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Military Pron - The Pacific War (7 of ?)

Oct 25, 2023, 12:58 PM

4d8829bdbc1cd7987640ea35ea12ee32-ziegfeld-girls-ziegfeld-follies

The last time we were in the Pacific it was the Roaring 20’s.

There were dazzling acrobats and thrilling barnstormers…

What could go wrong?

There were seductive and alluring flappers…

What could go wrong?

and there were airplanes, for the first time, taking off from ships…

What could go wrong?

And then it All came crashing down. Welcome to 1930.

The party train was over.

And when times get tough, people do stupid things.
We did, with the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act, which turned a regular depression into The Great Depression.

The Japanese did stupid shid too.
Like inviting the military into their government for an extra measure of “stability.” Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Even when the future Soviet Union was its reddest, redder than red can be, even they made a concerted effort to keep the military OUT of politics. A military is best kept as a neutral tool for civilian use, not as a political entity in itself. The Romans had to figure that out the hard way in 27 BCE.

Augustus Caesar

The new, improved, head of the Japanese government was called The Supreme Council, and it was presided over by the Emperor himself.

Emperor Hirohito as a tyke, 1902

At Oxford as a 21-year old

And taking his crown in 1928 at age 27

The six members of Hirohito’s Supreme Council included:

1) The head of the Army,
2) and his Chief of Staff,
3) the head of the Navy,
4) and his Chief of Staff,

5) the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
6) and the Prime Minister.

For those not strong in math, that’s a 4-2 majority for any vote that should ever come down to military vs. civilian interests.

4, vs. 2

In 1930 Japan was still smarting from their perceived slights in 1905 and 1922. When another chance at fairness and parity came and went with the London Naval Conference of 1930, that was the last straw for them.

So in 1931, Japan finally decided to take some matters into their own hands.

Ever since their 1895 war, Japan had looked to exploit China, along with every other nation in the Pacific.
It’s always all about China.

And in 1931, looking for a way out of the Depression, Japan looked once again to China. Because as long as you win, war manufacturing is always great for a slumping economy.

Japan’s position was, “We can’t have been any better of a friend to the West. We’ve traded with you. We’ve fought with you. You’re all in the Pacific anyhow, and we just want a piece of the very same pie you’re here for.

But Japan had a decision to make. If it started a war, it could go north to expand, or it could go south to expand. But it couldn’t do both. There were simply not enough resources.

And that problem set up a continuous internal dispute in the Japanese government that would last until…spoiler alert…it was completely destroyed in 1945.

Tokyo, 1945, from conventional bombing. No atomic bombs needed.

The Japanese Army wanted to go north. They eyed the rich farmlands and mineral resources of the Chinese province of Manchuria as easy, low-hanging fruit.

Manchuria, today

The Japanese Navy wanted to go south to the oil rich islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java in the Dutch East Indies.
Everyone knew exactly where the oil was.

But before the Japanese government could decide whether to go north, or south, fate intervened.

Screenshot-190

The Japanese Army that was based in Korea was called the Kwangtung Army, and it was an incredibly powerful political force. Since they were far away from Tokyo, they just sort of did what they wanted. And when cat is away the mice will play.

So the Kwangtung Army just decided to start a war on its own, without even telling their own government in advance.

They set up a false flag incident, as governments sometimes do, to justify going from Korea right over the border into Chinese Manchuria. It was called the Mukden Incident for the town of Mukden. And it was over some shid about the Chinese attacking a Japanese controlled railroad…with virtually no damage done.

An international team was sent to investigate the scratches on the rail line.

Tokyo was shocked that the military had acted without civilian direction. The Kwangtung Army said “wanna take a vote in the Supreme Council about it?”

4, vs. 2

Ho hum. War again. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Of particular note in the above cartoon is the Kellogg Pact which was signed in 1928. That said that none of the signatories (Japan and all the usuals), would use war to settle disputes between nations. And technically, Japan didn’t. They just invaded Manchuria without a dispute. I guess that counts as a loophole.

The Nine Power Treaty said that none of the usuals would exploit China.
Oh well. The road to he77 is paved with good intentions, I guess. Better luck next time.

It’s kinda scary how fragile civilization really is. As Hit ler said of the Munich Agreement, which was supposed to bring “Peace in our Time” to Europe in 1938; “It’s just a piece of paper.”

The Kellogg Pact and the Nine Power Treaty ended up being just pieces of paper, too. That’s why it’s always good to have a few of these in your back pocket, just in case things go south.

USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) and USS Harry Truman (CVN-75), on patrol

If Manchuria had one of these floating off the coast in 1931, the Japanese probably would have stayed home. But they didn’t, and so the Kwangtung Army didn’t.

China was pretty militarily weak at the time, and their extreme outer provinces, like Manchuria, were the weakest. The fight was over about as soon as it started, and so Japan aquired a new puppet state which they called Manchukuo.

The city of Harbin would be where the infamous Unit 731 was later established, 5 years after the brief, lop-sided war.

There’s a museum there now.

So in a 5-month war Japan captured an area triple the size of her Home Islands.
That’s a pretty decent return on investment.

Although they were initially upset, the Japanese civilian population, still mired in economic depression, decided they liked winning and the rewards of winning. Japan pretty much sat out of WW1, so all the isolationist feelings of the winners, and the bitterness of the losers, didn’t exist in Japan. To them, this war stuff was fast and easy, and didn’t seem so bad, really.

When the League of Nations (the United Nations of the day) rebuked Japan for invading Manchuria, Japan just walked out. The League did nothing because it had no enforcing teeth. Germany and Italy took note of its impotence.

And now that Japan had Manchuria, they no longer had to look to the West for resources; most importantly, oil and steel.

Manchurian Steel Works

But America had her own Depression to worry about. And an independent and self-sufficient Japan was a no-go. The whole reason we sent Admiral Perry to Japan in 1853 was to force them to trade.

We wanted Japan weak, and dependent on us. And Manchurian resources weren’t about to stop that gravy train.

So America and Britain protested that war-mongering Japan must buy oil and steel from America and Britain, by contractual treaty obligation.

Screenshot-191

That’s right. In the crazy world of depression-era realpolitik, America and Britain weren’t condemning Japan for invading Manchuria, they were condemning Japan for using Manchurian resources instead of buying those very same materials from them, per their prior agreements.

And some trumped up “exclusive trading agreement” between Japan and Manchukuo was bullshid – because Japan OWNED Manchukuo.

Screenshot-192

Hard times make for crazy situations. And that was a crazy one.
But the only other alternative for out of work people was to pack up the old homestead and look for a better life elsewhere.
If they could find one.

So that’s what Japan was up to at the start of the 1930’s. But what about America?

Well, they weren’t just sitting around doing nothing. They were practicing hard for the day when war might come to America. And they were working hard on new technology, almost space-aged technology, to help them win if it did.
And we’ll take a closer look at that, next time.

The Boeing P-26 Peashooter. The first all-metal US military plane. On alert!

Peashooters in formation.

Just a gorgeous killing machine. Note the two .30 caliber machine guns poking THROUGH the radial engine. What’s not to love about that design?

Peashooter, indeed.

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Did a little research and glad you asked the question, cause I learned some stuff.

Japan did have a vigorous colonization plan for Manchuria, with about a million farmers, laborers, and administrators moving over before 1945. That added to a current population there of about 30 million.

But they also set it up very deliberately as a puppet state, as opposed annexing it or treating it as an occupied territory. There were a bunch of reasons for doing so, including working around existing treaties with the West.

It was so autonomous that at one point that a Japanese coup was conducted in 1936 to bring it back under military control. How odd is that? Having to conduct a coup in a land just 5 years earlier you had taken by military force? Weird.

Japan saw the whole affair as justice for Teddy’s shirk in the 1905 Japanese-Russian war. That is, they finally got what they felt had been owed to them in their victory in that war, 26 years earlier. It all ties together if one looks at the history closely enough. Nearly every act is a response to an earlier act, as far back as one wants to go.

Anyhow, great question and thanks for asking!

Military Pron - The Pacific War (7 of ?)

Hey, I usually don't read these because I'm lazy, but this was great,

Re: Hey, I usually don't read these because I'm lazy, but this was great,

Bayonet and sword practice on infants.

I probably shouldn't say this, but the Imperial Japanese flag

Re: I probably shouldn't say this, but the Imperial Japanese flag

Re: I probably shouldn't say this, but the Imperial Japanese flag

Re: I probably shouldn't say this, but the Imperial Japanese flag

Thanks for the update!***

My grandfather used to talk all the time about the chinese cooks on his

Re: My grandfather used to talk all the time about the chinese cooks on his

But those are justified under the "don't start none if you don't want

Nooooiiiice. If I haven't used up my quota of requests.....

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