Capture Ceylon can the Japanese do it?

Could the Japanese have captured Ceylon and maybe force the India out of the War along with China? There's a thread over on warships1.com pertaining to this!!!! What's your opinion?


http://warships1discussionboards.yu...Raid-is-launched-from-Midway-USN-CVs-Indian-O

 

Im not sure Japan had enough ground forces for such an effort and it would be very difficult for them to keep the island supplied if they did.

 

Might I suggest this be moved to the AH section as this has all the makings for becoming an AH thread =).

But to put in my 2cents, Could they have captured Ceylon? Maybe, Maybe not I cant truly say until I find out more on
1. What was based there?
2. What the Japanese had at there disposal? A
nd more importantly to narrow it down,
3. What time frame are you referring to/proposing?

In any case I don't believe the capture of Ceylon would have knocked China/India out of the war unless they transferred significant naval assets to the Indian Ocean. China was still being supplied via air across the Himalayas so unless they were willing to use enough naval forces to hunt down the merchant ships going to India then no, Neither India or China would be affected by it.

 

The Japanese were at the end of their rope at Guadalcanal. With the beating they took at Midway they didn't need to be overstretched in the Indian Ocean I figure. Even if they occupied Ceylon, what would they do with it? The troops that they would garrison with would eventually be by-passed and left to wither on the vine as did much of their island holdings in the South and Southwest Pacific.

 

They would have had one of 2 options, Ceylon or Gaudalcanal. Ceylon would probably have been the safer and less costly option and more likel to succeed but as A-58 pointed out, once they had it what were they to do with it? Italian East Africa had already fallen so no chance of joint operations and mutual support and t he Japanese were horrible at use of submarines for merchant hunting and they didnt have enought surface ships to do that role and remain an effective force in the Pacific.

Had the Japanese built up and used wisely a submarine force similar to the Germans then perhaps Ceylon could have been of use as an FoB for cutting off supplies to British/Indian and Chinese forces.. But they didnt.