War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay - Softcover

Gailey, Harry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0891416161 ISBN 13: 9780891416166

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1996

Synopsis

Historian Harry Gailey offers a fresh one-volume treatment of the vast Pacific theater in World War II, examining in detail the performance of Japanese and Allied naval, air, and land forces in every major military operation. The War in the Pacific begins with an examination of events leading up to World War II and compares the Japanese and American economies and societies, as well as the chief combatants' military doctrine, training, war plans, and equipment. The book then chronicles all significant actions - from the early Allied defeats in the Philippines, the East Indies, and New Guinea; through the gradual improvement of the Allied position in the Central and Southwest Pacific regions; to the final agonies of the Japanese people, whose leaders refused to admit defeat until the very end. Gailey gives detailed treatment to much that has been neglected or given only cursory mention in previous surveys. The reader thus gains an unparalleled overview of operations, as well as many fresh insights into the behind-the-scenes bickering between the Allies and the interservice squabbles that dogged MacArthur and Nimitz throughout the war.

About this title

About the Author:

Harry A. Gailey was a professor emeritus of military history at San Jose State University. He authored 20 books, including MacArthur Strikes Back, The War in the Pacific, and The Liberation of Guam. He died in 2004.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter 1
 
Roots of Conflict
 
THE ATTACK ON Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 was the climax of nearly a half century of rivalry between Japan and the United States in the Far East. This competition, not always clearly recognized by the U.S. government, nevertheless existed even in the most quiescent periods and was clearly understood by a succession of Japanese civilian and military leaders, particularly after World War I. This differential attitude toward domination of the vast land areas of Asia was one factor that predetermined the first years of the conflict during World War II. America’s isolationism, general ignorance of the situation in the Far East, arrogance, and—in the late 1930s—concern with developments in Europe all contributed to its woeful lack of preparation to meet the well-planned and executed simultaneous attacks against preselected targets by the Japanese military.
 
Japanese and American planners in the first part of the twentieth century viewed the Pacific region as an adjunct to the main area of concern. It was obvious to Japanese military planners that at some future date the United States might interfere militarily and endanger Japanese goals on the Asian mainland. In such an eventuality it would be necessary for the Japanese navy to intercept and destroy any American Pacific fleet units near Japanese home waters. American plans regarding the Pacific were never as clear. Most of the United States’s Far Eastern and Pacific military and diplomatic activities could be called mere posturing. The earliest example of this was the dispatch of the Great White Fleet on its around the world cruise in 1907, a blatant announcement that the United States had become a major power. Certainly one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s goals was to overawe Japan, the new Asian military power. Although not as obvious, much of the American government’s activity in the Pacific in the following years was confused, and the amorphous goals enunciated from time to time were not backed by a military presence that could assure their realization if opposed by another major power.
 
Much of the antipathy between the United States and Japan prior to Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was synthetic. There were no areas where Japanese interests in Asia and the Pacific, either economic or military, conflicted directly with those of the United States. Despite this, feelings of distrust and suspicion continued to grow after the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905. Japanese expansionists believed that the very presence of the United States in the Far East would prevent Japan from dominating China and Manchuria. To bolster this logical construct, increasingly vitriolic anti-American propaganda was spouted in government circles and in the media. The Washington disarmament conference, which assigned Japan only three-fifths of the capital ship tonnage of Britain and the United States, was seen as further evidence that Japan was being purposely kept weak so that the Western powers could thwart Japan’s aims in Asia and the Pacific.
 
The Japanese government’s defensive attitude prior to World War II had some substance in history, although Japanese leaders later overexaggerated American and European hostility. Japan, a divided feudal kingdom closed to the outside world for centuries, had—in a single generation after being forced to deal with foreigners—become the most technologically advanced state in Asia. The Meiji Revolution produced a centralized state and in 1889 established the framework of a Western style parliamentary regime with a two-house legislature and a ministry appointed by Emperor Mutsuhito. Copying the best examples available in Europe and the United States, the government helped entrepreneurs create a firm modern industrial base.
 
Three Italian-made looms imported in 1868 gave rise to lucrative textile manufacturing in Japan, which was for many years the nation’s basic industry. Over the next two decades chemical, iron, and machine-tool industries were brought to Japan. By 1895 there were more than six thousand factories in the islands, and more than twenty thousand by the eve of World War I. The organization of these businesses followed the German model: they were large holding companies (zaibatsu) controlled by important families, run by professional managers, and backed by massive government support. The imperial family was a major stockholder in the Bank of Japan, as well as many of the major industries.
 
By the early twentieth century, the foreign commerce of the newly industrial Japan was worth $250 million, a tenfold increase from the mid-1870s. Japanese exports were thus in competition for markets with those from Europe. Needing secure markets as well as raw materials, the Japanese turned to the Asian mainland as the logical place to secure both. In so doing, this newfound Japanese economic imperialism was not only resisted by the Chinese government, but collided with the more well established European powers, which had rendered the moribund Peking aristocracy almost helpless.
 
The Japanese were excellent imitators in diplomacy as well as in the more mundane areas of industrial and economic development. They recognized that past European economic goals had been assured by the threat of and blatant use of military force, so they decided to emulate the Europeans in this regard. One important aspect of the Meiji Revolution was the transformation of a feudalistic warrior society into one in which men of all classes were expected to serve the state. Importing the best instructors from continental Europe, the Japanese government created a national army whose training and tactics were copied from the Germans. In 1871, a general staff modeled upon the Prussian system was created. The new army purposely retained many of the rules of honor and devotion that had governed the samurai. Officer training was provided by the Department of Military Training. The officer corps was dominated by young aristocrats of the Choshu and Satsuma clans, and this dominance would continue until after World War I, when more sons of shopkeepers and small farmers rose to higher rank. The new army, highly disciplined and totally obedient to the purported wishes of the emperor, had grown to 180,000 regular and 600,000 reserve soldiers by 1904. This army, modern in weaponry and tactics, was unique in its adherence to the more archaic concepts that had motivated an earlier warrior society.
 
The Japanese government realized that to carry out expansionist plans, or even to defend the home islands, a navy would be necessary. It was an age when the ideas of the American naval theorist, RAdm. Alfred Thayer Mahan, had great favor with military planners throughout the world. The Japanese eagerly accepted the notion that to be a great power in an increasingly industrialized world, a state needed a powerful navy. As with the army, the Japanese turned to the most advanced European state for assistance. The British provided instructors for the new naval academy and the Japanese modified British training methods to meet their special needs. Furthermore, British shipyards at first provided naval vessels for Japan, then later helped the Japanese construct shipyards, gun factories, and the hundreds of supporting industries needed to build complex, modern fighting ships. After depending upon Britain for its merchant ships and warships in the early stages of armament, by 1900 Japan had modern facilities at Yokosuka capable of building and repairing large modern ships. Its gun factory could manufacture 12-inch naval rifles.
 
The 1890s witnessed naval construction at an unprecedented rate in all western states. The drive for an efficient blue-water U.S. Navy began at this time, and even Great Britain, the dominant naval power, began to enlarge and modernize its fleet. It would have been surprising if Japan had not responded in some fashion to this arms race. However, Japanese naval construction and purchases far outstripped, on a per capita basis, all other countries. By the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Adm. Marquis Heihachiro Togo would command a fleet of six modern battleships, eight armored cruisers, eighty torpedo boats, and nineteen destroyers.
 
Despite the size and modernity of its army and navy, there was considerable skepticism among European military men as to the battle effectiveness of Japan’s military. Nor were the Europeans completely convinced by Japan’s easy victory over the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese conflict of 1894. The locus of that conflict was Korea, where Japanese businesses, backed by the military, wanted a state independent of Chinese control. China sent troops to protect its suzerainty over the area, and the Chinese commander promised quick victory over the Japanese “dwarfs.” In less than six months, the Japanese had driven the Chinese out of Korea, invaded Manchuria, and captured Port Arthur. The war showed clearly that Japanese imperialism was a force to be reckoned with; no longer would European states have a totally free hand in Asia.
 
The Treaty of Shimonosiki, signed in April 1895, sent a signal to all states with interests in the Far East, particularly Russia. The victorious Japanese, demanding a large indemnity, forced the Chinese to cede Formosa. But the most crucial part of the agreement was the cession of the Liaotung Peninsula including the fine harbor of Port Arthur. This latter clause frightened and enraged the Russians, who believed Manchuria, Korea, and the Liaotung Peninsula to be within their sphere of influence. With the cooperation of the German and French governments, the Russians forced Japan to evacuate Port Arthur and the peninsula. This loss was made worse to Japanese officials by the blatant land grabs of those same powers in the next five years. The Germans secured the Shantung Peninsula on a long lease, and the French gained concessions near Hainan. But the Russian moves were the most damaging. They loaned the Chinese government money and in return were granted the right to extend the Siberian Railway across Manchuria to Vladivostok and to maintain infantry and cavalry units there, ostensibly to protect the line. The final insult was the long-term lease of Port Arthur granted to the Russians. It is difficult to know precisely when the Japanese began to view Europeans, and by extension Americans, as potential enemies. However, the reaction to their victory over China indicated to them that there were two sets of rules for imperial expansion in Asia—one for the Europeans and the other for the Japanese.
 
Japan viewed Korea and southern Manchuria as areas whose control was absolutely vital for Japanese economic expansion. This ran directly counter to Russian ambitions, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, Japanese diplomats attempted to reach an agreement with the Russians over spheres of influence. The Russian government, inefficient in St. Petersburg where it was far removed and ignorant of the issues, was nonresponsive. Diplomatic negotiations ceased in January 1904. By that time, the Japanese government had decided that war was the only way to gain dominance in Korea and Manchuria and ordered preemptive naval strikes at Chemulpo and Port Arthur. Without a declaration of war, Japanese naval units attacked on 8 February, and then imposed a blockade on Russia’s major Far Eastern bases. Hampered by a divided command structure, incompetent commanders, and a long supply line, the Russians never could seize the initiative from the Japanese. The Japanese First Army landed in Korea on 8 February, captured Seoul, drove the small Russian force back, and reached the Yalu River by 3 April. Soon afterward, Japan had three other armies in Korea and the Liaotung Peninsula. The Third Army settled in for the long bloody siege of Port Arthur, which capitulated on 5 January 1905. The First, Second, and Fourth Armies invaded Manchuria. The ensuing conflict was the first modern war to utilize most of the weapons that would later become so familiar in World War I. The Japanese offensives and Russian defensives employed huge numbers of men, the battles were fought out over lines many miles long, and the casualties were horrendous. As the Russian commander, Gen. Aleksey N. Kuropatkin, fell back slowly toward Mukden, he was continually outmaneuvered by his Japanese counterparts. He attempted to break the winter stalemate by launching a major offensive in early March 1905 on a forty-seven-mile front. It proved to be a disaster. Although the Japanese suffered heavily, their lines held and the ensuing counteroffensive resulted in 50 percent casualties to the 380,000-man Russian army. Mukden fell shortly after that, and the Russian government, bothered by social unrest in its large cities, began to search for ways to end the unprofitable war.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0891416161
• ISBN 13: 9780891416166
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 560