Why didn't the Japanese follow up the bombing of Pearl Harbor with an invasion as depicted in Harry Turtledove's novel Days of Infamy?

Why didn't the Japanese follow up the bombing of Pearl Harbor with an invasion as depicted in Harry Turtledove's novel Days of Infamy?
They didn't have the assets in place; instead, they were busy conquering East Asia and the Western Pacific and turning it into their 'impregnable fortress' as per Admiral Yamamoto's master plan. Attempting to invade Hawaii would have been a clear way to prevent the Americans from ever agreeing to a peace, while the Japanese thought that the United States would simply be forced to recognize Japanese conquests in the Western Pacific so long as the US Navy in Hawaii was destroyed and the American possessions west of Hawaii were overrun. Yes, I know, as it turned out the American public and the Roosevelt administration refused to just 'call it quits' when faced with the Japanese conquests, but in the minds of their prewar planners the Japanese had the idea that they would.

Also, it'd be bloody difficult. As previously mentioned, they had few transport assets in place due to all of their other campaigns in the Western Pacific; there were also very few nearby bases from which to launch and supply an invasion fleet during what wouldn't exactly be a one-week campaign. That was what Midway was for; an advanced outpost and base from which to support a planned invasion of the Hawaiian Islands.

Because Harry Turtledove is always wrong.

Now i'm askng my self, why did I say YES! :wallbash::wallbash::wallbash:
Your right, the United States would NEVER give up once Hawaii was taken, and they simply didn't have the manpower (or sea power :confused:).
EDIT: OOPs, crosspost.

@Cheezy the Wiz
Thats why its called ALTERNATE history, duh.
J/K

They didn't have the assets in place; instead, they were busy conquering East Asia and the Western Pacific and turning it into their 'impregnable fortress' as per Admiral Yamamoto's master plan. Attempting to invade Hawaii would have been a clear way to prevent the Americans from ever agreeing to a peace, while the Japanese thought that the United States would simply be forced to recognize Japanese conquests in the Western Pacific so long as the US Navy in Hawaii was destroyed and the American possessions west of Hawaii were overrun. Yes, I know, as it turned out the American public and the Roosevelt administration refused to just 'call it quits' when faced with the Japanese conquests, but in the minds of their prewar planners the Japanese had the idea that they would.

Also, it'd be bloody difficult. As previously mentioned, they had few transport assets in place due to all of their other campaigns in the Western Pacific; there were also very few nearby bases from which to launch and supply an invasion fleet during what wouldn't exactly be a one-week campaign. That was what Midway was for; an advanced outpost and base from which to support a planned invasion of the Hawaiian Islands.

Agree with this.

Japan has little interests in taking Hawaii. Pearl Harbour was to disable the US Navy in the Pacific enough for Japan to complete other conquests. They probably hope by the time the US could react, Japan would've taken most of East Asia and the US would just agree cede the area to Japan. As it was, Japan fatally overextend itself, and the US navy was far from destroyed.

Why didn't the Japanese follow up the bombing of Pearl Harbor with an invasion as depicted in Harry Turtledove's novel Days of Infamy?

Cause the South lost the civil war ?
Seriously expectation of the success of inital japanese campaign was limited to certain amount of minimal success in there opening operations and expectations were rather more conservative.

The logistics capabilities of the japanese were limited. Even back at guadalcanal the japaneses naval units once they lost immediate control of the air, were unable to supply the army forces onland. Japanese rations were immediately cut in half. Heavy munitions was in serious short supply. PT boat sunk the transport which had the majority of the heavy muntions and equipment.

An Hawanii campaign by the Japanese would be a very risky given the limited supplies and distance.

Japan needed all of its land forces to take resource rich Indonesia, SEA, and the Philippines.

Unlike Guam and Wake Island, the Hawaiian islands were huge, populated and probably more heavily defended than any target in Asia. It would have taken a pretty big chunk of the army to conquer and occupy the islands.

And considering American forces held out for 6 months in the Philippines (despite Japan having total air and naval control) I doubt they could have taken Hawaii even if they wanted too.

Wasn't Wake, Guam, Midway, and other islands in the way, that needed to be conquered first?

It was a failure of strategic foresight on Japan's part. As others pointed out, taking Hawaii was outside of their plans and what they expected to happen. But on the other hand, what they expected to happen turned out wrong (a negotiated settlement early).

So in retrospect, taking Hawaii would have been better for them. Particularly since they failed to cripple the US Navy with the attack. despite the achievement of complete surprise, the strategic damage to the US Navy was minimal.

Wasn't Wake, Guam, Midway, and other islands in the way, that needed to be conquered first?

No. We never had enough forces in those places to matter.

Also Midway and Wake were far too small to have been staging area for a Hawaii invasion.

A single US carrier could hold more planes and firepower than could be crammed on the tiny Midway atoll.

Because Harry Turtledove is always wrong.

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And considering American forces held out for 6 months in the Philippines (despite Japan having total air and naval control) I doubt they could have taken Hawaii even if they wanted too.

:confused: The seige or breaking of MacArthurs inital defence line ? Which was broken once japanese light tanks turned up againsts the tankless US and Fillipino forces. While MacArthurs plan idea was stratergicly sound logisitcally it wasnt well planned but given the circumstances much better then trying to hold everything / hold beaches with the limited resourses avaliable

The Philippines is not a good comparison to Hawaii because of scale. Oahu is not a very big island and that was the only place we had important forces.

Had the Japanese been unwilling to invade, then it still would have been a much better move on their part to destroy the facilities there as completely as possible.

Because if the south had won the civil war then the tobacco in the north would have been horrible.

I'm sure they planned to take Hawaii eventually, but at that point there were a number of islands in between, and it was a long way to go. Why take Hawaii if they could sucessfully cripple US fleet and facilities instead?

Japanese likely wanted to do the same things, which did in Russian-Japanese war (1904-1905). To do so, they had to completely disable american fleet. Once they had disabled pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, they planned to destroy Panama channel to block atlantic fleet, but they couldn't.

I'm sure they planned to take Hawaii eventually, but at that point there were a number of islands in between, and it was a long way to go. Why take Hawaii if they could sucessfully cripple US fleet and facilities instead?

Because without an invasion they could not really completely destroy the facilities there. The US could always put them back together in a few months. Also, Pearl Harbor is the only harbor between San Diego and the islands that the Japanese were trying to add to their empire. Having the US fleet needing to travel all the way back to California would have caused a major slowdown for all the other activities in the Pacific until we retook Hawaii.

Had they taken Hawaii and defended it properly, it could have taken us well over a year to take it back. And while that was happening, they could have improved their situation elsewhere a great deal.

As stated before, they simply couldn't take and hold any part of Hawaii, whether they wanted to or not.
The Japanese lacked the men, equipment and logistical support to carry out a campaign that far away against notable resistance.

Actually they did have the ability. It was just in use elsewhere at the time.

Actually they did have the ability. It was just in use elsewhere at the time.
That's a little pedantic. :p (But true.)

Actually they did have the ability. It was just in use elsewhere at the time.
Come on now, you have to take the discussion in context. If you want to pretend that the Japanese can divert resources needed elsewhere, why don't we put the entire US army and Navy into Hawaii?
In 1941 or '42 there was simply no way the Japanese could establish and maintain a presence in Hawaii. They might have been able to deploy a small raiding force to carry out sabotage, but not a significant ground presence.

Come on now, you have to take the discussion in context. If you want to pretend that the Japanese can divert resources needed elsewhere, why don't we put the entire US army and Navy into Hawaii?
In 1941 or '42 there was simply no way the Japanese could establish and maintain a presence in Hawaii. They might have been able to deploy a small raiding force to carry out sabotage, but not a significant ground presence.

That's not accurate. The Japanese planed the war and acted on a plan which gave them strategic surprise. That plan failed to accomplish their objectives. My statements were concerning what other plans they could have made and carried out which might have better served their strategic objective.

In that respect, they certainly could have placed an overwhelming ground force in Hawaii and taken out the Panama Canal to boot. They would have had to divert the force which attacked the Philippines just a few days after the attack on Pearl.

They chose the plan, they called the shots. It just turned out to be a bad plan well executed.

If the Japanese focus the attention on Hawaii, they would have significantly weaker forces taking part in operations in China and South-East Asia, especially working towards Indonesia, which if the Japanese could control it was far more valuable to any war effort than so worthless Islands halfway across the Pacific that would turn into a sinkhole of resources, ships, aircraft and men.

In a real world situation, they had no real chance to take and hold Hawaii.

They had no real chance to win a war against the US to begin with. But seeing as how they chose to have a war, there plans for that war were not the best they could have chosen. Taking Hawaii would have hurt us far more than what they did do. And the resources needed for us to take it back would have been far heavier that early in the war compared to what we had later on.

If the Japanese focus the attention on Hawaii, they would have significantly weaker forces taking part in operations in China and South-East Asia, especially working towards Indonesia,
Cutlass noted that. It was basically a choice between eliminating the Philippines or eliminating Pearl Harbor, while choosing to suppress the other one with an air (and possibly naval) attack a la Port Arthur in the 1904-5 war. The Japanese took the Philippines because of the position and because of the bombers and the larger number of ground troops to neutralize. Whether simply suppressing the Philippines while moving on Pearl Harbor with an invasion force would have been effective is then the question, and I personally lean towards the side of 'not effective' while acknowledging that the Pacific War isn't really my specialty at all.

It is not a choice of Philipines or Hawaii, the Japanese would have had to commit basically their entire merchant fleet to hold Hawaii, and along with it much of their fleet and many more resources.

Japan had no chance in WWII no matter what they did, but it would most likely have went worse if they tried to take Hawaii. Sure it would take the US time to retake Hawaii, but they are still fighting China, Britain, Australia, India etc (there is no way the Japs could avoid this) with considerably weaker forces and more hostile lads in their backyard. And once the Americans got through Hawaii, the Japanese would be in a weaker position than they were historically.

This is ignoring the fact that Japan knew that the US would beat them in a fight, which was coming whether they attacked or not. Pearl Harbor was a delaying tactic (with the second hope of getting a negotiated peace early) in order to secure strategic islands and fortify them.

It is not a choice of Philipines or Hawaii, the Japanese would have had to commit basically their entire merchant fleet to hold Hawaii, and along with it much of their fleet and many more resources.
Means they still could, theoretically, have done it...and I was mostly talking about the feasibility of assaulting Hawaii, not that of holding it.
Japan had no chance in WWII no matter what they did,
No argument here, or with most of the rest of the post, which sounds a lot like what I've already said much earlier in the thread. :D

Japan had no chance in WWII no matter what they did,

I strongly disagree with you. The main problems of japanese was they still fought in a medieval style (see banzai or kamikaze). If they had changed their warstyle, maybe the war would have took a completely different course. IMHO.

The fact is that they lacked the resources, production, and manpower to win. Even if they took Indonesia and secured source of oil, and could maintain their sea lanes to get it into use.
The US would win any drawn out war with them, not to mention the full might of the US and British armies and navies brought to bear after Germany surrendered (the war in Europe was the priority after all). And once the Soviets joined......

The only chance for Japan (and their goal) was to force a quick, negotiated peace, and the US would never accept that. In fact, the more success the Japanese had against the US, the more they would likely have fought. This isn't Vietnam, the American people wanted vengeance and weren't afraid of a little bloodshed.

I strongly disagree with you. The main problems of japanese was they still fought in a medieval style (see banzai or kamikaze). If they had changed their warstyle, maybe the war would have took a completely different course. IMHO.

That's not true. Banzai and Kamakazi were Mideival, yes, and they did use them, yes, but they were'nt entirely medieval and actually preformed reasonably well against the more organized US armies. They were also well trained in night fighting and gurriela warfare and caused much damage to the Allied ships by their Kamakazi planes. In fact, the code of Bushido kept them very well disiplined and made them think that dying for the emperor was the highest honor, hence the "Kamakazi".

So it wasn't their war style, but their lack of resources, as Say1988 said.

Medievil ?

I would say a mixture of worldwar1 era and successful adaptation of jungle warfare. The main problem was a failure to adapt to new tactics once they found that the very successful tactics used initally were not working and there weaponary was quickly becoming antiqued.
The frontal charge employed is straight out of worldwar1.
Inflitrations, combined arms. massed armour. deep penetration into the rear all classic modern worldwar2 blitzkrieg tactics.

The main reason why the Japanese couldn't hold up against the US was that they couldn't equal are production power.

And your right. Kamakazi wasn't midieval, but the code of Bushido was.