One of Detroit’s giant tank factories

  The only area that Japan’s still dominated was in the naval category. Not because the U.S. Navy was many times smaller than the Combined Fleet. It more had to do with the fact that America was busy fighting a two-front war and that priority was given to the struggle in Europe.

  Also, Japan had a head start rearming militarily in the 1930s after the global depression. It invaded weaker China and other parts of Asia and had faced very little resistance. In general terms, it gave the Japanese leader an unrealistic view of their country’s capabilities against the American industrial giant.

  By July 1942, strong in confidence because of their incredible and spectacular conquests, the Axis powers, Japan and Germany primarily, had convinced the world, and themselves, that they were capable, militarily and economically, of waging a global war. Fascism was pronounced superior and modern – the future of humankind – by the Axis nations.

  But there was nothing in their prior histories and their rearmament strategies to suggest that was true. So, they had to win the war very quickly. The following comparison gives a better view of the production difference between the Axis and the Allies:

  War production from 1939 to 1947 (end of WW2)

  (Not counting existing weapons in 1939)

  System

  Allies

  Axis

  Tanks and mobile guns

  327,235

  52,345

  Artillery, mortars, heavy guns

  2 000 234

  380,141

  Machine-guns

  4,744,484

  1,058,863

  Military trucks

  5,060,354

  1094,859

  Fighter aircraft

  552,459

  134,684

  Attack aircraft

  87,549

  22,539

  Bomber aircraft

  353,615

  85,415

  Transport aircraft

  43,045

  5,657

  Aircraft carriers (light and fleet carriers)

  208

  23

  Battleships

  31

  17

  Cruisers

  152

  35

  Destroyers

  1214

  126

  Convoy escorts

  2,102

  -

  Submarines

  622

  345

  Merchant shipping tonnage

  33,993,230

  5,000,000+

  Coal

  6 281 000 000

  3 945 100 000

  Iron Ore

  1 006 000 000

  489 000 000

  Crude Oil

  1 293 000 000

  458 000 000

  In the summer of 1942, the USA was not strong enough to challenge the Combined Fleet one-on-one, but things would soon change. Japan would not get any main fleet carrier for another two years (the Taiho and the Shinano were at least two years away from completion) and get a paltry two light carriers by the end of 1942 and another two in 1943.

  Aerial view of the Tacoma (Oregon) shipyards in 1944

  During the same period (1942), the U.S. Navy would receive one main fleet carrier (the Essex) and three light carriers. By the end of 1943, another three main fleet carriers would join the fray (Yorktown 2, Lexington 2, Bunker Hill), along with a staggering eleven light carriers.

  In the battleship category, the Japanese would not produce another one for the rest of the war, while the US would get, just for 1942-1943 alone, five new ones (Mississippi, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Alabama). Several more were planned for 1944 and 1945, including the American’s own super-battleship project, the 70 000 tons Montana.

  While the Japanese would not believe that the production discrepancy was so large, they understood, on an intellectual level, that they were tenfold smaller than America and that they couldn’t lose any capital ship because it couldn’t be replaced. The US, in contrast, could absorb some losses.

  Yamamoto was right to be worried.

  Extract from General MacArthur’s book, Reminiscences, 1964

  The catastrophic Port Moresby situation, August 1st, 1942

  By the end of July, I received the disastrous news of the complete destruction of Port Moresby as a base. While we’d made the Japs pay a hefty toll for sailing to the New Guinean southern shores, it had not been enough to save the harbor and the airfield supporting the Australian 1st division plus the Marine brigade bravely defending against the enemy in the Kokoda Track and the area in general.

  The state of affairs was very different from what I envisioned it was supposed to be at that time. Instead of my forces being on the offensive and trying to reach New Guinea’s northern coast, continuously upped the ante and seemed intent on taking the base for itself. The amount of force it brought to bear was so powerful that there was nothing else we could do but reel back in disarray. If it fell, then the whole of the Northern Australian coast would be exposed.

  The picture was not all dismal, however. Seeing the results of the Japanese landings on the West Coast (Darwin, Derby, Broome), I did not believe that the enemy had the logistical capabilities to overwhelm our defenses in Australia, simply because they would need more men and supplies than they had available. The Imperial Navy was equipped with many ships, and we couldn’t oppose it in a head-to-head confrontation, but ships did not conquer land. Nevertheless, the Australians did not want any more Japs on their land, as the news from their harsh occupation trickled down eastward.

  Hazardous logistic risks had to be taken in making decisions for planning and launching operations. These risks had to be taken if the war was to be pursued aggressively and if the Allies were to seize the initiative and hold it. Even with the successful Japanese destruction of Port Moresby, I resolved that we would also double-down like the Japs and put every effort into trying to hold the place.

  On August 1st, I met with Admiral Leahy and the commander of the RAN (Royal Australian Navy) to discuss a new blockade-running operation with all the ships we had left. The troops holding the Kokoda position would not be able to do so without supplies, and I resolved to get it to them. The situation was a little better than the last time we reinforced Port Moresby, with a lot more planes to cover our vessels.

  The Port Moresby airfield facilities also needed to be rebuilt, as supplies could also be flown from the air, and fighters needed to be based close to the action. Cairns and the other northern Australian airfields were too far away. So, the fleet that would try and land reinforcements to Port Moresby would contain all the engineers and construction equipment we could cram in there, along with a new regiment of Marines just arrived in Brisbane on the 23rd. The Australians also contributed with a couple of newly raised battalions.

  I must mention, at this point, that Australia’s supply contribution throughout the war was of paramount importance. Less than 100,000 tons arrived from the United States during the summer months of 1942. The New Guinea front's supply was kept flowing only by the strictest compliance with the War Department directive that “local resources will be exploited to the utmost.” And so, the convoy that was bound for Port Moresby would be laden with Australian goods and supplies.

  Our ground and air forces in the Southwest Pacific Area were vastly more self-sufficient than those in any other theater of operations. Our troops' sheer distance and isolation in Australia made it a necessity. Local produce and materials furnished 65 to 70 percent of the resources needed by them for the second half of 1942. I shipped a greater tonnage of supplies to the adjacent South Pacific theater than the United States delivered to my own area. In general effect, therefore, the Southwest Pacific, far from being a drain on the United States, was self-sufficient. Prime Minister Curtin was the mainspring of this magnificent Australian war effort. The only thing that the Australians didn’t have were war factories that could build large ships or bombers. But they produced ammo and food in prodigious quantities.

  The Aussies indeed rose to the challenge, and by the end of the first week of August, we hoped to be able to help our beleaguered forces in New Guinea.

  Little did we know that the Japanese were not done with their surge to take Port Moresby. A few days after the final plans for the 2nd fleet to cross the Coral Sea to resupply our base, a renewed enemy offensive was launched in the Owen Stanley Range (Kokoda).

  The Japanese advance on the Northern Australian coast

  Shores of the Arafura Sea 300km from Darwin, August 2nd, 1942

  The Japanese forces bivouacked along the Arafura Sea on the northern Australian coastline. It was the beginning of August, and the bewildered Imperial soldiers only found deserted Aboriginal villages, dry ground, and a hostile countryside along their 300 kilometers march since they’d left Darwin. The troop supply levels were abysmal, and their morale had reached the same level. Their “offensive” from Darwin had been gruesome, and they’d lost many soldiers along the way.

  The Imperial Navy did not venture into these parts, as air cover was insufficient. In contrast, Allied air presence was getting heavier by the day, and several submarines roamed the Arafura Sea, waiting for fat Japanese convoy ships. So, most of the supply was sent overland, not reaching the troops for weeks.

  Northern Australia, east of Darwin, was undeveloped Aboriginal land. It was a wild, untamed country. Stretches of dusty trails, deserts, dry ground, scarce water, patches of “forested ground” were legion, but not a road in sight. Just empty, untamed countryside. It was depressing.

  The division had lost over 25% of its fighting power just marching eastward. Not even one battle had been fought. In fact, not one Allied soldier or white people had been seen. Only the dark-faced locals that fled at first sight of anything Japanese. As he looked at the heat-undulating horizon, General Kajome Kanato, commander of the 55th Imperial Division, had had enough. “Tell the officers that we’re going back to Darwin first thing tomorrow.” “Yes, sir. “The captains, gathered for the occasion by the General, all harbored an immense sense of relief.

  The Imperial Army was getting nowhere in the Australian immensity. The 55th’s mission had been to reach the Golf of Carpentaria and eventually cross Queensland to attack Cairns, but Kanato now saw that it was utterly impossible to do it on land. Anyway, he’d been highly skeptical from the start, as attacking the major Australian town with just a raw division would not do the trick. Only the typical unrealistic mind of Army command in Tokyo could draw such plans

  Without orders from Army command and no news from any kind of supply overland convoys from Darwin, his men would soon starve if nothing were done about it. The main problem was not just the supplies. It was also that there was nothing to conquer, nothing to plunder. Nothing at all.

  The captains, bowing their acceptance of the order, turned about and walked out of their general field tent. Kanato looked out to sea. The view was magnificent. The blue immensity of the Arafura Sea was sprawled in front of him, but he just could not enjoy it. The god-forsaken patch of country that was Northern Australia was simply not suited for any type of modern campaigning. And besides, there was nothing of interest to get here.

  He gathered his stuff and ordered the men to pack up the field HQ. For better or for worse, he was turning back toward Darwin. Kajome walked out, setting his scabbard and his Samurai officer sword on his hip, while a few soldiers, already working on the tent’s ropes, bowed as he walked by them. Finally. The 55th was going home.

  Strategic view of Japanese production and reinforcements

  The paper tiger

  "Paper tiger" is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhilaohu. The term refers to something or someone that claims or appears to be powerful or threatening but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge.

  The term was well-suited for the Japanese Empire in World War Two. However, Japan wasn’t a “paper tiger” in the sense the word usually conjures up. It had a formidable navy competent airmen and was undoubtedly a major power. But Japan’s armed forces were woefully unprepared for the task they were set to do; subduing the world’s most populous nation and simultaneously waging war with two superpowers.

  Japan’s economy was barely larger than Italy’s, despite having nearly twice the population. The Empire of the Rising Sun certainly had plenty of tanks, planes, and ships. However, it still was one of the poorest of the major powers, just barely above the USSR, a country that had to drag itself out of agrarian backwardness while contending with a war of conquest.

  Japan could have had only one strong Army, Navy, or Air Force. Instead, it tried to develop the three at the same time. The Japanese focused on just a few key areas to compete, namely fighter aircraft and capital ships (carriers and battleships). The gap with the Western Powers still remained huge, and once the initial Allied inferiority was over(created by their paltry spending on military expenses), the game was up for Japan. When Japan wasn’t focusing, the disparity got downright laughable. The British built over ten times as many tanks as the Japanese and the Americans, twenty times. And Japanese tanks were typically comparable to the lighter tanks of their enemies, incapable of facing even a Sherman, that in turn had all the difficulty in the world against German armor.

  Britain and the USA each built more than fifteen times as many artillery pieces. Japanese infantry was likewise poorly equipped and certainly incorrectly supplied. Their equipment was typically recognized as being the worst of all the major powers, on par with what it should have been for the First World War. Part of this had to do with geography; the Pacific War was conducted over immense distances. Often, Japanese troops were intentionally undersupplied so that they could move quickly over rough terrain to surprise their enemies. This strategy paid dividends early on, but it floundered severely when faced with fully equipped and supported Allied forces.

  But the most prominent factor was simply a lack of a consequent Japanese industry for what the country’s leader set it to do. While the shipbuilding industry could churn out a couple of fleet carriers every two years, the Americans would build ten in a year.

  Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t supply even a fraction of their troops as well as the Americans could. Japan was never up to the task of subduing Asia, and they really should have known, considering how it had fought for over four years in China, one of the world’s poorest and most troubled nations, with no victory in sight.

  The finality of the matter was that it could indeed fight and very well at that. It just couldn’t keep up with its enemy's production and organization levels.

  In the end, Imperial Japan gave the Allies a great run for their money, and for a long while during the euphoric months of 1942 and 1943, it seemed that they could win.

  Renewed battle on the Kokoda Track

  Japan double down on the attack, 3rd to 6th August 1942

  General Harukichi Hyakutake gave the final go-ahead for the general attack. Most of his men had already roused up from their miserable, muddy trenches; the artillery boomed and sent arcing shells after arcing shells over the enemy. The moment had finally come. He’d thought that his war was over and that he would have to die in one of those glorious banzai charges while losing at the hands of the enemy. But it seemed that he’d been given a new lease on life and another chance at success. According to what he heard, Grand Admiral Yamamoto had pushed the idea of a renewed offensive thru the Kokoda Track to Army command after the failure of the Milne Bay landings. The operation was a joint coordinate action by both arms of the Japanese Imperial forces.

  A few hours earlier, several powerful G4M bomber attacks had been launched at the Allied position facing his own. He also hit the Allies with the new artillery brought up with significant effort from the northern coast through the terrible jungle of the track. Over fifty heavy guns, shipped direct from the Philippines (leftovers from the Bataan Siege), were painstakingly lifted up the towering mountains against all odds: malaria, mud, rain, enemy air raids.

  By the end of July, his forces (the 67th Division) had been reinforced by two elite regiments from the Kwantung Army and fully replenished in supplies. The General was astounded by the sudden plentifulness of his deliveries. Guns, food, ammunition, fresh, experienced elite soldiers. He figured that other Imperial soldiers somewhere would go hungry and without support for a while because he’d never seen anything like it in his career.

  His orders from Imperial High Command were simple. Force open the way to Port Moresby. This time he would be significantly helped by the new troops, heavy air bombing, and most importantly, the destruction of the Port Moresby base by Admiral Inoue's 2nd Fleet.