree that anyone who invades them is at war with both of them, there would be strong pressure from the population to make peace. And this is true even though the US has enough industrial potential in the WWII era to beat any plausible coalition of great powers in an unlimited will contest.

 

[David T]

David, the Allies in the West used the Broad Front strategy, which was a very low variance strategy that didn't really allow space for the Germans to inflict any major reverses. It was a strategy aimed at avoiding an incidents where the US would take massive casualties beyond the will of the population to endure at the expense of losing opportunities to end the war far more quickly. Blitzkrieg for instance, is the antithesis of this strategy.
The way the US can get into really big trouble in this scenario is being drawn into precisely the sort of 'Decisive Naval Battle' that the Japanese had been planning for and for lack of a better word, 'rolling poorly'. Then if the Japanese offer the US a peace treaty where the US doesn't give up anything but recognizes the current status quo in the Pacific, perhaps even accelerating the independence earlier of the Phillipines---or perhaps even making the Philippines like Belgium in Europe, where both the US and Japan agree that anyone who invades them is at war with both of them, there would be strong pressure from the population to make peace. And this is true even though the US has enough industrial potential in the WWII era to beat any plausible coalition of great powers in an unlimited will contest.

I think you are totally exaggerating the political thinkability of a negotiated peace with Japan after she has launched a surprise attack on any US territory--including the Philippines. And again, not wanting to attack northwestern Europe until you actually had the resources to do it is hardly evidence of a willingness to accept a negotiated peace . Nor does it mean the US would not have been willing if necessary to accept much greater casualties than in the end it suffered (and let's not forget that even in OTL it was thought that D-Day might not succeed or that it would involve even higher casualties than it did.) And the US did after all insist on unconditional surrender by Germany, even by a non-Hitler government.

 

[Kaze]

It would probably against Europe. As for Japan - it would be on the back burner for a while.

 

[ChaosNDiscord]

Could the fight for wake island, assuming a second Japanese wave to take it, end up being TTL's Midway or perhaps Coral Sea?

 

[Butchpfd]

NOTE: Macarthur's failure lay in failing to respond effectively to the news of the Pearl Harbor attack. If Japan does not attack Pearl Harbor, the first notice the US gets of Japanese hostility is when Japanese forces strike without warning in the Philippines. Since the USAFFE don't have the fleet of patrol aircraft it would take to detect the incoming Japanese, nor any radar sets, it will be very hard to blame Macarthur for the surprise.

McArthur refused to authorize Hart's Asiatic Fleet Patrol wing to approach More then 1/2 way to Formosa. The Catalinas could have done the recon( with better shipping IDs) and overflown all of Formosa., allowing all the B_17s to strike Formosan airfields.

 

[Scott Washburn]

Without Pearl, there's no bottomless reserve of will like there was OTL for the US vs Japan (the US did NOT have a bottomless reserve of will against Germany, which is a big reason why its strategy against Germany was so conservative),. In that environment, a few serious drubbings and the US may well tap out, irrespective of the fact that it would obviously win a long war. To win a long war, you have to keep the will to prosecute it through a short war.

I've talked about this with a lot of WWII vets, including my own parents, and they pretty much all said that the sneak attack nature of Japan starting the war didn't really matter at all as far as their anger was concerned. For them the bottom line was that America was at peace and Japan attacked them. An attack in the Philippines, or at Wake, even after a formal declaration of war, would have gotten them just as riled up as the attack at Pearl Harbor did.

 

[Driftless]

Could the fight for wake island, assuming a second Japanese wave to take it, end up being TTL's Midway or perhaps Coral Sea?

Interesting thought. Depending on when a second attack could be made with the larger Japanese naval force, then how much of the Japanese naval code would have been cracked. As it was, the naval code spooks had to lay a cipher trap and they used the Japanese response to that bait to determine that Midway was the target. Also, Wake is a lot closer to Japan's backyard, so how might that factor in?

 

[Dilvish]

Even before the US was brought into the war, the Pacific Fleet's plan was to go on the defensive. There would be carrier raids on Japanese outposts. No major offensives would happen until the fleet was strengthened. It was understood that in the event of war, the Atlantic and Europe would be the primary focus of the US war effort.

 

[Admiral Spaun]

If the Kido Butai isn't sent to Pearl Harbor, how would Japanese fleet deployments look ITTL? Having 6 fleet carriers available would certainly help alot during the initial advance.

 

[Draconis]

If the Kido Butai isn't sent to Pearl Harbor, how would Japanese fleet deployments look ITTL? Having 6 fleet carriers available would certainly help alot during the initial advance.

Yes, where would the Japanese have used the Kido Butai in their initial Southern rush? Perhaps they would have separated the 6 carriers and assigned one or two to the Japanese assault forces at their major landing areas. Would that have changed anything by maybe increasing the speed of the Allied collapse?

 

[Draconis]

With no Pearl Harbor, but the Philippines under deep duress and likely to fall, does the US move to better secure a path to Australia? Secure the great harbor of Rabaul to be used to keep the Japanese at arms-length and also to threaten their hold on the Marshall's and Gilbert's?

Maybe if the Americans can hang onto Wake. Reinforcing the Australians holding Rabaul would be one possible action. But could the Allies put enough forces into Rabaul to be able to hold it against the early 1942 Japanese steamroller? Beginning the Solomons campaign 6 months earlier might not be tenable.

 

[Driftless]

Maybe if the Americans can hang onto Wake. Reinforcing the Australians holding Rabaul would be one possible action. But could the Allies put enough forces into Rabaul to be able to hold it against the early 1942 Japanese steamroller? Beginning the Solomons campaign 6 months earlier might not be tenable.

Good point. Even without the extensive losses of warships at Pearl (planes too), would the US have had both the desire and the sealift to even get sufficient ground forces to the region as quickly as needed (no later than late Dec '41 or very early Jan '42) to keep the Japanese off of New Britain?

 

[Draconis]

Good point. Even without the extensive losses of warships at Pearl (planes too), would the US have had both the desire and the sealift to even get sufficient ground forces to the region as quickly as needed (no later than late Dec '41 or very early Jan '42) to keep the Japanese off of New Britain?

A quick re-read about the Rabaul campaign shows me that would have been unlikely. There's no way the Americans could have moved fast enough to reinforce Rabaul. Perhaps they might have occupied an island or two in the Southern end of the Solomons Islands as well as New Caledonia to protect the sea lanes to Australia and New Zealand.

 

[Draconis]

Without the losses and damages in ships and planes that were incurred at OTL Pearl Harbour would the U.S. have considered providing another heavy cruiser and a few light cruisers and destroyers in early January 1942 to reinforce the ABDA fleet? Could the Americans have sent more airplanes for the defense of the DEI and Australia in January/Febuary 1942?

 

[Driftless]

Without the losses and damages in ships and planes that were incurred at OTL Pearl Harbour would the U.S. have considered providing another heavy cruiser and a few light cruisers and destroyers in early January 1942 to reinforce the ABDA fleet?

If that were to happen, does the US also commit a higher ranking admiral to the operation? Was Doorman the ranking officer at the Battle of the Java Sea? If there's a different commander, does that alter the way the battle develops, or is the final outcome likely the same? (Assuming there's some form of naval battle in that region)

Could the Americans have sent more airplanes for the defense of the DEI and Australia in January/Febuary 1942?

I would think so, but there would also be the home front concern that the Japanese were going to land at San Francisco at any moment..... Admiral Stark(then CNO) would need to convince FDR and Frank Knox of the wisdom of moving the planes that far from home. By the time the planes get there, it's probably too late for the DEI, but it would help in Australia. Do they get there in time and in place to play a role in the bombing of Darwin?

 

[jsb]

However the Kongo class battle cruisers were designed to run at high speed with the carrier groups to offer big gun 'protection' so I'd have to say 'Yes I think so'. They were at least thinking ahead of the US at that time.

Where the Kongos not more an old rebuilt BC semi sister of RNs Tiger that ended up as CV escorts for KB / CA escorts for the DB simply due to still existing due to WNT and having to be put to the best use? USN not having built any BC pre WNT they had no option to do likewise?