Originally posted by Lance_han:
the sinking of the prince of wales and repulse, the opening salvoes on singapore at the start of their pacific campaign, the pin-point strafing\bombing on singapore... y not?
Yes, the sinking of the 2 battleships and the bombardment of the civilian population. The destruction of all Allied air assets in the air and on the ground. Also the sinking of more shipping especially those carrying soldiers and civilians fleeing Singapore.
During the actual fighting in the jungles, Jap aircraft did carry out a lot of sorties on Allied ground troops. In one case they dropped a bomb square on a Allied infantry field HQ killing many officers. But these were not in any way instrumental in the Allies' eventual defeat in the ground war, were they? It wasn't aircraft strikes that the Allied ground troops were running away from.
The determining factor in the ground war was still the Jap troop's fighting skills and determination.
Hell, it was not even the tanks as one book I read said that the tanks were badly used by the Japs. They were sometimes used without infantry support. I read one instance where a lone Australian anti-tank gun knocked out 6 Jap tanks driving round a road bend one at a time. This gun fought on until destroyed or ran out of ammo. The gunner survived, while his mates were killed off, i think.