ORIGINAL: wdolson
There was an extensive discussion about the invasion of England in 1940 here a couple of months back. Nobody got labeled with any particular political belief,
but I think a pretty strong case was made that Germany's odds of success were pretty slim at best.
Bill
He-he - why am I not surprised....[;)]
Some years back I was involved in the Sealion discussions on the Armchair General website. It went over several years with approx. 15.000 postings. It was later
given the acrynom: TTTSNBN - The Thread That Shall Not Be Named. In the typical Sealion discussion it is almost impossible to have the participants
keep things in context and very few have a good knowledge of the German preparations - as well as the British weaknesses at the time.
Because of this I decided to write a book on it. The ACG discussions did a lot to help me find, and research, many of the finer points. As I have experienced
it most people discussing Sealion have a quite strong pre-occupation - or agenda. My agenda was, if it could be called that, to find out if the Germans really
were as amateurish in this respect (Operation Sea Lion) as they are usually portrayed. I found they weren't.
On the subject of the book project I'm working on now - "Saving MacArthur" I see much the same. My main parameter to justify a look into this is that most US
planners and military analysts before the war had drawn the correct conclusions: A grand campaign such as the Japanese started in December 1941 would inevitably
lead to a serious over-stretching of their resources. Therefore they were vulnerable.
A simple example: The Japanese thrust beyond Davao/Mindanao in December '41 was stopped at Digos/Malalag by the already existing US/Filipino resources on
Mindanao. The Japanese didn't have the resources to renew the Mindanao (and Visayas) offensive untill after the fall of Bataan. If Menado had been reinforced and the
invasion repulsed, with Japanese losses, they could not have continued to Kendari and Ambon as they did, as much of their forces, naval, army and air, were
planned to be used for these sequential operations. Some of the forces in Davao/Digos, too. Which is why they had to postpone that operation.
Admittedly, "Saving MacArthur" depends on the important pre-requisite that President Roosevelt would have to strike down on the defeatist attitude of his
military leaders, mainly the navy. The other important pre-requisite would be to use the US resources in the Far East for
American purposes, that of
relieving the Philippines, and not squander them on a British-led ABDA. There were provisions for this in the ABDA agreements.
I'm afraid a discussion on the subject, as outlined by me here, would lead to much the same as the Sealion discussions I have seen. Actually, I have already
experienced it. Which is why I instead choose to use my time on a book project where I can put things in proper context. And not be called ugly words.....[;)]
To see what resources were right around the corner of the Philippines when the war started I recommend reading Glenn Williford's:
Racing the Sunrise. Sure, it
takes a little imagination to see how this could have been used if it had been pushed forward rather than held back. The
Germany-first policy was also not
a hinder for this, and more, this was taken care of by Roosevelt on the Arcadia Conference in January.
Fred
