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

OIL, RAW MATERIALS, AND LOGISTICS: ‘JUST START SWINGING’

America’s T-2 Tanker: Whereas the US was fortunate in Japan’s strategic oversight with regard to oil, American war planners were quick to understand the importance of oil supply if they were to sustain their Pacific fleet in its advance toward Japan. With the importance of oil already in the forefront of their strategic thinking, in the late 1930s the US Maritime Commission (MarCom) formalized a design known as T-2 that could be used as America’s medium sized ‘National Defense Tanker’. The design was based on two ships, SS Mobilfuel and SS Mobilube, built in 1938-9 by Bethlehem Steel for Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, (the merged name of Standard Oil and Vacuum Oil that changed its name to Mobil in the mid-1960s and is now known as ExxonMobil).

MarCom approved the design that differed from previous Mobil ships by incorporating more powerful steam turbine engines to produce a top speed of 16 knots. As the T-2s were planned as ships that could be ‘militarized’ to serve as fleet auxiliaries in the event of war, Marcom underwrote any additional costs of the T-2s naval features over and above normal commercial specifications. 501ft long with a beam of 68ft, T-2s had a dead weight of 15,850 tons. Built by Bethlehem-Sparrows Shipyard in Maryland, the first six T-2s were taken over by the US Navy after Pearl Harbor and were named as the Kennebec Class.

An upgrade to the T-2 design, the T-2A, was made prior to the order of five tankers in 1940 from Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock of Chester. 25ft was added to the length and deadweight was increased by 450 tons. The Navy at the outbreak of the war requisitioned the five tankers in this Mattaponi Class.

The next iteration of the T-2, the T2-SE-AI, (523ft, 68ft beam, 16,613 tons deadweight) became the standard model of the class with 444 built out of a total of 525 tankers. Its nine sets of tanks could carry 141,200 barrels of oil product. The T2-SE-AI was the ship that kept the American advance moving during the Pacific War. As the war with Japan began, MarCom placed huge orders with Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Co. of Mobile (97), the Kaiser Company’s shipyard in Portland Oregon (136), the Marinship Corp. of Sausalito (across the bay from San Francisco) (27), and Sun Shipbuilding (184). Over the cause of the war production time from the laying down of a keel to fitting out and launch was reduced from 70 days to a record 33 for the SS Huntington Hills built by Marinship.

Appendices - Hirohito's War

OIL, RAW MATERIALS, AND LOGISTICS: ‘JUST START SWINGING’

Next Section >