Why did the leaders of the Japanese empire embark on a war with

>>1996522
America would have destroyed them for a certainty if they had waited any longer.

Pearl Harbor was their only chance, and they failed.

>>1996522
Why did the German empire embark on their almost-as-foolhardy enterprise?

The Japanese army was extremely ideological, had their heads up their asses, and the Emperor's ear. They had assassinated dissenters, Andhad a culture that rewarded slavish obedience and sycophants over reality.

The Navy was better, because the navy requires a certain level of education, training, and cosmopolitan travel. But boy howdy, you don't know the meaning of inter-service rivalry like they did. And the army had the Emperor's ear.

there needs to be a rule that you can only post ww2 threads for 1 day a month

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>>1996609
Sauce is not a history book, but it's decently well written and I feel gives a impression of the cultural mentality which is hard to grasp for Westerners

at the moment of the declaration of war for a very short time the japanese army had equal naval and air strength to the US. they thought they would be able to make quick gains and a quick peace in which they could gain concessions, most notably the lifting of the embargo the US and other countries had placed on them that prevented them from getting oil and other needed supplies to fight the war in china, which they were stuck in after some bad decisions and which was the ultimate cause of all other aggressions

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>>1996652

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>>1996665

they needed the money

>>1996652
no, it wasn't because they were mysterious orientals, there were clear strategic reasons why declaring war was a possible option for them at the time (see>>1996662). it turned out to be a massive miscalculation but at the time it was not as unreasonable as it looks in hindsight

americans like to believe the japanese attacked them out of the blue because they are crazy but there was a long pre-history leading up to the declaration of war

by the way pearl harbor wasn't even meant as a surprise attack. the japanese sent a declaration of war shortly ahead but the message got stuck in some american diplomatic office and the attack occured before it reached the government

>>1996694
Ahahaha. But really, they made a call that was basically wishful thinking; let's hit the white devils really hard, spook them into giving in to us.

Sure, the US was being pretty rude to them, but they drew conclusions from gross misunderstanding of western psyche and thin air. There was no possible scenario in which things would have actually gone well for them.

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>>1996522
They had been backed into a corner by the US to the point where they could either break out or perish.

>>1996721
Where was this picture taken?

>>1996721
Where is the photo from?

I confess I'm not inclined to trust Japanese sources on how they dindunuffin to deserve getting nuked.

>>1996730
probably a japanese nationalist propaganda site

>>1996730
>>1996736
Tokyo National War Museum

>>1996522
You have to know that while Europeans had been fighting foreign powers border to border for hundreds of years, this is the Japanese's first attempt at expansion beyond Korea so although they know the feasibility in papers practice is something entirely different and sociology, geopolitics and the like weren't big disciplines during Imperial Japan lmao

>>1996652

>not a history book, but let me dump my cryptomemeicon anyways cos it's deep

no

>>1996747
Considering it wad probably funded by the same government that paid for textbooks claiming both a bombs were dropped after the surrender and denies any wrong doing in Nanjing, I hope you will understand if I regard it with significant skepticism, anon.

>>1996694
>but the message got stuck in some american diplomatic office
for real?? sounds hard to believe. would be the historic high point of stupid bureaucracy

>>1996747
that's the one at yasukuni shrine, right?
that would certainly explain it

>>1996767
It was transmitted encrypted. It took them too long to decrypt it at the embassy in DC.

>>1996751
/thread

>>1996522

>Why did the leaders of the Japanese empire embark on a war with objectives that were almost completely unattainable?

They weren't though.

>>1996777
> open talk in IJA about inevitable war and showdown with USA
> responded to with embargo
Anon, I....

>>1996791
Going by how well they worked out for the ones who thought they were possible...

>>1996798

You're a retard. At least spend 5 minutes browsing Wikipedia summaries before spewing mouthshit about a topic. Thanks!

>>1996838
Please explain how the Empire of Nippon had any hope of winning a war with the US, let alone the allies.

You ass-blasted weeb.

>>1996522
They didn't set out to war with unattainable war goals. In truth the only war goal they had was the lifting of the embargo, which they figured they could get if they took the Philippines and defeated the American navy in a series of Decisive Battles. Unfortunately, Japan LOST the decisive battles of Coral Sea and Midway and that was that. It was always a gamble and everyone knew it but if you look at the IJN's record up to that time it wouldn't have been a bad gamble. The IJN 1940-42 was hand down the best Navy on the planet. After Midway it was toast because the losses it took were too important and too difficult to make up for even if they'd had another 5 peacetime years to do it.

The real tragedy is that the war almost never happened but Japan sent military envoys that couldn't speak english well to meet with a racist deputy secretary of state that didn't think Japan was worth his time. The decision to launch Pearl Harbor came down to a mistranslation that the Japanese party didn't know how to clarify and the American party didn't bother to try.

>>1996859
>The real tragedy is that the war almost never happened but Japan sent military envoys that couldn't speak english well to meet with a racist deputy secretary of state that didn't think Japan was worth his time.

Pretty sure Nippon stronk and hyper aggressiveness became a thing post-WW1 when western delegates in the peace conferences (mostly Australians) didn't want to treat Japan as equal to white powers.

>>1996891
But can we really blame australia for not wanting to treat the japs as equals

>>1996776
>encrypting a declaration of war against another country

literally wut senpai?
Do you realize how retarded that sounds?

>>1996906
What happens if your enemies to be happen to be listening in on transmissions to your embassy and know what instructions your diplomats are being sent?

Of course it was encrypted, you mong.

>>1996522
Autism

>>1996925
a declaration of war, if they wanted to be open about it, was not something they needed to keep secret. The US, for example, announced it on television for fuck's sake. Your enemies are literally the ones you're sending your message to.

>>1996522
Europe was in the middle of a war so they figured they could get a way with it.
Google World War 2, shit's cray.

>>1996652
>>1996665
Pretty cool to be honest man

>>1996950
You don't want them to read it before you are ready, you nincompoop. If they did, they might radio pearl harbor and inform them to maybe expect an attack or something.

>>1996980
then it's not an official declaration of war you fucking mong, it's a sneak attack, which is how history rightfully remembers it.

NIPPON STRONK

>>1996609
This is correct.

>>1996994
They intended to give it right as the planes arrived. That's why being a little late decrypting ruined everything.

>>1997026
That's still a sneak attack. It's like putting a sword to someone's neck and saying "let's have a duel!"

>>1997059
no, its like swinging a sword at somebodies neck whilst saying "lets have a duel"

>>1996718
It's interesting how cultural misunderstandings can help push along really bad decisions. Makes me think that those weirdos in anthropology aren't so worthless after all.

you have to understand shintoism and bushido to understand why the Japanese did what they did.

>>1997126
t. Anthropologist

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>>1996522

>unattainable

Same reason a bunch of Oregon commies think they can bring down every single nation state on the globe in their lifetime and morph it all into a proletarian dictatorship.

>>1997153
That is both simultaneously and unbelievably ugly and extremely aesthetic map

>>1997153

>give t*rks northern syria and northern iraq

This makes the t*rk happy.

>>1996665
>>1996670
What book is this?

>>1997144
IR student, actually. We're almost as useless.

>>1997153
is it even remotely conceivable that any government could actually control that much territory all over the world? let alone one as ridiculous as imperial japan

>>1996522
The same thing that made them think kamikaze attacks would have sense: Bullshitdo

>>1997436
They cant even control whole of the philippines island at that time

>>1996891
It did. The Japanese were willing to withdraw from China entirely but they weren't willing to give up Manchuko. The Americans didn't actually count Manchuko as part of China in the deal the Japanese government agreed to, but the DSoS didn't bother to clarify that point when he was telling them to GTFO out of China. Because the delegation couldn't resolve the issue the kido butai was sent out to do Pearl Harbor. PH was always a last resort option because the Japanese knew that winning it was a huge gamble that could lose them everything and it did.

>>1996718
It worked for the Vietnamese though. iirc, The Tet Offensive was a military failure but it scared the public enough for the US to withdraw.

>>1997664
The situations aren't comparable. Tet came at a time when public support was already wavering and there was a tiny bit of sympathy for the communists, Peal Harbour was perceived as a totally unprovoked act of aggression that demanded a strong response.

>>1996609
>Why did the German empire embark on their almost-as-foolhardy enterprise?
It was nowhere near as foolhardy though. France fell, Europe was under their control and for the first year or so the invasion of the Soviet Union went pretty well. The only things that went wrong with the Germans were:
>America Lend-Leasing their enemies
>Atrocious leadership decisions during both the Battle of Britain and the Invasion of the Soviet Union (both were winnable actually, and even the Battle of France ended favorably because Mannstein ignored orders from Berlin and kept pushing on)
>America directly entering the war (blame Japan)
Japan's and Germany's situations weren't comparable.

>The Navy was better, because the navy requires a certain level of education, training, and cosmopolitan travel. But boy howdy, you don't know the meaning of inter-service rivalry like they did. And the army had the Emperor's ear.
Wasn't the army more interested in a land war with Russia, or am I mistaken here? I genuinely wish to know. And Pearl Harbor was obviously the navy's job, right? Did the Emperor really take naval advice from the army rather than the navy?

>>1997720
The Army wanted to fight everyone. The Navy mostly wanted to smash the British and the Dutch, which they did. After that they knew they needed to consolidate but Tokyo had virtually no control over army operations overseas because generals would do whatever they felt like.

>>1997720

Not the guy you're responding to but:

>Battle of Britain
>Winnable for the Germans.

Don't be ridiculous.

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>>1996522
Because they believed in some Buddhist shit and wanted to destroy Christianity and convert the World to Buddhism in the name of Maitreya.

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>>1997998

>>1997720
Wrong war.

>>1997720
basically, yes. And when the army has convinced your literal god to order an attack on the US, how do you inform him that this is literally mouth-breathing retardation?

>>1997720
Oh, and the army had competing schools of thought on where to go. South vs North.

They scrapped briefly with the gommies before deciding south.

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>>1996721

>>1996694
>by the way pearl harbor wasn't even meant as a surprise attack. the japanese sent a declaration of war shortly ahead but the message got stuck in some american diplomatic office and the attack occured before it reached the government

You do realize that's not true, right?

>>1996747
>Japanese """""""""history"""""""" museums

>>1997647
[Multiple Citations from Credible Sources Needed]

>>1997998
>>1998040

very interesting. still, i dont think the problem was buddhism, nor even zen. if you took seriously the boddhisatva vow you would never do any of that shit. and if you took "emptiness" seriously the state/emperor would be a mere delusion.

if you argue that buddhism is fundamentally corrupt because of this, then you would have to argue the same for christianity with its crusades. i think the problem in both cases were deliberate misinterpretations to justify the exact opposite of the true teachings. why these misinterpretations arise, and why they garner such universal support at certain historical junctures, however, is the real qustion.

>>1996609
>Why did the German empire embark on their almost-as-foolhardy enterprise?
Because from their point of view it didn't look that bad. The German military were under the impression that the same war that was WW1 could be won if only the tactical potential was further maximised. It should be considered that they were looking at it from a different perspective than we are now. Russia is nowadays known for huge industrial output and Zergrush during WW2, but they were looking at Russia from a WW1 perspective where they performed rather poorly and where significant military victories were achieved by the German side. France was seen as the real threat on the continent.

>>1996766
>Nanking
M8y there are a billion other worse things the Japs and Americans did. That you focus on that shows you have no place on a history board.

>>1996522
Japan - borderland of China. Japanese expansion was welcomed by most of continental Chinese and could unite Chinese states under normal government and common language. Red China is shit compared with possible Far East Empire.

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>>1999208

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>>1999330

>>1996665
cute nails desu

>>1996609
>The Navy was better, because the navy requires a certain level of education, training, and cosmopolitan travel. But boy howdy, you don't know the meaning of inter-service rivalry like they did. And the army had the Emperor's ear.
The Navy was just as ideological, wanted a war with the US, and had the Emperor's ear (which was how they got their war). They were the ones responsible for starting a war with the US, while the Army wanted a war with the USSR.

>>1997436
*Muffled Mongolian throat singing*

Why didn't they try an amphibious invasion of Hawaii?
Wouldn't that truly cripple the US navy?

>>1999883

If it succeeded, sure.

But Hawaii had about a division of U.S. troops on it, and trying to mount an amphibious invasion when your nearest base is about 4,000 km away is really, really hard.

>>1999883
>Why didn't they try an amphibious invasion of Hawaii?
Because it was impossible with the means they had at their disposal?

>Wouldn't that truly cripple the US navy?
Yes, but so would a successful invasion of CONUS and that was also impossible.

There's a get coming....

>>1999898
Two army divisions plus two marine defense battalions plus thousands of navy personnel. Also plenty of coastal artillery and the guns from a couple of the battleships still work.

>>1999883
>Why didn't they try an amphibious invasion of Hawaii?

Because it was impossible with what they had at their disposal. You might as well ask why they didn't try to invade California.

>>2000213

I thought it wasn't reinforced to that extent until 1942, after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Could easily be wrong though, this is hardly my area of expertise.

>>1996522
To make a sweeping oversimplifiation

>make war with china increase territory and foreign influence
>goes well enough, but resources are falling thin
>no iron or oil to be found between a volcanic island and an active war zone, have to branch out for resources to keep the war with China going
>Indochina, East Indies, and Burma make fine easy targets for metal and oil
>US based in the Philippines, any move in SouthEast Asia certainly means war with the US
>devise plan to remove the US Pacific Fleet for as long as possible
>only cripples the US fleet, still leaves an opening for a quick capture of SouthEast Asia so the war can go on
>Japan's able to wage war for a few more years with the new resources
>collapses within the year after their supply lines are severed by advancing allies.

>>1996522
>Ideological

No it's not
Japan already invaded china even before WW2 happen
They expanded their shit because 2 things

>Natural resources
>Strategical Defense

They invaded SEA because the natural resources in SEA (Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, etc) because they need more for war towarded US and embargo (Just like Nazi invaded Norway)

and they invaded pacific because strategical defense
Japs thinked america will help aussie (son of britain) to help crush japan with US supplies. Also thinked that it will be a good way to hold america because Jap's navy was superior than US at that time
too bad, jap lost at midway

>>1999815
>The Navy was just as ideological, wanted a war with the US
I'm not super well versed in this, but didn't Yamato not really want war?
A "quick" war with the US with Japan winning early battles then getting a quick yet favorable surrender (with conditions being the US drop sanctions) was the only favorable way that would ever turn out, and Yamato knew it. The reason he chose pearl harbor when he was given to order to start a war was that he hoped the attack would be far more effective than it was, and with a large amount of the american navy damaged/sunk, Japan could cinch the rest of the early war before the US fully mobilized and crushed them. He underestimated the effectiveness of the attack and the anger of the American people however (part of this was because pearl harbor was considered a sneak attack because the embassy fucked up and got the declaration of war there late) and the plan ultimately backfired.

>>2000332
大和?

>>2000341
I'm a fucking retard anon, sorry, I meant Yamamoto

>>1996730
That's from the museum at Yasukuni Shrine.

>>1996721
Based on my own readings, I have come to this pic-related conclusion as well.

FDR was indeed plotting to go to War well before it even began. All the evidence points to it. Furthermore, the suspicious circumstances surrounding Pearl Harbour are too big to ignore. USN scattered their Navy a few days before the attack, for seemingly no reason. Furthermore, the Japanese code had already been broken, but the machines needed to translate them were not given to the Pearl Harbor base. Despite it being the largest in the Pacific. The Japanese even felt something was off so they even cancelled the second wave. And then the DooLittle operation was so bizarrely planned, that it would be foolish to think that it wasn't pre-planned.

The Mexican-American War started on similar pretenses, with US doing their best to goad them into attacking as much as possible. The history books have admitted to as such, and given a few more decades the same truth will probably come out about Pearl Harbor.

>>2000415
>USN scattered their Navy a few days before the attack,
Actually no such thing happened. The Lexington and the Enterprise were out of Pearl Harbor, but the rest of the PacFleet wasn't.

>for seemingly no reason.
Except Lexington and Enterprise were ferrying aircraft to Wake and Midway to protect against possible Japanese attack.

>the Japanese code had already been broken
The very fact that you think there is one "Japanese code" tells me you know exactly jack shit about WW2 history and military history in general.

>The Japanese even felt something was off so they even cancelled the second wave
Actually the second wave was not cancelled. It followed the first wave by about 20 minutes.

>And then the DooLittle operation was so bizarrely planned, that it would be foolish to think that it wasn't pre-planned.
No one thinks the Doolittle Raid wasn't planned.

You are an imbecile, holy shit. Please stop posting your "conclusions."

>>2000415
FDR was expecting a war. He was not expecting an attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR and his officials were expecting an attack on the Philippines, which is why they didn't bother to build up its defenses properly. When the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached Washington, Secretary Knox shouted "Impossible! You must mean the Philippines!"

It's not really fair to say that he was "plotting" a war, he recognized that Japan's circumstances meant that they were likely to declare war on the US and planned accordingly.

>>2000431
*And by "expecting", I certainly don't mean that he knew the day it would happen. Just that it was probably going to happen at some point.

>>2000431
>FDR and his officials were expecting an attack on the Philippines, which is why they didn't bother to build up its defenses properly.
Part of it is that the naval treaties prohibited building up defenses. In 1940 or so the US decided it would actually take the task of defending Philippines seriously and ship over 100s of B17 bombers and fighters over, but the plan did not materialize before Japs attacked.

>>2000427
>The Lexington and the Enterprise were out of Pearl Harbor, but the rest of the PacFleet wasn't.

They pulled the carriers our with no explanation or notice whatsoever in the dead of the night. Later on they gave some excuse about 'weather', even though footage show it was a clear day on Pearl Harbor, so it could go into the footnotes of some history books.

Nice to see you also ignored the most important part which was the purposeful exclusion of code-breaking devices on Pearl Harbor that were present on several other bases. There is no explanation for that whatsoever.

And they had broken the most important cipher used by the Navy. You don't know what you are talking about in the slightest.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_(cipher_machine)

>>2000431
The intention of America to force Japan into attacking them is primarily what I am getting at. It was well planned out strategy to get Japan to attack them ahead of time. Defenses were sufficiently lacking in all the Pacific bases, including the Philippines.

>>2000435
>Just that it was probably going to happen at some point.

I am also willing to bet that a closed circle had high enough reason to believe that the attack was going to occur against Pearl Harbor, but chose to let it happen to drum up the strongest motivation for declaring War.

>>2000451
>They pulled the carriers our with no explanation or notice whatsoever in the dead of the night. Later on they gave some excuse about 'weather', even though footage show it was a clear day on Pearl Harbor, so it could go into the footnotes of some history books.


Are you retarded? The carriers were delivering planes to the defenses of Wake and Midway Islands, and had been out of Pearl for some days, on a mission that was hardly secretive to the USN and was pretty straightforward, because they were again assuming that the Japanese were going to attack closer targets.

Not even any of the guys you're responding to, but this is common knowledge.

>>2000461
Without an escort during a time of high tension in the Pacific? Unlikely. It screams Gulf of Tonkin.

>>2000451
>I am also willing to bet that a closed circle had high enough reason to believe that the attack was going to occur against Pearl Harbor, but chose to let it happen to drum up the strongest motivation for declaring War.

So you think the US government deliberately lined up nearly all of its battleships in a neat row with no real protection......why, exactly? To give the Japanese a head start? Make the war more interesting?

>>2000485
>So you think the US government deliberately lined up nearly all of its battleships in a neat row with no real protection......why, exactly? To give the Japanese a head start? Make the war more interesting?

Eh? War always takes casualties to win. The War had already begun in FDR's mind well before it actually began. History is ripe with examples of intentionally baiting attacks, since the earliest civilizations.

"Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain"

>>2000477
Except they were escorted by heavy cruisers and destroyers.

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>>2000485
>So you think the US government deliberately lined up nearly all of its battleships in a neat row with no real protection.
Have you ever been to a harbor, anon? Take a look at pic related. Do you think Obama is trying to get the Japs to hit our carriers? Fucking retard.

>>2000451
>Nice to see you also ignored the most important part which was the purposeful exclusion of code-breaking devices on Pearl Harbor that were present on several other bases.
Are you retarded? Codebreaking was not done on naval outposts. It was done centrally at headquarters. And no, you don't just dump "code" into a machine like some fucking cartoon. Jesus christ man, you are embarrassing yourself so badly. Only thing saving you from suicide right now is your complete lack of self-awareness.

>>2000528
Deliberately losing a massive chunk of your fleet is a really stupid way to start a war. If he knew it was happening, why not move the battleships the night before? Why not order the planes to be in the air already?

>>2000552
Completely different situation. There's not a single country on the planet that would even dream of challenging US naval supremacy today. Also, who exactly is going to be attacking our aircraft carriers?

>>2000580
>Deliberately losing a massive chunk of your fleet is a really stupid way to start a war. If he knew it was happening, why not move the battleships the night before? Why not order the planes to be in the air already?

Pearl Harbor wasn't a massive part of their fleet. It was also well stocked and supplied, and many of the sunk ships were actually re-floated.

Nothing was lost that was really that important, including the lives, in comparison to the effects it had on the general populace's anti-War sentiment.

>>2000617

Not him, but it was quite literally half of the battleship force. That is a pretty massive part of the fleet.

Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Are you so inundated with conspiracy theories that you can't see anything else?

>>2000625
More like I have read too much Vietnam history. The conspiracy theorists were right on the money in that one, down to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident being entirely made up.

But US goading the Japanese to War is simple reality. Maybe Philippines was their intended target, and they got magically lucky sending the Carriers out at exactly that precise time. But the simplest explanation is that they observed the mobilization and movement of the fleet and knew well in advance. Given they had broken the Naval codes, the Japanese strike force was sufficiently large to not go unnoticed, even by a plain clothes spy in a Japanese port, they sent out the carriers at precisely the right time (being the only major ships they couldn't replace easily), etc.

>>2000658
>But the simplest explanation is a conspiracy theory shit that involves the US knowing every move the Jap fleet makes by reading nonexistent communication and by some speculative "plain clothes spy" in a Japanese port

Also
>being the only major ships they couldn't replace easily
You really know jack shit about WW2, don't you.

>>2000658
>But US goading the Japanese to War is simple reality.


Except for lack of motive or means, given FDR's priorities towards Europe and not wanting a distraction in Asia.

> Maybe Philippines was their intended target, and they got magically lucky sending the Carriers out at exactly that precise time

And even if the carriers had been present, as you (or someone) noted above, most of those ships could be dredged what with the shallow harbor, and it's not like they were on the offensive much in the first year and a half of the war, until the Essexes came online and made everything before that irrelevant.

>But the simplest explanation is that they observed the mobilization and movement of the fleet and knew well in advance.

Except there's no actual evidence for that observation.

>Given they had broken the Naval codes,

They broke a diplomatic code which the IJN occasionally used, not 'THE CODE". JN-25 was NOT broken by December of 1941, and that was what was principally used to coordinate the Pearl Harbor strike

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_naval_codes#JN-25

>The Purple cipher (also sometimes referred to as AN-1[citation needed]), used by the Japanese Foreign Office as its most secure system, had no cryptographic connection with any version of JN-25, or indeed with any of the encryption systems used by the Japanese military. Purple traffic was diplomatic, not military, and in the period before the Pearl Harbor attack the Japanese military, which effectively controlled Japanese policy, distrusted the Foreign Office and told it little. JN-25 traffic, on the other hand, was limited to military matters, mostly IJN operational ones, from which strategic or tactical information could sometimes be inferred. Nevertheless, decrypted Purple traffic was very valuable, especially later in the war.

> the Japanese strike force was sufficiently large to not go unnoticed,

Do you have any idea how fucking big the Pacific Ocean is?

1/2

The real question is, why did the Japs even bother with the Philippines, knowing the US forces there would be stranded.?

Also

>dividing your forces before Midway to capture Papua New Guinea

Talk about a failure.

>>2000658
>even by a plain clothes spy in a Japanese port,

Which port? The Japanese had literally hundreds under their control, many of the Pacific ones being tiny little coral atolls with zero non-military traffic, which you couldn't just have plainclothes spies wandering around in. And even if you have a plainclothes spy watching for the Mobile fleet, and gets to the secure harbor to watch them load up supplies and head out, how the fuck does that tell you where and when they'll be hitting a target? Especially since Japan has already entered the war against China and often used their carrier air power to support ground operations there?

>, they sent out the carriers at precisely the right time (being the only major ships they couldn't replace easily)

The Essex class vessels were quicker to build than the Iowa class BB; so in essence, the carriers were faster to replace than the battleships, had any been destroyed.


You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. You are wrong on just about every single factual point you're raising to support the false flag incident, and the ones that are correct, you generally misuse. Please do yourself a favor and read up on the subject of the Pacific war. I would recommend Eagle Against the Sun for starters.

>>2000682
>The real question is, why did the Japs even bother with the Philippines, knowing the US forces there would be stranded.?


Because the ultra-critical objective that the Japanese NEED to secure with their initial push is the oil in the NEI. You need not only to overrun the NEI, but secure the convoy lines around it so that you can take that oil there and ship it to Japan. You also have some fairly important secondary targets in Malaya, which would also be exploited (primarily for rubber) and again, its products shipped back to Japan.

The Phillipines is a giant fucking mess in the middle of the most direct routes between those places and Japan. Even cut off, if the Americans can scrape together enough supplies to say, do some mining sorties with their bombers, or send out a few submarines to wreak havoc on the shipping, it can be very bad. Sure, you'd hunt down those rats eventually, but they can do a lot of damage before they go down; think of how the comparatively puny u-boat forces did against the British shipping in the Battle of the Atlantic, and now pretend they had a U-boat base in the Azores right on top of the biggest shipping routes.

You can't afford to ignore the Philippines, even in a cut off state.

>>2000682
You know how the US subs sank the entire Jap merchant marine? They didn't want that to happen at least right away.

>dividing your forces before Midway to capture Papua New Guinea
They sent a small task force to capture a base that would've been far more crucial than Midway. The failure was not pushing on after getting a carrier disabled.

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>>1996522
Japan beat Russia in 1905. After that, many Asian leader came to Japan to take alliance with Japan.
Japan made KMT in Tokyo.
Sun Yat-sen was married with 13 year's old Japanese girl.
Japan and Manchu emperor had alliance.

In fact, some KMT people had alliance with Japan in WW2.
Wang Jingwei was another leader of KMT in WW2.

>>2000755

Technically, they only sank about 60% it. The rest was mostly destroyed by aircraft.

So who was in the blame here?
Hitler then Goring?
Was Goring even a competent officer?

>>2003273
Yes