Japanese Invasion of Ceylon, WWII

MerryPrankster

There's a thread comparing a possible WWII Japanese invasion of Australia with the planned (and near-universally derided) German plan to invade Britain, Operation Sea Lion. Someone in the thread said a Japanese invasion of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) would be more realistic.

So under what circumstances could a Japanese invasion of Ceylon take place and what would it achieve? OTL saw Japanese carrier attacks on the island. Churchill thought if Ceylon fell and the Germans took Egypt, the British would have been doomed. Here's an article on Ceylon's role in WWII.

(Also, apparently there was a Trotskyist-inspired Ceylonese military mutiny as well as a lot of wartime agitation against the British. This seems like something a hypothetical Japanese invading force could capitalize, although given the Japanese Empire's OTL thuggery, they'd probably lose local support really fast.)

What kind of damage could the Japanese do to British India if they held Ceylon?
 

mlp

What would be the benefits of invading Ceylon? Wouldn't invading (or destroying the naval facilities of) Bombay be more effective?
 

MerryPrankster

zeppelinair said:
What would be the benefits of invading Ceylon? Wouldn't invading (or destroying the naval facilities of) Bombay be more effective?
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Depriving the British of its naval facilities, using it as a base to bomb India (or stir up anti-British sentiment there), using it as a base to attack Middle Eastern oil traffic, etc.
 

mlp

MerryPrankster said:
Depriving the British of its naval facilities, using it as a base to bomb India (or stir up anti-British sentiment there), using it as a base to attack Middle Eastern oil traffic, etc.
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The benefits are certainly there, but this would probably give a new meaning to the sentence "the Japanese were overexpanding in WWII."
 

MerryPrankster

zeppelinair said:
The benefits are certainly there, but this would probably give a new meaning to the sentence "the Japanese were overexpanding in WWII."
Click to expand...

Ceylon would be more vulnerable to attacks from India it's true, but it could be resupplied/supported from occupied Burma and the East Indies. On a map it doesn't seem that far away.

Trying to use Ceylon as a base to attack the Persian Gulf might be a little overambitious, especially if they can more easily case problems in India itself.
 

Cryhavoc101

Last source of Rubber in the British Empire! I think that they would defend it rigorously.

Also it is about 1000+ Miles from Singapore and I am not convinced that the Japanese can conduct a large scale amphibious op for the amount of time necessary to capture the island.

As for the damage it could cause to India - certainly some targets are in range of Ceylon based AC - conversely the entire Island is in range of India based AC and it would be far easier for the British to reinforce.

Also it would prove difficult to supply and relatively easy to blockade - Nah - I don't see it happening unless there was some sort of major change in the status of India as part of the British Empire and say an Independent India Invites the Japanese.
 

Shinsu

Ceylon would be far away from any of the front lines. The closet that the Japanese got was when they invaded Manipur around the Burmese border and that wasn't until 1943. Azar Hind was the Japanese puppet government for occupied Indian land but it's controlled land was extremely small and his control was in place really only through the Japanese. The further that they get into India, the less problematic and more logical an invasion of the island would be. But trying to get them further into India by any significant margin for a long period of time is rather ASB. They didn't have the infrastructure, manpower, or naval power to go far in.

It honestly would have been an utter failure. They couldn't pull off the raid with as many ships because some would be needed to guard the transports as they made the very long journey across enemy waters towards the shore. Reinforcement would be very difficult for the Japanese and rather easy for the British and Indians since the distance between the mainland is small for them. The Japanese would have no way to resupply the troops even if they do end up landing on the island. Finally, what benefit would they get from capturing a location so far from the fronts?
 

Glenn239

A successful invasion of Ceylon would allow for the possibility of interdicting the Iranian Lend Lease supply line to Russia, (Japan could have severed the route going through Vladivostok, but never did). This seems on the face of it a more productive use of the fleet than an attritional campaign amongst the worthless islands of the South and Central Pacific.

In operational terms, the advantage of the Indian Ocean as the primary theatre of operations was that it was proximate to Japan's oil supply source, (NEI) while being a great distance from the major Allied supply centers, (UK, USA). The Japanese exchanged their carrier fleet for the USN carrier fleet in 1942, which was a much worse deal for the Japanese than for the Americans, (who could replace more losses with the Essex Class). Operating in the Indian Ocean gave the prospect of keeping Kido Butai relatively intact into 1944 while maintaining offensive pressure.
 
Gunner's_Quadrant

Gunner's_Quadrant

Glenn239 said:
A successful invasion of Ceylon would allow for the possibility of interdicting the Iranian Lend Lease supply line to Russia, (Japan could have severed the route going through Vladivostok, but never did). This seems on the face of it a more productive use of the fleet than an attritional campaign amongst the worthless islands of the South and Central Pacific.

In operational terms, the advantage of the Indian Ocean as the primary theatre of operations was that it was proximate to Japan's oil supply source, (NEI) while being a great distance from the major Allied supply centers, (UK, USA). The Japanese exchanged their carrier fleet for the USN carrier fleet in 1942, which was a much worse deal for the Japanese than for the Americans, (who could replace more losses with the Essex Class). Operating in the Indian Ocean gave the prospect of keeping Kido Butai relatively intact into 1944 while maintaining offensive pressure.
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I see a couple of problems with your hypotheses.
First, when have the Japanese and Germans ever coordinated their actions on the strategic or operational level? It never happened.
Two, by interdicting the Lend-Lease traffic through Iran would be in violation of the Soviet-Japanese Non-Aggression Treaty signed in April 1941.
The Japanese did not want to face the Soviets after Nomonhan.
Third, by having the main Japanese fleet focused on the Indian Ocean would not allow it to counter any advances made by the Americans in either the Central or South Pacific. By doing so, they just ceded the initiative to the Americans in the Pacific.
Fourth, the Indian Ocean was not a decisive theater for either the Americans, the British, or the Japanese.
 
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