From: "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > I have a question about the origional Axis powers. I know that Italy and > Germany worked together, but how much actual cooperation was there between > Japan and these two countries? My understanding is that there wasn't that > much in the way of coordination. >
There was very little coordination between Japan and the rest of the Axis. Japan had attacked in Siberia in 1938 and been comprehensively beaten by the Russians, led by Gheorgi Zhukov. They signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin and kept to it pretty scrupulously, which is why the didn't interfere with the shipments of US etc arms through Vladivostok. Japan and Germany swapped some technical information, with the Japanese testing Bf-109s, Fw-190s and so on, and the Germans testing J1N Gekkos/Irvings (at least) etc. Late in the war the Germans passed on some jet engines and even a complete Me 262s, which the Japanese copied but never got into service. Had Germany and Japan ever coordinated they could have linked up in Afghanistan via Burma and Northern India (Japanese) and southern Russia or the Middle East (Germany). But they didn't, which made Hitler's declaration of war on the US after Pearl Harbour an even sillier move in retrospect. As I read it, Hitler would have been reasonably comfortable with Japan controlling the Pacific and Asia, Britain controlling its Empire and the US controlling all of the Americas, so long as Hitler had Europe/Russia to himself. At least, to begin with... Brett
