70th Anniversary of D-Day

[Anomalocaris]

The greatest mistake made in WWII was the Japanese leaving 4 aircraft carriers afloat, that had been their primary target.

It wasn't a mistake. There were only 3 carriers in the Pacific. Two ( Lexington and Enterprise) were out on assignment delivering aircraft to outlying bases and Saratoga was in San Diego.

Yorktown was in the Atlantic.

The greatest mistake was to send 6 carriers to attack Pearl Harbor.

If the Japanese simply left Pearl Harbor alone, and went after Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Indochina, the USN would likely put war plan orange into effect and send the battle fleet from Pearl Harbor west to relieve Philippine.

This would likely have resulted in a surface battle for which the pacific fleet was under strength, and for which the Japanese navy has been plotting and training for 20 years and had many aces up their sleeves.

It was likely the US pacific fleet would lose the surface action against Japanese combined fleet. The defeat would turn into a catastrophe because the US fleet would have to retreat to Manila and there is would be taken or scuttled as the Japanese occupy Philippines.

The US would end up in much the same material and strategic position in pacific as Pearl Harbor had achieved, but morally the US would be much less well off because there would no sneak attack, and the US would be defeated in a straight fight.

In the end Japan would still lose the war, because economically and industrially japan was simply too feeble to hold out no matter what initial advantage it gained. But they probably could have lasted longer, possibly to 1946 or 1947, and there was also higher chance that the US would settle for a negotiated capitulation of japan, with condition short of occupation, total disarmament, and loss of all territories taken in the previous 50 years, instead of demanding total unconditional surrender.