WI Japanese Paratroopers Went to Oahu ?

robdab2

Banned
Readman,

Bill Cameron claims that it's all just "constructive criticism" but I rarely seem to read anything constructive here. So, let me "turn the tables" on you ...

You just stated, "Anyhow, I'll suffice to say that IMO your idea is an interesting one but I myself don't find it plausible." - This seems to me to be critical and without any "constructive" parts. So, I'll ask outright, how would you modify "my" paratrooper scenario so that you would find it plausible ? Other that just cancelling the whole mission that is ?

Oh and thanks for the Grammar edit; - Anytime. I thought that it might make understanding easier for those readers here whose first language is not English. I struggled with Thai for two years before I finally realized that my "teacher" was using much street slang in his writings to me. Frustrating !
 
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I wasn't being serious about the grammar I was being sarcastic; if sum 1 do0esnt undrstand my englsh i guess thts ther prblm I dn't need it corrected thank you very much you Power-Tool.
 

robdab2

Banned
Readman,

I didn't correct your original posting, I just made sure that mine was as correct as I could make it, in a way that indicated that your original quote had been altered by me.

I care little for how you choose to portray yourself to the world but I wouldn't want anyone else to believe that I can't manage a readable sentence.

Have a nice day.
 
After re-reading the thread and giving myself some time to think, I've come to the conclusion that your raid is plausable. However, I would give the JINIF paras a single target. Either to capture the control tower of the airfield they land at (to spred confusion and draw resources from defending the planes from bombers), or the CAC guns (I'm thinking that the planes and the guns are far apart and you need to concentrate on one or the other), or your paras could land someplace NOT on the bombing list to sow confusion and draw off resources from the main attack. I'm not an expert, but military planners generally do like to have well-defined goals to their attacks. Perhaps an attack on the fuel storage areas that in OTL didn't get touched, or the dry docks; something high value but, again, untouched in OTL. I can apprecate the amount of thought you put into this and I believe you have a plausible idea. As to the raid itself, my personal opinion is that it would cause more damage and death (on both sides), and probably extend the war somewhat, giving the Japanese more of an advantage early on in the war, but ultimately the outcome would be much the same as in OTL: mushroom clouds over Japan.
 

robdab2

Banned
Ferrell,

After re-reading the thread and giving myself some time to think, I've come to the conclusion that your raid is plausable.- Thanks.

Either to capture the control tower of the airfield they land at (to spred confusion and draw resources from defending the planes from bombers) - At most of the USAAF airfields on Oahu the control towers were very far away from the concrete aprons where the US warplanes were parked wingtip-to-wingtip. Much faster to just pile out of your Tina (painted in US markings) after it has taxied in off of the runway and just start blowing up US warplanes. Anything else gives the US security types more prescious seconds to get out of shock and begin to react.

... or the CAC guns ... - I'm liking the 3 CAC "ship killer" batteries more and more as time goes on. The problem is that one of them is nowhere near a runway. I might have some lads dropping in by parachute afterall ...

Perhaps an attack on the fuel storage areas that in OTL didn't get touched,- Again, no runways nearby (except for the 9 avgas tanks on Ford Island), spread out over three other widely seperated locations and already an ideal battleship bombardment target.

... or the dry docks;- far too solid a construction for any weapons that paratroopers could reasonably carry. An 1,800 lb torpedo or two into the caisson gates would not only wreck the drydock but any US warships inside as well.

An attack on CinCPac HQ would cause mass confusion but again, no runways are nearby.

... mushroom clouds over Japan. - Very true with 2008 hindsight. The tricky thing is to guesstimate what the Japanese and Americans might have thought on Dec.8'41 ? Without the knowledge that the A-bomb even existed in theory, let alone that they would actually work.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
snip...

The tricky thing is to guesstimate what the ... ... Americans might have thought on Dec.8'41 ?


...

Kill them all!

Or, more likely,

Kill them all, along with their kids, and burn their ^&%#$ islands to the ground!
 

robdab2

Banned
Calbear, for a guy that just wrote,

... have more or less convinced me to refrain from replying in these threads,... just yesterday, you sure seem to be hooked on this one. LOL

Kill them all, along with their kids, and burn their ^&%#$ islands to the ground!- Sure didn't seem to be the historical reaction on Oahu over the evening of Dec.7-8'41. The accounts that I have read seemed to emphasize far more panic stricken behaviour with neighbour shooting neighbour in the dark, out of fear of invasion.
 
Calbear, for a guy that just wrote,

... have more or less convinced me to refrain from replying in these threads,... just yesterday, you sure seem to be hooked on this one. LOL

Kill them all, along with their kids, and burn their ^&%#$ islands to the ground!- Sure didn't seem to be the historical reaction on Oahu over the evening of Dec.7-8'41. The accounts that I have read seemed to emphasize far more panic stricken behaviour with neighbour shooting neighbour in the dark, out of fear of invasion.

Some panic, yes, but a lot of anger. And determinantion to do whatever it takes to win. After the first stunned reaction, the population (by and large) settled down and went on about winning the war.
 

robdab2

Banned
Ferrell, you posted,

After the first stunned reaction, the population (by and large) settled down and went on about winning the war.- You just re-state the history of the OTL. We all know that.

What I need you to do is to try to imagine yourself in the place of a US voter a few days after "my" Pearl Harbor scenario has started to unfold.

Not by any means have all of the details managed to get from Hawaii to the public on the mainland USofA but all are "glued" to their radio sets for the latest news ...

It is widely known via commercial radio and telegraph cable links that Japanese battleships had heavily bombarded Oahu, that a major Japanese airstrike had hit the USN inside of PH, that PH itself was plugged up by a blockship, that US airfields/aircraft had been demolished along with dozens of flaming fuel tanks AND that Japanese troops were ALREADY on that island.

With downtown Honolulu still in rapidly spreading oil fueled flames.

Then comes word of US ships being torpedoed and sunk at sea just off of Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Oil slicks drift onto beaches while news & communications blackouts from Oahu grow more ominous day by day ... feeding the population's paranoia.

Ten deckgun shells fired onshore overnight by a Japanese submarine quickly becomes a panic inducing rumour of downtown LA being bombed flat by yet another Japanese air raid ...

And there is still no official news at all from Oahu ...
 
Ferrell, you posted,

After the first stunned reaction, the population (by and large) settled down and went on about winning the war.- You just re-state the history of the OTL. We all know that.

What I need you to do is to try to imagine yourself in the place of a US voter a few days after "my" Pearl Harbor scenario has started to unfold.

Not by any means have all of the details managed to get from Hawaii to the public on the mainland USofA but all are "glued" to their radio sets for the latest news ...

It is widely known via commercial radio and telegraph cable links that Japanese battleships had heavily bombarded Oahu, that a major Japanese airstrike had hit the USN inside of PH, that PH itself was plugged up by a blockship, that US airfields/aircraft had been demolished along with dozens of flaming fuel tanks AND that Japanese troops were ALREADY on that island.

With downtown Honolulu still in rapidly spreading oil fueled flames.

Then comes word of US ships being torpedoed and sunk at sea just off of Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Oil slicks drift onto beaches while news & communications blackouts from Oahu grow more ominous day by day ... feeding the population's paranoia.

Ten deckgun shells fired onshore overnight by a Japanese submarine quickly becomes a panic inducing rumour of downtown LA being bombed flat by yet another Japanese air raid ...

And there is still no official news at all from Oahu ...

You're talking about a raid that leaves many more dead than OTL?

I agree with CalBear and Farrell. The US will be pissed off, even more so than in OTL. In this TL, there might even be murders of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast before they are sent to internment camps.*

The US seeking peace is ASB at this point. Just my .02 cents.

*Interestingly (given his later career of spying on the civil rights movement) FBI director J. Edgar Hoover opposed the internment camps.
 

robdab2

Banned
Unknown,

You have entirely missed the point that I intended to convey. Perhaps I didn't do a good job of it ?

No doubt that the Americans WOULD have been even more pissed than they were in the OTL. You'll get NO arguement from me on that most likely outcome.

What I was trying to describe was the "in the mind planning" that would have been going thru the brains of Japan's planning staff on about September 1'41 as they planned "my" scenario out in detail, on Yamamoto's orders.

Self delusional as it was, Yamamoto had hoped, in the OTL, that were Hawaii (and it's 500,000 US citizens) to be invaded and captured, then they might be traded back to the US as part of the "peacetalks" that would leave Japan in control of the NEI's oil.

By convincing themselves of an even more favourable result from a yet stronger attack against Hawaii, perhaps they could have convinced others in the Japanese chain of command that such was actually a good approach ?

I'm NOT saying that it would have worked, just that the Japanese might have been able to talk themselves into actually trying it, in the (mistaken) belief that the US might give in if trounced even harder than in the OTL ...
 
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