Sea Skimmer wrote:Of course they thought it was a serious threat. Notice the date, 1937. The year Japan invaded China with an entire Army group, bombed the international settlement, sank a US warship and then murdered 300,000 civilians at Nanjing.
At the time the Pacific was almost completely undefended except for the US navy, which thanks to the dumbest treaties and long term lack of funding was only about one quarter stronger then the IJN, while covering two oceans, and very poorly supported. Many sites weakly defended in 1941 were entirely undefended in the 1930s, nothing could even delay the Japanese short of Hawaii itself.
Japan meanwhile was a blatant military dictatorship garrison state (and proclaimed itself as much in propaganda) progressively invading and annexing China since 1931. This wasn't some god damn paranoia. It was reality, and we only got the historical result because from 1935 onward the US took it more and more seriously and began to prepare...
The fear of the Japanese managing significant invasions on the West Coast, with what sound like corps-sized forces and hundreds of airplanes operating against targets well inland, sounds... overblown.
That is where I start to smell a hint of the traditional 'Yellow Peril.'
In fact, 'Yellow Peril' was always informed by a combination of racism and realism. The racist element was the idea that Asians were intrinsically scheming, violent jerks*. The
realist element was "wow, there are actually quite a lot of Chinese and Japanese people in the world, and if they had the same level of technology and resources Europeans do, they'd be pretty powerful contenders."
Observant 19th century Westerners probably could not help but realize that if Japan succeeded in modernizing it would be capable of competing on the same level as a European power, and that China would have economic weight comparable to all of Europe put together. The first of those predictions did in fact come true in the 20th century, and the second is in fact coming true
now. Even if the consequences of those predictions were misunderstood thanks to racism, the basic logic of population and economics remains sound.
...
I do have to admit, also, that if the US had done literally nothing to prepare against such threats, the Japanese might have been able to do something like this. So you make a good point about the level of realism of the picture linked in the original post. Which is why, yes, the US is fortunate that it prepared against the Japanese threat, in a way that it was
not prepared circa 1937.
At the same time, it's worth viewing this in the broader context of what people said to each other about military history, invasion threats, the potential of high technology weapons (e.g. Douhet's notion that a decent-sized air force could wreck entire nations with a few sorties per plane), and racial fears.
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*And the Imperial Japanese of the 1920-40 period did a pretty good job of hyping themselves up
into scheming violent jerks.
Lord Revan wrote:Did the imperial Japanese Navy and Army have logistical capabilities to maintain a supply line accross the Pacific? the Chinese front IIRC was already streaching the japanese logistical capabilities quite heavily and it was practically right next to Japan. Was the fear of war against Japan totally unfounded, no of course not, as you stated Japan was expansionist military dictatorship, fears of attacks on Mainland US aren't as well founded in facts, remember it doesn't matter how big your gun is but rather can you use it.
A Japan that had continued building up its military, in the face of a US that
didn't build up military defenses, might well have some day been able to operate against the West Coast after capturing points like Midway and Hawaii.
Sure, that's not a realistic picture based on what we know now. But Skimmer is right that
in 1937 the US was exactly that unprepared, and Japan's military capabilities were growing rapidly. The US certainly had the potential to build up a totally overwhelming defense and then crush Japan with overwhelming offense. But the thing about potential is that it doesn't do you any good unless you actually put it to work. And the first step in putting your potential to work in order to stop a threat is...
taking the threat seriously.