September 3 1939 Japan declares War on Germany

In democratic Japan there had been increasing consternation at the ever worsening events in Europe. After the German leader Adolf Hitler's blatant disregard for his promises that after the Sudetland he would have no more territorial demands in Europe in brutally annexing the now defencless rump state of Czechslovakia, there had been wild scenes in the Japanese parliament as the opposition party denounced the Government for failing to show greater support for the Czechs. Given Herr Hitler pronouncements on racial matters, and the leading Japanese newspaper response in its editorial that the Nazi regime posed a clear and present danger to the survival of the Japanese people, this precipated the fall of the Government and the instilation of a more hawkish coalition ruleing party which signed the Japan Britain Imperial Defence Pact. With the invasion of the Poland and declaration of War by the United Kingdom on the Third Reich, Japan has invoked on 3 September 1939 the aid and assistance clause of the Japan Britain Imperial Defence Pact. Admiral Yamamoto has been instructed by the Emperor to sail for British waters with a carrier battle group. Meanwhile in America, President Joseph Kennedy has said not withstanding such developments the United States would be "maintaining its policy of strict neutrality and avoiding all foreign Wars and European entanglements".

So WW2 in the makeing

Japan, France and Britain at War with Germany. America from a military aspect strictly neutral but ideologically somewhat biased in favour of the Third Reich, so no military supplies to the UK and France from the USA but that could change if things start to go wrong for Germany. China neutral under Chiang Kai Shek but with good relations between Japan and China established after Japan provided transport to move Chinese troops used in the crushing of a communist upriseing led by Mao Tse Tung and agrees to respect china's territoral integrity, China is friendly towards the Allied powers. All else as was. What happens next? E.G. would the Norwegian Campaign been a success if supported by Japanese carrier air power? Would Hitler have been strong enough to attack France in 1940 if he had got mauled in Norway as a result of Japanese air support to the Allied cause? Could the Japanese have halted the German Blitzkrieg in France? Would the USSR have attacked Japan with Japanese forces involved in Europe?

Adrian Wainer

 

The real deciding factor here is the attitude of the USA. The Japanese army was not up to standard, and their navy could do little against Germany.

 

A few questions, please.

How, and when, did the Japanese Army lose it's grip on political power in Japan, especially in view of the Japanese Constitution which guaranteed the IJA a veto power over civilian control?

What reversed the genuine admiration of the Japanese public and civilian leadership for the German Nazi Party and it's apparent economic successes in Germany?

How do you explain the "good relations" between China and Japan in light of the historic Japanese seizure of Manchuria (a nominal Chinese province) in 1931?

Given the increasing hostility between japan and the US in the late 1930's, why would Britain sign a mutual defense pact with Japan which quite possibly would put it in a position of having to fight a war against the US?

Nothing in your alternate scenario adequately explains the ahistorical political situation which you seem to take for granted.

 

All sorts of things could have happened e.g. the Army could have retained power and decided that Germany was the threat to Japan.

Well they didn't seem too admireing of the Third Reich post 1945, events dear boy events, e.g. a Japanese secret agent might have obtained a Third Reich document of plans by the Reich to attack Japan.

Because, in this scenario it never happened.

As for hostility which developed between the US and Japan that was largly because of Japanese action in China, had Japan not acted in that matter that hostility would not likely to have arisen. Japan was Allied to the United Kingdom during World War 1 and I didn't think the US went to war with the United Kingdom then, so I do not see any reason in of itself that a military Alliance between Japan and the United Kingdom would provoke a War between the United Kingdom and the USA.

re "ahistorical", it is a "a what if" thread, and I have explained it now.

Best and arm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

I thought I had seen them all. I was wrong .

 

Yes you are right the deciding factor is the USA but for the moment they have decided to stay out of things. The Jap Navy Zeroes would have been well able to take on the likes of the Me Bf 109 and I wonder what would have happened to the German Navy and landing force in Norway if the British had a few Japanese destroyers to help. As for their Army being not up to standard, they did do not do too badly against the Americans, British, Austrians, Dutch etc in the early part of the War II

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

Well no more strange than e.g. a supposed Royalist in the shape of the German Kaiser trying to bring down Russian Monarchy by setting a Communist fanatic loose on the country in the shape of Lenin.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

Okay,

Hitler acctually immigrated to the USA after wwI.
Due to his Austrian dialect he faces a hard time but manages to become Governor of California.
During the great depression he forms the NationalistSacramentoDemocraticAmericanParty. After 1933 C. Lindberg will become Airmarshall. Mc Carthy forms the SS States Saftey Guard and ............
In 1945 Germany - thanks to Albert Einstein and the Oppenheimers - drops two A-bombs on the USA and in 2008 Chewing Gum is forbidden all of you buggers speak German.

Regards
Kruska

 

Unfortunately it was all too possible, there was no inherent reason that what happened in Germany could not have happened in the USA just as you describe it.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

Good one Kruska!!!! A "What If?" should have some grounding in actual history. If not then it is just what the original post is. A fantasy.

 

Ohhhhh.. darn it..

Regards
Kruska

 

Or is it just that folks would not like to concede the possibility that bad things could have happened in America in the 1920s 1930s?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

What possible gain does Japan get from declairing war on Germany?

 

I have to side with T.A. Gardner. Japan had already taken most if not all of Germany's colonial possessions in the Pacific. (In the aftermath of WWI).

Yours,

Bill

 

That is a good question, since the Japan I am proposing is one radically different to that which actually existed in 1939, the issues for Japan become different, in that this Japan is concerned to become a major economic power and merely sees its armed forces as a defense to its trade routes, its home territory and colonial posessions. They are well aware that the Third Reich is an aggressive power with designs to become the over-riding power in Europe, they are also aware that Russia and Germany have signed a non aggression pact and and that Russia is being extremely helpful in providing essential War supplies to Germany. They are concerned that should Germany prevail against France and Britain, that would leave Japan to be ground up between Germany and Russia, had Franklin Delano Roosevelt been in office they would have had some confidence that a commercialist Japan under threat from either a Communist Russia or a Nazi Third Reich would have attracted American support but with the death of FDR from a heart attack just fifty days after taking office and the assassination of the the Republican party politician Wendel Wilkie by a Jewish Communist and the failure of FDR's sucessor in implementing FDRs "New Deal" to get America back to Work, America has become increasingly introspective and has at times viewed the Third Reich as an example of efficency. A tendancy which Hitler's Third Reich has only been too keen to exploit, such as the spectular arrival of the Zeppelin Hindenburg at Lakehurst New Jersey on the 6th of May 1937, said to be the safest and most luxurious form of transport in the World thanks to its German engineering and American helium filled gas bladders and its tour across America from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco via Chicago. Which was filmed by the Nazi film maker Leni Refinstal as part of her epic film "America the beautiful".

The Hindenburg over New York after having arrived back from San Francisco and before its departure for Germany

President of the United States of America Joseph Kennedy


Special Advisor to the President Colonel Charles Lindberg's speech on the US attitude to the War in Europe
September 15th 1939
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/pdf/9_15_39.pdf



Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

So what was prohibition and the great depression then

 

And often do, but you haven't stated any of these changes in your alternative scenario, so the political situation you posit for Japan is entirely unbelievable. In fact, there was no reason for anyone in Japan to believe that Nazi Germany was a threat to Japan. The Japanese Army had largely been modeled after the Germany Army and the IJA identified very strongly with both Germany and the German Army.

In addition, the Japanese Army began to tighten it's grip on the political leadership of Japan in the 1920's, and by the early 1930's virtually dictated the policies of the Japanese government. Therefore it would be highly unlikely for either he Japanese government or Army to become hostile to Nazi Germany.

Of course not, the Third Reich ceased to exist in the spring of 1945. But your scenario is set in 1939; what has changed to make the Japanese less than receptive to the German Nazi ideology? Are you saying that, in your scenario, Germany seriously plans to attack Japan? If that is the case, I think you need to explain how (especially from the standpoint of logistics) and why to make a believable case for your rather bizarre scenario.

Then you should so state, and explain why it never happened. As one of my history professors was fond of stating, "History happens as it does for good reasons". Failure to explain why it doesn't happen as it did historically only makes you appear to be ignorant of history.

Then that's something you have to explain in order for your scenario to be taken seriously. Obviously, if there is no hostility between the US and Japan this alternate history goes way back to at least before 1930, yet your scenario starts in 1939 with no changes being mentioned before that; it's just not going to happen the way you postulate.

If phrases like, "All sorts of things could have happened..." and "in this scenario it never happened...." and "events dear boy events..." constitute explanations to you, I'll pass on this particular "what-if". It's just to nebulous, and frankly unbelievable, for any rational discussion to be conducted.

 

Well with the greatest respect, you seem to require a level of detail that one might not find in a serious military book, where the author had written up a "What if" scenario and had been paid for his time for doing so. It is most unfortunate, that people in general can not engage in the sort of precision and attention to detail in their paid for professions, that you expect from a hobbyist posting on an internet forum or else we presumably would not have had people jumping out of the windows of the Twin towers of the World Trade Center, rather than being burnt alive. Furthermore, the posting on the battle between the Bismarck and the Yamato did not seem to require any sort of justification at all. As you evidently conduct your affairs at a level of sophiscation, several orders of magnitude to that which I do, I humbly apologize for having your time wasted on my pathetic efforts and wish you every success in the grand endevours and major projects of which your prodigous skills and incomparable intelect are no doubt amply more suited.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

I still fail to see how this scenario is even possible. Even with Mr. Wainer's, err, clearing-up comments. For want of a better word...

 

Exactly. Like i said its just a fantasy.