Talking About World War II: I understand the U.S. "Island Hopping" strategy during WW2 in the Pacific, but why did Japan choose the strategy of occupying all those islands in the first place?
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| Map of Pacific Ocean territories and their respective owners. Credit: World of Warships |
On Quora, Matthew Lewis asks
I understand the U.S. "Island Hopping" strategy during WW2 in the Pacific, but why did Japan choose the strategy of occupying all those islands in the first place?
My reply:
After the First World War - indeed, as early as the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 - the Japanese military, particularly the Imperial Japanese Navy, began to look at the United States as their great trans-Pacific rival. This, of course, was to be expected once Russia and China, Japan’s close-to-home enemies, became (in Tokyo’s eyes) weak and toothless paper tigers mired in revolution and civil war.
During the first three decades of the 20th Century, the same Japan that had been content to be an isolated feudal island kingdom developed an unhealthy appetite to become just as imperialistic as the European powers that controlled vast expanses of Asia and Oceania. Seeing that China was a toothless dragon and ripe for conquest, the more rapacious elements of the Japanese ruling class and the Army laid covetous eyes on its neighbor to the west.
There were also some ultraconservative intellectuals in Japan’s elite who were still traumatized by the fact that it had been the U.S. which had “opened” the nation to Western trade and technology in 1853 after it had closed itself to Western influences a few centuries earlier. These Japanese, especially those in high positions of responsibility in government and in the armed forces, resented America for its role in modernizing Japan. This feeling of animosity toward the gaijin from across the Pacific filtered to many branches of Japanese society and eventually shaped Japanese foreign and military policies.
The Army, being the more traditional branch of the military, focused most of its war planning on the conquest of China and, eventually, Russia. The Navy, which patterned itself after its mentor, the British Royal Navy, tended to see things through British notions of having a strong enough fleet to protect the Home Islands and project power overseas. The theories of U.S. naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan were also studied by Japanese naval cadets at the Naval Academy on Eta Jima, near the port city of Hiroshima.
In the early 20th Century, before the advent of naval aviation (and even after), Japanese war plans against the U.S. were centered on the Great Decisive Battle of the Pacific (Kantai Kessen), in which, upon the outbreak of war, the American Navy would sail west from the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii toward the Japanese Home Islands. To defeat the U.S. fleet, the Japanese would fight a war of attrition, using forward-deployed submarines, destroyers, land-based planes, and cruisers armed with torpedoes to whittle away at the mighty American naval forces. Then, before the surviving American battleships could get close to Japan itself, the Japanese Navy would commit their battle line and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s behemoths in a Tsushima-like engagement.
Kantai Kessen acknowledged that the U.S. industrial base was larger than Japan’s and that in the long run, the Americans could bring large numbers of ships to bear if the war did not end quickly and decisively. But the Japanese thought that if they could beat the Tsarist Russian navy at Tsushima, they could defeat the Americans in a battle in conditions and a location of Japan’s choosing. It also influenced Japanese tactics and naval ship design, including proficiency in night fighting, the deployment of Fubuki and other classes of destroyers equipped with Type 93 Long Lance torpedoes, and the building of the Yamato-class super-battleships.
Naturally, the Japanese wanted to weaken the U.S. Navy as far away from Japan as possible. So before the Decisive Battle of the Pacific could even begin, the Imperial Navy and Army needed to set up a defensive perimeter that extended thousands of miles across the ocean. This necessitated the occupation of any suitable islands, including former German colonies in the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, and the Mariana Islands that Japan was given trusteeship after World War I, in which she had fought on the side of the Allies.
That’s why the Japanese needed to occupy so many islands during World War II. To provide a shield to protect Japan’s more valuable conquests; to pave the way for the Decisive Battle of the Pacific (which the Japanese Navy sought in vain throughout the Pacific War); and to make the Americans pay for every island bastion with so much blood and military hardware that they would tire of the war and sue for peace.
During the first three decades of the 20th Century, the same Japan that had been content to be an isolated feudal island kingdom developed an unhealthy appetite to become just as imperialistic as the European powers that controlled vast expanses of Asia and Oceania. Seeing that China was a toothless dragon and ripe for conquest, the more rapacious elements of the Japanese ruling class and the Army laid covetous eyes on its neighbor to the west.
There were also some ultraconservative intellectuals in Japan’s elite who were still traumatized by the fact that it had been the U.S. which had “opened” the nation to Western trade and technology in 1853 after it had closed itself to Western influences a few centuries earlier. These Japanese, especially those in high positions of responsibility in government and in the armed forces, resented America for its role in modernizing Japan. This feeling of animosity toward the gaijin from across the Pacific filtered to many branches of Japanese society and eventually shaped Japanese foreign and military policies.
The Army, being the more traditional branch of the military, focused most of its war planning on the conquest of China and, eventually, Russia. The Navy, which patterned itself after its mentor, the British Royal Navy, tended to see things through British notions of having a strong enough fleet to protect the Home Islands and project power overseas. The theories of U.S. naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan were also studied by Japanese naval cadets at the Naval Academy on Eta Jima, near the port city of Hiroshima.
In the early 20th Century, before the advent of naval aviation (and even after), Japanese war plans against the U.S. were centered on the Great Decisive Battle of the Pacific (Kantai Kessen), in which, upon the outbreak of war, the American Navy would sail west from the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii toward the Japanese Home Islands. To defeat the U.S. fleet, the Japanese would fight a war of attrition, using forward-deployed submarines, destroyers, land-based planes, and cruisers armed with torpedoes to whittle away at the mighty American naval forces. Then, before the surviving American battleships could get close to Japan itself, the Japanese Navy would commit their battle line and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s behemoths in a Tsushima-like engagement.
Kantai Kessen acknowledged that the U.S. industrial base was larger than Japan’s and that in the long run, the Americans could bring large numbers of ships to bear if the war did not end quickly and decisively. But the Japanese thought that if they could beat the Tsarist Russian navy at Tsushima, they could defeat the Americans in a battle in conditions and a location of Japan’s choosing. It also influenced Japanese tactics and naval ship design, including proficiency in night fighting, the deployment of Fubuki and other classes of destroyers equipped with Type 93 Long Lance torpedoes, and the building of the Yamato-class super-battleships.
Naturally, the Japanese wanted to weaken the U.S. Navy as far away from Japan as possible. So before the Decisive Battle of the Pacific could even begin, the Imperial Navy and Army needed to set up a defensive perimeter that extended thousands of miles across the ocean. This necessitated the occupation of any suitable islands, including former German colonies in the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, and the Mariana Islands that Japan was given trusteeship after World War I, in which she had fought on the side of the Allies.
That’s why the Japanese needed to occupy so many islands during World War II. To provide a shield to protect Japan’s more valuable conquests; to pave the way for the Decisive Battle of the Pacific (which the Japanese Navy sought in vain throughout the Pacific War); and to make the Americans pay for every island bastion with so much blood and military hardware that they would tire of the war and sue for peace.
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