Were America and Japan Equals During WW2?
On June 19, 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, or the Marianas Turkey Shoot, would occur. It would end as a decisive American victory with the Americans losing 123 aircraft, 80 of which either ran out of gas and the pilot had to bail out or landing on the moving aircraft carriers as night, and only 109 Americans lost their lives. The Japanese on the other hand would lose about 650 aircrafts, 3 aircraft carriers, and 3,000 men.
They could never hope to replace aircraft or the pilots and the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers and much of their surface fleet, like cruisers, battleships, and etc, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Why did I tell you all of this? In all these battles, they have a few things in common, including the Japanese being overconfident and failing to achieve their goals to destroy the American aircraft carriers and other ships.America and Japan, today the two are best friend, and it is hard to believe that at one point they were enemies but over 70 years ago, they were. World War Two, the Pacific Front and America won but there has been a theory that the United States and Imperial Japan being equals during World War Two. I do not think they were.
Time to knock down this theory into the dirt but first some background. During the 1940’s, America and Japan fought against each other in a conflict called World War Two, starting on December 7th, 1941, the Battle of Pearl Harbor. The Battle of Pearl Harbor would be a major Japanese tactical victory at least at the time but what Japanese tactions failed to see past the victory is that they had awaken the sleeping American giant, and it was wanting revenge. Sixth months later, the turning point of the War in the Pacific, the Battle of Midway where the Japanese would lose all four of their aircraft carriers that were in the battle, which the carriers were the Akagi, Kaga The Japanese also ran into many problems like they couldn’t replace the ships that they lost but America could. When the Japanese sunk an American ship, the Americans could replace that one with five more but when the Americans would sink a Japanese ship, their fleet would become smaller. The Japanese would always be on the losing end of the war, no matter if they were able to win the Battle of Midway or other battles before 1943 that America won.
Japan just didn’t have the resources or the manpower to fight the Americans in a war, they were just too small to do anything. Even Yamamoto knew that if Japan didn’t win within six months after Pearl Harbor, they would lose, I think you get my point. The only way to win against America was not to fight them in the first place.
