[bearoutwest]

Hello Bronc,

In the context of the timeline, the Japanese capabilities were not really known. If you compare the pre-1930/40, French and British near-hysteria about the Luftwaffe super-fighter – the Bf110 (and subsequently the He113), information wasn’t really at a finger’s keyboard touch or book-search away. I mean how well do we really know about the JSF or the F-22 or Chinese J-20 and Russian Su-37(?) (Russian stealth-ski?)?

The Western powers had observers in the International Settlement in 1937 during the Battle of Shanghai. A Dutch Colonel (*) wrote a series of lengthy reports for his government (and I believe it was shared to some extent with other western governments), so Japanese naval infantry tactics were quite well known. Claire Chennault and his team of technical people were on the ground (and in the air) training and organising the Chinese Air Force, so there was a steady flow of information back to the US.

The Chinese ground effort in Shanghai was hampered by the lack of heavy weapons, and co-ordination between various divisions (lack of willingness to share the limited heavy artillery, lack of coordinated air force/army co-operation, etc). The Japanese naval infantry/ship/airpower coordination was superb – possibly more integrated than any other armed forces until the US Marines after Guadalcanal. Where the Japanese Naval Light Infantry didn’t have land heavy artillery, they had heavy cruisers and destroyers moored in the Whangpo River. I guess the Western army planners may well have decided that the Japanese only succeeded in Shanghai because of the lack of Chinese heavy weapons, and that a Western army with integrated infantry and artillery with tank support would hold out easily. Besides….everybody knows you can’t drive tanks in the Malayan or Burmese jungle (or the Ardennes Forest!). The Chinese air effort wasn’t noticeable over the city (except when their bombs overshot the Japanese cruiser and hit the International Settlement) – in much the same way the troops at Dunkirk didn’t notice the air battle 20-30 miles away.

Chennault’s insights would have been useful, but he was on the outer with US Army General Staff (considered a bit of a maverick because he thought a credible fighter force could actually intercept heavy bombers and cause significant casualties). Only at Presidential level was there an amount of support for him, but then Roosevelt would not have dealt with relatively minor combat evaluation reports on the Japanese Naval Air Arm.

The Soviets – through their “volunteers” in China and through their combat in Nomonhan – would have gathered a reasonable amount of intel, but considering the massive overclaiming at Nomonhan, and the state of the Soviet AF in 1939 (notable in the Russo-Finish War as well), I’m not sure how well they would have evaluated the info.

So although there was data out there in 1939-40, I don’t think Western military planners would have really recognised the significance of much of it. In the main part, they had their own fixed ideas about air operations – Douhet’s theory about the bomber always getting through, etc – and a small conflict in the exotic far east between a couple of non-Western countries wasn’t going to change any opinions….yet. The racist element – Japanese pilot’s are all myopic and can’t fly at night, and all their aircraft are just rip offs of the junk we sold them, i.e. Vought 143s, Seversky two-seater fighters, etc – was perhaps evident at the squadron level; but the planners sent Buffalos to the Far East because that’s all that was available at the time against a potential enemy. The top-line Spitfires and Hurricanes and P-40s were being used against an actual enemy.

By the way, the Dutch Colonel’s notes (*) have been compiled into a book “A Dutch Spy in China”. It makes for a good read. The book’s quite expensive to buy, so one for the inter-library request system perhaps.

...geoff