[lapsus calami]

 

 

The Aleutian campaign was a Japanese “Faint” to draw the Americans away from Midway Attack!

 

Yeah – in that it created worry that made us have to stretch and re-deploy resources we didn’t have to spare.

 

And no.

 

Imperial Headquarters nursed a conviction that the Aleutians were being built up as a jumping off point for an alternate invasion route to Japan and thought to establish a presence in the area for an outer defense perimeter of the empire to keep watch and guard against such a move – the inability to acquire any credible intel information to confirm or debunk Allied intentions only fed their paranoia. On our part, though the shorter distances involved made it a tempting alternative invasion route, that scenario had been studied and ultimately discarded as way too rough and difficult for such an undertaking. Also in the event that Russia came in to the Pacific Theatre against the Japanese, shipping bound from the West Coast to Petropavlovsk or Vladivostok would have to go through the area. Outside of perceived humiliation of having our turf being occupied by enemy forces, we couldn’t have the possibility of Jap bases sitting right smack in the middle of a line of communications and heckling our shipping – those guys had to go, one way or the other. Imperial Headquarters suffered from the same affliction that their counterparts in Europe did – highly trained and mostly competent personnel and accompanying resources wasted on goofy strategy ideas.

 

 

[rlmorel]

Good analysis.

The Japanese in all branches were known for overly intricate, overly coordinated and optimistically timed campaigns...to their detriment.

I have always thought that the Japanese did very well in light of their odd weakness in military doctrine. I have always attributed any of their later successes (after their initial ones) to their unbelievable toughness, stubbornness, and industriousness.

[laplata]

Good, logical analysis. Thanks.