WWII: Did Japan have a plan to invade and occupy Hawaii?

by spikebrennan
ParkSungJun

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack there were no plans for the Japanese to invade Hawaii. There were some vague inquiries into the possibility of a Hawaii invasion, but wargaming in September 1941 dissuaded the Japanese of any successful land invasion at that time.

However, John Stephan, in "Hawaii Under the Rising Sun," makes the claim that in early April 1942, several Imperial Japanese Navy officers working to develop Yamamoto's Midway plan (which had been in the works before the Doolittle Raid) were led to believe that Yamamoto's MI strategy was merely to be the prelude to a campaign that would culminate with the invasion of Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto did not feel comfortable leaving the US carriers intact, especially after some small carrier raids on Japanese garrisons in February of 1942. He felt that he needed to destroy these US carriers in order to buy time for Japan to secure the defensive perimeter he needed, and the best way to do so was by luring them to battle at Midway. Once the carriers were out of the way, he could potentially buy more time by capturing Pearl Harbor and depriving the US of a major base of operations. Of course, this was sheer folly, as many Japanese naval officers, to say nothing of the far more conservative and rival Imperial Japanese Army, sharply disagreed with this strategy. But we'll get to that bit later.

Stephan wrote that Yamamoto's operation officers were first asked to come up with this "Eastern Operation" strategy starting a couple of days after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. The plan they developed was relatively straightforward: the capture of Midway, leading to the destruction of the US carriers: the capture of Johnston Atoll, to be used as a staging area for the invasion of Hawaii: the capture of the Big Island (Hawaii), including installations at Hilo: and finally the reduction of Oahu by constant air attack from airbases on the outlaying islands.

This plan was bitterly opposed by the Army. Stephan writes that a Major General Tanaka received the plan for Midway and told the naval officer that had given it to him that the Army would absolutely refuse to participate in any expansion of Japan's planned perimeter, including Midway, and especially Hawaii. However, after the Doolittle Raid, which unnerved some of the more conservative members of the military, Yamamoto was able to make a deal with the Army: in exchange for deploying two fleet carriers to support the Army's Port Moresby operation (Operation MO), the Army would supply the additional troops needed to capture Midway. In doing so, Yamamoto's success at internal politics was achieved at the expense of dividing his force, which would be one of several fatal mistakes for the Japanese at Midway.

So, there were certainly elements of a plan to invade Hawaii. Stephan goes on to mention a report that several Japanese military units had been ordered to begin preparations for an invasion of the Hawaiian islands (elements from three divisions) but who or what these divisions are I am not sure.

Now, of course, is the fun part: Could the Japanese have pulled it off? Parshall and Tully, writers of Shattered Sword, which I consider to be one of the best texts on the Battle of Midway, have this handy little guide called The Hawaiian Invasion, and Other Nonesense. I recommend reading the whole thing, but if you don't have time I can summarize the points:

  1. a Japanese invasion would have required (at the very least!) 5 divisions, which the Army wouldn't have given Yamamoto, and there certainly didn't have the transport and logistics capacity to maintain

  2. The Japanese had no amphibious doctrine and would essentially be forced to land on an extremely heavily defended beach with coastal fortresses and abundant supplies for the defenders

  3. The US was well-prepared by this point and had turned Hawaii into a fortress on the scale of Japan's Rabaul. Which was incidentally a strong point that was so fortified the Allies elected to bypass it (island hopping) despite their overwhelming qualitative and quantitative advantages. Airfields and planes galore.

  4. Supposing that the Japanese had attacked on the day of Pearl Harbor, and that 3 divisions of Japanese troops had teleported onto Oahu, it is feasible that an (obviously very surprised) American force would not have been able to resist. However in doing so, Japan would forfeit her objectives in the Dutch East Indies-there were only 11 divisions to spare (as the rest were needed in China) and every single one of those divisions was absolutely needed where it was deployed. Not to mention the shipping to supply Japan with precious resources.

In effect, a Japanese invasion of Hawaii would need to be able to rely on that magic teleporter to get those soldiers to and from other parts of the Empire, because they certainly are needed elsewhere even more.

Sources:

Stephan, Hawaii under the Rising Sun

Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword

KapitanKurt

Samuel Eliot Morison's The Rising Sun in the Pacific (1948) provides the insight that the Empire of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was a part of an overall master plan for what's been called the Greater East Asia War. Japan's plan was pulled together at a Supreme War Council on September 6, 1941. The strategic objectives were to expand the Empire by taking possession of Pacific islands rich in natural resources such as oil and rubber to name two and other strategic materials. The intention was to drive Great Britain and America out of East Asia and secure the natural resources including worker populations, in order to establish a self-supporting Japan. Their war plan included a surprise three-wave aerial attack of Pearl Harbor destroying the US Pacific Fleet (Operation AI), invasions of the Malay peninsula, the Philippines, Borneo, Singapore, and Java. Simply stated, Japan's surprise attack on Pearl harbor was to eliminate the US Pacific Fleet, specifically their aircraft carriers, so as to not interfere with their conquests plans of Southeast Asia and the establishment of a defensive perimeter though Wake Island, the Marshall Islands and the Malay peninsula.

An alternative plan which did include for the invasion and occupation of Hawaii was presented by Professor John J. Stephan in his book Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans for Conquest after Pearl Harbor (1984). At the time, Dr. Stephan was Professor of Modern Japanese History at the University of Hawaii. He states his case thusly...

Stephan claims that the aims of Japan's Midway Operation (Operation AF) were not limited to tricking the US carriers into a destructive engagment and occupation of Midway. The attack and eventual occupation of Midway was intended to be the first stage of a larger plan that would end in a major Japanese attack on Hawaii. After securing Midway, the next step was to be the occupation of America's Johnston Island, south-west of Pearl Harbor, and then establish bases on the big island of Hawaii. Once those air and naval footholds were established, Japan intended to launch air and naval attacks on Oahu from those bases, the so Eastern Operation. Stephan states that achieving this objective offered the best prospect of drawing the United States into peace talks leading to recognition of Japan's claim to domination of the western Pacific region and save Japan from a prolonged and disastrous war.

Edit: Grammar