When Japan went mad!

 

(Sorry for the tiny font size but TypePad is playing up! 19/4: fixed!)

I am refreshing what passes for my, er, you know, my, um . . . memory and also learning a few more things about Japan and the decision to go to war with the United States.  There is no doubt in my mind that Hirohito was the luckiest war criminal of all time.  He it was who with enormous and lengthy deliberation led his country into an utterly useless and disastrous war that it was bound to lose and who not only survived but continued his reign as emperor!  I have remarked before on the similarities to the psychotic lunacy that gripped Wilhemine Germany in the early years of the 20th century but there was one huge difference.  Virtually no-one in Germany questioned whether or not war was the right policy and, equally, hardly anyone doubted that Germany would win.  But in Japan, the top High Command was riddled with doubters.  IN 1940, Yamamoto, the naval strategist (and near genius - only 'near' because he lost!), said this:

In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory.  But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success. (*)

His views were widely shared throughout Japanese government circles both military and civilian, and yet and yet, they still went to war.

To be fair, it was, to use the words of the dear old 'Duke of Boot' describing his own victory at Waterloo, "A fine run thing, the finest thing you ever saw" using the word 'fine', of course, in the old sense of 'close'.  Pearl Harbour was an unmitigated disaster for the Japanese.  There were only two real objectives in that surprise attack - the aircraft carriers and the dock installations.  The former had been shifted out by orders from Washington where the likelihood of war was well known, if not the details; and the latter were largely missed by the attacking aircrews who wasted their time sinking old and virtually useless battleships.

Six months later, after the inconclusive skirmish in the Coral Sea, the one truly crucial and historic battle was fought at Midway.  The irony drips from the telling when I remind you that Midway is, in the scale of the Pacific Ocean, the tiniest of insignificant specks consisting, as it does, of two microscopic coral shoals barely large enough to get a runway on one of them.  Midway was Yamamoto's next strategic aim.  In attacking them he was certain the Americans would have to commit the carriers he had missed before and in doing so he would trap them and destroy them.  Having cleared the Pacific of American carriers and with Midway occupied, the approaches to Hawaiian Islands were wide open.  They would be easily taken and then the next target was Panama.  This would pose an enormous threat to the southern States of America and in order to defend themselves they would be forced to withdraw support from Britain in its fight against Germany.

So everything, and I do mean absolutely everything, depended on the battle of Midway.  That the Americans won was due in large part to colossal luck and to heroism of the very highest order.  I stress that because the courage required by the aircrews of the attacking American planes was of the cold and calculated variety.  They knew, even before they reached their target, that they simply did not have enough fuel to get back to safety.  And the crews of the later torpedo formations also knew that their chances of surviving the attack as they lumbered slowly and at low level towards the massed anti-aircraft fire from the Japanese fleet, to say nothing of the Zero fighters screaming in at them from above, was virtually nil.  As one writer(*) put it, the Japanese were not the first to invent the kamikaze attack! 

So the Japanese lost but at this point, like their German counterparts who saw the (modified) von Schlieffen plan fail in 1914, the Emperor and his High C0mmand refused to face the inevitable and chose to waste millions of lives rather than lose face.

(*) Japan's Imperial Conspiracy: How Emperor Hirohito led Japan into war against the West by David Bergamini

Comments

[dearieme]

A large part of the Japanese ruling class was scared of assassination if it stepped out of line. It had become a bonkers gangster society at the top. Very rum.

[TDK]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I doubt that many understood that battleships were "old and virtually useless" in 1941. That was proved by subsequent events. The Japanese high command still thought in terms of Mahan's "decisive battle" doctrine. They expected a final battleship duel and events of the previous months such as the sinking of the Hood and the Bismark tended to reinforce that. [It's clear now that the decisive event in the latter was the carrier, but that's not how the British Navy portrayed it at the time].

Even the success of the British at Taranto was not sufficient to change America thinking at Pearl.

[David Duff]

In essence you're right, DM, although I think the assassination teams and the gung-ho warriors were mainly middle-ranking army officers - the types who nearly always make trouble where-ever they are! There were ardent militarists at the top but it is surprising (to me, at any rate) how many of the top brass and the governing circles were extremely fearful and doubtful concerning the war and its outcome. Hirohito, pulling strings from behind his screen, was a prime-mover in overcoming their doubts.

Interesting point, TDK, because most navies everywhere were still wedded to the idea of the big-gunned battleship being the queen on the naval chessboard. Yamamoto came round to the notion that the aircraft carrier had taken its place but could never quite shake off his love of the 'Big Battleship', hence, his flagship, the Yamato with 9x 18" guns which could hurl a shell 25 miles! That was what he thought would eventually sink the Americna navy.

Also, I read that Taranto did have some effect at the tactical level. Orders were issued from Washington in late Nov/early Dec '41 to place small and older ships on the outside of the big battleships in Pearl Harbour to protect against torpedo attack. The problem was that whilst many in the American command knew that an attack on Pearl Harbour was a *possibility*, no-one thought it was other than totally theoretical.

[Whyaxye]

"There is no doubt in my mind that Hirohito was the luckiest war criminal of all time. He it was who with enormous and lengthy deliberation led his country into an utterly useless and disastrous war that it was bound to lose and who not only survived but continued his reign as emperor!"

Never fear, he got his comeuppance! At his funeral, we only sent Prince Phillip, who pointedly declined to bow at his war-mongering remains, and merely sent him on his way with a curt nod.

Let tyrants take note!

[JK]

"The problem was that whilst many in the American command knew that an attack on Pearl Harbour was a *possibility*, no-one thought it was other than totally theoretical.

I am refreshing what passes for my, er, you know, my, um . . . memory…"

Hmmm. Think I posted this somewhere some time ago. Now where was that...

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2011/12/preventing-pearl-harbor.html

[Hank]

David

On Dec 7 the Japanese launched two waves against pearl harblor.

The third wave was scheduled for the shore facilities. The Fleet commander called it off. He did not belive the reports about how much damage had been done, especially the destruction of both the Army and Navy aviation, and he did not know where the Carriers were. He canceled the third wave and skedaddled befor the Counter attack h was sure would at least damage a major part of the Japanese fleet.

Both the American and Japanese Navies believed in Mahan's doctrine of naval war.

In the post Pearl Harbor period those who had not already done so came to realize that just as the Dreadnaughts replaced the 72 gun Ship of the Line in Mahan's doctrine the Aircraft Carrier was replacing the Battleship. The doctrine in not technology dependent. Actually it was semi rote application of the doctrine that sent Halsey north during the Battle of the Philippine Sea leaving the landing force exposed to a Japanese attack.

[Andra]

David, Australians, especially old Australians and/or those living in Far North Queensland, think the Coral Sea "skirmish" was rather more important than your flippant and dismissive remark.

[David Duff]

'W', a curt nod from Prince Phillip - a fate worse than death!

JK, yes, I remember your link from before but it doesn't alther the fact that the American High Command did not take the threat of an attack on Pearl Harbour seriously - a possibility, yes; a probability, no. Not even all of the Japanese were convinced of its efficacy, either.

Hank, I'm not sure that a third wave was actually planned for. There were a total of 353 planes in the attack force. The first wave was composed of 183 and the second wave was 134 strong. The air commander of the attack force was Mitsuo Fuchida who led in the first wave and then waited to see in the second. He reported back to the Fleet Commander, Nagumo, that a third attack was required. However, in a conference on board the flagship carrier all concerned agreed that whilst a third attack was desirable the fact that the main target (the US carriers) were absent the need for it was not pressing when set against the risk to the Japanese fleet itself. Mitsuo actually pressed for a third attack not for the purpose of destroying yet more but simply as a bait to induce the American carriers to come back and attempt to defend the Islands.

Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya

Andra, not like you to be silly! No one, least of all me, is denigrating in anyway the Battle of the Coral Sea. In strategic terms it was secondary to Pearl Harbour and Midway. The battle itself was meandering and inconclusive with both sides stumbling around like two fighters in a dark room.