Historical "What If...?"?

Question

In my own version of the old Marvel "What If...?" comics, I'm proposing my own "What If...?" question in regards to American history. Serious and well thought out answers only, please.

Historical "What If...?" #1:

What if the Japanese hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 during World War II?

Answer 1

We still would have ended up in the war even though the american people did not want to get involved. Some where along the way one of our ships would have gotten sunk and we would be in it. I don't know if we would have cranked out the production we did as a nation if Peral Harbor had not happened. Hard one to say. Good question.

Answer 2

What if....
Japan was bent on hegemy in the Far East, (does that mean there would've been no landing on the Aleutian Chain either in your scenario?) Anyway, how far could they have expanded without US or British military intervention? Without oil, they wouldn't have gotten far. They were forced to play the only card they had.

Altho we weren't at war with Japan, we did have an oil embargo in place for Japan's aggression against China. The oil embargo imposed by the US for Japan's intervention in China was the main reason for trying to demoralize us and knock us out of the war before it even began.

Japan would've been crippled in a war of attrition without oil. Japan needed a victory to continue their war of agression and expansion, the only way to eliminate the embargo was to knock us out in a pre-emptive strike. They had no choice, their gamble failed and the rest is history....the 'sleeping giant woke up.'

Regarding our involvement in the European affair, i agree with some of the answers above regarding more American ships being sunk while helping the Atlantic convoys, and eventually a 'critical mass' of casualties would have forced us into the conflict (although the isolationist sentiment was pretty strong, so i'm not really convinced we would have gone to war).

Answer 3

USA would probably stay away of war in Pacific, continuing aid programs to the Allies.

USSR would capture entire Europe by the end of 1945, then invade Manchuria and Korea as planned, defeating Japan in less than a month. Then, depending on situation, Japan would surrender or USSR invades Hokkaido.

There would be no Korean war, because entire peninsula would be Red.

USSR develops its nuclear program first, in 1947-48.

There would be probably a war for British islands, very short, because USSR would nuke London.

Answer 4

The U.S. would NOT have joined the war until the Nazis landed in Britain, and then it might have been too late. But we would of dropped the 2 a-bombs on Berlin and Hamburg, thus killing Hitler, so the German Army would have collapsed. We could have used all of the Naval forces in the Pacific to protect the English Chanel. We still would have won, but the public support would have been far less.

Answer 5

If Japan hadn't bombed pearl harbor... Germany and Japan would probably have won the war. Hitler decided to ally with Japan in hopes that they would attack russia from the east and he could invade from the west and split their defences. If that would have happened, russia would have been defeated, then the rest of europe would probaly have fallen, leaving the US out in the cold by themselves. It would have been a lot tougher for the US to acheive victory. Good thing Japan attacked us when they did.. they screwed hitler, and ushered the US into war at the right time.....But that's all hypothetical of course

Answer 6

My opinion: The US would not have entered WWII.
We would have "off the record" helped England.
If Germany would not have invaded Riussia, I believe they would have won in Europe. Without us in the war, that would have been a certainty. Germany would have had most of Europe, except England.
Without the US, Japan would have conquered China.

"What if" is always interesting. My turn. OK. WWII ends as it did, the US links up with the German and British Army to attack Russia.
What happens???

Answer 7

it depends on how the events following would have changed. most likely, we wouldn't have joined the war, unless something else happened, and the Japanese and Soviet Russia would have possibly taken total control.

learned a little about it in 8th grade social studies haha. hope it helps!

Answer 8

Europe would be speaking German by now and the Japanese would rule Asia and the US would be a pitiful little isolated country it wanted to be in the first place.

Answer 9

Then the US would have continued the Lend-Lease program to the Allies and the American public would have continued to call for neutrality.