Appendices - Hirohito's War

   
A. Submarines: America Draws Tight the Noose
December 1941 – August 1945

[Charts: A.1]
Planned Submarine Attack on the Panama Canal,  The Failure of Japanese Submarine Design,  Wasteful Dissipation of Japanese Submarine Force,  Japanese Submarine Cargo Missions to Europe,  Japanese Submarines’ Disappointing ‘Kill’ Performance,  Japan’s ‘Long Lance’ Jockeys,  Newport Torpedo Station,  Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood,  US Submarine Achievements in the Pacific War,  The Failure of Japanese Counter-Submarine Strategy,  The Missed Opportunity 
[Photos]
 
B. Oil, Raw Materials and Logistics: 'Just Start Swinging'
December 1941 to August 1945

[Charts: B.1, B.2 ]
Logistics of Oil in the Asia Pacific War,  America’s T-2 Tanker,  Japan’s Oil Tanker Fleet,  Raw Materials Issues of the US Economy,  Liberty Ships ‘to go’,  Attack Cargo Ships, LSTs and Higgins Boats,  Japan’s Cargo Ship Problems,  Japan’s Air Force Logistics,  US Supply Logistics in the Asia Pacific Region,  Operation Olympic and Japan’s Logistical Denouement 
[Photos]
 
C. Economics of the Pacific War: The 'New Deal' Mobilized
[Charts: C.1, C.2, C.3, C.4, C.5, C.6, C.7, C.8, C.9, C.10, C.11, C.12, C.13, C.14, C.15 ]
Management of the US Wartime Economy,  Guns and Butter,  Inflation and ‘General Max’,  Production Line and Management Systems,  Productivity, Entrepreneurs, Management, Labor, Blacks and Women,  Managing the Scientists,  Expansion of America’s Productive Capacity,  US Aircraft Production,  Tanks, Artillery, Trucks, Ordnance and the Problem of Obsolescence,  Electronics, Radio, and Radar,  Was the Depression a Boon or Hindrance to US War Mobilization?,  Japan’s Wartime Economy,  Conclusion 
[Photos]
 
D. ‘Victory Disease’: The Japanese Empire: From Co-Prosperity to Tyranny
[Charts: D.1, D.2 ]
The Four Phases of Japan’s Imperial Expansion,  The Economics and Philosophy of Japan’s Co-Prosperity Sphere,  Old Empire, Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria,  The Structures of Japan’s New Empire,  Slave Labor in Japan and in the Field,  Cruelty and Suppression,  Prisoners of War,  The Psychology of Brutality,  Unit 731 and the Secrets of Medical Experimentation,  Conclusion, 
[Photos]
 
E. Typhoons and Divine Winds: Kamikaze
[October 1944 to August 1945]

[Charts: E.1 ]
Introduction,  Halsey: After Leyte Gulf,  Kamikaze: Individual Beginnings,  The Formal Adoption of a Kamikaze as a Strategy,  Recruitment, Motivation and Training,  Japanese Government Propaganda,  Developments in Kamikaze Technology and the US Response,  Naval Kamikaze and Yamato’s Suicide Mission,  US Defense Tactics,  Fight to the Death and Operation KETSU (Decisive),  Admiral Ugaki, The Last Kamikaze,  The Cost and Effectiveness of the Kamikaze Campaign,  Kamikaze: A Unique Japanese Phenomenon? 
[Photos]
 
F. American Intelligence in the Pacific War
ULTRA
[Photos]
 
G. Could Japan Have Won the Pacific War?
Introduction ,  Distance, Logistics and Extension of Power ,  Mobilization, Logistics, Isolationism and the Will to Fight ,  Weapons that could have won Japan the War ,  Strategies for Japanese Victory ,  Conclusion  
 
H. Month by Month Timeline of the Pacific War
[December 1941 - August 1945]
 
I. The 'Pacific War': Sundry Tables and Lists
 
J. Pacific War Photographs
 
K. The Battle of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
[Photos]
 
L. The Battles of Attu and Kiska
Attu and Kiska
[Photos]
 
M. Aircraft Carriers in the Pacific War
Summary,  Comparison of Pacific War Aircraft Carriers,  Essex Class Carriers,  US Light Carriers,  Japanese fleet carriers 
[Photos]
 
N. The Role of Oil in the Pacific War
[Charts: N.1, N.2, N.3, N.4, N.5]
Oil’s Early History,  Development of the Oil Industry in the United States,  Royal Dutch Shell,  The Growth of Oil Fired Engines in the Marine Industry,  The Rise of the Automobile,  Tanks and Trucks Transform Battlefield Mobility,  Aviation Gasoline,  Interwar Development of the Aeronautical Industry,  Global Oil Output,  Oil and the Decision for War,  Conclusion  
[Photos]
 
O. Japanese - Soviet Conflict in Siberia, Mongolia and Manchuria
[April 1945–5 September 1945]

[Maps: 39.1, 39.2, 39.3, 39.4, 39.5, 39.6]
Introduction,  Russo-Japanese Relations from the Late Nineteenth Century,  The Trans-Siberian Railway Transforms the Geopolitics of Northeast Asia,  The Battle of Lake Khasan and Amur River Clashes,  The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact,  The Yalta Conference,  Japanese Preparations for the Defense of Manchuria,  Deployment of Soviet Forces,  Soviet Invasion of Northwest Manchuria from Mongolia,  Invasion of Northeast Manchuria from Far Eastern Siberia,  The Battle of Mutanchiang,  The Battle of Sakhalin Island,  The Occupation of the Kuril Islands  The Significance of the Soviet Invasions 

APPENDIX A: SUBMARINES - THE UNDERSEA WAR

The Failure of Japanese Submarine Design: The fate of the three built Sentoku Type (I-401, I-402, I-403), the two Type AM (I-13 and I-14) and the three Sentaka Type (I-201, I-202, I-203) submarines, none of which ever saw action, is symptomatic of the failure of the Japanese submarine strategy in World War II. Japan produced technologically advanced submarines without ever designing a strategy to use them to maximum effect; their submarine strength was constantly dissipated in the pursuit of tasks for which they were not designed.


The I-400 and I-201 classes were in some respects the most advanced submarines built up until that date. The I-400, with its ability to cruise one and half times around the world and launch air strikes anywhere, anticipated the era of ballistic missile submarines first trialed by the Soviet Union in 1955 followed by the development of the first underwater-fired launchers with the USS Washington Class nuclear submarines in the early 1960s. As Dr. Hans Van Tilburg of the National Marine Sanctuaries in the Pacific Islands has observed of the similarly advanced carrier-submarine, I-14, which had also been designated for the Panama Canal mission, “the I-14 predates the cruise missile concept.”6


Meanwhile the I-201 Type anticipated the development of submarines that were genuine underwater craft rather than the typical Japanese and American submarines that were essentially surface vessels that could submerge. With a submerged top speed of 19 knots compared to 15.7 knots on the surface, the I-201 was slower only than the German Walter Type XVII. Tilburg noted that, ‘If you look at a sub like the I-201, it was nothing like anything in World War II… It had a streamlined body and conning tower and retractable guns. It looks more like a Cold War sub.’7


German technology had underpinned the rapid development of Japan’s submarines after World War I. Progress had been significantly aided by the acquisition through war reparations of seven German U-139 Type U-boats, which had almost succeeded in throttling Great Britain’s commercial lifeline. From 1931 Japanese technical abilities advanced to the point that they were able to start designing and building their own marine diesel units which previously they had had to import. Not included in the naval limitations treaties in Washington and then London in 1922 and 1930, the submarine was a maritime weapon that Japan could develop to the maximum. By the time that they entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan had more varieties of submarine than any other nation; by the end of the war the Japanese fleet included not only aircraft carrier submarines but also miniature submarine carriers, cargo submarines, tankers, scouters, minelayers, midget (kohyoteki) and suicide submarines (Kaiten and Kairyu). Of 56 submarines displacing more than 3,000 tons in World War II, 52 of them were Japanese.


In addition to the profusion of submarines developed, Japan also produced the most destructive and famous torpedo of the war - the Long Lance Type 93. With the potency of their 63 submarines at the outset of the Pacific War, double the number available to the United States, it could have been expected that Japanese submarines would be a major contributor to Japan’s war effort. In the event, it proved to be the most disappointing service of their armed forces. After the war when Admiral Ozawa was interrogated about the poor performance of the Japanese submarine force, he answered that it was because “they did not develop their electrical equipment such as radar, sonic devices, and other equipment to the extent they should have. I think that is the basic reason for our poor showing.”8 Post war analysis was to show that poor electrical equipment was but one component in the failure of Japanese submarine operations.

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