What if the Japanese had won at Midway?

The Japanese win at Midway? No way! It was a bold move to sail the whole fleet towards Australia and hope to catch the Yanks unaware, but after Pearl Harbor and other losses any major move immediately came under American suspicion. The Americans did not have the same numbers of ships but had better trained captains and crew motivated by hunger for revenge.

Originally posted by babyblue     What you stated here is hypothetical. The question of whether or not the Japs can amass the numbers they needed to conquer Australia aside, as we're both assuming now that they could, there will always be collaborators. From what you've said, you obviously think the Chinese population is more submissive and co-operative to the Japs because they are racially more similar than between white Australians and the Japs. I don't find this theory of yours too pallatable...White Russians in Manchuria also collaborated with the Japs.     The reason for collaboration is because there's obvious profits to be made. And that happens with every race. Although I don't doubt that the majority of Australians will take up arms against an invader, any invader. But there would always be a group of short-sighted people who thinks they can benefit from collaborating, once again with any invader.

Actually babyblue, I think the reason the Chinese were more inclined to submission were historical rather than racial. Looking at China's history for the century before WWII, it is a continuous story of foreign violation of sovereignty, domination by the Manchu elite, followed by collapse into civil war, warlordism, and finally the invasion of the Japanese. China had had a century of foreign domination, so naturally a great many Chinese were ready to simply submit to the latest in a long line of recent tyrants - both foreign and local. Australia, by contrast, had never been conquered and was a young nation.

Originally posted by Sparten ConstantineXI, The whole debate migrated from the land of the plausible to the realm of inanity when you brought uo the thing about moving the whole population inland. That would be impractical and suicidal, not to mention against Australian interests. As for manpower, well locals obviously, but they could ship whole boatloads of Koreans if needed.

My claim is not the least bit inane, you could see that if you closely examine Australia's industry and agriculture. On the east coast it is feasible to move the population inland hundreds of miles, with the protection of a major mountain range blocking Japanese advances. Huge amounts of Australian industry are located inland (e.g. Murray/Darling Basin, Broken Hill). This is on top of the vast herds of cattle and sheep in the semi-arid regions which could be made available to feed fleeing non-combatants. A plan to evacuate non-combatants inland would be perfectly feasible.

However, you still have not answered my question of where a large enough Japanese land army is going to come from to effectively conquer the coastal regions. The IJA only had 4,000 men for the invasion of Australian New Guinea - not even enough to subdue one major Australian state capital.

As for the Korean workers, how do you propose the transport vessels will be kept safe from the diverted US North Atlantic fleet while the IJN has to engage in such a massive detour from one Australian coastal city to the next? The truly important Australian urban centres are over 10,000 kilometres away from Japan itself. The IJN was not large enough to simultaneously guard transports of manual labour, engage Australian defences along the coast AND fight off USN reinforcements all at once.

RE Justinian:

I think Justinian has hit the nail on the head. Australians were probably even more racially hostile towards the Japanese than Americans were. Australia is an island nation - which is very conducive to racism (just look at Britain and Japan). Australia had lost a division at Singapore, and the Japanese subjected them to awful treatment labouring on the Burma-Thailand railway. Australia was also more ethnically homogeneous than the USA - 90% of the population in WWII was Anglo-Celtic (i.e. from Britain or Ireland). This figure is even excluding other Europeans from places like Germany, Holland and France. Australians loathed the Japanese passionately, and I have listened to Australians from older generations whose views on the Japanese confirm this. Any Australian caught collaborating with the Japanese would have been lynched on the spot.

Another thing to keep in mind regarding collaboration. People in France and China could be forgiven for thinking the enemy was actually going to win the war. No one in France at the beginning of 1941 seriously thought the Third Reich would be gone in four years. So collaboration was intelligent. No Australian in 1942 could be persuaded to think the Japanese would win the war, though. A loss at Midway would lengthen the war, but eventually the US and Britain would shift their forces east and Japan would be doomed. So who in their right mind would collaborate with an enemy they know is going to lose in a few years, and then have to face the wrath of their betrayed compatriots?

During the war, the Japanese treatment of Australians was enough to make most Australian loathe them. However, just because Japan mistreated Australian dead and PoWs, that didn't mean we did the same in return. Australians may have been racist, but that didn't mean we violated honourable conduct in war. Unlike Japan, we did sign the Geneva Convention.

deadkenny, a complete victory at Midway mirroring the historical US win, would see a very different strategic situation developing one where the US is on the defensive and Japan on the offensive. Even if a US victory was ineveitable, well the new senario gives Japan a lot of options they will not have in real history, so simply declaring that the same would have occured plus six months is not the way to go.

Originally posted by Sparten deadkenny, a complete victory at Midway mirroring the historical US win, would see a very different strategic situation developing one where the US is on the defensive and Japan on the offensive. ...

Certainly a very different situation, in the short run.  However, the point is that Japan was overextended as it was.  They lacked the 'strength', especially in industry and resources, to back up such a victory.  So unless one supposes that they continued to win one incredible victory after another, the attrition would catch up with them.  While the US could sustain the losses, because they had the 'two ocean navy' ships under construction and the industry and resources to sustain a war of 'attrition'.  So my point was simply that the Japanese could not 'win' other than by sustaining a string of increasingly implausible victories over the US.  Further, IMHO, Japan was not capable of exploiting any 'short term' opportunities to the extent of achieving a strategically undefeatable position.  No doubt you are correct about offensive opportunities opening  up for Japan in Australia and / or the Indian Ocean.  The Allies would have been forced back onto the defensive for a time.  However, there were some advantages to being on defense, with cheaper land based air being able to defend bases against more vulnerable carrier based air.  Also, let's also keep in mind that Japan did historically achieve initial victories.  They weren't really checked at all in any of their offensives until Coral Sea and then Midway.  So a 'reverse Midway' allows further expansion of the Japanese 'perimeter'.  But what then?  Their principle opponents (or potential opponents) were effectively out of reach of the Japanese (i.e. specifically Britain and the US).  So even if Japan had taken Australia for instance, that simply leaves them even more overextended when the US finally does build up sufficient forces for a counterattack.

Regarding the USSR, there are a couple of considerations in particular.  Siberia was not as critical to the USSR, as it became later.  The bulk of the population, resources and industry of the USSR was west of the Urals.  So it is questionable what the USSR would really be losing.  It is also questionable what Japan would be gaining, other than another opponent.  True, they might hope to make Germany's fight easier.  But then if you're going to propose that alternative, wouldn't it have been much more straightforward for Japan to simply have attacked the USSR in the first place, rather than attacking the US, Britain, et al first?  Finally, note the beating that Japan took in 1939, and again in 1945.  Japan attacking the USSR would be a tough fight for Japan, with little directly to gain, simply in order to 'help' the Germans.  Japan having decided to take on the US, Britain and the Commonwealth in a war, it is not very plausible that they would then decide to turn around and attack the USSR before after a naval victory while still at war with those other forces.


Edited by deadkenny - 15-Sep-2007 at 23:28

Some good points, Clovis, but you repeated yourself? 

OK