Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 October 21

= October 21 =

Why didn't America "island hop" through Alaska and Russia instead?
It seems like they took the hard way in. Why didn't we just make an agreement with the Soviets to let us use its territory to skip the entire Pacific Theater? Is there alternate history of this? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:39, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * .#1 "Why didn't" questions are not possible to provide references for. Counterfactual history you just made up to ask this question doesn't exist in references, so we can't provide you with references.  #2 Alaska and Kamchatka and the related islands are really inhospitable.  See Aleutian Islands Campaign which explains why the U.S. didn't even bother to retake the Aleutians that Japan had actually captured for a year and a half or so.  #3: Control of the Pacific Ocean was the key because of the importance of Command of the sea.  Playing around in the inhospitable, low-value, almost impossible to militarize, mountainous and glacier-filled Arctic did fuck-all to defeat the Japanese navy which could strike at will from it's main bases in the central Pacific, which is why the U.S. needed those islands in the Central Pacific.  There's nowhere to harbor a navy in the Aleutians, but the little atolls around the Central Pacific made for nice naval bases, which is why Japan used them as such.  You really can't base a Navy out of freaking Attu like you could out of Midway Island or Guadalcanal.  #4 Japan and Russia weren't at war.  Like at all.  Like Russia wasn't particularly interested in helping the U.S. defeat Japan because Russia wasn't at war with Japan, didn't have any military in the area, and had no impetus to help the U.S. in any way in the Pacific Theater, mostly because they had their own problems in the West.  As noted at Surrender of Japan, Russia declared war on Japan on August 9, 1945.  Which you'll notice is three days AFTER Hiroshima, and a mere 6 days before Japan surrendered.  They weren't at all involved in the war, and only joined up to make a land grab during the putative 6-day Soviet–Japanese War (1945).  They basically didn't want to lose out on the spoils of WWII in the Pacific theater.  So, that's why.  It boils down to a) Alaska?  Really?  b) Japan's Navy wasn't there because it wasn't all that useful, and the U.S. needed to defeat the Japanese Navy c) Russia wasn't even in the war in the Pacific, so why would Russia help out the U.S.?  -- Jayron 32 03:02, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Um, your point #1 is overstated: it is possible to provide references for some "why didn't" questions. Typically those are ones where that option was seriously considered and rejected, and there is a historical record of the discussion.  I doubt that that's relevant in this particular case, though, for all the other reasons you state. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 08:18, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This raises the question in my mind as to why Japan bothered to waste precious troops to garrison the militarily useless Aleutians? (It seems to remind me of Hitler's refusal to abandon the channel islands, even though the troops garrisoning them were rather desperately needed elsewhere after D-day). What was Japan's logic? 110.140.69.137 (talk) 08:25, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Japan took the Aleutians as a possible base of attack for the North American mainland; at the time Japan already had commanding control of the sea, and was expanding northward. The U.S. didn't immediately try to retake them because they were low-value assets and they needed to establish control of the main shipping lanes in the South Pacific instead.  Japan took them in 1942 from a position of strength in the Pacific.  Holding them required a token force, it was a low-risk move for Japan.  -- Jayron 32 15:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think that any sort of withdrawal was in the Japanese mindset. It might also have helped the Japanese in Manchuria if they had withdrawn to a defensible position in 1945, but instead they clung to their outlying territories and were easily overrun by the Soviets.
 * US Army in WW2: War Department, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare (pp. 99-100) says that the factors downgrading the importance of the Aleutian front were lack of Japanese aggression and the poor weather; "The overcast that covered the islands most of the time made air and naval operations dangerous and often impossible" (air superiority and naval gunfire support were the cornerstone of US amphibious operations). It continues that there was contingency planning for a US offensive in the Aleutians in the event of the Soviets entering the war, but as noted above, this didn't happen until August 1945. Alansplodge (talk) 08:52, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Jayron32 is a bit unfair to the Soviets. Their neutral stance in the Far East enabled them to transfer "over 18 divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft from Siberia and the Far East" in time to turn ther tide in the Battle of Moscow. As the Soviets were doing most of the fighting in Europe, even after D-Day, it would have been counter-productive for all the Allies to shift forces from Europe to the Far East. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was at the urging of the Western Allies and was agreed at "the Yalta Conference in February 1945, [that] the Soviet Union entered World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on 9 August 1945, exactly three months after the German surrender on May 8" and was "a significant factor in the Japanese government's decision to surrender unconditionally, as it made apparent the USSR would no longer be willing to act as a third party in negotiating an end to hostilities on conditional terms".  Alansplodge (talk) 10:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Equally as likely as the "exactly 90 days later" was probably a coincidence, where as the "The U.S. just deployed a super weapon on the Japanese mainland and Japan is against the ropes" had a bigger impact on the Soviet decision to invade Manchuria. The Soviets had not shown a particularly strong propensity towards honoring agreements with either side, either before, during, or after the war, and were far more interested in acting in what was in the best interest of the Soviets.  It is highly unlikely they would have been particularly keen on committing massive ground forces to an Asian campaign if Japan were at full strength.  -- Jayron 32 11:15, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that the Kwantung Army was affected in any way by the Hiroshima attack, although admittedly it had been "systematically stripped of [its] best units and equipment" for deployment to other fronts. I take your point about Soviet self-interest, an issue that became apparent to the Western Allies as the Soviet preparations were underway, but the fact remains that they were doing our bidding. Alansplodge (talk) 13:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but in 1945, not in 1942-1943 which is the time frame the OP is asking about. He's asking why we went south instead of north across the Pacific.  It's an understandable question; it's shorter (the great circle path from the U.S. west coast to Japan crosses Alaska after all) and if you look at a map it appears the route has more land-based options for bases.  The main crux of my point was that it was inhospitable in Alaska and Kamchatka, and that the Soviets weren't actually at war with Japan at that point; they were in no position to be at War with Japan either.  -- Jayron 32 15:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I concur with your summation! Harmony is restored. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The actual American-led campaign in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, that the OP calls "taking the hard way in" was motivated by the need to give a direct response to the causus belli Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7/12-1941, the rearguard action in the Philippines Campaign (1941–42) and to pre-empt the imminent threat to British interests posed by Axis naval activity in Australian waters. The attempt early in the Pacific War at multilateral coordination in the short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command convinced American strategists of the need for campaign initiatives by the US Army (under MacArthur) and Navy (under Nimitz). The Logistics of the war over long distances at sea became a contest for air supremacy that focused on denial to enemy use of island air bases and attacks on each side's Aircraft carriers, most decisively in the Battle of Midway. The alternate campaign suggested by the OP would have been too slow because it would have involved uncertain negotiation with a 3rd party who was recently allied to Hitler (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) and it would have occupied troops in holding territories of no strategic value to Tokyo. AllBestFaith (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Another aspect worth discussing: the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands was planned for the southern coasts of Kyushu and Honshu. As the article says, these are really the only two good places on the islands for large-scale amphibious landings, and the Japanese knew this. This is why the Allies captured Okinawa first, to use it as a staging ground. So if you were going to try to invade from mainland Asia, you would either have to attempt unfavorable landings on the north and west and then slog your way towards Japan's population centers, which are mostly on the Pacific side of the islands, or sail your whole invasion force around the Japanese islands, with the Japanese military knowing where you're headed and going all-out to stop you. The Mongols famously tried the first and it didn't go too well for them. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 01:24, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Jayron32, back to what you replied to my earlier comment. You say that Japan took the Aleutians "as a possible base of attack for the North American mainland". How so, and why? From what others have said, they were manifestly unsuitable for using as military bases. Precisely why the Americans were in no rush to retake them.
 * Also, you say that holding them required a "token force". Perhaps yes, the number of troops on the Aleutians was low. But how on earth do you go about resupplying even a small number of troops at the very edges of your empire? Particularly troops stationed in such a freezing inhospitable hard-to-approach location? Even if they're not expending a single bullet as no one is confronting them, they still need to be fed, remember? How did Japan accomplish this, and did it deliver the prospect of any actual military value for Japan? 110.140.69.137 (talk) 15:20, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Jayron's very first linked article in his initial reply says this in the lede:
 * "The Japanese reasoned that control of the Aleutians would prevent a possible U.S. attack across the Northern Pacific. Similarly, the U.S. feared that the islands would be used as bases from which to launch aerial assaults against the West Coast"
 * I can't immediately locate the book I have specifically on this campaign, but from what I recall: (a) most Japanese supplies were sent by air and (b) both sides underestimated the severity of the weather (which caused far more fatalities and crashes than any actual combat) so any Japanese plans to bomb the USA's West Coast never became practicable. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.88 (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Great Stink


I have a question about this illustration about the Great Stink in 1800's London. In the 'Monster Soup', what are the actual 'monsters'? Are they supposed to depict microorganisms, real creatures or just fictional creatures? --Poing-PoBongino (talk) 16:07, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * They are speculative Microorganisms drawn in 1828 and probably inspired partly by images in "Micrographia" 1665 and the animalcules seen by Leeuwenhoek (between 1674 and 1682) but also, I fancy, influenced by the imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, see his "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The satyrical magazine Punch published a similarly speculative microscopic slide cartoon. AllBestFaith (talk) 16:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The website of the The Library at Wellcome Collection says in explanation of this work: "Looking at a drop of water though a microscope was a popular entertainment provided by travelling showmen who carried the microscopes around in cases on their backs". Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The only "monster" that looks like a realistic microorganism is on the right side, and looks like krill. They do come pretty small, so could qualify as microorganisms, depending on your def.  There also appears to be a crawfish below that, but they don't get that small, AFAIK.  Same for the apparent remora to the left of the krill (eyes in the wrong location, though), and the tadpole above that. The rest seem to suffer from the bias that the artist apparently thought all microorganisms must have a head and face, when that's not even true of all macroorganisms, like starfish. StuRat (talk) 16:56, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Please cite evidence that this was what the artist thought was true rather than what the artist thought would make a good cartoon. Compare anthropomorphism, and specifically anthropomorphism. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I never made any claims about what the artist actually thought. What the artist apparently thought means that is what it appears like. StuRat (talk) 20:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I think you're overthinking this - remember that this is a joke. People knew that small creatures lived in water and the artist was suggesting that London's polluted water contained monstrous ones. Alansplodge (talk) 21:28, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * One hopes that StuRat at least knows the difference between a microorganism and an invertebrate. Tevildo (talk) 22:31, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Exactly right. Although note that I've had the chance to play with period optics and the images one sees are not great...there's a lot of room for imagination and wishful thinking. It really gives one respect for how much people got right, even if early mistakes - like that humans had 48 chromosomes not 46 - lasted for far too long. Blythwood (talk) 04:06, 23 October 2016 (UTC)


 * We are dealing with the 1828 definition of microorganisms (although technically the captions says "microcosm"), so, I'm not sure it was defined precisely then, and if krill would qualify or not. StuRat (talk) 02:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The orange beast (Stu's possible "remora") is a ray, as seen from below, the fish at the bottom is a stonefish or a frogfish, there's a pipefish (looks like a snake-shaped seahorse). There are various plausible crustaceans.  To assume these are all based on fancy is unfounded, the cartoonist obviously had some familiarity with actual macroscopic, if unusual sea-creatures. μηδείς (talk) 22:14, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And the big fish in the centre is spouting like a whale - I really don't think it bears academic scrutiny. Alansplodge (talk) 08:56, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Put the illustration down to just artistic licence. After all, the microscope may well have been developed into a scientific instrument by this time but before photography, TV etc., the 'reading pubic' of this publication had their own experiences only to go upon – so in order for the illustrator to have the public to grasp the point he trying to make, he made the critters look familiar . To be pedantic, during the 'great stink', the water would be so deficient in oxygen that zooplankton would not survive anyway. It would have been just a soup of bacteria, (which had not yet been discovered and identified in those times). Yet, he got across  the point,  this water was far from healthy.  Middle class households in those times, had large earthenware pots of charcoal and felt filters to make Thames water drinkable but even those domestic treatments  could not cope when the river became an anaerobic summer sewer. One has to look at it in the context of 1828 and what the general public understood and could comprehend.--Aspro (talk) 17:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)