I've been reading a little bit about Japans navy pre-WWII and during WWII. It really seems to me that they did not have a concise naval plan. What exactly was the IJN attempting to do? They seemed to be hoping and building for a Jutland style engagement which never happened. On the other hand they seemed to be looking forward with their construction of Aircraft carriers. They attack on Pearl Harbor dashed any idea of a Jutland style engagement. The Queen of the seas lost her crown to the Aircraft carrier. Maybe some one who's read more about it can give me a clearer picture. Thanks, Bill
The Kido Butai (the carrier strike force) was seen as semi-expendable. It was sort of like a cruiser or frigate task force of earlier days. Its role initially was to scout for the enemy and then strike causing some casualties before the main battle fleet engaged the enemy. Japan's overall tactical view of naval warfare was very much Mahanian. They sought a single decisive battle Jutland or, Tsu Shima, or Trafalgar-style. Knowing that they would be inferior in numbers to a US fleet they intended to make this up through the use of heavily armed cruisers and torpedo attacks as they had as Tsu Shima. The carrier allowed them to carry this further forward. After Midway, the Japanese shifted views and recognized the carrier as central to the war effort. They made a crash program to build new carriers and a new naval air force. But, their efforts paled in comparison to what the US produced. The other thing the Japanese expected to happen was that the US would attack their fortified islands in their outer defense ring. The expectation was that this would pin their fleet and allow time for the battle fleet to respond and enter into a decisive battle. Mankin atoll was the first shock to the Japanese in this arena. They were faced with the prospect that the US could easily land and raid / destroy one or more of their outposts. This led to a crash program to really fortify their island holdings. The second was the size, scope, and ability of the US to mount amphibious operations. The Japanese saw these as occuring on a scale of what they mounted at Wake or in the Philippines. They literally had not conceptualized the idea that hundreds of ships and aircraft would pound an island for days and then tens of thousands of troops would storm ashore in sophisticated landing craft and vehicles covered by naval gunfire so devastating that little could survive in the open.
I'm not sure who it was that pointed it out (on another board I beleive) but the PH attack actually prevented the US from even attempting what the Japanese strategy called for them to do. IE a rush across the Pacific with the battle fleet to save the Philippines. Shattered Sword has some good info on this as does: Naval Technical Board
Japan had no rational strategy to successfully conclude the Pacific war; The Japanese Army was preoccupied with the "China Incident" and didn't really get involved in the war against the US until the end of 1942 when it appeared that a disaster was building in the Pacific. The Japanese Navy had no clue as to how to defeat the USN and confused tactics with strategy to the point that it felt that winning one great battle would resolve the war in Japan's favor. Japanese assessments of the political and military realities were consistently in error and hopelessly optimistic, and there was no agreement among the Japanese leadership as to war aims and objectives. The vague hope was that the IJN could make the war so costly that the US and Britain would lose the will to fight. Of course, the Pearl Harbor attack, which, from the standpoint of strategy, was completely unnecessary, scuttled any chance that the US would lose the will to fight. The IJN did not pioneer carrier raids; the Royal Navy did. The IJN did lead the way, in 1942, in massing carrier attacks so that naval and air bases could be temporarily rendered unusable, but it never had the capability to do more than make hit and run attacks. The Japanese leadership in 1941 thought that it would simply start a little war that would last maybe 6-12 months and then fizzle out when it became too bloody for the US to continue, leaving Japan in control of most of Southeast Asia. It had no idea that the US not only had a plan for the total defeat of Japan, but after Pearl Harbor, was grimly determined to completely destroy Japanese power forever. Japan imagined herself a world power, but that was far from being the case, as subsequent events proved. She had no idea what total war involved, nor the depth of the US's determination.
Well, to me it seems Japan should have stayed in China and the like theaters. Her she could have reigned supreme. Honestly I think the Japanese were not a 'great' power along the likes of the US, GB, Germany, or the SU. They could not sustain a continued war effort. Yours, Bill
If they had stayed "in China" as you put it they were still in deep trouble. The oil embargo would have destroyed both their military and industrial capacity by the mid 40's at the latest.
I agree that Japan was not a "world power" though she certainly aspired to be one. I would question whether she could have even subdued China. The IJA fought for 13 years in China, yet was never able to deliver a decisive victory. It created the fiction that only the material assistance of the western powers allowed China to continue resisting, yet the aid sent to China by the US, Soviet Union, Germany, and Britain was more symbolic than tangible. The economic benefits Japan derived from it's colonies in China were far outweighed by the ongoing costs of the war. The Greater East-Asian Co-prosperity Sphere impoverished the countries unfortunate enough to fall under it's influence, yet did little to increase Japan's economic, military, or political power. Frankly, it's difficult to imagine an empire so badly mismanaged as that of Japan. The political leadership of Japan must have stayed up nights thinking of novel ways to screw up. To this day, my wife, who is Chinese and whose parents and older siblings experienced firsthand the Japanese occupation of Borneo during WW II, considers the Japanese and their culture to be childish and immature.
I though Japan had done so almost three months prior to the British, though the British attacks where more successfull.
It sort of depends on what you mean by pioneer. Certainly a number of countries were working on them. They were players in a number of wargames the US held well before Pearl Harbor. The British raid on Taraunto did preceed Pearl by a number of months so they led the way as far as war time usage.
Ah, but I was referring to Japans Sept. 1914 Seaplane carrier attack on German positions during the Siege of Tsingtao launched from the Wakamiya . It also damaged a German mine-layer in the port. The British followed on Christmas Day 1914 with the Cuxhaven Raid launched from the HMS Engadine, Riviera, and Empress. Both demonstrated the feasibility of carrier launched air raids
Well according to timeline the Americans or French would be the ones to have develop carrier borne strikes or tactics in the first place. The very first aircraft carrier was the George Washington Parker Custis Class Balloon Carrier owned by the US military in 1861. The first naval vessel to be equipped with a (temporary) flight deck was the US light cruiser Birmingham, from which Eugene Ely took off in a 50 hp Curtiss pusher biplane at 3.16 pm on November 14, 1910. He landed at Willoughby Spit, near Norfolk, VA. The first landing on the deck of a ship was by Ely on January 18, 1911, when he touched down on a 120-ft long platform erected on the armoured cruiser Pennsylvania. The first seaplane carrier in history was the French La Foudre (1911). It had a short deck from which seaplanes took off and were retrieved from the sea by a crane. Regards Kruska
Lets not forget the IJN's lack of a decent ASW plan. Due to this, the US submarines were able to patrol at times within sight of the Japanese mainland. Had it not been for a loudmouthed Congressman, the IJN's depth charges would have remained inadeqate.
