101 - Japan is Getting Hungry, Barbarossa is Confused - WW2 - August 1, 1941

by Panzer
Yeah, we’re pulling back, but we’re leaving you behind.
yeah, your whole crew.
What should you do?
Um... don’t get captured... and break stuff.
yeah, as much stuff as you can.
Japan has taken- and continues to take- aggressive measures to secure new resources to continue
the war in China, and this week that brings conflict between them and the western powers.
So what do those western powers do?
They cut them off.
I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week, Adolf Hitler issued a directive diverting his panzer groups from Moscow to
Leningrad and Kiev, while in his rear the supply and transport situation had grown dire.
The Soviets, though, began to receive supplies from the Allies and launched an offensive
of their own.
And far to the east, the Japanese demanded bases in Indochina from the Vichy French,
which telegraphs that they will be focusing their efforts to the south and the east,
This week the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina begins.
The Vichy French will continue to administer Vietnam.
The 29th, the Japanese occupy Cam Ranh naval base, 1,200 km from Manila and the British
base at Singapore.
The Japanese have sent 125,000 troops into Indochina in the past week.
The Vichy French said they would allow 40,000, but it’s not like they have any way of enforcing
such a limit.
On the 1st, the Japanese occupy Saigon.
The US reacts to this by freezing Japanese assets on the 26th.
Two days later the Japanese do the same in return.
That same day Japanese assets in the Dutch East Indies are frozen and oil deals are cancelled.
The Japanese do the same to the Dutch, but what this all means is that 75% of Japan’s
foreign trade is now stopped and 90% of its oil supplies are now cut off.
The Panama Canal is also closed to Japanese shipping.
On the 30th, the American gunboat Tutiula is damaged by Japanese bombers in Chongqing.
The Japanese apologize but this does not help the strained relations between the two.
On August 1st at the end of the week, American President FDR bans the sale of oil and aviation
fuel abroad by the US except to Britain and the Commonwealth, or nations of the Western
Hemisphere.
Japan does not produce its own oil and has only limited stocks.
“The position is such that Japan must either change her foreign policy very radically or
decide very quickly to go to war to gain access to the oil of the East Indies.”
FDR also does something else in case the Japanese go ahead with their seeming current plans,