Pacific War (Harry Turtledove)

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Pacific War (Harry Turtledove)
Part of Timeline-191
Date 1932-1934 Location Pacific Ocean; British Columbia, Canada; Los Angeles, CA Result Stalemate (status quo ante bellum)
Belligerents
United States of America	Empire of Japan
Commanders
President Hosea Blackford (1932-1933), President Herbert Hoover (1933-1934)	Emperor Hirohito

The Pacific War is a fictional conflict (1932-34) in Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 alternate history series, and is not to be confused with the real-life Pacific War of 1941-45.

Prior to the war Japan sought to touch off a second revolt in Occupied Canada (the first having occurred in 1925-26), as Tokyo wanted to keep the USA busy at home while Japan's empire expanded. A traffic accident in Vancouver in 1931 alerted the US to the fact that Japanese gold and arms were being smuggled to Canadian rebels. Tensions increased between the two nations, and the USS Remembrance was sent up to patrol British Columbia's coastline while other carriers remained in the Sandwich Islands (our timeline's Hawaii).

In 1932 airplanes from the Remembrance spotted a freighter offshore launching a high-speed motorboat. After the ship refused to stop for inspection, the Remembrance moved to the freighter's vicinity, only to be attacked by a Japanese submersible. One torpedo struck the carrier starboard-aft, but swift damage control efforts by Lieutenant j.g. Sam Carsten prevented the ship from sinking. US Navy bombers sunk both Japanese vessels.

The resulting war was a naval conflict largely fought around the Sandwich Islands. Just prior to the presidential election of 1932, two Japanese carriers and a tanker slipped into Californian waters and bombed Los Angeles while Socialist president Hosea Blackford was holding a convention there. Though Blackford, tarred with the brush of the Great Depression, was already considered a no-hoper, the Los Angeles raid was the final nail in the Socialist's coffin.

The rest of the war consisted of naval skirmishes, none important save the first naval battles in history where neither side's ships saw one another (analogous to our timeline’s Battle of the Coral Sea in WWII). Though both navies fought tooth and nail for control of the central Pacific, neither power could pour their full resources into the fight. The USA had to guard a long and hostile border with the Confederate States, while Japan had the Russians sitting over Manchuria.

The Pacific War ended early in 1934 with both sides returning to the status quo ante bellum. Evidently, Japan was unimpressed with the US Navy, for she joined the Entente in 1941 and resumed her efforts to seize the Sandwich Islands.