Amazing lost sketches of life inside Japanese PoW camp

Ha. Now we pissed off the UFO’s !

Japan had no interest in invading Africa, they knew that UK had that on lockdown and they didn’t have the resources to do it. I am 100% sure that Japanese High Command would of double down on invading Australia over that. The idea behind controlling Indian ocean was to do two jobs. First: Close Burma Road since the Chinese were getting heavy equipment from the US. People forget the bulk of the IJA was in China and China was always the end goal for Japan. Two: Cutting the Persian trade route was more of a request from Germany. People forget that the Battle of Madagascar was the only battle during WWII that had both Germany and Japan in the same battle.

@abworsham4

I’ll settle with Japan giving Germany two “I-boats” (basically the Japanese version of U-boats, but with totally different functions due to differences in doctrine). I call them I-boats because all the ships in this group of ships (with several classes) started with the letter”I” (there was also the shorter range, possible cheaper, older, and generally inferior RO- boats). These submarines carried the type 95 torpedo, superior to the famous type 93 on Japanese cruisers and destroyers. More submarines for the Battle Of The Atlantic is always a great thing, and U-boats, especially those manned by great crews, with these torpedos could have been deadly.

In return, Germany could give Japan some of their experience in radar and optics-it was a real problem for the Axis, not sharing technology with each other, even though the Kriegsmarine was ordered to under direct orders from Hitler (who they didn’t follow). This is especially a problem as the Allies did share technology with each other.

I think German panzers would not have helped Japan anyway, as they would have been too heavy to transport, and armoured warfare in general was not needed on the islands of the Pacific and China (who didn’t have many good tanks at all, so Japan had no need to have better tanks). If I had to choose a land weapon for Japan to use, I would choose the 88mm anti aircraft gun. A superb anti tank gun that can fight any US tank and possibly a good help for the anti aircraft armament of Japan’s ships (if it could be adapted to naval use).

Guys,

––If you’re interested in this subject, I read and would recommend an EXCELLENT book on this subject,
Operation Storm" by John Geoghegan. I would give this book 5 of 5 stars possible. Check it out! Amazon even has it in “Kindle” form so you can read it on your tablet.

“Tall Paul”

Guys,

––Great story!

----This somewhat reminds me of the Japanese pilot that was shot down over Midway Island while flying down the middle of the airstrip, at 20 ft. altitude, INVERTED!  :-o It was a spectacular feat,…until he was blasted out of the sky. I’d imagine many of you have read about this.
----There were many “interesting” stunts of this nature. With the witnesses usually being too stunned to react appropriately, especially as they only lasted split-seconds, or very briefly at the most. Human nature affects us all sometimes, irregardless of nationality.

'Tall Paul"

@CWO:

A similar situation existed in the Confederacy in the early stages of the U.S. Civil War, where it was believed that the material advantages of the North (in terms of industrial capacity, natural resources and sheer population numbers) could be overcome by (if I recall the quote correctly) “the gallantry and fighting spirit of the Southern Gentleman.”  The contrary (and ultimately correct) view was expressed by a certain Northerner to a friend he had in the Confederacy: “No nation of agriculturalists has ever defeated a nation of industrialists.  You are bound to fail.”

That’s an excellent example. I looked up the Civil War and found that the North experienced twice as many combat deaths as the South. That ratio would seem to partially justify Southern leaders’ faith in their strategy. However, the overall ratio of military deaths was 1.4 to 1. The reason for this is that so many soldiers on both sides died from disease, exposure, and other causes.

Later in the war, the North increasingly benefited from activities which did not necessarily involve a clash between the main Northern and Southern armies. The increasingly effective naval blockade is a good example of this, as are some of the coastal raids the North performed later in the war. The Southern economic collapse which resulted from the naval blockade is still another example. Later in the war, Grant capitalized on the Northern advantage in manpower by sending several secondary forces to invade the South, while the main Southern forces were occupied by their Northern counterparts.

A more realistic distance is over 800 statute miles.

Zero had a range of 1,600 miles, so yes thats consistent with Sakai’s account over Java.

Also, they had over 400 Zeros in active service by July 1940.

Imperious Leader nailed the last comment.

Japan entered the War with the West with 51 Army Divisions; however 27 where already in use in China. Thirteen of the remaining divisions were facing the Red Army. Japan was willing to head to war with the Allies with ten to eleven availiable divisions!

Japan would quickly start recruiting from it’s 73 million population, but Japan kept the same habit of attacking the Allies with smaller forces.