World War II/Awesome: Difference between revisions

** On the contrary, they, the Japanese, knew that they could not stand up to the United States in a prolonged conflict very well. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (one of the masterminds behind the Pearl Harbor attack) was in the US and studied several years there, and knew full well that Japan could not match America's production capacity. The attack on Pearl Harbor came since there was a US and UK blockade against Japan that was creating a critical oil shortage (which was the intended effect) and Japan had to break the blockade somehow. So the design behind the Pearl Harbor attack was to cripple the US naval forces in the Pacific in a swift strike and then push onwards into the mainland US, without any resistance, the United States would be forced to retreat from the Pacific theater entirely. This almost succeeded: the US carriers were forced out into sea and weren't at anchor in Pearl Harbor as the Japanese assumed; that left the United States with a means of fighting back. The Japanese also failed to destroy the American submarine base at Pearl Harbor (it was completely undamaged), which allowed the US forces to successfully commence a raiding campaign similar to Germany's wolf packs in the Atlantic theater against Japan, which hampered Japan's production capacity.

** Yamamoto, a Japanese commander, was the only one who thought that their asses got served. However, the Japanese High Command, were so high on themselves that they thought that the US would cave under the might of Imperial Japan eventually. Yamamoto uttered his famous quote about Pearl Harbor that the poor guy was demoted from his High Admiral of the Navy and stuck as only a subordinate to an incompetent fool, who contributed heavily to the numerous Allied victories in the Pacifice following Wake Island and Midway. Eventually, Yamaoto got his position back, but that's long after the Japanese Navy had been reduced to a mere third of its original strength, thanks to the Allies.

* The Battle of Wake Island gets an extra special mention, this is America's first victory of the entire war. Their story goes like this: During three straight days of Japanese bombing, both the Marines and civilian contractors on the island somehow managed to trick the bombers into bombing fake positions. The Japanese believed that they completely knocked out all of the defenses on Wake Island, so the over confident fleet, the same one which took out Guam the day before, went to Wake Island with no air support whatsoever. The Marine commander orders his men to hold until the Japanese ships were within 4,800 yards, which is 5" artillery range, since those are the biggest guns that the Marines had. Once the orders came, the Marines let loose with all the artillery on the Japanese ships, even sinking one less than 15 seconds. The fleet then retreated out of range, just to be attacked by the remaining four American airplanes. These planes were armed with 100 lbs bombs, which one of the pilots were told that its impossible to sink a ship with, his response was along the lines of "then they just aren't trying hard enough," next proceeding to sink a Japanese destroyer with one after receiving a direct hit on its supply of depth charges, causing the ship to explode and forcing the Japanese to retreat more further.

** The Japanese eventually captured Wake Island upon their return with a huge fleet and air support, after their first troop wave were they completely decimated by the already stationed Marines. The Marine commander, through a mixture of down communication lines and a confirmation that Pearl Harbor won't be coming to aid them, decided to surrender to the Japanese forces. The latter intended to kill off every single American on the island, but orders from their own commanded them not to do so, because the Wake Island battle was already being fixated on by the international world media's attention, and it would be considered as an undeniable war atrocity if a few hundred American Marines and civilians were to disappear.