Could the Japanese of held Hawaii?

[Peter_Suciu]

I read his series (4 books) WORLD WAR with the reptilians coming to earth at the beginning of WWII.

OH, and for everyone other than Steve...this is a great series too. The premise is that race, known to themselves as the Race, send a probe to Earth and they see men with armor and swords and decide to conquer them. The race does things very slowly, they've been around as a unified empire for 10,000+ years so for them 500 years is nothing. It takes them that long to reach Earth with the invasion fleet...and they show up and there are no knights on horseback but a fairly modern planet.

The Earth is involved in WWII. So the Race decides to invade anyway. This is another great mix of historic and fictional characters. The biggest downside to this series is that there is something like 50 main and supporting characters. Each book covers roughly one year. And as mentioned Otto Skorzeny is a supporting character in the Germans efforts to battle the Race.

Much more science fiction than the World War I series, which is titled the Great War. That series is just about a war between North and South, but again it has historic and fictional characters.

Turtledove also wrote a series about a Civil War in a fantasy land with magic too. The twist here is that one side represents the North and the other the South. He did a similar WWII series with magic too. I didn't read these however.

The guy is a writing machine, but his history is really good. He makes very few errors. The biggest I found in Guns of the South, other than the Ak-47s of course, is that General Lee buys a novel to read on the train. I read a book about Lee and he didn't like fiction as he said it weakened the mind. But Turtledove gets the history down, and he clearly knows the characters. I read the book and it sounds like Robert E. Lee.

[Jack T]

Assuming the Japanese could take the Hawaiian islands, I think the biggest advantage they would gain would be the air and sea superiority over much of the Pacific. Assuming they could place several wings of fighters and bombers on Hawaii as well as a good size fleet. They could then force the remaining American carriers back to the cover of the West Coast. The US would have withdrawn almost all of its naval and air power back to the West Coast to stabalize that front.

The advantage of such a forward base would allow easy submarine raiding of coastal shipping and maybe long range bombing missions. The bombing may not accomplish anything but would draw enormous US resources toward anti-aircraft defense of the long coast line. Also opens up the idea of coastal raids and naval bombardments but I doubt even in the proposed scenario that Japan would ever try to invade the West Coast.

Basically I see it extending the war out 1-2 years as the US would lose the naval repair facilities at Pearl as well as all the logistical parts that entails. US subs and air flights would have to be based out of the West Coast. US logistical support of Australia and the South Pacific would be seriously hampered. Also assuming a quick invasion, the Japanese would have the option of raising and repairing the US battleships much as the US did in real life.

Another effect may be that the Alaskan front becomes more active and becomes the staging area for US raids as the closest point to Japan.

Jack

[J.von Canon]

Agreement...

Jack;we're in total agreement here.
Good thing the Japs did'nt attempt it because I'm 99% certain they could have done it in 1941...