History Forum / War History / World War II / September 2008

I recommend getting the book, _Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the
Battle of Midway_, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully.
http://www.shatteredswordbook.com/index.htm

It answers those questions in very great depth.

Excerpt:

At a deeper level, though, it is important to clarify that the defeat at
Midway was not just the product of flawed decisions by a handful of men
at the top.  Likewise, Admiral Nagumo's command decisions on the day of
the battle, which have widely been held up as having been the reason for
Japan's defeat, were not solely to blame, either.  Instead, we will show
that Yamamoto, Nagumo, and indeed all the Japanese forces involved,
suffered from deep-seated flaws that were a product of the Imperial
Navy's strategic outlooks, doctrinal tenets, and institutional
cultures.  This is not to say that individual mistakes were not made,
but these mistakes must be understood within the proper context.  In
fact, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, the seeds of Japan's defeat at
Midway were not planted in the six months of easy Japanese victories
that led up to the battle, but had instead been sown in the very
earliest days of the Imperial Navy's development.

One of the best (English) accounts of the IJN's situation would be
H.P. Willmott's _Barrier and the Javelin_ (and _Empires in the
Balance_ about the very start of the War). He covers the IJN's
situation before Midway, which was basically, that all of their plans
had gone swimmingly, but they had no real ideas what to do next: they
couldn't switch to the defensive because that would ensure their loss,
but there were no more good targets for an offensive strike:
everything was too far away and required far too many troops to
capture. It is a really good book and I heartily recommend it.

One of the major problems was that the entire logic of the war didn't
make sense: Japan had defeated the Chinese military almost every time
they encountered it, but they were unable to bring the war to a
satisfactory conclusion. Having failed to defeat the weakest Pacific
power, they decided that an operation that involved taking on the two
strongest naval powers in the world would give them the resources
necessary to defeat China.

Well, then why were they so muddled? Because they got confused on
Clausewitz. The Japanese military had taken control of their
government (and it was firebrand extremist middle-ranking officers at
that) and instead of making war for political ends they did politics
in support of war- the war on China became the central driving
priority of all Japanese decision-making in this period.

Chris Manteuffel

For the Indian Ocean it was because Kaga ran aground and
needed repairs.

For the Coral Sea it was called using the appropriate amount
of force based on the expected opposition.

If 8 operational IJN carriers had turned up in the Nagumo force
at Midway despite the USN assuming 4 or 5 would that qualify
as a half USN response?

The carrier left behind was rebuilding its air group, IJN doctrine at
the time was the air group and carrier were the one unit.

Again it was sending what was predicted to be the appropriate
force.  Of course if it was supposed to be a decisive battle then
yes, it does seem strange to leave Zuikaku behind.

Nagumo had at most a few minutes to decide whether a sighting
report of USN surface ships justified sending a strike that would
be understrength as some of the torpedo bombers had been changed
to carry bombs.  If he had committed to that strike that would have
enabled the IJN to probably sink more than one USN carrier.  After
the few minutes had passed the morning battle outcome was out of
Nagumo's hands.

Censuring Yamamoto had to be done within the IJN only, the
public had been told he was a genius and the IJA could not be
allowed to know he had been censured.

In any case from the IJN point of view it was clear the USN had
discovered the plan and that, along with luck, was the reason for
the defeat.

Correct, it takes a while for nations at war to admit defeat.

It looks like removing the men from Japan had a higher priority
than assigning the men to duties similar to those they had done
on the carriers.  Really bad idea.

It was sooner than that, given the IJN had to admit why it could
not continue with offensive operations, like say attacking Fiji.

Post Midway?  Yes.

Pre Midway?  No on a strategic and tactical level.  Once you
assume there is a way to force a peace conference that is, and
since Japan went to war knowing it could not invade the US the
goal was a peace conference.

The overall strategy was clear enough, take the outer perimeter
and then force the USN to fight as soon as possible while the
Japanese held a clear superiority in naval air power.  The force
to fight was Yamamoto's change over the older strategy of
defeating attacks on the perimeter.  By the way this is the logical
explanation of a collection of ideas that were not always expressed
as clearly or as fully and in come cases did assume things like Japan
would keep expanding "forever".

So the Indian Ocean was to ensure Burma would be occupied,
and sink British shipping.
Coral Sea was an attempt to secure Port Moresby, part of the
outer perimeter.
The Aleutians were part of the outer perimeter.
Midway was trying to force the USN to fight.

The Midway plan as bad, assuming surprise would be achieved
and the USN had to be lured into combat.  This meant on day 1
the IJN carriers found themselves tied to an overall plan that had
real problems when the USN was already present.  Just think if
day one had been devoted to ensuring no USN ships were present
in the area followed by an afternoon strike on Midway if the area
was clear.

By mid 1942 the IJN had decided they really were better man
for man than the USN, so 4 carriers at Midway was considered
enough, and indeed more may have meant the USN declining the
battle, not what the Japanese wanted.

The USN had learnt from the pre war exercised the carrier force
that saw the enemy first usually won.  And the long range patrol
aircraft at Midway gave the USN a very good chance it would
sight first, even before the  intelligence from code breaking was
taken into account.

The objective was also bad, the Japanese simply lacked the
strength to invade Oahu, which was the only way to really
threaten the US in the area.  Given how sensitive the USN
had been to operations north of Australia and the way taking
those areas would cause problems for the allied communication
lines it seems more obvious to continue operations to isolate
Australia.  Of course supplying areas even further beyond
the actual areas captured in 1942 was problematic but at least
the Japanese stood a chance of capturing the real estate and
forcing the USN to fight.

By the way if the IJN had learned about the Guadalcanal
invasion and ambushed the USN carriers on day 1, would the
same sort of criticisms be made against the USN?  Before the
first carrier battle off Guadalcanal US intelligence was saying
there were no IJN carriers in the area.

It was discovered in June 1942 there was not enough shipping to
exploit as well as defend the new empire.

Say defensive to a military and watch them come up with reasons to
avoid the topic.  The IJN was the most extreme of the navies.

Their lack of resources also meant it could have a good anti submarine
force and associated merchant shipbuilding industry or a battle fleet that
was big enough to take on the USN for a few (hopefully decisive) years
anyway, not both.

You know the syndrome, because you need something to happen you
assume it will happen, in Japan's case that the allies would concentrate
on fleet actions, and largely ignore commerce warfare.  Alternatively
your offensive operations stop most commerce warfare, note the
number of USN submarines deployed to defend the Aleutians and
Midway.

This applies to plenty of organisations.  Could the defence of Malaya
and the Philippines have been much worse?

The Japanese were really in a no win situation, sooner or later their
luck would run out or alternatively the USN would simply turn up
with overwhelming force.

One of the reasons Yamamoto was rushing at Midway was trying
to make up for the 6 or so months when the IJN had to largely
ignore the USN while South East Asia was captured.  He knew
the IJN had to keep winning and winning early to have any chance
to convince America to come to a peace table.

Knowing they would be outnumbered by their opponents the
Japanese went to the extremes when it came to attacking doctrine,
after all standing on the defence was near guaranteed to result in a
Japanese loss.

On a strategic level the failure of the IJN and IJA to work together
well was a major handicap.  On the tactical level the lessons of the
wars with Russia and China were taken to indicate the power of
attack and the low casualty rates in China were used to frame
assumptions of casualties versus the rest of the world.  And for
the first 6 months of the Pacific war those assumptions appeared
to be reasonably correct.  The next tactical assumption was the
average Japanese military man was superior to any opponent, this
was mostly true again for the first 6 months of the Pacific war, look
at the overall results of the battles.

When it became clear the casualty rates and fighting power
assumptions were wrong then the institutional stupidity really
started, as miracle and one decisive battle became a sort of
mantra.  It is alright to lose all these battles as long as we win
the final one sort of ideas.

We need to win the war, therefore something will turn up to
make it happen.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.