US War Plan "Yellow" Implemented

According to Wikipedia, US war plan Yellow entailed a relief of Shanghai and the defense of Beijing during the Sino Japanese War. Details are sparse. How would the USA hope to accomplish this strategically? Seems to me,in any case, War Plan Yellow would quickly just become War Plan orange, anyway.
 
It seems to me like Yellow is an alternative to Orange in a War against Japan.

OTL, the UK had a very different idea of how to defeat Japan, and their idea basically was to build up in India and drive around the Indochinese and Chinese Coast into Korea, a war plan that would be greatly aided by the KMT and would not really require fighting Japan's fleets.

Yellow sounds like a US plan to do the same--in this case, the USA would ship troops to India and a Joint US-UK force would push through Burma, into Kunming, and emerge in Southern China. Shipping the troops would probably involve the US Navy beating around the edges of the Japanese Navy's reach, rather than ramming right through the center of it.

Yellow would lead to large scale fighting between the USA and Japan, much of which would be fought in Mainland China--who would probably be very interested in helping the US and UK in this effort. This could also mean that Chiang gets to play a larger role than OTL.

The downside is that this war is probably longer and slower going against Japan. But North Korea and Commie China would both be unlikely.
 
It would also be difficult to force an unconditional surrender in Japan, in case their navy and air force is still around. Not to mention that supply lines in China are a nightmare. Still, if the allies had the goal of just forcing Japan out of China, and the suing for peace, it might very well work out faster than IRL. The western portions of China under japanese control were not that harsh to tanks, I think.
 

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Yellow sounds like a US plan to do the same--in this case, the USA would ship troops to India and a Joint US-UK force would push through Burma, into Kunming, and emerge in Southern China. Shipping the troops would probably involve the US Navy beating around the edges of the Japanese Navy's reach, rather than ramming right through the center of it.


Why do you assume GB would have any part in it?
 
I agree with difficult...OTL, it was nearly impossible to get the Japanese to surrender! Tactically the Japanese fought until nearly the last man, Strategically much of Japan was willing to fight to the bitter end. While I wonder about whether Japanese Civilians were really going to fight with bamboo sticks like the Army wanted against the US army, and that part of this might have been a desperate bluff by the Japanese to have some kind of negotiated peace instead of unconditional surrender (a major sticking point was the role of the emperor in Postwar Japan--as essentially the key religious figure of Japan this really had that level of importance to the people.)

Still, figure that should the Allied Drive on Mainland China be successful, occupying Korea would be just as heavy hitting in terms of bombings as Okinawa. I would imagine that with Allied forces in Korea and the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, they would still surrender. Without the Bomb, however, they would probably keep fighting for quite some time.

That said, nothing about Plan Yellow would shake up either the USA getting bases close to Japan, nor the Manhattan Project. The War might very well end on schedule.
 
Why do you assume GB would have any part in it?

Mostly because that's what the UK wanted, and that they had some forces in Northern Burma--the Chindit Operations and such. The UK OTL SUGGESTED this plan to the United States, which instead decided to instead punch through the center. It also offers the UK the opportunity to regain Singapore in the course of events, rather than leave it in Japanese Hands.

I don't see this as an assumption, but rather an union of ideas, the UK's plan for war against Japan and a US analog. Frankly, if the forces are coming out of UK territories in Northern Burma and stand to Regain Singapore, I really think the UK would commit forces to it. More likely, these forces are probably ANZACs, and a large commitment of Chinese.

I'm positive the UK would contribute troops to retake its own colonies. And I think its reasonably well grounded. I'll concede that Germany would take higher priority--but the UK has some forces in Northern Burma and India to field for Plan Yellow, as does ANZAC.
 
Holy crap. The british plan of coming out of india sounds great. Does anyone know what the name of this plan was, and how far along it got?

Does anyone on here know of any sites and or books that detail WWII plans or operations that never were, barring of course the What If? series.
 
I dunno... seems to me that leaving the Japanese fleet intact would be a bad idea, since it would be free to raid allied shipping lanes, etc. To beat Japan on land, you're going to have to beat them at sea, sooner or later...
 
I suppose this plan has the intuitive advantage of primarily being a land campaign against Japan's tactically and materially antiquated Army rather than its state of the art Navy. It'll be amusing to see a bayonet charge against an American armored push. But I wonder as to the benefits of driving Japan out of China. I don't think the Japanese ever got anything useful out of China but it did tie down vast resources.
 
The downside is that this war is probably longer and slower going against Japan. But North Korea and Commie China would both be unlikely.
That's a contradiction. The Red Army was in Manchuria & North Korea as a result of the war being as long as it was. If PW is longer, the Soviets will probably end up with all of Korea, Hokkaido, & all of Manchuria, too.

leaving the Japanese fleet intact would be a bad idea, since it would be free to raid allied shipping lanes
Not a chance. IJN doctrine was Mahanian; guerre de course never entered their minds.
 
PH:

The idea of the Allies driving from Calcutta to Seoul overland would defeat the Soviet land grabs in China and Korea.

Geopolitics might be a concern in that Chiang was unreliable in this kind of war, and it would be China, not the Soviets, serving as the backup forces.

The Soviets were begged and bargained into the Pacific War--if they ITTL their gains are likely to be Southern Sakhalin and perhaps Hokkaido. I do not think the IJA has the strength to resist a massive allied land force in China--with a hostile population on the sidelines and the IJA offering mostly mobility and morale as advantages against the allied forces that will murderously outtech them, I see little way that this will end other than kicking the IJA's butt across the Sea of Japan and dropping Little Boy and Fat Man from a Korean Airstrip instead of Okinawa.

Now, this is likely to present a future where the USA struggles with the incompetence and greed of Chiang instead of losing China--which could mean the US is forced back into China in the 1950s. Japan is toast essentially from Pearl Harbor--they have no way to defeat the United States--and this variation is likely to be more politically painful to Japan as well.
 
With the allies in control of mainland asia the Japanese fleet's threat would be massivly reduced- it could be largely picked off with land based air power.
 
What's the reasoning behind this? OTL, the European Concessions in Shanghai were left intact and unoccupied until 7/8 Dec 41, even if the rest of the city was in Japanese hands.
 
The idea of the Allies driving from Calcutta to Seoul overland would defeat the Soviet land grabs in China and Korea.
My understanding is the Allies didn't do it OTL because the transpacific route, even with 2 roads, was far & away faster. Can you clarify why it's not TTL? Otherwise, IMO, the war's longer....
 
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