Bruce Williams and the Japanese invasion of California

Hollis P. Wood: "You sneaky little bastards aren't getting doodly sh1t from me, except maybe my name, rank, and Social Security number: Wood, Hollis P., Lumberjack, Social Security Number 106-43-2185."

 

Merry Christmas and thanks all, especially Slip. I was surprised when this thread got legs, and became an actual discussion, I didn't believe that anyone still believed that the Japanese could have invaded the US. Their time frame was more than somewhat limited, I would think, to right after Pearl Harbor. Much after that, American defenses would be stiffened enough to make any invasion impossible. This would mean landing before Wake, Midway, and Hawaii fell.

You now have created a situation where your land forces are in an area where flanking is very probable, but now your sea forces can be flanked and harassed from the rear

 

But of course there are well marked channels and dredges now and the forts at the mouth of the Columbia aren't active and trying to prevent them navigating the river.

Actually there is. They are more in the way of hills than mountains but they would have been a signficant barrier to the Japanese. Not many roads through them either.

But they didn't do much more than get ashore on them and neither their landing or occupation really met much if any opposition.

 

If they got say a division to Salt Lake or Denver even if they had all the supplies they needed dropped on the invasion beach could they have supported it? I don't think the Japanese had anywhere near the log structure to do it but I could be wrong ....

 

I don't think they would get out of the valley let alone to Salt Lake or Denver. I would like to see a computer model or theory that gets a Japanese invasion force any further than the high tide mark.

Maybe if they came through Mexico. I just don't see it as being feasible.

 

You aren't suggesting the viability of english speaking uberninjas with throwing stars and a bus full of prostitutes are you? If you are, then, they might have stood a chance.

 

I've read nothing to indicate that the Japanese army was very well motorized and I'm trying to imagine supplying a division with a equinine based log system and a supply line that runs through Death Valley .... Or just over the Sierras and the acompanying high desert.

 

The US produced 10 times as many wheeled vehicles than the Japanese. And the output of heavy multi-axled trucks was even greater.

How are the Japanese going to fight a war in North America without trucks to carry supplies?

 

You know, he probably watched the 2001 Pearl Harbor movie with Kate Beckinsale...where one of the miltary advisors, if I recall correctly, told FDR in one of the scenes near the end of the movie that "The Japs will come right into this country and there's nothing to stop them"


...yes I know it was a horrible movie, but I had friends who saw the movie and believed what was said in the movie was the true gospel.

 

Donner party jokes just never get old.......

 

After a couple weeks transit via pack train I'd vote for the taste bad ... I was planning on skipping lunch today anyway. The vision of two weak old raw seafood makes it much easier.....