US diving crew finds wreck of British submarine

@barnee said in Wrecks of WWII Carriers Kaga and Akagi Located:

@CWO-Marc
yea Spruance steaming away at night was a smart move. I wonder if Halsey was in the same situation if he would have. I kinda doubt it

Agreed. Ray Spruance was an excellent combat officer – he and Halsey spent the last few years of WWII alternating command of the 5th Fleet / 3rd Fleet, which was actually the same force whose name got switched every time the two admirals rotated, much to the confusion of Japanese naval intelligence – but he was very different from Bill Halsey in terms of style and personality. Spruance was precise and analytical; he certainly didn’t lack aggressiveness (when he made a decision to attack, he sent in “everything that wasn’t bolted to the flight deck”), but before making his decision to attack he would carefully weigh all the factors of the situation, which sometimes translated into over-cautiousness. Halsey was a hell-for-leather type – sort of the naval counterpart of George Patton – whose fighting spirit greatly inspired his men (the enlisted sailors loved him, not least for the fact that he could drink and swear as well as any of them), but this sometimes translated into recklessness. After the war, someone – I think it was Spruance himself – said that it would have been better if Halsey has been in command at the Battle of the Philippine Sea (where the IJN lost hundred of planes and pilots, but managed to save the bulk of its fleet) and if Spruance had been in command at the Battle of Leyte Gulf (where Halsey fell for a Japanese decoy operation, and compounded his error by leaving no covering force to guard the San Bernardino Straight).

@Narvik:

Now, that is pure speculation, man.

How could a great power like USA 1940 not take part in a world wide conflict about world domination and survival ?
Even with Alf Landan as president.
Would there be no war against terror if Obama was President during 911 and not Bush ?

In the 1930s the War Department of the US had the notorious color plans.
Green for a war against Mexico.
Black for a war against Germany
Orange for a war against Japan.
Red for a war against Britain.

Since may 1939, the Rainbow plans had been prepared by the Joint Army and Navy Board. This would have happened no matter if Roosevelt or Landan or somebody else was President.

I guess the only thing that could have delayed a US entry, was if Japan ignored the Pacific and attacked Russia only, and Germany ignored Britain and attacked Russia only. But of course the Great Powers USA, Britain and France could never accept this kind of new world order, so sooner or later USA would have to enter the war, at least for survival as a nation.

How could a great power like USA 1940 not take part in a world wide conflict about world domination and survival ?
Even with Alf Landan as president.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the U.S. His thought was that a state of war would allow Germany a better opportunity to sink the large numbers of American transports ferrying weapons to the Soviet Union and Britain. He thought those weapons might have made the difference between victory and defeat in the planned anti-Soviet summer offensive of '42. He also believed, probably correctly, that FDR would eventually get his wish of going to war against Germany.

I can hardly claim to be an expert on Alf Landon. But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose he was a sort of “go with the flow” politician. By that I mean a politician who isn’t afraid to hit back against an attacker, but who has no ambition to initiate aggression against any foreign nation. If he was like that, war between Germany and the U.S. wouldn’t have been inevitable; and Hitler wouldn’t have had any reason for believing it was inevitable. The U.S. would most likely have provided help to the Allies; but restraint on the part of both Hitler and Landon would have prevented that aid from degenerating into outright war.

Japan’s situation is different. Prior to Pearl Harbor, there were two schools of thought within the Japanese government. One school held that Japan should expand south, to places like the Dutch East Indies and Borneo. The other school felt Japan should expand to the north, at the expense of the Soviet Union.

The FDR administration wanted the former school to win the debate. It also wanted to promote the belief that, if Japan went to war against the colonial Dutch, it would also have to go to war against the U.S. (It was a little unclear why the U.S. would go to war to protect the Dutch colonial possessions, when it didn’t go to war to oppose the conquest of the Netherlands itself. But that’s neither here nor there.)

In order to encourage the Japanese to head south (and thereby to protect the Soviet Union from a second front), the FDR administration initiated eight separate provocations against Japan. One of them was the well-known oil embargo. Another was “pop up cruises.” These involved American warships repeatedly and deliberately violating Japanese territorial waters. The emotional effect was about the same as would have been the case, had hostile foreign ships shown up off the coast of Los Angeles or New York City. Collectively, these eight provocations caused Japanese leaders to make a decision which was part rational, part emotional. A decision to focus on the south rather than the north. And a decision to attack the United States immediately; as opposed to conquering British and Dutch colonies without declaring war on the U.S. (One of the effects of the eight provocations was to convince many Japanese leaders that a state of war between the U.S. and Japan was inevitable.)

The reason I mention all this is because the eight provocations are a fairly FDR-specific thing. They’re not the sort of thing that (for example) Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover would have done. I very much doubt they’re the sort of thing Alf Landon would have done; though again I can hardly claim to be an expert on Landon. In the absence of these provocations, the Japanese would likely either have turned north against the Soviet Union, or else would have gone south without attacking the United States.

In the postwar world FDR and Churchill created, the Soviet empire stretched from the Bering Sea in the east all the way to the very heart of Germany in the west. By the late '40s, the democracies could not hope to defend Western Europe in any kind of conventional war; and would have had to immediately resort to nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet invasion. This situation was not optimal from the American point of view, especially given the fact that the stated long-term goal of Soviet foreign policy was world conquest.

Suppose instead that the Axis nations had achieved their objectives. Hitler would have conquered all the Soviet Union west of the Urals. Germany would be at peace with the remainder of the Soviet Union and with Britain. Japan would have seized the islands of the South Pacific, as well as the eastern portion of China. In this scenario, the Old World would have four major powers: Germany, Japan, Britain, and (to a lesser degree) the Soviet Union. In a world like that, America could play these powers off against each other, as best served American interests. This scenario would give America far more opportunities to exert influence, than would a world dominated mostly by the Soviet superpower and by communist China.

Far from being helpful to American interests, the Soviet victory in WWII was very damaging. FDR was driven to take the actions he did because of ideology, not because he was working to promote the nation’s best interests. If we assume that Landon would have placed American interests above the dictates of a radical Left ideology, it becomes highly unlikely that he would have pursued a Soviet victory in WWII with the same enthusiasm that FDR did. Or even at all, for that matter.

Okay, thank you both. I just wanted to make sure I was getting my info right.

Thanks again, :-)

john

@wittmann:

I think(not a WW1 historian) the Imperial Navy mutinied in 1918

Yes, in the last days or weeks of the war, the German Navy’s high command contemplated sending out the fleet against the Royal Navy (whose size advantage was very large at that point) so that it could go down in battle honourably after having spent much of the war sitting safely at anchor.  German sailors got wind of this plan and mutinited, since they did not take kindly to the idea of their lives being thrown away in a lost cause for the sole purpose of saving face.

This is very sad.  It happened way to often.

Thanks for sharing, that was an interesting Article.

It would be the 100 million N. Americans against only the Germans plus the “desirable” races.

The massive extinction of these other people would not take place until everything globally were settled. I think the limited nature of the extermination would not be on the grand scale until America was dealt with. I think we are assuming a level of cooperation in former UK colonies akin with the French conquests, so the level of Serbian reaction would have been somewhat mitigated by the axis partners carving up that nation and exacting the type of ethnic violence that occurred much latter. Germany had a commitment to pit old enemies against each other in an effort to make their job easier.

The Soviets i feel would be somewhat difficult, but they did convert a few divisions of Russians who were against Stalin.  The middle east was another basket of potential friends who could be enlisted easily to fight the Jews. Germany raised a number of Muslim units in the war.

If Hitler was removed, the replacement would be far worse because a NAZI victory would remove all the remaining inhibitions against violence against what they deemed lessor men. The SS would have selected somebody like Heydrich who had the most firm convictions of their type.  The choice would have to be political leader, and not a military one.

On the German-Japanese partnership, i think they would not fight until USA had surrendered first. Once all opposition was gone eventually it would happen, but the Germans would have the best scientists, so the Japanese would be at a disadvantage.

I think this was a very key consideration for the UK, Germany, Russia and Japan:

@KurtGodel7:

However, one reason for Hitler’s impatience in invading the Soviet Union was the British food blockade of Germany; and the resulting starvation in German-held lands. Delaying the invasion of the Soviet Union by two years would have meant two extra years of famine conditions; especially in occupied territories and population groups assigned low or mid-level priorities for scarce, precious food calories.

Only the US and some parts of the British empire had abundant food.  The UK, Germany, (and later Japan) were squeezed by naval (or submarine) blockades.  Russia was squeezed by the vast territories taken by the Germans.  Of course I’ll grant that in the early part of the war, Germany did quite well by taking the food and supplies found in France, Belgium, Ukraine, etc.

Grizzly, you make a good point.  The Germans were never going to be able to invade the UK; but they did try to starve them.  An excess of wheat in Australia and Canada does no good for the UK if it cannot be delivered.  I guess we disagree on whether or not British hunger, lack of heating oil, etc. would have been sufficient to make them either sue for peace with Germany…If the British were hungry enough (and I think without the US merchant marine), I could see them saying screw the French, lets have a ceasefire and let the USSR and Germany fight it out.

Regarding the USSR, I once read an estimate that 7/8 of the entire Germany war effort was fought on the eastern front.  This estimate includes the forces in Norway, the battles in Africa and the Balkans, Crete, the U-boat effort, the battles in Italy, the defense of France after D-day, the V-1 and V2 and other technological weapons, etc.  The defense of France required minimal forces in the early part of the war, especially early in the war when it was obvious the UK was in no position to invade.  I don’t think this small difference would have been enough to turn the tide in the East despite the small margin of victory by the USSR during 1941 and 1942.  I even doubt Hitler would have reduced the forces occupying France at this time had the UK capitulated.