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Imagine an alternate history of 7 and 8 December 1941?
Assume General Brereton, though new to the job, decided not to wait on MacArthur, who had obviously gone into a funk to the point of being useless, and ordered B-17's to Formosa, and the rest of his aircraft to Mindinao, out of reach of the Japanese planes.
Add to this Admiral Kimmel, despite having heard the cry of "wolf" so many times, had put his fleet out to sea, and Bellinger put out scouts (you can decide whether they find the Japanese "strike force" for Pearl, but they spot the incoming flights). Subsequently, with no major vessels to bomb at Pearl, the Japanese destroy the oil facilities on Oahu. How does the Pacific war play out over the next year or so?
1 Answer
- JayLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
No difference.
The best chance that the Japanese had was to catch the aircraft carriers and either sink or disable most if not all of them. Given that the US would need to use aircraft carriers to base the attack on Japan and their empire in the Pacific around until they could establish permanent bases this might have delayed things for long enough to allow Japan to consolidate their hold on the new empire.
However that strength was a weakness for Japan because it meant dividing their army up into lots of small units so they could defend each island. So it would only have delayed the inevitable. Given the difference in size and manpower/industrial output between the USA and Japan the latter would always lose.
