Quote:
Originally Posted by copeab
One common myth of the battle of Midway was the invasion of the wester Aleutians was a pointless diversion. This was not the case. Although of arguably dubious value to the Japanese, possessing Attu and Kiska interfered with the US shipping route to Russia via the North Pacific. While Japan was not at war with Russia at the time, she remembered the beating Russia delivered to her in the late 1930's near Mongolia.
So unknown were these defeats of Japan that Hitler was enraged when Japan did not attack eastern Russia after Barbarossa and he had no idea why. Neither did the rest of the world. Russia had humiliated the IJA (twice!) and japan really didn't want any more of them.
Of course, the forces used on the Aleutians would have been better deployed at Midway (perhaps as a 'norther carrier force'), but it was not a pointless diversion.
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Probably the reason that nobody knew about the Japanese Army's defeat in Mongolia and Manchuria, was because Germany had invaded Poland at the very same time that the Russians were booting the Japanese out of Mongolia. In fact most of the Japanese military were probably unaware of it as well outside of the top brass and the troops directly involved in the fighting, as it wouldn't have done much for its wider reputation and morale considering the mauling the Red Army gave them. The bulk of Japan's Army was in China and Manchuria at this time along with much of its armoured forces and heavy artillery, and remained so even when they were fighting the Western Allies in the Pacific.
To some degree it is considered the reason why the Japanese Army was made to redirect its focus on the territories in South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands under the control of America, Britain, Vichy France and the Netherlands and Portugal, as the Japanese Navy had wanted. Previously the Japanese Army had wanted to annex Mongolia and the Soviet Far East and Siberia as far as Lake Baikal to consolidate its control of China and use the resources of the area. Unfortunately the Japanese Army wasn't the force it believed itself to be, as was shown when it came up against a well organised and fully mechanised opponent such as the Red Army. The poorly supplied and equipped Chinese and second line and over extended American, British and Dutch forces were a much easier target for them in 1941, and even then the Americans gave them a very tough time in the Philippines, and the British might have done so in Singapore and Malaya if they had been better led.
When the Japanese Army came up against well organised and supplied American and British Commonwealth forces in the Pacific Islands, New Guinea and Burma, they increasingly came off second best. The power of the Japanese Navy in the early war years, and the favourable terrain of the Pacific Theatre for Japanese Army tactics preserved their reputation for a while until America's military machine overwhelmed them. Had the Japanese Army taken on fully mechanised American or British forces which were based elsewhere at the time, on an equal footing in an inland campaign the result would probably have been the same as it was when they tried to take on the Red Army in 1939.