Abstract
David Evans has incorporated five new chapters into a revised edition of an earlier book by the same name. The new materials cover operations by Imperial Japanese Navy in the Indian Ocean in April 1942, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the protection of merchant shipping, submarine warfare and a final summation of Japanese naval strategy. Evans, who also translated two of the new articles, provides a short introduction to each chapter. Minor editorial corrections and updates have also been included.
The ability to understand the strategic goals and tactical objectives of an adversary, and sometimes even an ally, are the key to mounting successful operations. While the post-war propaganda often portrayed Japan as dysfunctional administratively and hyper aggressive militarily, this volume shows that careful analysis and considerate planning was the standard practice of the headquarters and fleet staffs. They understood their limitations and the capabilities of their opponents very well.
Evans’ choices for inclusion by Atsushi Oi (Chapter Twelve – Why Japan’s Antisubmarine Warfare Failed) and Toshiyuki Yokoi (Chapter Seventeen - Thoughts on Japan’s Naval Defeat) add the best Japanese treatments of the war’s outcome I have read to date. Their analyses, largely dispassionate, shed new light on how their leaders saw, and in some cases refused to see, their plight. What results is a fascinating depiction of desperate attempts to take corrective actions as new trends in naval warfare emerged and then a return stoicism as the final collapse became obvious.
Both Oi and Yokoi maintain that the inter-war Japanese naval leadership was unduly influenced by the events of the First World War. While they were quite fascinated with major and minor fleet actions, they took very little notice of the German move to unrestricted submarine warfare along British countermoves. That the Washington and London Naval Treaties had the effect of creating a fixation on their negotiated position of inferiority is mentioned, albeit briefly. What is not covered is the ideological split between the Treaty and Fleet Factions within the officer corps of the IJN. Evidence of the deep animosity between the battleship and carrier aviation factions abound in the text but are not identified or attributed to this fundamental division. Even late into the war, Oi describes newly developed and scarce assets being diverted away from the fledgling anti-submarine organisation to support the efforts of the Combined Fleet. The steady slide to futility is illustrated most clearly by his brilliant analysis of the tonnages of merchant shipping available to support navy, army and domestic requirements.
The difference between Oi and Yokoi’s findings is that the former lays the blame for Japan’s failure primarily on their inability to provide for the shipping needed to sustain a maritime economy in a primarily maritime theatre of war. Yokoi only lists it as a contributing cause. Oi claims that as late as 26 June 1944, the ‘Red Brick’ authorities (his euphemism for the naval general staff because of their headquarters’ appearance) ‘were still gripped by the ideas of the battleship admirals’ (p. 412). Yokoi takes a more political-strategic view and maintains that the lack of political oversight on the army and navy, along with the intellectual weakness of the naval staff, resulted in organisational inadequacy, no unity of effort, and nothing that could be called grand strategy (pp. 501–503).
For Canadian readers, the early to mid-war experience of the Royal Canadian Navy bears great similarity with that of the IJN. At the outset, the Canadian navy is focused on fleet action as an adjunct to the Royal Navy. Only two Canadian officers are trained in anti-submarine warfare and no ships are equipped with sonar. Both navies resorted to using antiquated destroyers, improvised small craft, and emergency construction programmes for the protection of trade. Each suffered from escort forces too meagre to the task, inadequate experience, poor command authority coordination, weak group training and hopelessly bad communications. The lack of understanding of the value of air cover for close and distant antisubmarine work is practically identical. I found the similarities simply astounding.
In a larger sense, the Japanese experience mimics many other stories of naval failure. The lack of intelligence and want for adequate reconnaissance appears repeatedly. How the Japanese react hopefully when key information is lacking or even contradictory provides fascinating insight into their collective mindset. Another key issue is recurring logistical shortcomings that led to operational disasters. They knew well enough that all of these issues were important but were driven forward by a desperate need to ‘do something’ for the sake of doing so, rather than doing the right thing. Finding that balance between action and inaction is notoriously hard. Early Japanese victories provided great incentive to act, however this book shows that poor strategic goals and disjointed tactical objectives were the real driving forces and not ‘victory disease’ as is so often claimed to be the cause.
The only minor criticism I can level against this otherwise magnificent book is that each contributor comes with their particular bias. Evans’ chapter introductions could have been longer to help unify the sometimes disjointed nature of the different commentaries. He places the general events into context and then relies on Toshiyuki Yokoi to sum it all up. Perhaps he thought that appropriate, considering that the book’s subtitle says this is their story. I thought that a sympathetic master of the subject like Evans could have helped to unify the whole a bit more. Nevertheless, this is a very worthwhile book for a wide audience and it holds a wealth of new materials.