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

Japanese Submarines Disappointing ‘Kill’ Performance: Perhaps most surprising in the strategic direction of Japan’s submarine force, given the long distances over which the US needed to supply its forces as well as the scale of the matériel required, was that no concerted attempts were made to develop a strategy for the interdiction of the American supply chain. As Commander Fujimori’s plan to attack the Panama Canal indicated, there were officers within the Imperial Naval General Staff who at least understood the possibilities of disrupting US logistics. But, the omission of a consistent plan to disrupt US supply lines was astonishing.

During the course of the war, Japan’s submarine fleet recorded just 184 merchantmen sunk with a total tonnage of 0.9m tons. By comparison German U-boats sank 2,840 ships with an aggregate tonnage of 14.3m tons. The Americans, who started the war with a submarine fleet significantly inferior to that of Japan, sank 1,079 ships with a total tonnage of 4.65m tons while the British sank 493 ships with a total tonnage of 1.52m tons. In hindsight it seems remarkable that the Japanese submarine fleet did not prey on the vast commercial traffic as it approached Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia in the Pacific or indeed India where convoys brought supplies to sustain not only the British but also the Chinese armies. (See Appendix B: Oil, Raw Materials and Logistics.) A concerted effort to disrupt these supply lines in 1942 and 1943 would surely have reaped considerable dividends in the early stages of the ground battles in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

Having started the war with a considerable force of 63 submarines to which were added 111 completed during the course of the Pacific War, the Japanese Navy was not short of resources, at least not in the early stages of the conflict before losses and shortage of diesel began to take their toll on operational effectiveness. Out of a total of 128 total Japanese submarine losses, 29 were sunk in 1943 and 58 in 1944.

In part, the failure of Japanese submarines was because the Imperial Japanese Navy failed to develop a merchantman-killer that could be built cheaply and quickly on a mass-produced scale, as Germany achieved with the VII Type U-boat and America managed with the Gato Class. The most produced Japanese type was the Kaichu, which was categorized as a 2^nd Class submarine; just 20 units were produced. Japan also produced 20 units of the B-1 Type, which was a 1^st Class submarine; but at 356ft long and carrying a single plane it was far from being a low cost and fleet footed merchantman-killer. By comparison the United States built 77 Gato Type submarines and 128 of its updated successor, the Balao Type. Germany’s Kriegsmarine produced 703 VII Type U-boats which at just 220ft in length and 20ft in beam was by far the most successful merchantman-killer of World War II. As Churchill commented, “the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”¹⁸ In the Battle of the Atlantic, the U-Boat threatened the United States and Britain with defeat; Japanese submarines never remotely posed a similar threat in the Pacific. It can only be speculated on how different the outcome of the war might have been if the Imperial Japanese Navy had adopted a submarine strategy similar to that of Germany.

As late as mid-1943 Japan was laying submarine hulls that were highly advanced, technologically complex designs. I-400, I-14 and I-201 took over a year to build and test. Apart from I-13, which was sunk on its way to Truk, none of nine submarines from this group ever saw action. It was an effort that wastefully dissipated Japan’s limited industrial capacity. At the end of 1944, ever hopeful that they could “pull a rabbit out of the hat” with a new weapon that would win them the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy, virtually denuded of surface ships, pinned its hopes on yet another new submarine weapon development at the end of 1944.

Appendices - Hirohito's War

APPENDIX A: SUBMARINES - THE UNDERSEA WAR

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