Why did'nt Japan hold onto Hawai in WWII?

Question

When they attacked they could have easily takin it over and used it as a base against california or something? just curious

Answer 1

You're mistaken in your belief that Japan could have "easily" taken it over....and your assumption that Japan would necessarily want to take it over or use it as a base against California isn't necessarily true. On top of that, you're VASTLY overestimating the power and abilities of the Japanese military in WWII.

Japan's goal in World War II was the creation of what was essentially an expanded empire throughout the Pacific and Asia, the so-called "Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Japan claimed it was liberating Asian peoples from European colonialism, but was merely replacing one master with another (themselves).

They intended to become the dominant power of the Pacific Ocean, ejecting American and European military forces, gaining control of vital resource-rich regions such as Indonesia, and then setting up a defensive "wall" of island bases which they believed the Americans wouldn't be able to penetrate. America and its allies would be forced to negotiate, and Japan would be able to hold on to its new Pacific empire while continuing its conquest of China.

Japan never seriously intended to invade mainland USA, though in the famous pre-war Japanese book, published in the US as "How Japan plans to win", they initially believed that the ethnic Japanese population of Hawaii could be coerced into rising up against the Americans, and that if such an insurgency erupted, it would send material support.

This never came to fruition, and ethnic Japanese living as US citizens on Hawaii remained loyal to the US government.

The closest Japan came to an massive operation and planned invasion near Hawaii, was at the battle of Midway. Though some of the more self-deluded in the Japanese military might have seen the Midway operation as a prelude to a possible invasion of Hawaii, it was in practical terms merely an attempt to draw out the US fleet for a decisive battle (which Japan lost).

Had Japan destroyed the American fleet at Midway, further operations against Hawaii *may* have been feasible, but with the American fleet still active, a potential invasion of Hawaii was simply a fantasy.
....and by the end of the Battle of Midway, with the loss of four Japanese carriers, even the most remote hope of ANY kind of significant operations against Hawaii was gone. To consider an invasion of Hawaii at that point would have been absurd.

It is my opinion that even if the Japanese fleet had not been led by competent strategists like Yamamoto, and even if they had been foolish enough to attempt an invasion of Hawaii, it would *NEVER* have been successful, even if Japan had won the battle of Midway.

Answer 2

yep if the Japanese had been able to invade and hold Hawaii, the Pacific War would have been a lot different.....maybe even over with Japanese TKO in 1942.

The short answer is logistics. While Japan had a huge Army, most of it was tied up in China, where they had been fighting since 1937.....and while they had some amphibious assault capability....ie troop transport ships, landing craft, support ships with oil and rice and bullets....what they had was tied up in the Dec 8th attack and ( subsequent) invasion of Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines......the whole Japanese war aim was to get the oil fields of Borneo and Indonesia......to do that they had to knock out the British in Singapore and the US in the Philippines, a goal they accomplished very quickly......they bet it all that the US would , looking at the ruin of the fleet, sue for peace and give up.

They didn't read Roosevelt, MacArthur, Nimitz, Halsey Spruance and the rest very well, did they?

Answer 3

They never had it. It was a suicidal air raid meant to cripple our Navy. The Japanese had now troops on Hawaii or even near it waiting on boats.

Yea, now that you say it. It seems that if they did launch a full out invasion of Hawaii it would have done a lot more damage to our Navy. If Japan had control over Hawaii the U.S. would have been set back a few more years trying to build a new navy fleet big enough to take back Hawaii. Wow. Never thought about that. Good question. Good thing they didn't take hawaii.

Answer 4

In the first place they had no intention to do so. Rather, their aim was to cripple the fleet, which they did one hell of a job of.
In the second place they couldn't have 'taken over'; the islands were too well fortified and the attack itself created a resolve among Americans so strong there might have been five or six a-bombs dropped on their homeland a couple of years later rather than the measley two.

Answer 5

Hello.
Because it's not worth to invade the island, because:
1) need more soldiers and resources to do that.
2) the Americans might come back
3) Japan is not interesting of the island very much.

Answer 6

You've received a lot of good answers regarding your question (I can't give you anything more to ponder) and the thing that scares me the most is the "what if " the Japanese would have mounted a land invasion along with their "infamous" air attack ! The USA dodged a bullet on that one (pun intended) .

Answer 7

Thankfully they didn't plan for this option. If they had, the war would most likely gone on for sometime longer, as that would deprived us of our most key outpost. Of course this would have all been a totally moot point if the US Navy had heeded the word of the Dutch Navy that the Japs were on the way.

Answer 8

They never had Hawaii. They only sneak attacked it, they never tried to invade.

Answer 9

because they couldn't. A sneak attack isn't the same as an invasion

Answer 10

they never had it. They did however fight like hell to hold onto the two aluetion islands they had in alaska.