WI - Pacific War begins in 1937?

What if the Pacific War began in 1937 and during the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War? How could the US (and potentially the Allies) get earlier involved in the Pacific and/or Asia against Japan?
 
Very few people in the US were willing to go to war for China, not is it likely that any "incident" would draw the US into the war. The actual effect of the Panay incident in OTL was to strengthen isolationism in the US.

As David M. Kennedy writes in Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, p. 402: "But the Panay was not to be a modern Maine, nor even a Lusitania. Its sinking produced a cry for withdrawal, not for war. 'We should learn that it is about time for us to mind our own business,' Texas Democrat Maury Maverick declared in the House. A few months later, a Fortune magazine poll showed that a majority of Americans favored getting the United States out of China altogether. When Japan tendered an official apology for the Panay incident and paid some $2 million in reparations, the crisis swiftly blew over.

"The principal residue of the Panay affair in Congress was not more bellicosity but more pacifism [citing the boost the incident gave to the proposed Ludlow Amendment]... https://books.google.com/books?id=UQlEq9GILRgC&pg=PR111

As for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.
 

Deleted member 9338

While the world was fighting the effects of the Great Depression was it possible a Neatherlands or Australia would lead for a greater voice to stop Japan. What of the Soviets, they had reason to be more active in China.
 
While the world was fighting the effects of the Great Depression was it possible a Neatherlands or Australia would lead for a greater voice to stop Japan. What of the Soviets, they had reason to be more active in China.

Australia was busy selling pig iron to the Japanese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalfram_dispute_of_1938 The Soviets were busy purging their top military. (They did of course give aid to Chiang, but that was precisely so the Japanese would not fight the USSR or Outer Mongolia, being bogged down in China.) The idea of the Dutch going to war in 1937 is ludicrous. Japanese actions did cause concern, of course, but it would be a long time before Japanese would even occupy French Indochina.
 
Also, if anyone would go to war with Japan over China, it would not be a pacific war(*) but mostly a series of land battles fought in the Chinese inland and in the end, the war would not stop with the surrender and occupation of the Japanese islands, but with cinfining Japan to the islands proper and pushing it out of all its territories on the mainland.

For all I know, it might be called the Korean war as a good deal of it would involve Japan and -unnamed world power X- going to war over Korea and Manchuria as a side thought too.

And as for which -unnamed world power X- would step forward, I know it still will be 50 years before 'The Princess Bride' will be released, but no doubt every military adviser in the West already heard Vinzetti's final advice:
"Never get embroiled in a land war in Asia"


(*) of course, just like no one can tell what's so civil about a civil war, a pacific war is pretty much a contradiction in terms either. Not that this ever stopped us fighting both.
 
The Battle of Shanghai could offer something - the Western powers were concerned about their economic holdings in the city, and attempted to broker a ceasefire. The Chinese accidentally bombed a US cruiser. China made its appeal to the League of Nations.

Maybe it's the Japanese who hit the Augusta and with their better bombing/tactics etc sink her? The appeal to the LoN would thus be about a city that the powers actually cared about and come after Japan had appeared to target their interests?
 
The Battle of Shanghai could offer something - the Western powers were concerned about their economic holdings in the city, and attempted to broker a ceasefire. The Chinese accidentally bombed a US cruiser. China made its appeal to the League of Nations.

Maybe it's the Japanese who hit the Augusta and with their better bombing/tactics etc sink her? The appeal to the LoN would thus be about a city that the powers actually cared about and come after Japan had appeared to target their interests?
What could happen if the Battle of Shanghai became a casus belli for other powers to join?
 
What could happen if the Battle of Shanghai became a casus belli for other powers to join?

The Chinese have a massive army somewhere nearby with Von Falkenhausen advising. Any decision to intervene militarily by a neutral is going to factor that in.

Usually wars start with an ultimatum so I guess in the first resort it would be to get the heck out of Shanghai, and withdraw to positions of such-and-such a date

In general, in the first instance it would have to be largely a naval response - and whatever naval aviation is nearby
 
The Chinese have a massive army somewhere nearby with Von Falkenhausen advising. Any decision to intervene militarily by a neutral is going to factor that in.

Usually wars start with an ultimatum so I guess in the first resort it would be to get the heck out of Shanghai, and withdraw to positions of such-and-such a date

In general, in the first instance it would have to be largely a naval response - and whatever naval aviation is nearby
What other effects would there be?
 
Also, if anyone would go to war with Japan over China, it would not be a pacific war(*) but mostly a series of land battles fought in the Chinese inland and in the end, the war would not stop with the surrender and occupation of the Japanese islands, but with cinfining Japan to the islands proper and pushing it out of all its territories on the mainland.

For all I know, it might be called the Korean war as a good deal of it would involve Japan and -unnamed world power X- going to war over Korea and Manchuria as a side thought too.

And as for which -unnamed world power X- would step forward, I know it still will be 50 years before 'The Princess Bride' will be released, but no doubt every military adviser in the West already heard Vinzetti's final advice:
"Never get embroiled in a land war in Asia"


(*) of course, just like no one can tell what's so civil about a civil war, a pacific war is pretty much a contradiction in terms either. Not that this ever stopped us fighting both.

For the US this runs directly opposite to the actual war plan, War Plan ORANGE. The war was to be won by methodically destroying the Japanese Navy, cutting off their armies overseas, and subjecting Japan to blockade.

British staff studies envisioned something similar. The difference being the placement of advanced naval bases.
 
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Post Panay sinking the Japanese had not quite learned their lesson/enforced discipline in that direction. A US diplomat was beaten by some Japanese soldiers. There were some other confrontations that were defused. I read some excepts from reports by USMC officers posted in Shanghai, about how the Japanese there played games with the Marines and other foreign soldiers trying to provoke them.

At the upper levels the Japanese leaders wrestled with the problem of foreign trade benefitting the KMT government & keeping it afloat. The efforts to extend the Zaibatsu system into occupied China and control all foreign trade with China via Japanese businesses tho progressing were not going to pay off anytime soon. The Japanese pretty much convinced themselves the foreign Concessions & businesses in China were undercutting the Japanese commercial efforts by underwriting smuggling and other evasions of Japanese occupation rule. This perception was part of the rational for the Japanese occupation of French Indo China. It included the objective of cutting the trade route between the port of Haiphong and KMT territory.
The Japanese also sought to marginalize and intimidate the other foreign merchants by harassing, imprisoning, deporting, to other provinces, and killing Chinese who did business directly with the Europeans and Americans.

Its not inconceivable these tensions could be turned by a local Army commander, perhaps with encouragement from above, into the forceable occupation of one or more of the European Concessions, including severe restrictions on the residents, harassment, arrests, & even murders.

Very few people in the US were willing to go to war for China, not is it likely that any "incident" would draw the US into the war. The actual effect of the Panay incident in OTL was to strengthen isolationism in the US.

As David M. Kennedy writes in Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, p. 402: "But the Panay was not to be a modern Maine, nor even a Lusitania. Its sinking produced a cry for withdrawal, not for war. 'We should learn that it is about time for us to mind our own business,' Texas Democrat Maury Maverick declared in the House. A few months later, a Fortune magazine poll showed that a majority of Americans favored getting the United States out of China altogether. When Japan tendered an official apology for the Panay incident and paid some $2 million in reparations, the crisis swiftly blew over.

"The principal residue of the Panay affair in Congress was not more bellicosity but more pacifism [citing the boost the incident gave to the proposed Ludlow Amendment]... https://books.google.com/books?id=UQlEq9GILRgC&pg=PR111

As for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.

This was offset in part by businesses loosing their lucrative slice of the China Trade. The wealthy who's fortunes depended on the export/import business were loathe to see their profits hijacked by Japanese middle men, or worse to be shut out of trade access to 400 million Chinese for the benefit of their Japanese counterpart. The China lobby was relatively small. but aggressive and well financed. Like United Fruit and the others in the Latin America lobby they were not much interested in seeing their business shut out because the US Navy & its Marines were idle at San Diego or Norfolk and Quantico.
 
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Don't know. The US did dispatch a Marine Expeditionary Brigade, a portion of the Pacific Fleet, and Army reinforcements for the 15th Infantry Regiment to Shanghai in 1927. That was in response to riots that threatened the serenity of the foreign Concession and a few hundred US citizens. Here I've been thinking only in terms of 1937-38.
 

Jack1971

Banned
What if the Pacific War began in 1937 and during the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War? How could the US (and potentially the Allies) get earlier involved in the Pacific and/or Asia against Japan?
1937 is an ideal time for the RN to face the IJN, with most IJN CVS either under construction or modernization.
 
... with most IJN CVS either under construction or modernization.

And the A5M 'Claude' the cutting edge naval fighter plane. Cant recall the previous model, or how either compared to the Gloster Gladiator. Still, in a surface battle the Japanese were well supplied with torpedoes, outranging whatever the RN used. Both navies were skilled at night battle, having actually trained for it vs the lip service the USN and others thought sufficient. I suspect British gunnery would be a bit better, for most ships. The Japanese acquired a reputation for poor ammunition, my guess is that would be valid in 1937. The Brit T class submarines were suitable for long range patrols in the Pacific & Asian waters.

The biggest Japanese disadvantage would be their addiction to overly complex operational plans. That went beyond Yamamoto & his staff. The RN of 1937 had its command and control problems, but simplicity was not one of them. I'd expect the Japanese strategy would be one of attritioning the RN at a distance, probably trying to open with some surprise attacks. Then await the big decisive battle near Japan. The RN would be faced with the same problem as the US, trying to acquire forward bases close enough to challenge & defeat the IJN. Formosa is a possible target, but using its ports requires transporting a fair sized land Army from the corners of the empire.
 

Jack1971

Banned
And the A5M 'Claude' the cutting edge naval fighter plane.
Bearn and the Dewoitine D.370 fighter ( the first ever folding wing monoplane carrier fighter ) along with the French fleet will be in the fight too. Heck, the Italians may want to take a smack at Japan, since IIRC relations between Italy and Japan rapidly worsened when the latter essentially encircled the Italian colony of Tietsen.

And if the Euros in alliance with the US collectively smack Japan, doesn’t this worry Germany and Russia about any expansionist ideas?
 
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Oooo... the French Navy. I've mostly thought of this war in terms of a generator for hypothetical naval battles. Alone the French fleet is not a big challenge for the IJN. But, alongside the Brits it tips the Japanese side way down.
 
As for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.
France didn't have the same problem with unemployment at that time as the US, from the manpower shortage thanks to WWI, between that, and Banks being far more Conservative in practices. So were among the least effected countries

Now they did have Laval's deflationary policy, that made things go nearly as bad, just as with Hoover. But they had far more trouble with Strikes in the latter part of the '30s, so the Depressions effects(though not severe) in France were delayed by 5 years or so, and had more Political changes than economic for France
 
As for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.

War, or severe tensions with Japan could accelerate military and industrial preparation. OTL one of the constraints on French industrial reform/preparation and military rearmament was the desire to stay inside the boundaries of fiscal responsibility. That is not spending more than tax revenue was bringing in. No insane deficit spending like Germany was engaged in. If there is a war with Japan in 1937-38 The currency and gold reserves would be drawn down, and spending above tax revenue started. Peace time restraints on industrial reform would be removed as well. We could see French rearmament advanced one to two years by 1940.

France didn't have the same problem with unemployment at that time as the US, from the manpower shortage thanks to WWI, between that, and Banks being far more Conservative in practices. So were among the least effected countries

Now they did have Laval's deflationary policy, that made things go nearly as bad, just as with Hoover. But they had far more trouble with Strikes in the latter part of the '30s, so the Depressions effects(though not severe) in France were delayed by 5 years or so, and had more Political changes than economic for France

My take is the French industrial plant was in uneven condition, some parts operating at a decent efficiency level, others much less so.
 
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