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Today is the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid

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Aardvark154

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The IJN paid great attention to the Royal Navy's use of aircraft to attack the Italian Regiam Marina in harbour in the Battle of Taranto the night of November 11–12, 1940.

The USN, however, continued to believe that Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was too shallow for an aerial torpedo attack; that any Japanese warships would be detected hundreds of miles away; and that any Japanese attack would be made against the Philippine Islands.
 
mandrill

mandrill

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dirkd101 said:
The IJN studied British tactics in naval warfare, from the time they decided to build a navy, as they considered the British to be the best navy in the world. Their acceptance of naval air power I am not clear on at the moment. I have read some on the subject, but their reasoning isn't in the forefront of my memory. Their acceptance may have been along the lines of American thought on this, where Billy Mitchell and other WW1 vets tried to sell the idea of air power over naval power, by a show of bombing anchored ships with bombers after WW1. The thought about using naval air goes back further, with both Britain and the US trying out different ideas, one of them being the Flat Deck carrier, which was used in WW1. The rivalries between branches of service had much to do with keeping these things separate and stunting the growth of the idea of naval warfare, but not killing it entirely.

I would hazard a guess that the IJN studied what was happening elsewhere, with regards to the worlds biggest navies, as they did with their study of the British early on. By embracing this as being a part of a new naval concept, they must be given credit for, but the Americans had pretty much embraced it by this time too and that would be because they weren't belligerents at the time, so a knowledge of each other navies would be well known.
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All navies were shocked by how quickly the aircraft carrier became the most important type of ship in WW 2. The IJN continued to believe that the "decisive battle" in the PTO would be an updated refight of Jutland with lines of battleships pounding each other at 20 miles' range. But practically speaking, the aircraft carrier made battleships obsolete almost immediately.
 
mandrill

mandrill

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dirkd101 said:
Yes, a mere fishing boat that could have relayed the spotting of a carrier and it's location was the reason to launch early.



Correct, they had no real air defense at this point. Another reason to strike, for the propaganda win.




China was a curious theater during WW2, with the Americans dealing with both the Communists in Mao and the Nationalists in Chiang Kai Shek. I am rusty in this area, but had the Americans dealt solely with Mao, the use of China as a base may have been possible. Shek was non-committal and stalled the Americans, asking for more and more materiel to wage war against the Japanese, which they didn't really do, but the communists did. In the end, the Americans took the best means possible and one they could control for the most part.
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The US ran an air force out of Western China and used B-25's to bomb Shanghai and Hanoi from time to time. I don't know enough to say how large an effort this was or why using B-29's from China failed. Max Hastings recently wrote a popular history which ripped apart the Allied effort in the PTO. Among his points was that Chiang was so useless that the IJA was actually WINNING the war in China in 1945 and driving the US air bases further and further south and west. Hastings also wrote that Mao did little fighting with the IJA and simply bided time until the US had defeated Japan and he had a clear run at Chiang.
 
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SkyRider

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oagre said:
Among his points was that Chiang was so useless that the IJA was actually WINNING the war in China in 1945 and driving the US air bases further and further south and west. Hastings also wrote that Mao did little fighting with the IJA and simply bided time until the US had defeated Japan and he had a clear run at Chiang.
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Nevertheless, China tied up 1.3 million Japanese troops that could have been deployed elsewhere.

The Brits were next to useless. They lost Hong Kong and Singapore plus their battleship and battlecruiser. The Battle for Singapore was winnable but loss due to incompetent British leadership.
 
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dirkd101

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oagre said:
The US ran an air force out of Western China and used B-25's to bomb Shanghai and Hanoi from time to time. I don't know enough to say how large an effort this was or why using B-29's from China failed. Max Hastings recently wrote a popular history which ripped apart the Allied effort in the PTO. Among his points was that Chiang was so useless that the IJA was actually WINNING the war in China in 1945 and driving the US air bases further and further south and west. Hastings also wrote that Mao did little fighting with the IJA and simply bided time until the US had defeated Japan and he had a clear run at Chiang.
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This is interesting, as I've read the opposite about the Chinese during the war. While Chiang bled the Americans for more materiel, promising time and again that they would take the offensive, but that they just weren't ready yet and required more materiel time and again. The Nationalists also put up many road blocks and red tape to intelligence gathering and other essential wartime needs. On the other hand, the Communists took the battle to the IJA. The Americans were torn with what to do and this discussion was at the highest levels. While the Americans disdained communism, the communists under Mao were actually engaging the enemy. Stilwell had issues dealing with Chiang and was somewhat of an anemic leader, but there were other issues at play with his command here. Chiang played him and he didn't have full backing from Roosevelt. While the book wasn't an in-depth examination of the role of China during the Pacific war, it was enlightening in the fact that it dealt with the generals, hence the title, Roosevelt's Centurions. I am looking forward to getting into Toll's trilogy of the Pacific war, in hopes that it is much like Atkinson's trilogy on the ETO. A warts and all look at the generalship, tactics and everything down to the average soldier fighting the war.

It's like the Vietnamese under Ho, they took the battle to the IJA and the OSS dealt with them and gave them the materiel to wage war. It gives truth to the saying that, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
 
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Aardvark154

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SkyRider said:
The Brits were next to useless. They lost Hong Kong and Singapore plus their battleship and battlecruiser. The Battle for Singapore was winnable but loss due to incompetent British leadership.
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Not in the IBT (India-Burma Theatre) or as the U.S. termed it CBI (the China, Burma, India Theater) were they. It is a little known theatre here in North America and the naming difficulties for instance the Supreme Allied Commander was the commander of SEAC (South East Asia Command), as well as the fact that almost all of the heavy lifting was done by the British and Indian Armies, perhaps explain this.

Nor were Royal Navy carrier operations in the final months of the war when they were transferred to the Pacific Theatre. Indeed because of the fact that they had armoured flight decks unlike U.S. carriers they often survived kamikaze attacks and were able to continue flight operations in situations where U.S. Carriers had to return to the U.S. for extensive repairs.
 
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jcpro

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SkyRider said:
It was fortuitous that all the American carriers were out at sea on December 7, 1941.
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Lucky, sure, but inconsequential in a long run. Wars are not won by tactics, but by logistics and economic potential to back them. Neither Japan nor Germany had a chance in hell to match America in the economic output. Tactics and strategy have a decisive value when the opponents are evenly matched, but when one side can easily replace losses and develop new technologies while massively increasing its strength, the conflict can only go one way. Especially when the economic base is unreachable, unlimited and undisturbed by the other side.
 
mandrill

mandrill

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SkyRider said:
The Japanese took Burma Road from the Brits. Thus cutting off access to China. It was the American trained Chinese army that re-took Burma Road. Thus restoring access to China again.
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The US trained Chinese army was pretty small and didn't retake much of anything. The British (and Sikhs, btw) retook Burma and were heading down Malaya towards Singapore when the war ended. Go read a real history book.
 
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Aardvark154

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SkyRider said:
The Japanese took Burma Road from the Brits. Thus cutting off access to China. It was the American trained Chinese army that re-took Burma Road. Thus restoring access to China again.
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Further to what Oagre posted, the Nationalist Chinese Army was so messed up that troops from IBT had to be moved to shore up things in China which affected the speed of throwing the Japanese out of Burma.
 
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SkyRider

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Even though I was a fierce Sikh warrior in a previous life, credit for re-taking Burma Road must go to the American trained and equipped Chinese troops ("NCAC") which numbered 250,000 at its peak.
 
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Aardvark154

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^ The Burma Road was but a small part of the Burma Campaign. The Indian, British, Chinese, and American forces under British Command, first defeated the Japanese attempt to capture Assam, they then recaptured northern Burma. A new road was built, from Ledo Assam, the Ledo Road which ran through Myitkyina and connected to the old Burma Road at Wandingzhen, Yunnan, China. It was not until end of January 1945 that this route was opened so that air transports in the "India-China Ferry" a.k.a. "flying the hump" were no longer the sole source of Western supplies to China.


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If you are truly interested from the British & Indian Armies perspective (all by MGen S. Woodburn Kirby , Col. G. T. Wards, Brig M. R. Roberts and N. L. Desoer) :

War Against Japan, Volume 2: India's Most Dangerous Hour. London: HMSO, 1958

War Against Japan, Volume 3: The Decisive Battles. London: HMSO, 1961

War Against Japan, Volume 4: The Reconquest of Burma. London: HMSO, 1965

War Against Japan, Volume 5: The Surrender of Japan. London: HMSO, 1969

From the U.S. Perspective

the Official U.S. Army Histories dealing with all this are (all by Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland)

U.S. Army in World War II: China-Burma-India Theater: Stillwell's Mission to China

U.S. Army in World War II: China-Burma-India Theater: Stilwell's Command Problems

U.S. Army in World War II: China-Burma-India Theater: Time Runs Out in CBI

(this third volume might be of the most interest to you running from October 1944 until the end of the war. Also it deals with both of the U.S. Commands in to which CBI was divided after the recall of General Stillwell. Lt. Gen. Daniel I. Sultan's India-Burma command - under British Command and the China command under Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer.)
 
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jcpro

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Aardvark154 said:
Further to what Oagre posted, the Nationalist Chinese Army was so messed up that troops from IBT had to be moved to shore up things in China which affected the speed of throwing the Japanese out of Burma.
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There was not much wrong with the Chinese Army. They were just badly led. When competently led, the Nationalists were able to stop the IJA cold or even defeat them. The tragedy of China and the second Sino-Japanese war was useless leadership, especially at the very top. See the Battle of Changde just for one example.
 
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Aardvark154

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^ To the best of my knowledge there isn't a great deal of argument that the Chinese Military was badly led. There is argument as to how competent the Chinese army was overall.
 
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jcpro

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Aardvark154 said:
^ To the best of my knowledge there isn't a great deal of argument that the Chinese Military was badly led. There is argument as to how competent the Chinese army was overall.
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Unfortunately, we don't get a really good picture of the Nationalist parts of China in 1940s. It was a land of tragedy mixed with despair and run by pirates, metaphorically and literally. What was done to the Chinese people by foreigners and, yes, by the Chinese "leaders", during that time, puts other atrocities of the 20th century to shame. Little wonder that the idea of communist stability, even with low standards of living, was an attractive alternative. The situation of the Nationalist Army reflected the greater Chinese society of the time- a tremendous potential with flashes of brilliance, but ultimately never exploited and, in the end, completely wasted.
 
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Back to the original topic, I got to know one of the Doolittle Raiders about 15 years ago, a few years before his passing. Listening to his stories of volunteering and training for the mission, his stories of captivity after crash landing in China, and his grace towards the Japanese following WWII were absolutely remarkable. He and his fellow Raiders truly were the 'Greatest Generation'.
 
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