Post by raharris1973 on Jul 25, 2022 13:09:46 GMT
This thread is designed to consider a range of alternate outcomes for OTL’s Panay Incident of December 1937, when Japanese aircraft attack and sunk a US patrol boat, the USS Panay on the Yangtze River. In OTL, a partial film of the attack was shown. Some film showing more detail of the attack was censored. The incident was ultimately settled by Japan issuing an apology and paying compensation to the United States, but not diverting from its aggressive China policy and the US not straying from its policy of merely morally criticizing Japan’s war against China and refusing to recognize Japan’s conquests.
The incident has been used as a PoD for what-ifs several times, usually as a way to bring about an earlier US-Japanese war, often as something more like a 1 on 1 fuel.
That is one direction the incident and its aftermath might have played out differently, but not the only alternate path. Perhaps even more likely would have been a very risk-averse US public demanding greater retrenchment from China, or the Far East, to avoid an unwanted war, as contemporary comments by progressive Texas congressman Maury Maverick at the time indicated.
The incident truly offers a range of alternatives, a “panoply of possibilities” from war to retreat, and I’ll explore each in turn.
To increase the public impact and salience of the incident, I will say the PoD is that at a minimum, the unreleased film footage of the attack is not censored, or makes it past censors and ends up widely shown in newsreels.
A potential further twist, and for this idea I have to credit Dale Cozort, is that perhaps during the incident itself, a lucky shot from a shipboard gun hits and downs one of the attacking Japanese aircraft, and this is captured on film, or rumored to be. That makes the film footage so tantalizing to media that it becomes impossible to censor.
Let’s say this twist is added in, now let’s consider the alternative American reactions in turn, from most intensive to least intensive:
I. Pugilistic Path to Primacy
War
Both powers, Japan and the US, have weaker fleets and battle lines as 1937 ends and 1938 dawns than they did in the OTL winter of 1941-1942. They are especially weaker in carriers and carrier aviation.
A US declaring war would need to accept that victory would and could come only in the long haul, and the short-term will see tactical losses.
The Japanese should be able to invade and occupy the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island in the first 6-8 months of fighting. The US would become a cobelligerent of China, offering it credits and weapons, and the US would start industrial mobilization and enlargement of the fleet.
The US Marines in China should retreat upriver to Free Chinese areas.
The US would fight according to war plan Orange, sticking to light raids on the Japanese held western Pacific while building up the fleet, and fleet train, for a trans-Pacific push to recover the Philippines, smash the Japanese fleet, and blockade Japan into surrender.
The Japanese would try to draw out the Americans into early decisive battle on favorable terms, attriting them on their way to the interior of the Japanese held Pacific.
II. Pugnacious Posturing Promoting Political Propositions
Naval demonstrations and diplomatic demands and ultimatums
The next rung down the latter would be the US making naval shows of force and demanding Japanese restraint in China or parts of China, but this one should in most cases be considered in tandem with the war option because any war declared by the US would probably be proceeded by at least a short stage where the US is doing this kind of activity.
There is a slim chance, that an isolated Japan backs down in the face of these demands, though not without bitterness and internal strife, including probable assassination of whatever civilian government leader needs to order the backing down in China. This Japan would also be bitter and keeping its eyes open looking for any more favorable opportunity to emerge to resume its war in China or expansion in the Asian-Pacific in general. For example, biding its time a couple years until for example Germany and Italy make a big commotion in Europe distracting the great powers and making appear Japan may have realistic odds of locking in an early victory.
III. Purposeful Proxy Prop-Up
Aid to China
Here, the US would not be seeking to go to war or to significantly increase its chances of getting into one, but it would seek to “stand up” in a material way to Japanese aggression to counter its affects, by aiding the principal victim of Japanese aggression, China, with credits and arms. The motivations whs ould be moral, and practical (to keep the Japanese unsuccessful and busy)
IV. Petroleum Prohibition
Severe economic sanctions
Another response to Japanese aggression and way to express outrage could be economic, rather than military sanctions, including bans on the exports of key supplies crucial to the Japanese war effort. Above all, this means petroleum and all its derivative products, but also iron ore, scrap and its derivatives. Boycotts of Japanese imports could be enacted as well. These could be devastating to Japan, and Japan could have a thinner cushion against them in the winter of 1937-1938 than it had by OTL 1941. With an all-out offensive to seize all Southeast Asia including the Dutch East Indies less practical in 1938 than 1942 [yes, the 1938 US, UK, French and Dutch navies are likely weaker, but they are unencumbered by another war, and the 1938 Japanese navy is also much weaker] Japan may back down. However, as above, it would be at the cost of internal strife and would leave militarists and novelists keeping their eyes open for external and not just internal revenge when an opportunity emerges.
V. Prudently Pusillanimous Partial Pullback
A pull-out of Marines, Naval flotillas, concession protection from China and a travel at your own risk advisory
Given the isolationist mood of the country, the severity of the neutrality laws recently passed, and the national discussion of the Ludlow Amendment requiring a referendum before declaring war, these remaining, more dovish than OTL approaches, may be more realistic than the more hawkish ones.
If widespread availability and viewing of the Panay film creates a groundswell of public and congressional opinion that China is a dangerous war zone and certainly not a place of business as usual, the prudent call may be for the withdrawal of US patrol boats and Marines from the country, perhaps back to the Philippines, and a warning to Americans in China that they travel there strictly at their own risk. The US would no longer keep up the legal fiction that the China Incident is not a war, and so would end up applying the neutrality acts against both China and Japan, thus denying both belligerents weapons, credits, and war materiel, and forbidding Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Commodities as basic as crude oil, scrap iron, standard gasoline and rolled steel probably wouldn’t be excluded from trade under the ‘war materiel’ category.
Under those existing neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminateing between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.
The United States would remain free to protect the Pacific possessions under its own sovereign protection like the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii. FDR and the Navy Department and its supporters in Congress would probably have an undercurrent of resentment about having to beat a hasty retreat from China and would try to resist naval cuts and build up the force in the long term, even if isolationism and retreat is carrying the day, the week, the month, and the year.
The global knock-on effects of the abject US retreat from China could be substantial however.
Japan would be emboldened in its course in China and may be encouraged to more broadly stereotype westerners as weak-willed.
Chamberlain would see confirmation of his views of America as unreliable and of the necessity of appeasement.
As 1938, 1939, and 1940 wear on, Japan could easily be tempted to put heavy pressure on British and French concessions and personnel in China in the form of blockades, harassment, and murders if they see that as serving their purpose of weakening western cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek.
These pressures could potentially succeed in forcing an appeasement of Japan policy on Britain and France, their breaking with Chiang, and recognition of Japan’s puppets. Or, alternatively, a retreat from their concessions in China to their Southeast Asian colonies, likely still including Hong Kong.
Japan will likely feel it can flexibly pick on western powers one-by-one, without assuming taking on one means taking on all. So, with America regarded as a weak-willed non-factor, Japan later on is more likely to think it “safe” to try to seize Malaya or the Dutch East Indies (should it ever have the desire or “need”) without feeling attacking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii are necessary parts of the package.
VI. Para-Pacifistic Panic & Profligate Pan-Asian Pullback
Same withdrawal from China, plus accelerated independence of Philippines without a residual naval base or defense commitment.
This scenario involves the same American retrenchment as described above, with all the same knock-on consequences as described above, but the publicity of graphic Panay footage also leads to a somewhat more comprehensive consideration of American obligations and vulnerabilities in the Asia-Pacific, which widens the discussion from China to the Philippines.
The hearings and discussions by Congressional isolationists which point out the distance of America’s small stakes in China from the US, and difficulty of defending them, show the same thing applies to the Philippines. Discussion with the military on strategy shows that the realistic outer edge of any American defensive perimeter is Alaska-Hawaii-Panama.
Congress had already committed to Philippine independence by 1944 with the Tydings-McDuffie Act.
Focused discussions on the relevant issues lead Congress to vote to accelerate the Filipino independence timetable a few years to 1941 or 1942 and foreswear a post-independence US naval presence. The US emphasis in decolonization also switches to handing over defense responsibility to a Filipino Army.
Essentially, this American abdication in the western Pacific simply accentuates all the knock-on consequences discussed in the previous option about emboldening the Japanese and reinforcing Anglo-French appeasement tendencies.
The incident has been used as a PoD for what-ifs several times, usually as a way to bring about an earlier US-Japanese war, often as something more like a 1 on 1 fuel.
That is one direction the incident and its aftermath might have played out differently, but not the only alternate path. Perhaps even more likely would have been a very risk-averse US public demanding greater retrenchment from China, or the Far East, to avoid an unwanted war, as contemporary comments by progressive Texas congressman Maury Maverick at the time indicated.
The incident truly offers a range of alternatives, a “panoply of possibilities” from war to retreat, and I’ll explore each in turn.
To increase the public impact and salience of the incident, I will say the PoD is that at a minimum, the unreleased film footage of the attack is not censored, or makes it past censors and ends up widely shown in newsreels.
A potential further twist, and for this idea I have to credit Dale Cozort, is that perhaps during the incident itself, a lucky shot from a shipboard gun hits and downs one of the attacking Japanese aircraft, and this is captured on film, or rumored to be. That makes the film footage so tantalizing to media that it becomes impossible to censor.
Let’s say this twist is added in, now let’s consider the alternative American reactions in turn, from most intensive to least intensive:
I. Pugilistic Path to Primacy
War
Both powers, Japan and the US, have weaker fleets and battle lines as 1937 ends and 1938 dawns than they did in the OTL winter of 1941-1942. They are especially weaker in carriers and carrier aviation.
A US declaring war would need to accept that victory would and could come only in the long haul, and the short-term will see tactical losses.
The Japanese should be able to invade and occupy the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island in the first 6-8 months of fighting. The US would become a cobelligerent of China, offering it credits and weapons, and the US would start industrial mobilization and enlargement of the fleet.
The US Marines in China should retreat upriver to Free Chinese areas.
The US would fight according to war plan Orange, sticking to light raids on the Japanese held western Pacific while building up the fleet, and fleet train, for a trans-Pacific push to recover the Philippines, smash the Japanese fleet, and blockade Japan into surrender.
The Japanese would try to draw out the Americans into early decisive battle on favorable terms, attriting them on their way to the interior of the Japanese held Pacific.
II. Pugnacious Posturing Promoting Political Propositions
Naval demonstrations and diplomatic demands and ultimatums
The next rung down the latter would be the US making naval shows of force and demanding Japanese restraint in China or parts of China, but this one should in most cases be considered in tandem with the war option because any war declared by the US would probably be proceeded by at least a short stage where the US is doing this kind of activity.
There is a slim chance, that an isolated Japan backs down in the face of these demands, though not without bitterness and internal strife, including probable assassination of whatever civilian government leader needs to order the backing down in China. This Japan would also be bitter and keeping its eyes open looking for any more favorable opportunity to emerge to resume its war in China or expansion in the Asian-Pacific in general. For example, biding its time a couple years until for example Germany and Italy make a big commotion in Europe distracting the great powers and making appear Japan may have realistic odds of locking in an early victory.
III. Purposeful Proxy Prop-Up
Aid to China
Here, the US would not be seeking to go to war or to significantly increase its chances of getting into one, but it would seek to “stand up” in a material way to Japanese aggression to counter its affects, by aiding the principal victim of Japanese aggression, China, with credits and arms. The motivations whs ould be moral, and practical (to keep the Japanese unsuccessful and busy)
IV. Petroleum Prohibition
Severe economic sanctions
Another response to Japanese aggression and way to express outrage could be economic, rather than military sanctions, including bans on the exports of key supplies crucial to the Japanese war effort. Above all, this means petroleum and all its derivative products, but also iron ore, scrap and its derivatives. Boycotts of Japanese imports could be enacted as well. These could be devastating to Japan, and Japan could have a thinner cushion against them in the winter of 1937-1938 than it had by OTL 1941. With an all-out offensive to seize all Southeast Asia including the Dutch East Indies less practical in 1938 than 1942 [yes, the 1938 US, UK, French and Dutch navies are likely weaker, but they are unencumbered by another war, and the 1938 Japanese navy is also much weaker] Japan may back down. However, as above, it would be at the cost of internal strife and would leave militarists and novelists keeping their eyes open for external and not just internal revenge when an opportunity emerges.
V. Prudently Pusillanimous Partial Pullback
A pull-out of Marines, Naval flotillas, concession protection from China and a travel at your own risk advisory
Given the isolationist mood of the country, the severity of the neutrality laws recently passed, and the national discussion of the Ludlow Amendment requiring a referendum before declaring war, these remaining, more dovish than OTL approaches, may be more realistic than the more hawkish ones.
If widespread availability and viewing of the Panay film creates a groundswell of public and congressional opinion that China is a dangerous war zone and certainly not a place of business as usual, the prudent call may be for the withdrawal of US patrol boats and Marines from the country, perhaps back to the Philippines, and a warning to Americans in China that they travel there strictly at their own risk. The US would no longer keep up the legal fiction that the China Incident is not a war, and so would end up applying the neutrality acts against both China and Japan, thus denying both belligerents weapons, credits, and war materiel, and forbidding Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Commodities as basic as crude oil, scrap iron, standard gasoline and rolled steel probably wouldn’t be excluded from trade under the ‘war materiel’ category.
Under those existing neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminateing between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.
The United States would remain free to protect the Pacific possessions under its own sovereign protection like the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii. FDR and the Navy Department and its supporters in Congress would probably have an undercurrent of resentment about having to beat a hasty retreat from China and would try to resist naval cuts and build up the force in the long term, even if isolationism and retreat is carrying the day, the week, the month, and the year.
The global knock-on effects of the abject US retreat from China could be substantial however.
Japan would be emboldened in its course in China and may be encouraged to more broadly stereotype westerners as weak-willed.
Chamberlain would see confirmation of his views of America as unreliable and of the necessity of appeasement.
As 1938, 1939, and 1940 wear on, Japan could easily be tempted to put heavy pressure on British and French concessions and personnel in China in the form of blockades, harassment, and murders if they see that as serving their purpose of weakening western cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek.
These pressures could potentially succeed in forcing an appeasement of Japan policy on Britain and France, their breaking with Chiang, and recognition of Japan’s puppets. Or, alternatively, a retreat from their concessions in China to their Southeast Asian colonies, likely still including Hong Kong.
Japan will likely feel it can flexibly pick on western powers one-by-one, without assuming taking on one means taking on all. So, with America regarded as a weak-willed non-factor, Japan later on is more likely to think it “safe” to try to seize Malaya or the Dutch East Indies (should it ever have the desire or “need”) without feeling attacking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii are necessary parts of the package.
VI. Para-Pacifistic Panic & Profligate Pan-Asian Pullback
Same withdrawal from China, plus accelerated independence of Philippines without a residual naval base or defense commitment.
This scenario involves the same American retrenchment as described above, with all the same knock-on consequences as described above, but the publicity of graphic Panay footage also leads to a somewhat more comprehensive consideration of American obligations and vulnerabilities in the Asia-Pacific, which widens the discussion from China to the Philippines.
The hearings and discussions by Congressional isolationists which point out the distance of America’s small stakes in China from the US, and difficulty of defending them, show the same thing applies to the Philippines. Discussion with the military on strategy shows that the realistic outer edge of any American defensive perimeter is Alaska-Hawaii-Panama.
Congress had already committed to Philippine independence by 1944 with the Tydings-McDuffie Act.
Focused discussions on the relevant issues lead Congress to vote to accelerate the Filipino independence timetable a few years to 1941 or 1942 and foreswear a post-independence US naval presence. The US emphasis in decolonization also switches to handing over defense responsibility to a Filipino Army.
Essentially, this American abdication in the western Pacific simply accentuates all the knock-on consequences discussed in the previous option about emboldening the Japanese and reinforcing Anglo-French appeasement tendencies.
