That video ask the wrong question. They ask if the Japanese CAN do it, we’re asking if the Japanese COULD do it.
Japanese Invasion of America?
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Kurt, that is a very intresting and insightful post and was a very entertaining read. Seems a bit out of left field though, what’s it got to do with a possible Japanese invasion of the US? Or were you just trying to answer Dylans question? Either way cool read
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Kurt, that is a very intresting and insightful post and was a very entertaining read. Seems a bit out of left field though, what’s it got to do with a possible Japanese invasion of the US? Or were you just trying to answer Dylans question? Either way cool read
Thanks for your compliments Clyde. :) In answer to your question, I felt that a discussion of a Japanese invasion of America has two parts: 1) what Japan could do. 2) what Japanese leaders had hoped to achieve back when they’d decided to go to war. My most recent post was more relevant to 2) than to 1).
I agree that the scenario you’ve outlined earlier is within the realm of possibility. (I’m referring to your post about the potential destruction of most of the U.S. Pacific carrier fleet and the neutralization of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.) I don’t personally feel this would have opened the door to a potential Japanese invasion of the West Coast, for the reasons I outlined earlier. But I’m happy to read any thoughts you or others may have on the matter.
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Thank you Kurt :-D I will attempt to conclude my theroy here.
The Japanese combined fleet has delt the US a crippling blow in its opening offensive. The entire pre-war fleet (excluding the carrier Saratoga and the cruiser Indianapolis, with a literal handful of destroyers and frigates) has been wiped out with no way to recover any piece of it. Whats worse, Americas forward base in the Pacific, Pearl Harbor, has been completely neutralized. The Japanese now hold the senior commanders and their staffs prisoner along with the startling revalation that their codes have been broken. The have also taken home with them knowladge of Americas new weapon, radar, which is passed over to Japans top sicentists to see what they can learn about it. On its way home, the combined fleet and the S.N.L.F. the took part in the occupation of Oahu, make a brief stop at wake to help finish off what had been a heroic and stalwart defense of the island. Along with this, the Japanese Empire has also taken guam and invaded Hong Kong, Malaya, the Phillipines, Burma, and has sunk the British fleet in the waters of the south China sea. By early 1942 all, save for the north of Burma and, will have fallen to the Japanese empire.
When departing from their breif occupation Oahu they issued a “scorched earth” directive and let the island a ruined of its ones beautiful self. Thousands lie dead and the surviors tell stories of the horror of the Japanese occupation. The stories that reach the mainland, while afirming the peoples resolve to fight, has an enormously negative effect on the homefronts morale. People begin to wonder aloud whether their goverment and armed forces can protect them. The US high command send 2 more carriers, the Hornet, the_Wasp_, and their escorts to reinforce the Saratoga in the pacific. This nascent carrier force is all that stands between the entire Japanese combined fleet and the west coast of the United States. As such it is kept close to coastal near the newly created west coast command on the Treasure islands off of San Farnsisco.
The next stage of Japans offensive beging almost immediately after their attack on Pearl Harbor. Taking tips from their German counter parts, the Japanese naval staff organize “wolf-pack” style submarine fleets and set them on raiding all shipping comming from the Western coast of North America. These ookami packs, patrol in an arch from the Aleutian Islands in the north to the Panama canal in the south. The Japanese submarines were some of the best seen during the WW2 ear and had massive range. The Japanese merchant raiding is massively successful as shipping from the west coast is brought to a near halt. Lend Lease equippment intended for Australia, China, India, and the Soviet Union sits on pier unable to get ot their destination. The Carrier force dose all that it can to protect costal shipping but the Joints Chiefs unwillingness to risk Americas last remaining power in the Pacific means that any deep water protecting is impossible. Also the massive expanse the Japanese wolf-packs are operating over is just too wide and the Carrier force (named Task force Halsey in honor of Admiral Halsey who went down with the USS Enterpirse on Dec. 7) can not be everywhere at once.
A argument breaks out between the joint chiefs and the white house. The joint chiefs want to use the carrier force to protect areas of high strategic value, like the panama canal, and also to try and set the Japanese off balance by striking at the Japanese bases a Truk or other critical areas to Japan. Some more radical elements in the army command even want to try bombing the home islands themselves, an idea being championed by Lt.-col. Doolittle. However the political leadership refuse to allow the carriers to be risked and know that the presence of the carriers on the west coast is the only thing keeping an out right panic from gripping the people there. This impass leaves US Forces in the Pacific and west coast to sit and wait at the mercy of Japan to see what will happen next.(Sorry, I know I said I conclude it here, but I will finish it very soon!!!)
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If everything was different and all of Hawaii had been invaded and somehow Japan found massive depots of oil then what? Well, lets put this in axis and allies terms. I will grant you all that. So, Japan’s first 100 dice rolls are all 1s scoring 100 hits out of 100. The US rolls 100 6’s and don’t score a single hit.
So now what? An invasion launched from Hawaii say. Compare that to the D-Day invasion launched in early June 1944. Considering Hawaii is 2400-2500 miles away from California versus Europe (Calais) being 19 miles from England. Normandy was chosen for a variety of reasons, one of which was the HUGE distance of 110 miles. Yeah, 110 miles was so far away the germans didn’t really suspect Normandy was the target. Compare that with 2400 miles at the closest point.
So ya gotta figure that since they have to:
A) Cover 20 times the distance and staging the operation from a hostile assembly point versus an allied nation like England
B) The landing point is a hostile USA versus a somewhat ally in occupied France.
C) Invading the worlds largest economy with more oil than god at that point in timeI can’t imagine Japan being ready for their version of D-Day within 5 years of the allied D-Day….
So like, how do ya think the imperial fleet would fare against nuclear bombs?
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So this is a speculative scenario, I get you really dont like the idea of the US’s sacred homeland being invaded, but im trying to present the best case scenario and conditions under which an invasion COULD have been possible. I dont understand all the hostility.
I dont know what A-bombs are going to be around in 1942 so they dont really factor in.
Also, the reason that the allies waited soooo long in invading France was because Churchill was scared wit-less of the Germans. After the disaster at Dieppe, He has grown fearful of the power of the Germans and their defensives. We could have invaded France way earlier, but Churchill was too scared and didnt want another Dieppe, Also he was warngling to get an invasion of the Balkans going to increas British influnce in the region.
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Thats a great scenario when is the book/movie coming out
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While I hold a successful Japanese invasion of the US for entirely unfeasible for all the solid reasons mentioned by several people on this thread, I do like Clyde’s speculative scenario. If I may make a suggestion there: to overcome the huge logistic problems that the Japanese would face if they attempted a direct invasion from a far-away vantage point such as Hawaii, I’d say they could try a phased approach by first enlisting an ally on the American continent. Mexico would be ideal, and after Japanese successes in the Pacific along the lines described by Clyde, maybe the Mexican government could be convinced to join the Axis. This could be attempted by a combination of diplomatic efforts similar to Germany’s World War I Zimmermann Telegram, financial backup, and a genuine Japanese military presence.
The invasion would then come from the South rather than the West, the Texas oil fields being a tempting target. Germany might be able to lend a hand in such an operation by means of submarine operations in the Gulf.Of course it’s very unlikely that the US would sit by and watch the progress of such very obvious preparations, and it’s also not at all sure the Mexicans would cooperate in the first place - but then again, it’s all highly speculative anyway.
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So this is a speculative scenario, I get you really dont like the idea of the US’s sacred homeland being invaded, but im trying to present the best case scenario and conditions under which an invasion COULD have been possible. I dont understand all the hostility.
I dont know what A-bombs are going to be around in 1942 so they dont really factor in.
Also, the reason that the allies waited soooo long in invading France was because Churchill was scared wit-less of the Germans. After the disaster at Dieppe, He has grown fearful of the power of the Germans and their defensives. We could have invaded France way earlier, but Churchill was too scared and didnt want another Dieppe, Also he was warngling to get an invasion of the Balkans going to increas British influnce in the region.
Malachi Crunch is Canadian, and my sense is that his patriotic feelings are pro-Canada, not pro-U.S. (As an aside, the Canadian Army would have been another thorn in Japan’s side, at least if it had chosen to invade via the Alaska route.)
A successful Japanese invasion would require four things: 1) Japanese naval superiority, 2) Japanese land-based parity or superiority, 3) Japanese air superiority, and 4) Large-scale Japanese shipping and logistical capacity. You’ve shown how the first of these things might have been temporarily achieved. But my sense (and possibly Malachi Crunch’s sense as well) is that it’s going to be difficult or impossible to paint a realistic picture of how the latter three could be achieved.
I’m willing to keep an open mind, and I have to admit that Herr Kaleun’s Mexico idea is a good one which hadn’t occurred to me. But based on the data I have thus far, my sense is that a Japanese invasion was never a possibility, and that Japan’s leaders understood that.
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Cylde85, your refined scenario is interesting, but KurtGodel7 is correct, my loyalties are to Canada as I am a Canuckian. The Mexican angle might help, but then again the mexican mainland is that much further away from Japan.
It’s not that I am hostile to the idea of the US being invaded, heck, Canadians…errrr, the British as Canada didn’t exist…The British and what would become Canada did invade the US mainland and burned the US capital to the ground. I just think its too much of a stretch to contemplate a sustained Jap invasion.
If I hear you correctly, you feel the allies were ready to invade europe ibefore June 6, 1944…but it was Winston Churchill who was scared of Hitler and didn’t want to? Interesting, fictional but interesting.
My point was, the allies were not ready to invade europe until about 14 months before the atom bomb was ready, there is NO WAY Japan would be ready by June 6, 1944 or June 6 1948. By the time they built up enough of an invasion force say a few years longer than the allies required for D-Day they would be facing a nuclear armed enemy. The fact is, the US had such a huge production advantage its just too implausible for me to entertain seriously.
I think perhaps if Japan had NOT done pearl harbour. Had just gone after the British and commonwealth countries, the dutch east indies…that the US might not want to fight for somebody else.
By attacking the US in the way they did…only pissed them off. It made it easy to put the entire continent on a war footing in production which the Germans NEVER did pull off until it was much much too late.
Now, you spin a scenario in which the US never enters the war, europe collapses, the axis owning everything but the americas… The both the US and Germany get nuclear weapons and a stalemate along the lines of the cold war develop. Still no Jap invasion could occur.
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I think if you look at the history of the Pacific war, you’ll see that time and again the Japanese pulled off amphibious landings that were thought to be impossible at the time. Look the Malaya campagin, no one thought the Japanese would be able to land in that kind of terrain in the first place, let alone skillfully and quickly fight their way down the lenght of the pennisula and invade Singapore. Also remember, the Japanese regularly out paced and out maneuvered the Biritsh and did so with out using Malayas limited roads but sticking to the hills, jungle and woods. The Japanese also managed to invade places alot further away from Japan then the west coast was, like the solomon islands, and, until the allies reallly started focusing on disrupting Japanese supply convoys to the island, were able to keep their army there well supplied
If I hear you correctly, you feel the allies were ready to invade europe ibefore June 6, 1944….but it was Winston Churchill who was scared of Hitler and didn’t want to? Interesting, fictional but interesting.
Its not fictional. Churchill was the man behind the Galipoli debacle in WW1, and he had pretty much seen amphibious assaults as to risky and frutiless since then. After the disaster Dieppe (valient effort by the Canadians anyhow) He had pretty much sworn off the idea. The British general staff, and Churchill, we’re the ones who pushed to dely the invasion of France again and again, fearing mass casualties which Britian could ill afford. The US, under Eisenhower, was pushing for a cross channel invasion no later the 1943 but we’re forced to push back the landings for a full year because of British uncertinty. This is not fiction, the D-day landings were a big risk for Britian and with the pounding they had taken the the 39-42 period it was taking them time to mass the manpower and equipmewnt together. If British had suffered mass casualties then that would have been it for them, they were scarping the bottom of the manpower barrel. In the end, all that catuion turned out to be for naught as the allies pushed to shore with minimal casualties. The atlantic wall was still under construction in 1943 and would have been even less of an issue then it was in 44. The allies could have successfuly invaded Europe in 1943 had it not been for the concerns and fears of Winston Churchill
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The fact is, when the allies did D-Day in June 1944 they were LUCKY it worked. So the fact it was pretty much sheer luck it worked proved they were NOT ready prior to June 1944 nor would the Japanese even under the most widely optimistic premises. I can’t see any combination of factors what would render this possible in any timeline, never mind one that provides for the conquest of the US before they get the atom bomb.
Clyde, are you from the Americas? Do you have any idea how huge the continent is? I live next to a lake that has more surface area then England. All of Japan could fit neatly in a small southern portion of my province, many US states are larger than Japan.
Again, look at D-Day, the staging area was 20 miles away from the coast, not 3500 miles. They had to sail 110 miles to the landing beach, not 3500 miles. The allies had oil, the axis didn’t.
I like movies too where the good guy runs past 850 dudes firing machine guns, they all miss, the good guy tosses a grenade and kills all 850 bad guys and gets the chick. Carry on with your scenario.
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Clyde, I’d like you to cite anything that indicated the allies were ready to invade Europe by 1943. The fact is that the operation was lucky to work, the fact Hitlers orders prevented a counter attack that was designed to push them back into the ocean would to me indicate an earlier date would have been a worse date.
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Clyde, are you from the Americas? Do you have any idea how huge the continent is? I live next to a lake that has more surface area then England.
Born and raised in New England thank you very much, and do tell what lake that is, cause that sounds like non-sense to me if you’re talking about the great lakes.
D-day was not luck, and hitlers orders to counter-attack would have been about as effective as they we’re at Anzio, only less so because of the overwhelming air superiority and concentration of naval power. Seriously you’re treating D-day like it was a long shot and seem to completely forget a number of other amphibious operations that were under taken by the Allies, and the Axis, during the war that were (in some cases anyway) under worse conditions then D-Day. Look at the Anzio landings for instance, where the allies nearly were pushed into the sea, or look at the battles in the pacific, like Japans invasion of Burma, or the Solomons and Papua. In these instances the powers involved had to over come both logisitical and distance problems as well as enemy opisition, but the landings went off with reasonable success (granted the Japanese were eventually defeated in papua and the solomons, but were still able to give battle for about a year or more in both instances, but the landings worked).
As I mentioned earlier I dont want to give things away before I post them, but I feel I should mention that while the Japanese in this scenario will in fact invade the continental US, they’re not going to conqure it and march on washington D.C., that would be impossible, they are going to invade.
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Cylde85, your refined scenario is interesting, but KurtGodel7 is correct, my loyalties are to Canada as I am a Canuckian. The Mexican angle might help, but then again the mexican mainland is that much further away from Japan.
It’s not that I am hostile to the idea of the US being invaded, heck, Canadians…errrr, the British as Canada didn’t exist…The British and what would become Canada did invade the US mainland and burned the US capital to the ground. I just think its too much of a stretch to contemplate a sustained Jap invasion.
If I hear you correctly, you feel the allies were ready to invade europe ibefore June 6, 1944…but it was Winston Churchill who was scared of Hitler and didn’t want to? Interesting, fictional but interesting.
My point was, the allies were not ready to invade europe until about 14 months before the atom bomb was ready, there is NO WAY Japan would be ready by June 6, 1944 or June 6 1948. By the time they built up enough of an invasion force say a few years longer than the allies required for D-Day they would be facing a nuclear armed enemy. The fact is, the US had such a huge production advantage its just too implausible for me to entertain seriously.
I think perhaps if Japan had NOT done pearl harbour. Had just gone after the British and commonwealth countries, the dutch east indies…that the US might not want to fight for somebody else.
By attacking the US in the way they did…only pissed them off. It made it easy to put the entire continent on a war footing in production which the Germans NEVER did pull off until it was much much too late.
Now, you spin a scenario in which the US never enters the war, europe collapses, the axis owning everything but the americas… The both the US and Germany get nuclear weapons and a stalemate along the lines of the cold war develop. Still no Jap invasion could occur.
I dont think the U.S having Nuclear weapons is a foregone conclusion had they not been involved in WW2. No U.S involvement in WW2 means the depression likely would of continued for years to come in the United States. Building Nuclear weapons even during the war would of likely had its detractors due its massive costs, but building nuclear weapons during a time of economic collapse seems somewhat implausible especially with the United States isolationist tendencies pre December 7, 1941. Also had the Nazi’s/Japanese empire controlled basically all of Eurasia and Africa and had Nuclear weapons the Nazi’s would of had an adaquate delivery system much quicker than the United States in the form of a rocket likely derived from the V2. The United States would of had no airbase to launch a bomber to attack Germany with either had the Axis powers won the war. Provided a B-29 bomber would of ever been built without the war.
The United States rocket program only got off the ground once they brought in German engineers like Werner von Braun.
A Nuclear armed Germany who controlled more than half the world VS a United States still struggling economically and who had strong isolationist tendencies. I know which one I would put my money on. But I digress I dont think any armed conflict would of occured between a Nuclear United States and Germany/Imperial Japan, with the resources of basically the entire world outside of the America’s at their disposal the Axis powers could stir up pro-Axis revolutions in Central and South America to the point where an eventual fifth column would make the United States capitulate.
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By the time pearl harbour occured, the depression was over.
The attack on Pearl did bring the US into the War.
The scenario laid out has Japan attacking Pearl so the US would have been at war.
After the attack the US had the bomb within 4 years.
The Japs would not be ready to launch an invasion fleet that dwarfed the D-Day invasion fleet in less than 4 years.
The Japs would need an invasion fleet that made the D-Day invasion fleet look tiny.
If Japan was to invade the US, the US would not need long range bombers to attack the invasion fleet with nuclear weapons.
Therefore in my opinion, it seems a bit silly to entertain this scenario. Might as well project what would happen if Canada were to conquer the US and force them to have universal health care.
I do stand corrected, England has about the same surface area as the great lakes combined.
If Japan managed to land say, 5 million soldiers on the mainland, that would be about 1 soldier for every 2 square miles of North America. Tough to occupy 2 square miles with 1 dude.
So again, somehow this occurs. Yep, and Rambo never gets killed either.
I don’t think my skepticism should prevent this from being fleshed out however. I remain unconvinced its a serious possibility given the scenario as it started out.
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Therefore in my opinion, it seems a bit silly to entertain this scenario. Might as well project what would happen if Canada were to conquer the US and force them to have universal health care.
Intresting thoughts indeed but there is a recurring problem Im seeing with your posts. You seem to equate the word Invade to mean the same as Conquer and I think you know they mean very different things. You might Invade something you wanted to Conquer but having Invaded dosnt mean you’re going to Conquer the blasted thing. If we were talking about Japan Conquering the US i’d be right with you in the chours of unbelievability but thats not what we’re talking about. Im talking about the Japanese Invading the US and depending on how you want to count Hawaii I’ve already successfully done that and could rightfully knock off for lunch now. However, I believe im more responsable then that and do intend to resolve this scenario (just when im not at work and have my notes from home in front of me)
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Other than Dieppe, name me an invasion where they expected to lose and retreat?
Ok, so the scenario is that Japan invades the US but never planned to win and planned to have to retreat. Sure, they could sneak a sub in, land an inflatable raft and invade with 12 commandos.
Mission accomplished.
Next……
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I think I read in one of my books where Japan made subs that would carry a plane inside it, Surface assemble and load with bomb and hit the Panama Canal or another important target. Maybe even carry troops
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I’ve been doing some thinking about potential Japanese invasion scenarios. If you’re invading a small island, you can load some soldiers up onto transports, travel a very long distance, and know that when you arrive your combined land/air/sea force should be strong enough to overcome the forces on the island. But invading a mainland is different. The number of soldiers you can fit on your transports is likely to be much smaller than the number of enemy soldiers on the mainland. You don’t really have the option of dropping off one batch of your soldiers, sailing a long distance to your homeland, picking up another batch, and using the second batch to support the first. If you tried that, your first batch would be wiped out before the second could arrive to support it.
To solve this problem, you need a base for the invasion near the place you’re going to invade. That way your transports can make a lot of back-and-forth trips quickly so that your invasion force will grow large enough to resist the enemy’s mainland force.
The most logical invasion route for the Japanese to have used would have consisted of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. During the real war, Japan took one or two of the Aleutian Islands. The Aleutian Islands are position in a nice, long chain–a chain which seems to reach out from Alaska toward Russia and northern Japan.
Suppose that on December 7th - 8th of 1941, Japan had followed up its first two air attacks against Pearl Harbor with a third air attack. (As a good naval commander would have done.) Also under this scenario, Japan would have used its powerful surface fleet to have bombarded Pearl Harbor’s facilities. Then it could have sank the heart of the U.S. carrier fleet in the scenario Clyde described. These activities would have been intended to render both the U.S. Pacific fleet and the naval base at Pearl as impotent as possible, as quickly as possible.
After these tasks were finished, a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy would have headed north, to begin an island hopping campaign through the Aleutians. December or January may not seem like a great time of year to begin an invasion of Alaska. However, coastal Alaskan weather tends to be considerably milder than inland Alaskan weather. Coastal Alaskan weather is like Seattle’s weather, except with colder rain.
This island hopping scenario was well within Japan’s capabilities, especially under the favorable naval scenario outlined by Clyde. Within a few months of the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan could have taken possession of whichever of the Aleutian Islands are closest to the Alaskan mainland. That island could have served as a base for the invasion force.
At this point, it could be pointed out that Japan’s ability to transport a large invading force across a body of water in 1941 was considerably smaller than the U.S. and Britain would have for the D-Day invasion of 1944. In addition, it would not surprise me if the Aleutian island in question was farther away from the mainland than Britain is from Normandy. However, there are several factors which would offset this. As Clyde has pointed out, the U.S. Army was not very well-prepared for war in early '42. Witness, for example, the early embarrassments it experienced in its Algerian invasion. Had General Patton not subsequently been given command, that situation could have spiraled out of control.
Another offsetting factor was that the portion of the Alaskan coast vulnerable to invasion was much, much larger than the Normandy/Calais area Germany had to defend. Also, Japan had a very strong surface fleet, including the most powerful battleships ever built. American land forces could be bombarded along a wide stretch of Alaskan coast, and could also be subjected to air attacks from carrier-based planes. Given enough time, the Japanese could also construct airfields on the Aleutian islands they’d captured.
All of this might–might!–be enough to allow Japan to land an invading force in mainland Alaska, and not have that force get instantly pushed back into the sea. In late '41, Japan’s planes and pilots were often better than their American counterparts; giving Japan a very fleeting air superiority. I say fleeting because the U.S. very quickly improved its aircraft designs, and used its overwhelming industrial advantage to heavily outproduce Japan. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had ten times the industrial capacity of Japan! During WWII, Japan gradually reduced that margin of superiority by industrializing itself. Nevertheless, in any long war between the U.S. and Japan, there could be only one outcome.
Presumably, the objective of the Japanese Army would be to move southward along the Pacific coast until it had reached the Mexican border. The Imperial Japanese Navy could intervene as necessary, delivering reinforcements and supplies where needed, while also shelling American positions. But it is a very long way from Alaska to Mexico, and the Japanese Army would have to contend with its American and Canadian counterparts along the way. A conquest like this would take time, even if it could be accomplished at all. (Which is highly doubtful.) Even if the invading force somehow reached Mexico, the heart of America’s war making and industrial capacity would remain intact. The next phase would involve a massive push eastward. The West Coast would be the starting line for the push, and the Atlantic would be the finish line. However, it is highly doubtful that the Japanese Army had the strength for such a massive undertaking.
Since we’re painting a best-case scenario for Japan anyway, I’ll borrow an idea from Herr Kaleun. Suppose that in the wake of the U.S. oil embargo, the Japanese ambassador to Mexico had begun achieving brilliant successes. Suppose he’d persuaded the Mexican government to begin arming itself in preparation for a future hypothetical war against the U.S. Presumably, Mexico would initially sit on the sidelines. But the more successes Japan’s Alaskan invasion achieved, the more likely Mexico would (presumably) be to enter the war. The Japanese ambassador could instill a sense of urgency with comments like, “the sooner you enter the war, the greater your rewards will be.”
My sense is that if these things were to have occurred, the Japanese Army would have been stopped partway through Canada via a joint U.S./Canadian effort. Mexico’s invasion would likely have fizzled out after a few relatively small initial victories. Things would be stagnant for a while, after which the U.S. would use its overwhelming advantage in industrial capacity to push back. The main effect of the Alaskan invasion would be that the U.S. would be sidetracked from its Kill Germany First strategy in order to deal with all this. That distraction element would probably have postponed Allied victory in Europe by a few months, or perhaps even a year.
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And Kurt you have essentially touched on part of what I was going for, you are quite smart :-)
Yes, phase 2 of Japans plan is to capture chunks of the Alaskan coast line in the early months of 1942, taking the aleutians first and then moving and seizing Dutch Harbor on the tip on the penisula near the aleutians. Using this as a spring board Japanese forces would then move capture Anchorage and Juneau. US forces in this region are limited and spread out while the Japanese forces can be concentrated with total naval and air superiority. Also, the highly toted US infrastructure wouldnt have factored in as Alaska was very under-developed at this time, unlike the rest of the US. Also just to make clear, the Japanese arent pushing inland and trying to capture and occupy the entirety of Alaska, but rather create a number of enclaves along the coast from which to stage a landing force into the mainland US.
Another thing to mention, while the US did have a number of superior aircraft designs and other new technologies ready to go, the creation and production of these things has been drasticaly delayed. The Combined fleet has a(relatively) free run of the west coast and after showing up off the coast of L.A. and San Diego one day and bombarding a few facilities (doing minimal damage but ensuing a panic and a massive air battle which caused a worrying number of casualties to the first air fleet) all the firms on the west coast developing these technologies were moved, by goverment order, to new facilities.
This means firms like Consolidated Vultee, Lockheed, Douglas, North American Aviatio, Northrop, Martin Bell, Curtis, Republic, Grumman and Boeing would be dismantled and moved from the west coast to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, with full operation being restored with in a year. In the hasitly packed up and cleared offices, drawing boards were cleared and blue prints stashed away along with tools, jigs, and wind tunnel models. This was going to have a serious effect on the production of the new and improved aircraft. The P-51A would not recieve the engine design it needed and P-38 would continue to suffer from mechanical problems. The B-17 and B-24 would have to restart production in Kansas and be avaliable in only limited numbers for a while, while the XB-29 design (that would eventually become the B-29) would spend almost a year as a desing on blueprints before being brought back out of storage. Also, the Republic P-47 would have become the main US interceptor and escort aircraft for the remainder of the war. While great at high altitudes and attacking from a dive, it lacked the manouverability and turning speed of it main opponent, the Zero.
On the other fronts in the Pacific, the allies arent looking much better. Japan has taken over the Philipines with the survivors of corregidor being put through the bataan death march. Midway, and other smaller atolls in the pacific, have also fallen to the Japanese. With Japanese wolf-packs bringing everything but coastal shipping to a stop, the allies arent recieving the essiential lend-lease equipment they need. While the Australians are able to provide for home defense and are dug in around Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea they are able to do little else. However Japan has made no offensive moves in the south-west pacific outside of the odd submarine attack. The British have been thrown out of Burma all together and the supply route to China has been cut. The lack of US forces in the region means that China is currently getting NO supplies from the outside world, greatly weakening Chinese forces ability to resist. Already the famous Flying Tigers must ration out their remaining fuel, limiting their operational effectiveness. Knowing that Japans main offensive attention is focused at the continental US, the British are relatively sure Japan cant threaten India, but a tense situation remains along the Indo-Burmese border. With their defeat at Singapore Britian suffered a major military defeat (largest in their history) and are desprate to hold India. Churchill has struck a deal with the INC (Indian National Congress) party, promising independence in exchange for internal stability, but the situation in India remains as tense as the situation along the border. The lack of resources avaliable to Japanese forces in thess theaters are doing more to hamper their progress then the allied forces arayed against them. Currently Japan is involved in the very slow process of absorbing the Duth East Indies. The sheer vastness of the area tasked for the limited Japanese forces is causing the slow speed, although the native Indonesians seem to welcome the Japanese over the Dutch, at first anyway.
On other fronts in the war, the US general staff has postponed indefinitely the Operation Torch landings, and operations in the European Theater, until the threat to the west coast had abated. The US has also greatly reduced its assistance to Britian and the USSR through lend-lease at the worst possible times. The lack of US airpower in Britian give the luftwaffe a bit of breathing space and allows for them to have a bit of a resurgance over the skies of Britian. The fighting in North Africa remains a bloody sea-saw affair, but the new threat posed to the British in India with Japan in Burma means that the manpower and resource edge the Allies were hoping for remains as inconclusive as the battles so far. In Russia the German Case Blau has just smashed Soviet forces around Karkov and little seems to be able to stop the German drive to the Volga. The reduction of US aid couldnt come at a worse time as the Soviet logistical system remains archaic and backwards without the addition of all those US made turcks. Also, with the Ukarine under occupation and the US’s reduced aid shipments the STAVKA (soviet high command) is having trouble feeding the Red Army. Facing death and stravation the Red Army is threatened with total collapse.(I will try to finish this at some point and time tomorrow, I just never seem to have enough time!!!)
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