Japan really thought it could invade Australia?

A proposed invasion of Australia was considered by the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) before they instead opted to attack the much smaller Midway Island in the Pacific was actually bought about in the early short days of Japans victories against the Allies.



But could it have worked?

When you think about the size difference and the distance it seems very far fetched, even though the Imperial Japanese Navy was one of the most advanced in the world and one of the very few with aircraft carriers.

Japan had a way bigger military and was more industrialized at the time than Australia but the sheer size of Australia would have been a major factor.



The height of the Japanese actions against Australia was the bombing of Darwin in 1942, another notable incident was the sinking of a midget submarine in Sydney Harbour, however following the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway the US Navy had the strategic advantage over the IJN in the South Pacific and was able to fight a massive war against Japan away from the home front.



However apart from bombing and promoting general terrorism and hitting key strategic military and economic targets in an attempt to cripple the Australian war effort could have been catastrophic it would have been of huge military effort on the behalf of the Japanese to try and bring the Australians to their knees, after all if the IJN had diverted their main muscle to striking Australian cities they would have given the United States Navy the upper hand in preparing a long hand offensive war against Japanese held territory in the Far East, unfortunately (for them) the IJN using their best ships were unable to capture the tiny island of Midway let alone bring the whole of Australia to its knees!