USN off to Singapore

[ivanotter]

All,

We have probably looked at this before, but here goes .....

Churchill really wanted to see USN being sent to Singapore. Of course it would then entail ground troops as well. That Singapore was a political decision rather than a military one is now clear.

King was not so interested.

If any USN deployment would happen prior to December 1941 could it have slowed Japan down or changed its strategy?

If an extra couple of US (army) divisions had been landed before PH, would it have made a significant difference? and if so, what would have been the outcome?

It is clear that the 'Germany First' policy was a good propaganda tool. However, the USN had enough bandwidth to support an Atlantic strategy and to run its own war in the Pacific (when production got ramped up and initial losses were made good.

As Professor Callahan explains, the requirements in the Atlantic were vastly different to the Pacific; hence a dual strategy (or three-pronged if we take MacArthur into account) would not have been markedly different even with a different resource allocation. USMC was the USN army component and not used in Europe anyway, battleships are great but not in chasing U-boats in the Atlantic etc etc.

If USN had decided to sail off to Singapore, would it just have been worse than PH?

 

[Admiral Bloonbeard]

To Singapore with what battleships? They got sunk at Pearl Harbor. Unless if the Pacific fleet was already in the area, AKA Subic Bay in the Philippines.

 

[Viper91]

If the US had the extra troops and equipment available, they likely would have been used to reinforce the Philippines or other US territories like Guam, or Wake Island.

As far as warships goes, there's also the issue of logistics. A lot of British equipment, early on at least, wasn't compatible for use on US ships and vice versa. To set up more then a token force in Singapore, the US Navy would have had to set up warehouses for supplies, machine shops to build and repair equipment, airfields ashore for carrier based aircraft squadrons to stay at when the carriers are in port, fuel stores, drydock facilities, barracks and a host of other support facilities ashore that didn't exist in Singapore, but did in Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor had been a base with a number of facilities available even before the bulk of the Pacific Fleet moved there from San Diego. Singapore would have seen a lot of stuff having to be set up from scratch, as the British still had their own forces to maintain, and it would have been a much longer supply line between the US and Singapore.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Well: There's not nearly as much empty water for a carrier fleet approaching Singapore to sneak in across to try to launch a surprise attack as there is in the Pacific when approaching Hawai'i.

 

[ivanotter]

Viper, those are great points.

So the idea was basically dead when we got to end 1941? Churchill pushed for it.

Could Singapore have been a decisive factor at all? better than PH, which was far away after all.

 

[NORGCO]

Viper, those are great points.

So the idea was basically dead when we got to end 1941? Churchill pushed for it.

Could Singapore have been a decisive factor at all? better than PH, which was far away after all.

As in would preventing the fall of Singapore change the whole Pacific Campaign? Yes it would.

The whole point of the war from Japan's perpective was to capture the oil fields of the Netherlands East Indies. There was lots of other useful resources in the area, rubber from Malaya etc, but the oil fields were the main objective.

Saving Singapore means saving the Malay Peninsula, so the rubber etc keeps going to Britain. Having a major naval base close to the NEI means the oil fields won't be shipping meaningful quantities of oil to Japan. Given that Japan was running the war on a stockpile of oil that was large but fininte, no NEI oil means at some point in the near future the Japanese navy, its air fleet, the army's air fleet and the merchant fleet all shut down.

I cannot see the Burma campaign happening with Malaya in British hands either, so supplies to China via the Burma road, soon to be Burma Railroad keep happening and that will make life their considerably less fun for the Japanese Army.

So yes, Singapore was worth going to more trouble to save then it actually got.

 

[ivanotter]

Very interesting.

Insofar as the Japanese strategy was to
1) get to the resources (and that means SWP)
2) guard the flank by eliminating the USN as a short-term threat

then if the USN is putting the majority of its ships into Singapore, PH as we know it will not happen.

If we imagine the move in early 1940 (after Churchill became PM in May 1940) there just might be time for a proper build-up.

Will Japan then try to do a Singapore attack (in the line of what PH was)? And how could they sneak up on Singapore? (as also pointed out there is a lot of water to cover around PH. Not so much around Singapore.

With more (US) troops around Singapore, Japan might not have such an easy time.

It leaves one factor: IJN. Would they risk the fleet in the confined waters?

Maybe some of MacArthur's B-17s are moved to airfields in Malay?

King would not be too enthusiastic about sitting in Singapore and Nimitz would look at the safety of his carriers. Could they be safe in Singapore?

 

[Viper91]

Very interesting.

Insofar as the Japanese strategy was to
1) get to the resources (and that means SWP)
2) guard the flank by eliminating the USN as a short-term threat

then if the USN is putting the majority of its ships into Singapore, PH as we know it will not happen.

If we imagine the move in early 1940 (after Churchill became PM in May 1940) there just might be time for a proper build-up.

Will Japan then try to do a Singapore attack (in the line of what PH was)? And how could they sneak up on Singapore? (as also pointed out there is a lot of water to cover around PH. Not so much around Singapore.

With more (US) troops around Singapore, Japan might not have such an easy time.

It leaves one factor: IJN. Would they risk the fleet in the confined waters?

Maybe some of MacArthur's B-17s are moved to airfields in Malay?

King would not be too enthusiastic about sitting in Singapore and Nimitz would look at the safety of his carriers. Could they be safe in Singapore?

No they would not. One other factor is Singapore is within range of land based Japanese aircraft flying from Indochina.

This still doesn't help supply lines which would still come from the west coast, and a lot of stuff would still have to stage through Pearl Harbor anyway.

It also doesn't address the issues of the Philippines. If the US can spend so much time and effort reinforcing a British colonial possession, why aren't they reinforcing US holdings in the Philippines, which did have a number of military and naval installations already. Instead of wasting time and money defending British territory, a better, more realistic goal would be to increase the strength and capabilities of US Navy installations at Subic Bay and Cavit, or improve the defenses at Clark Field and other air bases in the Philippines.

 

[bsmart]

What is the justification for all this? We were not in a formal alliance with the UK so why would we send troops or ships to defend their colony? The 'America Firsters' would have a field day with this.

 

[Driftless]

(snip)
It also doesn't address the issues of the Philippines. If the US can spend so much time and effort reinforcing a British colonial possession, why aren't they reinforcing US holdings in the Philippines, which did have a number of military and naval installations already. Instead of wasting time and money defending British territory, a better, more realistic goal would be to increase the strength and capabilities of US Navy installations at Subic Bay and Cavit, or improve the defenses at Clark Field and other air bases in the Philippines.

You could make the strategic case from a military perspective that Singapore was more defensible than the Philippines, under the existing 1941 state of the US and British militaries in the region. To the point above, FDR would burn a ton of political capital to shift big resources to a protect a British colony vs throwing an American protectorate on its way to independence to the Japanese wolves.... (That's the way the situation would play in the political world back in the US). You could also bet the farm, MacArthur would publically raise holy-hell over both aspects of such a shift; leaving more political fallout in his wake.

 

[Dilvish]

What would it take to move the bulk of the US Pacific Fleet, the necessary supplies and ammunition, the personnel, land-based aircraft, and ground forces to Singapore? Historically the US had trouble finding the freighters and transports to move what reinforcements did make it to the Philippines. The British Empire, including Canada, was also scrounging for shipping. How long would it take to make the necessary movements?

The Japanese will be able to concentrate all their aircraft carriers in addition to the land-based air in theater. The battle line will show up as well. Frankly IJN aviation was world-class, even number one in some aspects. The IJN also outnumbers the Allied forces in the area. The IJN is capable of inflicting a lot of damage to the fleets that Singapore can't easily or quickly repair.

 

[ivanotter]

It is a bit of a funny one now.

If we try to look at what can easily be defended, we might see that if Hawaii is a bit far away for prompt actions, there really are only two options:

1) Philippines
2) Singapore

Which one could most easily be defended?

Carriers and in-shore action in 1941/2 are not good friends.

Having land-based aircraft (B-17s?) would be a great thing, but Japan immediately built up airfields. Who could get the lead?

All of this points to a decision no later than 1940. And that is where Churchill was off to see President Roosevelt.

Sacrificing Philippines and getting Singapore instead would, from a US perspective, take a bit of persuasion. Although Churchill was rather good at getting people seeing the light, it may have been too much.

... but then again, the Philippines were not supported to the maximum, so that could have supported Churchill's view.

 

[CalBear]

All,

We have probably looked at this before, but here goes .....

Churchill really wanted to see USN being sent to Singapore. Of course it would then entail ground troops as well. That Singapore was a political decision rather than a military one is now clear.

King was not so interested.

If any USN deployment would happen prior to December 1941 could it have slowed Japan down or changed its strategy?

If an extra couple of US (army) divisions had been landed before PH, would it have made a significant difference? and if so, what would have been the outcome?

It is clear that the 'Germany First' policy was a good propaganda tool. However, the USN had enough bandwidth to support an Atlantic strategy and to run its own war in the Pacific (when production got ramped up and initial losses were made good.

As Professor Callahan explains, the requirements in the Atlantic were vastly different to the Pacific; hence a dual strategy (or three-pronged if we take MacArthur into account) would not have been markedly different even with a different resource allocation. USMC was the USN army component and not used in Europe anyway, battleships are great but not in chasing U-boats in the Atlantic etc etc.

If USN had decided to sail off to Singapore, would it just have been worse than PH?

Worse?

Unquestionably.

Any heavy ships lost there would be LOST, not just sitting in the mud. Only the Arizona and Oklahoma were actually "lost" at Pearl, the rest of the battle line came back as the much needed "gun line" (Nevada managed to play a significant during Overlord, Dragoon (after which she had to have her gun barrels relined since she had literally worn them out) followed by Iwo and Okinawa (where she ate a Kamikaze but remained on the gun line for a week afterward). Maryland and Tennessee were back in service inside of two months, Pennsylvania was never technically out of operations, although they did have to complete the repairs that had her in 1010 dock on December 7th, she was back in service by January 12th, 1942. West Virginia and California took longer but were both in operation by Leyte. None of that happens at Singapore.

As far as the Japanese strategy that was predetermined. They Japanese launch their offensive at the absolute peak of their naval power vs. the U.S. (due to the lag between when the U.S. started construction after the Japanese withdrew from the LNT and when the Japanese started, the IJN was actually closer to a 3.5:5 ratio than the 3:5 under the WNT/LNT). They needed six CV to conduct the Pearl Harbor operation as gamed out and for other planned actions. Zuikaku completed her shakedown on November 13th, the Kido Butai left for Pearl on November 26th. Say what you will about the decision to attack Pearl, but the Japanese managed all the various pieces like a chess master.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Worse?

Unquestionably.

Any heavy ships lost there would be LOST, not just sitting in the mud. Only the Arizona and Oklahoma were actually "lost" at Pearl, the rest of the battle line came back as the much needed "gun line" (Nevada managed to play a significant during Overlord, Dragoon (after which she had to have her gun barrels relined since she had literally worn them out) followed by Iwo and Okinawa (where she ate a Kamikaze but remained on the gun line for a week afterward). Maryland and Tennessee were back in service inside of two months, Pennsylvania was never technically out of operations, although they did have to complete the repairs that had her in 1010 dock on December 7th, she was back in service by January 12th, 1942. West Virginia and California took longer but were both in operation by Leyte. None of that happens at Singapore.

As far as the Japanese strategy that was predetermined. They Japanese launch their offensive at the absolute peak of their naval power vs. the U.S. (due to the lag between when the U.S. started construction after the Japanese withdrew from the LNT and when the Japanese started, the IJN was actually closer to a 3.5:5 ratio than the 3:5 under the WNT/LNT). They needed six CV to conduct the Pearl Harbor operation as gamed out and for other planned actions. Zuikaku completed her shakedown on November 13th, the Kido Butai left for Pearl on November 26th. Say what you will about the decision to attack Pearl, but the Japanese managed all the various pieces like a chess master.

How much less damage would the IJN have managed at Pearl if surprise had been lost due to a sighting of the IJN carriers by a US submarine out on patrol, say, an hour beforehand and the air force at Pearl had been on alert and had planes in the air to meet the first wave?

 

[ArtosStark]

As in would preventing the fall of Singapore change the whole Pacific Campaign? Yes it would.

The whole point of the war from Japan's perpective was to capture the oil fields of the Netherlands East Indies. There was lots of other useful resources in the area, rubber from Malaya etc, but the oil fields were the main objective.

Saving Singapore means saving the Malay Peninsula, so the rubber etc keeps going to Britain. Having a major naval base close to the NEI means the oil fields won't be shipping meaningful quantities of oil to Japan. Given that Japan was running the war on a stockpile of oil that was large but fininte, no NEI oil means at some point in the near future the Japanese navy, its air fleet, the army's air fleet and the merchant fleet all shut down.

I cannot see the Burma campaign happening with Malaya in British hands either, so supplies to China via the Burma road, soon to be Burma Railroad keep happening and that will make life their considerably less fun for the Japanese Army.

So yes, Singapore was worth going to more trouble to save then it actually got.

The caveat I would add to this is that you cannot really hold Singapore if Sumatra is Japanese. Holding Singapore, however that may happen, also means someone is going to need to put troops into the DEI to keep the Japanese from taking at least Sumatra, and probably Java. Probably more if you are supplying from the Western US.

 

[CalBear]

How much less damage would the IJN have managed at Pearl if surprise had been lost due to a sighting of the IJN carriers by a US submarine out on patrol, say, an hour beforehand and the air force at Pearl had been on alert and had planes in the air to meet the first wave?

Under the condition at Pearl and on Ford Island/Hickam, and hour would not be of much help. The Ward actually SANK a Japanese sub at 06:37 outside of the entrance to the Harbor, reported it, and the comm system simply shit the bed. Pearl Harbor was at peace, full stop.

It would take, at minimum, two hours to arm the aircraft, get them warmed up, and up to altitude, and this assumes reasonable manning and available pilots, neither of which was going to be easy. 05:00 on a Sunday morning in peacetime means around 2/3 of the officers, maybe more, are off base (there were warships in the harbor that managed to get underway commanded by a ensign) and a LOT of the junior officers AND enlisted who are on base are drunk as skunks having come back to base because it was cheaper to sleept in the barracks/on board than rent a room in Honolulu.

Ideally, the best case for the U.S. is that the "War Warning" actually gets Short and Kimmel motivated. That puts around half the ships crews and defensive gun position on some degree of readiness even if they are in their bunks and has ready ammo at the AAA guns. If that is in place and the base gets three hours warning you can get about 1/3 of the fighters up, get the PBY fleet out of the harbor (the U.S lost something north of SIXTY PBY during the attack, most of these were brand new aircraft with crews still in training, not battle ready but flight ready), get watertight integrity on the ships in the harbor/guns manned, get the ground based AAA manned and ready, etc.

This will substantially impact the Japanese strike, especially the damage caused at Hickam and Wheeler, which was largely due to strafing by the A6M escorts that had no need to deal with American fighters which allowed them to concentrate on what was their secondary strafing mission. It likely triples, if not quadruples, first wave losses for the Japanese and has the potential to avert the loss of the Arizona (she was lost to the ONE 1.760 pound converted AP shell that actually hit anything important), and perhaps the Oklahoma (she took torpedo three hits, with full integrity set she might pull through), although this assumes that no other hits are incurred by either ship. It would also likely mean that the Second Wave flies into a cheese grater with virtually all guns manned and 25-30 fighters (including the ones from the dispersal fields) up and waiting. Given the actual history of the 2nd Wave, which lost more than 20 aircraft even after the damage caused earlier, the Japanese could lose 50-60 aircraft outright in the second strike. Again, given OTL's results that would very likely put another 30-40 Japanese aircraft over the side as beyond repair. Call it 100-140 lost airframes in total. Enormous hit on the IJN, which hasd already been forced to strip both Zeros and Kates from their light carriers to staff up the Kido Butai.

U.S. likely loses three-five ships for 12-18 months, along with perhaps one unrecoverable loss.

Doesn't really radically alter the war, although it might scrub the Darwin Raid (the IO Raid is much less likely to be cancelled), and in a perfect world would allow the Wake reinforcement to succeed. Biggest difference is the number of U.S. losses, figure a 50-60% reduction (Arizona by herself accounted for 1,177 KIA of the attack total 2337 KIA).

 

[Blue cat]

The caveat I would add to this is that you cannot really hold Singapore if Sumatra is Japanese. Holding Singapore, however that may happen, also means someone is going to need to put troops into the DEI to keep the Japanese from taking at least Sumatra, and probably Java. Probably more if you are supplying from the Western US.

So perhaps with the benefit of hindsight forces that were historically dispatched to Hong Kong for example could have been better utilized elsewhere ?

 

[CalBear]

So perhaps with the benefit of hindsight forces that were historically dispatched to Hong Kong for example could have been better utilized elsewhere ?

Same can be said for Malaya and Singapore. Considering the overall performance during that campaign, especially at senior command levels, and the truly terrible state of the "defenses" (assuming you can call a "fortress" with defenses on only three sides an actual "fortress") the dispatch of additional troops was like throwing money into paper shredder.

 

[Blue cat]

Same can be said for Malaya and Singapore. Considering the overall performance during that campaign, especially at senior command levels, and the truly terrible state of the "defenses" (assuming you can call a "fortress" with defenses on only three sides an actual "fortress") the dispatch of additional troops was like throwing money into paper shredder.

So with the benefit of hindsight is there any plausible way these forces could have been utilized to actually stop Japan vs delay them ?

 

[CV12Hornet]

All,

We have probably looked at this before, but here goes .....

Churchill really wanted to see USN being sent to Singapore. Of course it would then entail ground troops as well. That Singapore was a political decision rather than a military one is now clear.

King was not so interested.

If any USN deployment would happen prior to December 1941 could it have slowed Japan down or changed its strategy?

If an extra couple of US (army) divisions had been landed before PH, would it have made a significant difference? and if so, what would have been the outcome?

It is clear that the 'Germany First' policy was a good propaganda tool. However, the USN had enough bandwidth to support an Atlantic strategy and to run its own war in the Pacific (when production got ramped up and initial losses were made good.

As Professor Callahan explains, the requirements in the Atlantic were vastly different to the Pacific; hence a dual strategy (or three-pronged if we take MacArthur into account) would not have been markedly different even with a different resource allocation. USMC was the USN army component and not used in Europe anyway, battleships are great but not in chasing U-boats in the Atlantic etc etc.

If USN had decided to sail off to Singapore, would it just have been worse than PH?

Moving the fleet to Singapore, even absent all the other problems about getting there, would send paroxysms of joy throughout the Japanese high command. The only way this could be better for them is if the fleet was in the Philippines at the start of the war.

See, the entire reason the Pearl Harbor operation happened was because the Japanese were rightfully very worried about having to deal with the conquest of the Southern Resource Area and a Kantai Kessen with the US Navy at the same time. The former would've sucked up the resources for the latter's Attrition and Night phases. Hence Pearl, with the goal of rocking the American back on their heels for six months to buy time to complete the conquests and then shift their assets back into position to conduct the Kantai Kessen plan.

If the American fleet is in Singapore, well, they're right there. Now it's not a matter of fighting Kantai Kessen while distracted by the Southern Resource Area conquest. Now it's a matter of fighting the Kantai Kessen right at the start in the South China Sea. This allows for a much smaller shift in their prewar doctrine.

This also greatly helps the correlation of forces in Japan's favor. Let's assume the US Navy can pull together the ships that OTL were scattered all over the Pacific to Singapore for one big murder ball. That's 9 battleships, 3 carriers, 12 heavy cruisers, 10 light cruisers (5 Brooklyns, 5 Omahas), and 51 destroyers. This is far better odds for the Japanese than if the US Navy pushed west four or five months later and had been able to transfer significant forces from the Atlantic Fleet. 9 to 6 is far better odds than 12 to 7, especially when the fleet is more short-handed in destroyers, light cruisers, and aircraft carriers, all ships that would contribute heavily to not losing capital units during the Attrition and Night stages.

But the biggest help to the Japanese here is actually finding and tracking the fleet. That was the biggest hole in the original Kantai Kessen plan, especially since wartime experience showed that their submarine recon wouldn't have worked and their search doctrine and resources were inadequate. This task is greatly simplified when they know where the Americans are coming from, the distances are shorter, and the waters more confined.

So, yeah, expect the Japanese to move south with their battle fleet and try to lure the Americans out for a general fleet action. A fleet action they stand halfway decent odds of actually winning.