soc.history.war.world-war-ii

In article <2dGdnVmIhoEGtG3bnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@ >,
Andrew Clark wrote:
>"Batavus" wrote
>
>> India was undoubtedly strategical not defendable.
>
>The Japanese lacked the ability to project enough force into India either by
>land or by sea to do more than make damaging raids while simultaneously
>facing the US in the Pacific.
>
I don't think the Japanese had enough force to take India in any event.
They likely had the force to effectively deny it to Britain, given
a mysterious vanishing of the USA, but I don't think they could have
done anything with it.

. Willmott suggests that the Japanese could have considered an
invasion of Ceylon, with the intention of pushing the British out
of at least the eastern part of the Indian Ocean indefinitely,
but the Japanese Army refused to provide the necessary force.

(Had the Japanese gone ahead with that, it would be unlikely to
work much worse than what they actually did. The Japanese carrier
force would be a deterrent to US counteraction, such as the
Guadalcanal landing.)

>command of the western Indian Ocean in 1942. But that situation couldn't
>last: the Japanese couldn't fight in two oceans simultaneously once both the
>RN and USN, especially the latter, built up their strength after the losses
>of 1941-43 and, for the RN, once the Italian and German capital ships were
>neutralised.
>
The RN never did build up a carrier force the equal of the USN or
what the Japanese had at the beginning of the war, and so in the absence
of the US the British would have been heavily dependent on land-based
aircraft (which they would have had a great qualitative advantage in
after 1942). With the USN still in the picture, as you say, the
Japanese couldn't maintain a strong naval presence much west of
Singapore.


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David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
david@ | If you don't, flee.
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