Garyt wrote:Yeah, the Japanese were not the best landlords.
However, considering the US or more specifically residents of Hawaii of US descent had armed conflict with the Native people s of Hawaii in 1887, 1889, 1893, 1895, 1924 and 1938, I'd think the US was not the best landlord either. Granted the last two were armed action by US government forces against native workers, so they were not truly "armed conflict".
But that is why I see the Polynesian and Asian cultures on the Island being at best ambivalent towards any type of guerilla action. I'd thin the 25% of the population that was of Japanese descent would not have a problem with Japanese rule.
US rule in Hawaii was nothing like the harsh, brutal rule of the Japanese. As Dave Sexton has already commented there is a lasting hatred of the rule of Japan in many Asian countries even today, as evidenced by their opposition to any new ''militarisation' of Japan.
I think all races would be driven to oppose the Japanese. The Polynesians would have their very survival at stake, the Europeans of Spanish/Portuguese descent would be treated the same way as they were for example in the Philippines and in Macau - and remember that Macau was invaded and occupied even though Portugal was a neutral country. The local Japanese community I think would be very harshly treated by the IJA who would treat them as being pro-American. The rest of the population, being largely American, plus the likely considerable number of US servicemen who would not surrender to Japan, would form the backbone of the initial resistance. The harshness of the Japanese reaction to resistance would greatly increase that resistance across all communities.
Resistance would be organised and largely directed from outside, with the targeting of airfields and fuel supplies as first priority. Reducing Japanese search capability would be a key objective, allowing clandestine landings of weapons and men in increasing numbers - the distance from the west coast I don't think would be too great a problem.
With respect to the Polynesians and their suggested inability to fight - I think that when the proverbial ''push gives to shove'' they would fight in a guerrilla war as hard as the Ethiopian natives did under Italian rule from 1936 to 1941. That war is largely forgotten - but all the same it happened, and was a major factor in the liberation of Ethiopia in 1941 by British Empire forces, initially led by Orde Wingate.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.