WI: Marine/Navy-only Pacific War, no South West Pacific Offensive

What to do with MacArthur?

You have two equally ranked commanders: Nimitz and his majesty MacArthur. Well technically Mac has more time as a General officer but still Nimitz is CINPAC.

So the million dollar question is how do you fix the command problem?

Eisenhower and MacArthur can swap places. Eisenhower is more of a team player anyway.
 
It seems most of us agree that the Army is necessary, at the very least, to hold a defensive line in the South Pacific, and later on attacking the Phillipines. So the US can have the Army hold the line, cancel Op Cartwheel, and use shipping and troops saved for whatever it wants until they're needed for the Phillipines.

OK, here's my idea of what this might look like:

Gilbert Islands: March 43
Marshall Islands: Sep - Oct 43
Mariana Islands: Feb - Apr 44
Iwo Jima: May 44
Leyte Jun-Sep 44, fighting Japanese holdouts until Dec 44
Luzon Sep-Nov 44, fighting Japanese holdouts until VJ day
Okinawa Jul - Sep 44

The Gilberts would be captured once the situation at Guadalcanal was stable. This gives the US time to build up for the assault on the Marshalls, which would take place in September when the USN had three Essex-class carriers available. Next, the Mariana Islands would be captured. This puts the US in a position to isolate the Japanese in the South Pacific, threaten the Phillipines with invasion, and stage for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, all four months ahead of OTL.

The Phillipines would be assaulted by an Army invasion force, four months before OTL. This would seal off the Japanese in the South Pacific, achieving the same end result as Cartwheel.

The Palau Islands would be bypassed and isolated, since they were a waste of time and thousands of lives. This frees up forces for an earlier invasion of Iwo Jima, nine months earlier than OTL. Finally, Okinawa is captured, putting the US in a position to invade the Home Islands in the spring of 1945.

Now, regarding the invasion of the Home Islands, OTL the Japanese only had one division in Kyushu in March '45; however, they built up to 14 divisions by August, a rate of 2.8 divisions per month.

If the Japanese start building up when Iwo Jima falls, they could have the same forces ITTL as OTL.

Wit this in mind, would it be better for the US to invade Hokkaido as a staging ground for CORONET? I know it's far from Allied supply lines, but in May 1945 the Japanese only had 2 divisions in Hokkaido. The US could send a few divisions, capture the island, and use it in place of Kyushu as the staging area for CORONET.

One last thing, and this is very important: What is the most humiliating end you can think of for Macarthur?
 

Archibald

Banned
We should have a thread "most insane McArthur death you can imagine" although I'm not sure the mods would allow it to happens... Let me start
While in Burma, McArthur stand too close from an elephant rear end and end buried and suffocated by 200 pounds of elephant dong.
 
We should have a thread "most insane McArthur death you can imagine" although I'm not sure the mods would allow it to happens... Let me start
While in Burma, McArthur stand too close from an elephant rear end and end buried and suffocated by 200 pounds of elephant dong.

Well there was a thread about how many ways Hitler could die, but the whims of the Mods are their own.
 
The problem with Hokkaido is that the ocean conditions in that part of the world are crappy at best and really really bad at worst. Supply lines would be very long, and airpower is limited by weather much more so than Kyushu and unlike Kyushu you don't have land based air helping you from some place like Okinawa.
 
It is easy to kill MacArthur off in 1942. You just have him get killed or captured during his breakout from the Philappines. But there is another option that I would like to mention.

What if MacArthur is seriously wounded during his escape and suffers a mental breakdown? We know that something happened to Mac on December 8th when the war began. What if an incident happens again? So Mac arrives in Australia wounded and "exhausted". He sits out the rest of 1942 in a hospital. Maybe he gets evacuated back to Pearl Harbor. MacArthur receives his Medal of Honor in a wheel chair or leaning on a cane. By the time MacArthur is healthy again the war has passed him by. Nimitz is running the Pacific war. MacArthur makes speeches about returning to the Philappines and opens factories. (Think Of Patton after being relieved and before taking command of the 3rd Army). Perhaps MacArhur is given the task of building up and training an invasion force for the Philappines. I don't see Marshall and Roosevelt allowing him to camp out in Washington so I would say have down under in Australia preparing to return to the Philappines. Mac makes in landing with an Army group. Mac spends the rest of the war on Leyte and Luzon as OTL but this time Nimitiz is already poised to invade Japan in early 1945. It is Nimitz who signs the surrender treaty in Tokyo Bay and Mac is invited out of courtesy.
 
I trained on Hokkaido in Jan 1985. Bitter cold & waist deep snow. October would not be a good time to attack there.

Invade in the spring of 1945 instead. This gives the allies better weather, and time to build up forces for CORONET by the fall of 1945. However, they won't be needed since Japan will almost certainly surrender before then as in OTL.

The problem with Hokkaido is that the ocean conditions in that part of the world are crappy at best and really really bad at worst. Supply lines would be very long, and airpower is limited by weather much more so than Kyushu and unlike Kyushu you don't have land based air helping you from some place like Okinawa.

The weather is definitely a crapshoot, and it is far from supply lines, but I still think a landing in Hokkaido is worth it.

Look at the advantages:
  • 2 Japanese divisions on Hokkaido vs 14 on Kyushu
  • Units on Kyushu were well-entrenched and supplied, whereas the units on Hokkaido were simply an afterthought until the Soviets invaded Manchuria
  • Smaller population on Hokkaido, meaning fewer people to potentially resist allied occupation
  • Hokkaido is out of range of the thousands of kamakaze aircraft and suicide boats the Japanese had prepared for the defense of Kyushu
  • Total strategic suprise: the Japanese threw everything they had into Kyushu, including 28% of their divisions and 40% of their ammunition. They simply knew that's where the allies would go
The invashon of Hokkaido would be tough from the standpoint of logistics and weather, but by 1945 the US was sending divisions straight from New York to France. Given the amount of shipping the allies have by 1945, I think the logistics can be handled. Once the Japanese forces on the island are destroyed, the allies can build up for the invasion of Honshu without the problem of rotting supplies that plagued the allies in campaigns in the tropics.

As for air support, the Japanese have the 12th air fleet and the 1st air division in the area. The site I'm using says the composition of these units is unknown, but I imagine a few CVs can handle them. Once the allies establish a beachead, the seabees can build an airfield and fly aircraft in.

As for the weather, just wait until it gets semi-warm. After all, D-day was launched in a window marginal weather and it was pulled off beautifully.

Overall, if the allies seize Hokkaido in spring of 1945, the Japanese will have been dealt a blow worse than Okinawa, with their military entrenched on the wrong side of the country while the allies prepare to invade Honshu. Throw in the atomic bombs and Soviet invasion of Manchuria in the summer, and there will be even more of an incentive to surrender than OTL, when Japan DID surrender.

We should have a thread "most insane McArthur death you can imagine" although I'm not sure the mods would allow it to happens... Let me start
While in Burma, McArthur stand too close from an elephant rear end and end buried and suffocated by 200 pounds of elephant dong.

Maybe I'll create a Macarthur roast thread. People can take their best shot at the gaijin shogun and vote on how to get rid of him. The most popular death will be the one I use if I make a TL out of this thread :p
 
Done :p

Hello all! Welcome to the Alternate History Forum MacArthur Roast. I will be your roastmaster this evening. This thread was inspired by a comment on my thread about the Pacific War.





Take your best shot at Dugout Doug, but please, keep it clean. You can also vote on how YOU would kill MacArthur and thereby stop communism, end cancer, and create world peace. If you have a better way to kill him off, comment below and I'll add it to the poll!

I'll start us off. Macarthur's ego is so big, we could drop it in the ocean and walk to Japan
 
Eisenhower and MacArthur can swap places. Eisenhower is more of a team player anyway.

I can't wait for a thread outlining the fun and games in the preparation for D-Day with Mac in charge and with delightful characters like Montgomery, Patton, Harris, JCH Lee and others, all putting aside personal differences for the common goal and general harmony and well being.

Patton might come off as the sanest of the lot ...

On second thought, that's probably as close as anyone will come to a realistic "D-Day Fails" thread...
 
Top