Group: soc.history.war.world-war-ii
From: Joe Osman
Date: Monday, March 31, 2008 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: A thought - Midway re: end of WWII

This is all assuming that the Japanese would have stopped at Midway if
they won the battle. Their plans if they won were to take Johnston and
Palmyra
Islands, which both had airstrips, before landing on the "Big Island"
- the island of Hawaii. They would use Hawaii as a base to keep the
remnants of the US Fleet
bottled up in Pearl Harbor (on Oahu) or force the US to return the
fleet to
the west coast of the US.
The scale of possibilities would depend on how many US carriers they
sank and how many of their own survived. Just taking Johnston would
give them an air base somewhat half way between Midway and Hawaii.
See John J. Stephan, "Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans for
Conquest after Pearl Harbor", University of Hawaii Press, 1984.and
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pacificwar/Midway/ScopeofMidwayOp.html

Joe