Pearl Harbor

TNine wrote:

KristallNacht wrote:like?

and there was no retreat, since the Japanese had no intention of claiming the island in the first place.

They were supposed to launch three waves right? And they only launched two? I could swear someone mentioned it in this thread.

yes but the third wave still wasn't an invasion force.

Rotaretilbo wrote:I'd also like to point out that the systematic extermination of a populace to claim its resources is probably the single most inefficient way to lay claim to resources possible. This is because, if the local population is gone, the only way to actually take advantage of the captured resources is through mass migration. The whole thing would be incredibly unstable from an economic standpoint for decades. Probably the most efficient method would be to absorb the locals and let the Japanese slowly migrate in. In a perfect system, you would slowly eliminate the locals as more Japanese migrated in to create openings in an existing economic system until, eventually, the Japanese constitute the entire system.

except when there's already too many japanese in japan...

They tried the slow migration plan with Korea, It took them several hundred years remember. Time the Japanese leaders did not have if they were to "CONQUER THE WORLD" like they thought they were going to at some point with their allies.

Also the third wave was to destroy allied fuel supplies to further cripple the fleet. However they barely had enough fuel at that point to make the journey back home. And any remaining in reserve would be needed in case the American carriers showed up and delivered some swift Airborn justice. Their biggest mistake in the war considering an Army marches on its supplies and they left ours completely untouched while wasting many of theirs just to destroy some outdated warships.

Not launching the third wave during the Pearl Harbor raid:

dragoon9105 wrote:Their biggest mistake in the war

the Japanese made some serious errors in some of the major battles (midway was more vital, among others)

If the Japanese destroyed the fuel facilities and shipyard facilities at pearl harbor it would no longer be able to function effectively as a naval base. Without our base in Hawaii we could not function half as well as we did in the pacific and repairing it would take time. Pearl as a base still functioned after the attack, A third wave would have made it unusable until repairs were made and supplies arrived by boat.

dragoon9105 wrote:They tried the slow migration plan with Korea, It took them several hundred years remember.

Hardly comparable. The Japanese never controlled Korea for any extended period of time, so slow migration could not be effectively achieved. And point stands, wiping out the existing population and settling there causes massive instability to the local economy and the economy back home. Japan may have been crowded, but their economy worked. You can't just pick up half the population, all of whom have jobs and houses, and move them into China, and say "get to work".

unless lots don't have jobs and houses =D

Which wasn't the case in Japan during WW2. If anything, unemployment was probably down because of the war. And even then, I doubt more than 10% of the population were without jobs/houses, and a majority of them would have been the sort that didn't have jobs/houses because of their choices and actions, hardly the material upon which to build an entire economy from scratch.

ntm that most of the deaths are actually from conscripted laborers anyway, so I guess the whole migration point is moot. They weren't really just indiscriminately killing everyone.

Yes, of course.

most....

millions were taken as laborers, hundreds of thousands died as laborers.

then less than 12,000 die in a 'massacre' and suddenly that's what they've been doing all along? that's not how it works.

Nanking was a small part of non-Japanese casualties during the invasion.

Doesn't Change the fact that it is a war crime. They didn't have to kill the remainder. They just did so for ease of not having to deal with that population.

That's the nature of warfare. People don't talk about the morality of the Huns or the Mongols and they did the same thing, because that's how you build an empire.

The roman method is more effective. Demand complete total and absolute obedience of the native population and if they turn you down, Slaughter them all, sell them into slavery and salt their lands so they never grow vegetation again.

12,000? You seem to have missed a zero there. Estimates put the death toll of noncombatants at 200,000, and PoW at about 60,000. Hell, the estimated number of women and children raped exceeds your estimate at 20,000.

the Nanking massacre was 12,000....

I'm fully aware that 200,000 noncombatants died, most through forced labor, not through straight up murder. And that's still less than 20% of those forced into labor.