What was the point of the Pacific Theathre in WW2? >hurr

Pretty much was hurr durr lets fight for tiny little islands

How else do you wage a war across the greatest expanse of water on the entire planet?

>what is the point in attacking your enemy
>what is the point in establishing a defensive perimeter
>what is the point in trying to destroy american supply lines
>what is the point in trying to prevent USN from reaching mainland japan
>what is the point in putting the world's 3rd largest navy into use
>what is the point of securing strategic assets such as port moresby which prevent the americans from reaching australia
If there was really no point into any of it, don't you think that the actual war fighting countries give so much importance to it?

Liberation of Japanese occupied territories?

>>1444832
>>1444833
I mean, couldn't USN just dodge the islands?
ie lets say, IJN holds marshall and wake. why not just go trough the center pacific, from where there is no islets?

>>1444812
Japan wanted to control Asia and it believed correctly that it should also try to protect itself from naval invasion by completely controlling the pacific

>>1444837
No because then you have no supply cannot refuel the islands can keep sending guys after you to kill you you are by default completely surrounded.

Japan has always been paranoid of being colonized and fucked in the ass by the west like China was, the solution of course, was to do the fucking and become the big empire. They were isolated from the realities Europeans had to face in WW1, they were 20 years behind in both technology and ideology. Little did they know that they'd be the biggest bitch-state in asia after the fact.

>>1444837
Do you have any actual fucking idea what the fuck are you talking about?
>hurr durr theres a castle in hungary why cant the mongols just avoid it
First of all those islands are extremely important strategically.
They can be held as airbases and holders of coastal defenses.
Ships need fuel and these islands would be used as refuelling stations. You can't just move your ships foward without refuelling somewhere.
Also supply lines. Let's say you install a small airbase in wake island, and the USN ignores that. What stops the Japanese island from sending A6Ms from raiding your supply convoy?
Fucking retard how about you study something before typing this horseshit over the internet.

>>1444837
This is the most retarded post I've ever seen on /his/.

>>1444812
China, more accurately, rescources needed to conquer it. Japan was blockaded by the US and couldn't import oil and other materials from Southern America, which was a problem, because they were trying to subdue China since 1937, and needed resources for the war. So they ataccked the US to break the blockade, hoping to defeat them in a naval war. Of course, they failed in that, which basically broke their whole plan. After the battle of Midway, they only held out because MUH HONOUR.

They also tried to take away the colonies of the European Allies (they wanted to do it later anyways), as they were also very rescource rich.

>>1444837

Best bait I've seen on /his/

>>1444963
Japan was not blockaded you moron.

>>1444858
>they were isolated from the realities europeans had ro face in WW1

>what is nanjing war crimes
>what is pacific WWI theatre
>what is british-japanese alliance

>>1445026
>>what is pacific WWI theatre
weak b8

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>>1445026
>yfw the person who wrote wrote this thought he was cleverly refuting someone

>>1444963
>because they were trying to subdue China since 1937

japan wanted to subdue china since literally always. they first tried it in the japanese invasion of korea (when korea was owned by china) and couldn't get to far, later they took korea definetly, got involved with russia over manchuria and for WWI invaded mainland china and kept it.

>>1445030
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_and_Pacific_theatre_of_World_War_I

>>1445058
>Tsingtao was the most significant German base in the area. It was defended by 3,650 German troops supported by 1,000 Chinese colonial troops and Austro-Hungarian soldiers and sailors
>Australian forces attacked German New Guinea in September 1914: 500 Australians encountered 300 Germans and native policemen at the Battle of Bita Paka
Do you even read the articles you link to, or maybe reading isn't your strong point?

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>>1444837
Nimitz ain't got shit on you, OP.

>>1445066
this litterally follows what you cited. maybe you should read what you cite.
>The Japanese sent nearly their entire fleet[citation needed] to the area, including six battleships and 23,000 soldiers. The British sent two military units to the battle from their garrison at Tientsin numbering 1,500, and the Chinese who were unoccupied by the Germans, sent over a few thousands troops on the side of the allies.

The bombardment of the fort started on October 31. An assault was made by the Imperial Japanese Army on the night of November 6. The garrison surrendered the next day. Casualties of the battle were 703 on the German side and some 3,600 POW, the casualties on the Allied side were 2,066. One Allied protected cruiser was also sunk by a German torpedo boat and when defeat was certain, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians scuttled their squadron.

>>1445075
>[citation need]

Any good books on the Pacific theater, especially the Dutch East Indies Campaign? I got a big book on "all of WWII" and it focused on the western front and barley mentioned the pacific war at all

>>1445058
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tsingtao

>23,000 Japanese infantry
>Sadakichi Kato
>Empire of Japan Kamio Mitsuomi

where did you read japan wasn't involved in the tsingtao?

>>1445080
not falling for cheap bait

>>1445084
>not falling for cheap bait
It's literally in the text you cited.

Pretty sure at first it was to defend US interests in the Pacific as well as defending Australia

>tfw Japan would have taken Australia if Midway failed

At least we would have been free from shitposting

>>1445102
>Japan would have taken Australia if Midway failed
doubt.jpg

>>1445102

What on earth makes you think Japan would have successfully invaded Australia if Ameriva lost at Midway?

I mean, the population centers at the time were pretty concentrated in the southeast, so you get your choice of either sailing about 3,000 km, most of it raid able from all the little islands the Allies still control, or land somewhere in the north and March south, getting supplies from somewhere and hoping the I.S. Doesn't ship a few hundred thousand troops in more directly.

Mayve, if everything goes right for years, Japan could be in a position to wage a land war in Australia, but not in 1942.

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>>1445107
>>1445120
>use navy to blockade australia
>deploy vessels to australian coastal cities like sidney
>have them bombard the shit out of those
>wait until australia either surrenders or starves

>>1445180

Australia has over 36,000 kilometers of coastline. And you do have rail connections all over the south. It would have been eminently possible to land troops at somewhere like Perth and then cart them overland by friendly rail line to Sydney.

Even if the Japanese abandon literally everything else, they're not getting an effective blockade going. And of course, they can't do that, what with their own critical supply lines they need to keep protected.

>>1445102
Seriously though the Japanese didn't plan to invade Australia because they knew they it would be impractical. Instead they were going to invade New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa to cut off Australia from the US. I would have loved to see them try to invade New Caledonia.

>>1445180
>starve out Australia, a net food exporter, by blockade
>being able to blockade the entire continent with a navy already being spread thin in the first place

Literally retarded. Fitting you posted a weeb pic.

>>1445075
You're missing the guy's point completely. Sending a division sized expedition to conquer a small german base is nothing compared to having a whole generation of men fighting viciously in the mud for four years.

>>1445083
Japs sent some guys, they bust in, rape the nurses, chop off bodyparts of dudes as example, etc.

Bombing raids flown from island bases (including but not limited to nukes) knocked Japan out of the war. Without the Pacific War the Allies don't have said island bases.

>>1444812
Imagine if the Soviets actually had to consider the Japanese a threat and send more troops.

The whole Soviet manpower aspect of the Allies on the Eastern Front would have been much harder to pull off. Straining your linchpin card too much often results in the defeat of said card.

>>1444812

Muricans cannot into strategy. They should have ignored and bypassed all those little islands and go straight to Okinawa, the Ryukyu and Taiwan, thus cutting off Japan's maritime communications while at the same time have their country within bombing and invasion range.

But muh 'I'll be back to Philippines', 'muh Guadalcanal heroics', 'muh island to island'..

Silly murricans...

>>1445881
well they won, so it worked out

>>1445881
This is bait. Probably didn't even read the thread either if this was serious.

>>1445796
>Imagine if the Soviets actually had to consider the Japanese a threat and send more troops.
They did and they sent.

Even in darkest days of 1941/1942 winter the Soviet forces on East were increased in number.

>>1445912
lol.......

we didn't win through the island hopping strategy, we won through obliterating two cities at the quantum level

>>1446127
How do you think those bombers got so close to the Japanese Mainland bro?

>>1446159
You know as well as I do that the island hopping campaign wasn't to get bombers close. They could've got them close without that. The island hopping campaign failed because they realized to capture mainland Japan it would cost millions of lives on both sides and possibly a decade of war. Stop being intellectually dishonest

>>1446174
>a high level of discourse is expected.

>>1444812
The islands were means by which Naval bases could be established. The war wasn't directly for the islands themselves but the entire ocean, where islands were the means to control the ocean.

>>1446174

>decade of war

Not with our unapologetic total war, burn cities to the ground with no survivors, "take out the drones to break a country's back" style we were using on them and Germany. They wouldn't have any cities left standing that long, even without nukes.

>>1446174
And how would they fly bombers close enough to Japan without it getting shot down without the island hopping campaign?

>>1446231
There were practically no cities left by the time the war ended anyway.

By wars end Allied bombing runs were being conducted on ""cities"" of 30,000 people because there simply weren't any targets left that weren't already bombed to hell.

>>1444812
Failed attempts at american imperialism. It died in Vietnam some time later.

>>1446319
>American bases still in client states

Seems to be alive to me desu

>>1446334
Thats just the anti-USSR coalition, which instead of disbanding when the USSR disbanded, just evolved to be an anti-Russian coalition instead.

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>>1444837
>I mean, couldn't USN just dodge the islands?

No, but instead of shitting on you like the other replies, there was actually a lot of debate after the war about both Iwo Jima and Peleliu and if they were necessary. It's since developed into the lore of MacArthur vs Nimitz and later American policy in the Pacific but the decisions behind both battles were contentious even at the time of their planning.

Usually the islands were needed for strategic reasons, like airfields, which then supported further operations. Peleliu, though, was taken as a precaution and to protect MacArthur's flank as he wanted to get back to the Philippines. The Japanese there weren't really a threat and in the end Peleliu wasn't used for staging.

The debate about Iwo is a lot deeper and more contentious. It was taken for the airfield, specifically for long-range fighter escorts which turned out to be inconsequential the bombing campaign. There's a lot of spin about the airfield being the savior to B-29 crews who would have otherwise ditched at sea. While true few see it as justification for nearly 7,000 dead Americans.

>>1445083
>Any good books on the Pacific theater, especially the Dutch East Indies Campaign?

Slaughter at Sea is about the IJN's war crimes but so much of them happened in the DEI it gives a good overview from the Japanese side.

https://mega.nz/#!pRYWiATR!acvhvVReXKakFxqskKeyx5d4q91HN-Ed7Titu7eJGUA

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>>1446395
>B-29 crews who would have otherwise ditched at sea

There are also stories of bombers making emergency landings on Iwo while the battle was going.

>>1446395
>Slaughter at Sea

Also goes into the Darwin raids and the myth of an Australian invasion (was never going to happen.)

US considered two paths. The navy wanted the center route through Wake, Guam, Iwo Jima, Philippines. The army wanted the southern route from the Solomons. US ended up doing both because neither side could make a compromise.