Hi Binoy,

A bit of a beat-up: Japan would not have had to actually invade Australia, that could have come much later, all in good time: if its Fleet had destroyed the US Fleet, that would have been it: Japan could then seize Port Moresby at its leisure, to secure its rear, and isolated Australia from US support.

Then it could have mopped up any Australian naval forces, occupied New Zealand and, when it had a spare moment from attacking what was left of the US naval forces around Midway, occupied the Australian east coast.

The feints used in bombing all of Australia's northern towns, from Port Hedland across to Charters Towers, would have drawn a sizable chunk of Australia's military forces north, to be isolated from the main areas of settlement by two thousand miles of desert, which the Japanese would never have been stupid enough to contemplate crossing. The east coast was always their target.

And if they had aimed to destroy the Hawkesbury River Bridge, up-stream from Broken Bay, instead of attacking Sydney Harbour, yes, Australia could have been taken out of the War: with almost all allied troops to the north of the Bridge in Queensland, and almost all of war production south of the Bridge, in Victoria and Sydney, we would have been easy meat.

Joe

I agree with LM that this is a fatuous beat up. The purpose of the Coral sea attack was precisely to Isolate Aus as was the attack on Darwin, and any invasion of Aus would have stretched Japans supply lines beyond sustainable limits. However, had the US lost the battle of the Coral sea and Midway, a later invasion a year or two later would have been entirely feasible.

I think Binoy is tilting at windmills.

Oh how insight you appear to be Binoy with the safety of 75 years distance.
all rather pathetic really.

At Darwin "30 aircraft were destroyed, 11 ships were sunk, and many civil and military facilities were also heavily damaged." The cruiser Sydney was sunk like the 2 British battleships without air-cover near Singapore due to incompetence. Singapore was handed over but they all lined up to salute Jap cars driving in . Kokoda was at the end of a Jap supply chain over razor back mountains. So probably an invasion was not needed , just set up camp in Port Moresby and bomb the port cities. Then the history is wrong but still right , USS Lexington and Yorktown saved the day.

The Japanese flew bombing raids over Townsville
At that time there was only one bridge across the Ross River in Townsville that would allow Australian military access to the north of the country along the east coast.

The Japanese in a bombing raid at night attempted to bomb that bridge
they missed by about a couple of 100ft.

My Dad who is now 86years knew where the big crater in the ground left by the bomb
was and I stood next to it as a young girl. Because it came down in what were open
Paddocks near the bridge. Also, the railway line north crossed the river beside the bridge at the same point, so no doubt they had hoped to take that out as well.

Was Australia supposed to let New Guinea fall to the Japanese? We had a friendly trading protective relationship with them at the time.

This article writer just didn't like Turnbull giving America any credit for
saving Australia from the Japs. But without American troops and superior
weapons a lot of which were based in Townsville. From which they flew out to
defend the Coral sea. We would have been helpless before the Japanese superior numbers. The Aussie soldiers were brave fighters, but they didn't have
anywhere near the numbers that the Japanese had. Nor were they that well equipped with weapons at the time.

Whatever the American reasons for coming to our defence, probably because of the
Attack on Pearl Harbour, and a few hours later the taking out of an airport base in Singapore, where they took out all the American planes on the ground.
Clever strategy by the Japanese. Nevertheless whatever the reasons, American did
put a stop to Japanese attacks on Australia when they fought the Japanese in the Coral Sea off north Eastern Australia.

If the Japs had won, rather than drawn in the Coral Sea, there was no need for Midway. Midway was only a Jap operation to draw the US carriers into battle, & wipe them out. It was only this slightly bloody nose that stopped the Japs from occupying Port Moresby, & from there northern Oz & our resources were just a logical step away.

As it was with Midway, only the lucky event of the US dive bombers getting lost, & bumping into the Jap carriers when the zeros were not in the air that saved the yanks, & our hides. Up until that moment most of the US aircraft had been knocked down, without inflicting even a scratch on the Japs.

If the yanks had lost the carriers at Midway, we would have had Jap occupation forces in Oz, with nothing we or the Yanks could do about it at that time.

The Yanks not only did not use the Oz military to fight their war, but rejected the offer of using it. They left that idiot Blamey spilling unnecessary blood in useless mopping operations for nothing but his own ego.

Isn't it annoying when lefty kids try to insert their ideology into a history they don't understand or appreciate.