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Military Pron: Part 2 - Dropping the Bomb...almost
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Military Pron: Part 2 - Dropping the Bomb...almost


Jul 20, 2021, 9:28 AM

Ok, GD it. It’s just going to have to be Bomb Week. As Discovery has Shark Week, so too shall we have Bomb Week. I was only planning two part coverage for this, but the deeper I get into it the more fun I am having, so I think 3 now.

Mrs. Fordt walked by me at my computer today and said “who spends their free time watching 80 year old newsreel footage of sh** blowing up?” I said “Woman, after twenty plus years of marriage, you still have a lot to learn about men, don’t you?” She walked away shaking her head. I think I defended the Y chromosome admirably on that one. XY:1, XX:0. So on we go. Bomb Week.

This post'll be a slight detour from pure hardware stuff, but I kinda feel like if you completely vaporize a nation and rebuild it as a puppet state, they at least deserve to have the whole story told.

So you’ve got yourself a pair of atomic bombs now. You’ll have another in 2 weeks, and maybe 6 more by October or November. This will be the immediate future:



Hiroshima


Nagasaki


But before you drop them let’s recap how we got here. It’s been a long, long road and it's worth a look back to see the journey.

The common myth of the Pacific War is “Japan bomb Pearl Harbor, America nuke Japan.” That’s kind of the Reader’s Digest version of events, but there is so much more interesting stuff below the surface. Both sides, as they say, have a history. For now we’ll start just before “Japan bomb Pearl Harbor” for a little background, and then skip to “America nuke Japan” down the line a bit for the conclusion.


Sure we’re getting swept into a global war, but what will become of Ben and Kate? BARF.

First, let’s dispense with a little drama. Japan was NEVER a threat America. A pain in the axx maybe, but not much more. That’s not a comment on any of the actions, heroics, or sacrifices in the Pacific War, it’s just a strategic level assessment on the fate of nations. Japan was not an existential threat to us. WE were an existential threat to them.



I'd love to read the article behind this cartoon above, which was pre-WW1 btw, but anyone who knows the actual dynamic between our two nations knows that this little standoff is bullsh**.

Ever since Commodore Perry sailed into Edo (Tokyo) Bay with his Black Fleet in 1853, we have had a heavy hand in Japanese policy, along with the Portuguese (who made first contact in the early 1500s), the French, and the British, not the other way around. Japan was never going to conquer America and write our constitution. We did conquer them and wrote their Constitution. Europe was the real deal dough. We sent 85% of our military resources to Europe in WW2 and saved the last 15% to defeat Japan, sitting down, with one arm tied behind our back. This graphic is just for Lend Lease, but the same 85/15 ratio applied to troops and materiel as well.



Deshaun Watson’s one-legged axx whipping of UsuCk is analagous to Japan’s threat to America. Japan is only as big as California and has no natural resources. Zero. Nada. Zilch. They could barely make a tin can without the supply chain to bring them the tin. As with any island, anything you want there has to be shipped there.

USuCk is playing the part of Japan here, in case you were wondering.





Japan never even intended to “defeat” us. They hoped to shock a doggedly isolationist nation into a quick peace, or somehow hold out before our production overwhelmed them. Both impossible long shots. They knew exactly who and what they were messing with. No delusions on their part. Seriously. But they just had no choice. In short, they got the rug pulled out from under them and ended up in a bad, bad, place. I’ll explain in a bit.



"


But first, a quick Tiddy Break




So, just how isolationist was America prior to WW2?









That Isolationist. Dr. Seuss with the biting snipes.

Here's some specific cases. The Germans actually attacked the destroyer USS Kearny, on Atlantic convoy duty in early October 1941, and we did nothing. Not one damm thing. Then they SANK the destroyer the USS Reuben James later in October of 1941, with the loss of 100 men. SANK it. And America shrugged. No response. Can you imagine if a hostile nation sank one of our ships today? That’s how isolationist we were in 1941. We simply would not be budged into war. Mind you that’s the people, not the politicians. They knew war was coming one way or another.







USS Kearny. Damm Natzis.






USS Reuben James. Fkng Natzis, again.



But enough with Natzis for now and back to Japan.

Japan was nouveau riche. They beat up on their perpetual nemesis, China, in the late 1890's, then punked the Russian navy, twice, in 1905. Both times benefitting from French Army and British Naval training. Then they tagged along with the winners in WW1 and picked up some German islands in the Pacific in the peace treaties.

But Japan wouldn’t have even had a mechanized military if we hadn’t sold them 75% of their iron and 90% of their oil for more than decade prior to WW2. Remember, they're an island, with nothing. They were simply a miniscule nation with big dreams, suckling at the teat of America for any military resources that they did have. Pretty much our dog on a leash. We yank the chain, they sit. We loosen the chain, they run.



As a sovereign nation they had complete freedom of action and choice, but when you are importing 90% of your oil and 75% of your steel from someone, you want to be damm careful who you pixx off. Don't bite the hand that feeds and all. Or whatever.




They got a little uppity and had to be dealt with. That’s the gist of it.




Now to be fair they just wanted to be one of the big boys. They looked around the Pacific and said “Hey, Britain owns India, France owns Indochina, the Dutch own the East Indies, even America occupies the Philippines for now, why can’t we have a little piece of China? We just want to be a playa and get a slice.”




"Well if it's good enough to get broke off a proper chunk,
I'll take a small piece of some of that funky stuff."






Oh look, the newest chick in the yard. Baby Japan!

But they were late to the show. The imperialism game was played out by the time they got a seat at the table. We already had plans to leave the Philippines by 1946, the British situation in India was rapidly changing and Indian freedom would be granted in 1947.



The French, gawd love ‘em, just couldn’t be helped. Even FDR scolded them by saying “You have governed the people of Indochina for three generations and their lives are worse now than when you took over. France, you suck.” I added in the last part for dramatic effect, but that was the message.



And then there’s the Dutch.
Like Nigel Powers, there are only two things most folks won't tolerate.



The Dutch maybe had worse skeletons in the closet than the French did. But the point is that “the times, they were a changin,” in the colonial Pacific and the Japanese were out of step in the late 30’s. First they took Manchuria, then dove into a much bigger war than they could manage in China, but where they really crossed the line was Indochina.



Put the brick down...



Brutally racist propaganda, with a smidge of imperialist truth and raging hypocrisy.

As I mentioned in another post, the defeat of France was a geo-political atomic... no, make that a geo-political hydrogen bomb. Mainland Europe was gone. Poof. It prompted us to approve a 2-Ocean navy, the Vinson-Walsh Act, overnight. But aside from China there was still relative peace in the Pacific.








But when France fell Japanese got EXTRA greedy and sh** got real. They really, really upset the apple cart. Now, we sat back and watched Japan pillage China for years. In fact, we sold them materiel to do so. Granted it was the Great Depression and times were hard. But after France fell Japan made a land grab for the previously French controlled territory of Indochina and by extension, a bid their own oil independence. That was a non starter.




The headline in the lower left is the one to take note of.



Nope.


Not going to stand.

We’d gladly sell Japan the oil and steel for their war in China. The same way we sold both Iran and Iraq weapons for their war against each other in the 70’s and 80’s. The same way we sold Stinger missiles to the Taliban in the 1980’s to fight Russia. Or arms for the Contras in Central America. But there was no way on this green earth we were going to let Japan have its OWN oil. That would mean we couldn’t control them, and we weren’t having that. And not only did they want Indochina oil, they wanted more.





Are depictions of buck-toothed, knuckle dragging, thick glasses wearing savage apes violating your women considered raccist? Asking for a friend.


Japan’s eventual sweeping Pacific Empire may have looked impressive on a map, but aside from a few dozen islands it was an empire of water and nothing else. The ONLY military use islands in the Pacific had was as a potential airfield, and one or two as a small harbor. There’s just nothing of use there other than a flat patch of land surrounded by thousands of miles of agua, a few coconuts, and maybe some crabs. We fought the whole 6 month campaign at Guadalcanal for a tiny air strip and nothing more.







The REAL wealth in SE Asia was the south part. Borneo, Malaysia, Brunei, Java, French Indochina (Vietnam)...That’s where the oil was, and that’s exactly why Japan wanted to go there. All the stuff the British and French and Dutch had occupied since the 1600’s and even before. And the Japanese wanted it all.



Balikpapan, Borneo. Funny name. Black Gold. Japanese Target.






One last Tata Break before we wrap up.



Japan moving on Indochina put Roosevelt in a real bind. He even said so. He knew that the minute we pulled Japan off our oil teat they were gonna run down to SE Asia as fast as their feet would carry them. But the problem was Britain. They had already lost their entire land army at Dunkirk (the equipment, not the men) after being pushed off the continent with the fall of France. Now they were being pounded daily by the Germans in the Battle of Britain.









Hard Times. Keep a stiff upper lip. And a stiff swig or two handy.


When you are fighting for your life at home it’s a bad time to open another fighting front on the other side of the world. So as badly as FDR my have wanted to curb Japan at the time, he wasn’t going to doom Britain by doing so. He had to wait. He even said in a NYT article in 1940 “We knew if we cut their oil Japan would go south to get their own” That’s point blank, no interpretation needed.




And, the enemy propagandists had a field day with FDR turning his back on Winston and feeding him beggar's scraps. Poor Eleanor. Did she even need to be depicted in this cartoon? That's just GD unnecessary savagery to pick on her like that.

So Japan got to run around like a spoiled child in 1940. But then they got the tables turned on them in July of 1941 when Britain was secured and FDR finally cut their spigot. Totally dependent on American oil and already deep in China, simply had no options. Remember when I said they got the rug pulled out from under them? This is it. They could sit and lose in China, or attack SE Asia and America and lose in all three. They chose to do something...anything, other than sit and wait and lose, and then it got bloody in the Pacific.












Next post we fast forward to 1945, blow sh** up, and march to victory.



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First !!!! Suck it loosers !!!


Jul 20, 2021, 9:30 AM

GREAT post !!!

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-10yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Brad Brownell: Only Larry freaking Shyatt has a WORSE overall winning percentage among Clemson basketball coaches since 1975. Let that sink in. It's Larry Shyatt & then Brad Brownell.


Re: Military Pron: Part 2 - Dropping the Bomb...almost


Jul 20, 2021, 2:53 PM

Those are some seriously chill folks in the foreground of the Nagasaki photo!

2024 orange level member flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Re: Military Pron: Part 2 - Dropping the Bomb...almost


Jul 20, 2021, 3:41 PM

I was thinking the same thing. My axx would be ducked and covered fo sho



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Re: Military Pron: Part 2 - Dropping the Bomb...almost


Jul 20, 2021, 4:33 PM

Super history lesson with enough eye candy to boot!!

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