World War II: Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Campaign

Now they would find a whole crapload of guns in the hands of about 3% of the people and a bunch of libs either begging to borrow guns or willing to learn (fill in language).

MSgt George Cater - Crazy tho, but it was the republicans that were the touchy-feely "let everyone live in peace" anti-war folk. The republican party was anti-war up until the banks got involved.

But yeah...now it would be different.

SFC Jim Ruether, you are absolutely right. The Japanese wanted to attack and occupy American soil. Their preference would have been to attack the mainland, but they felt the couldn't because of armed Americans. But they still needed something that would get America's attention in hopes of distracting from the Midway operation, and they felt that an attack, any attack, on America soil would become the immediate priority over anything happening at the time.

Fortunately for us, we were able to figure out that Midway was the main target. And unfortunately for the Japanese, the Aleutian Islands were on the "What? Who cares?" portion of American priorities. But that's why the Aleutian Islands were invaded while the American mainland just got a few shells lobbed at it by a Japanese submarine.

SSgt Christopher Brose - Plus, the whole Japanese reason for the war was resources. The last thing Japan would have wanted was an extended supply chain. Japan was short on tankers and what few she had were tasked with hauling the spoils from Dutch Borneo to Japan. Alaska was a good compromise. Even the Midway landing itself was done on a shoestring budget, asset-wise. The weather would prohibit (which it did) a massive American counter stroke so that was a great use of meager replenishment resources. Japan had a large warship population, but they were wholly dependent on land bases for refueling. Sadly, they captured too much too quickly.