The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
|
| Previous: Ochiai Teigo | Table of Contents | Next: Oda Kensuku |
National Archives.
Via ww2db.com
OCTAGON was the seventh major wartime diplomatic conference between Roosevelt and Churchill, held in Quebec on 12-16 September 1944. The conference was primarily concerned with the fate of postwar Germany but also included discussions of British participation in the Pacific War.
The most controvesial aspect of the conference was the Morgenthau Plan, which endorsed the complete deindustrialization and dismemberment of postwar Germany. The plan was leaked to the press and caused a furor. It was heavily emphasized in German propaganda and had a profound influence on the German population, most of whom concluded that it left Germany with no better alternative to resisting to the bitter end. It likely had a similar effect in Japan, Germany's partner in the Axis alliance.
Churchill pushed for a Western advance from Italy towards Vienna to preempt Soviet control of central Europe. This
proposal overlooked the tremendous military difficulties of forcing the
mountainous Ljubljana Gap and was
rejected by the conference. Churchill also pushed for a campaign to
recapture Singapore, which the Americans were inclined to
bypass. The recapture of Singapore would have helped restore British
prestige in the Far East but would have done little to speed the defeat
of Japan, and the Americans were uninterested in anything that appeared
to be directed towards preserving Britain's colonial empire.
Churchill offered to send the bulk of the British Fleet to the Far
East once Germany was defeated, and was surprised and insulted that King
was rather cool to the
offer. King disliked and distrusted the British, was confident the
Americans could wrap up the war on their own, and was likely not
anxious to
give the British the opportunity to claim any significant role in the
victory. However, his officially expressed concern was that the British
Fleet lacked a sufficient fleet train and could overtax the already
badly stretched American logistics in the western Pacific. King was overruled by Roosevelt. As events turned out,
the British Pacific
Fleet did in fact impose a significant logistical
burden on the Americans, but
proved useful in the final kamikaze battles, where the armored British aircraft carriers proved
much less vulnerable than the wooden-decked American carriers.
References
Morison (1959)
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2010-2011 by Kent G. Budge. Index
