Well, that would've been a tough operation !
Because I guess such targets were rather well defended. At least, they had heavy flack,
because they used to be mined once in a while by american planes.
And also, it would've meant, street fighting, to hold the port until your mission is acomplished
and you can withdraw. And that's a rather nasty situation to withdraw from !
Also, it would've been a political risk. There were great risks of hurting foreign goods or people.
And with the politicians taking too many tactical decisions...

Just a word pals, in armorama! its great to have discussions on history,what might or not have been........But please no politics!
Earnestly
Arthur

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IMHO, I think if we did cross Yalu, we could push beyond Manchuria and once the armor formation get to the great Northern China plain, then it's pretty much open country.

My grandfather served in Nationlist Chinese Army back then, (He was one of the few selected officer whom attended military training in Germany in the 30's) and nationlist offered to cross Formosa and hit Mainland China from the south once UN cross the Yalu in the North. I don't know if it's a long shot or not for an army which is just retreated from Mainland, but the thing is most of the Nationlist soldiers would like to fight their way back home, so we have to take this into consideration while thinking about how combat effective they would be.

To coin a phrase from Crimson Tide "Nuke them, by all means, Twice!"

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Dave--to say the least, you presented the most rosy and optimistic scenario possible. The Nationalist Chinese government was as corrupt as the Clinton aministration (that's pretty bad). It would have taken a gargantum effort just to get them ready to move out of Formosa. Who would sustain them once they arrived in China? The logistics of moving a substantial force into China would overwhelm even our current military. As for placing armor in the Northern plains of China, where would we have gotten it from? We demobilized after WW II. The armor was not to be had, they took monument tanks from Fort Knox for godsakes and sent them to Korea. It would be pure fantasy to have done more than what we did in Korea. What we lacked was the political will and vision to employ the military within reasonable limits to attain a given end state. Does anyone expect that the people of this Nation would support an invasion of China after finishing four years of conflict? Think not...my two cents.
DJ

Talkin' about past errors, could I remember to our beloved US ally that we were at war against the reds, in Nam and Laos, before US citizens know WHERE was Indochina...!

A spirted discussion to be sure. I have lot of thoughts on this subject. Of course this is all dealing in hypotheticals which are rather difficult (50 years later) to talk about today. Almost like people from the time of WWI talking about "if onlys" when it came to the Civil War.

For my part I have always been a little disappointed with Truman's actions in terms of the global political scene. At the end of WWII the United States was, by sheer power of the atom (and not by any other right), king of the hill. The fact that the West allowed the Soviets to take over Eastern Europe for instance has always smacked to me of some level of political cowardice. Of course the plan went back to Yalta so I guess I could lay blame with FDR himself. And I have NEVER been a huge FDR fan.

That said I think we sometimes do overestimate the capabilities of the USSR and China in that time-period. Now if we are talking about 1960 I might sing a different tune but I think it's fairly safe to say in 1949 that the USSR and China were no match for the combined forces of the West. Sure they had more men, but China had roughly the same population levels at the outbreak of WWII so using today's thinking they should have been able to defeat the Japanese in a few years. We know that didn't happen.

These are just my humble opinions though. Yours may vary.

Jim

i like death and destruction like the next man, but...............ARE YOU NUTS!
1. too many chinese
2. too many chinese
3. too many chinese

my three reasons for not crossing the yalu.

remember this is tongue-in-cheek...........lol

Dave ..just a thought,maybe the reason the Japanese made some easy victories,was too
many Chinese Warlord and divisions with the Communists.......DJ,am i right in thinking
that post WW2 a great many American personell,military political,who had first hand
experience in the Far East were out of favour in the Fifties,due to the activities of McCarthy
and his ilk,it was thought they had become tainted by their links gained in wartime.there
must have been a good deal of knowledge and experience of Chinese and Vietnamese
thinking lost.You must know more about than i,but it might explain a lot
Cheers
Arthur