Appendices - Hirohito's War

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

[Charts: A.1]
Planned Submarine Attack on the Panama CanalThe Failure of Japanese Submarine DesignWasteful Dissipation of Japanese Submarine ForceJapanese Submarine Cargo Missions to EuropeJapanese Submarines’ Disappointing ‘Kill’ PerformanceJapan’s ‘Long Lance’ JockeysNewport Torpedo StationRear Admiral Charles LockwoodUS Submarine Achievements in the Pacific WarThe Failure of Japanese Counter-Submarine StrategyThe 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 WarAmerica’s T-2 TankerJapan’s Oil Tanker FleetRaw Materials Issues of the US EconomyLiberty Ships ‘to go’Attack Cargo Ships, LSTs and Higgins BoatsJapan’s Cargo Ship ProblemsJapan’s Air Force LogisticsUS Supply Logistics in the Asia Pacific RegionOperation 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 EconomyGuns and ButterInflation and ‘General Max’Production Line and Management SystemsProductivity, Entrepreneurs, Management, Labor, Blacks and WomenManaging the ScientistsExpansion of America’s Productive CapacityUS Aircraft ProductionTanks, Artillery, Trucks, Ordnance and the Problem of ObsolescenceElectronics, Radio, and RadarWas the Depression a Boon or Hindrance to US War Mobilization?Japan’s Wartime EconomyConclusion 
[Photos]
 
D. ‘Victory Disease’: The Japanese Empire: From Co-Prosperity to Tyranny
[Charts: D.1, D.2 ]
The Four Phases of Japan’s Imperial ExpansionThe Economics and Philosophy of Japan’s Co-Prosperity SphereOld Empire, Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria,  The Structures of Japan’s New Empire,  Slave Labor in Japan and in the FieldCruelty and SuppressionPrisoners of WarThe Psychology of BrutalityUnit 731 and the Secrets of Medical ExperimentationConclusion
[Photos]
 
E. Typhoons and Divine Winds: Kamikaze
[October 1944 to August 1945]

[Charts: E.1 ]
IntroductionHalsey: After Leyte GulfKamikaze: Individual BeginningsThe Formal Adoption of a Kamikaze as a StrategyRecruitment, Motivation and TrainingJapanese Government PropagandaDevelopments in Kamikaze Technology and the US ResponseNaval Kamikaze and Yamato’s Suicide MissionUS Defense TacticsFight to the Death and Operation KETSU (Decisive)Admiral Ugaki, The Last KamikazeThe Cost and Effectiveness of the Kamikaze CampaignKamikaze: 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
SummaryComparison of Pacific War Aircraft CarriersEssex Class CarriersUS Light CarriersJapanese 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 HistoryDevelopment of the Oil Industry in the United StatesRoyal Dutch ShellThe Growth of Oil Fired Engines in the Marine IndustryThe Rise of the AutomobileTanks and Trucks Transform Battlefield MobilityAviation GasolineInterwar Development of the Aeronautical IndustryGlobal Oil OutputOil and the Decision for WarConclusion  
[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]
IntroductionRusso-Japanese Relations from the Late Nineteenth CenturyThe Trans-Siberian Railway Transforms the Geopolitics of Northeast AsiaThe Battle of Lake Khasan and Amur River ClashesThe Japanese-Soviet Neutrality PactThe Yalta ConferenceJapanese Preparations for the Defense of ManchuriaDeployment of Soviet ForcesSoviet Invasion of Northwest Manchuria from MongoliaInvasion of Northeast Manchuria from Far Eastern SiberiaThe Battle of MutanchiangThe Battle of Sakhalin IslandThe Occupation of the Kuril Islands  The Significance of the Soviet Invasions 


APPENDIX C
ECONOMICS OF THE PACIFIC WAR – THE NEW DEAL MOBILIZED

Was the Depression a boon or hindrance to US War Mobilization? In looking at the US economy in the context of the operation and eventual success of the prosecution of World War II, it is interesting to note that in terms of the development of US military capabilities the depression of the 1930s had good and bad consequences.


First, although the 1930s has often been thought of as a lost decade in the history of the US economy, in reality it was a decade of rapid development in technology and applied engineering. These factors that significantly raised the US economy’s potential for economic growth, combined with a large amount of spare capacity in the US economy, laid the preconditions that made possible the rapid expansion of the American war economy after 1941. As Alexander Field convincingly argues in Economic Growth and Recovery in the United States: 1919 – 1941 [2013], the 1930s “made possible the successful prosecution of the Second World War.”51


The hindrance of the depression was that despite technological advances in the commercial sectors, very little had been transferred to the military sector. Desperately under resourced, by the time that Roosevelt woke up to the escalated international crisis in 1939, US defense capabilities were wholly inadequate both in scale and technological sophistication. The United States, by far the world’s largest economy in 1939, was a military pigmy with armed forces less powerful than nations such as Belgium and Holland. From this date onwards the US began a desperate rush to play catch-up.


By 1941, when Japan’s intent to adopt the ‘go-south’ strategy became clear, combined with its signing of the tripartite pact with Hitler, it led Roosevelt to the conclusion that war was all but inevitable. During the course of that year the President pursued two strategies. He attempted to arm twist Japan into retreating from their ‘go-south’ strategy and in particular their invasion and occupation of French Indochina. In addition he demanded their pull back from China. Both he and the Japanese knew that the US bargaining chip was only the potential, not the actuality of US military power.


When Japan’s access to oil was embargoed in July 1941, an act of war in all but name, Roosevelt and his advisers knew that Japan would almost certainly have to fight; FDR knew that the possibility of a complete surrender by Japan to US terms was the most unlikely of long shots. At best Roosevelt hoped to gain 4-6 months delay to the opening of hostilities that would give time to propel the US economy further along the road to rearmament. Even spring or summer of 1942 would have been too soon however, because it took until the first quarter of 1943 for the avalanche of war material to arrive. What was most remarkable in the economic transformation that was eventually achieved was that America managed to move to a war economy more rapidly than its totalitarian enemies.


In spite of the intrigue, machinations and power games, which was the grist of daily life in Washington during the war, somehow, Morgenthau, Knudson, Baruch, Eberstadt, Nelson, May, Jones, Somervell, Hillman, Ickes, Byrnes and the rest of the bureaucrat ‘Generals’ in Washington managed to cobble together a system that worked. Whatever the politics and internecine feuding involved, the astonishing outcome of the American war machine, as shown by the production and assembly of the largest array of war matériel ever produced, was testament its success. Nonetheless, if the bureaucrats set the preconditions and organized the enabling of war production, America’s astonishing productive advances in World War II were ultimately achieved by the energies of the US private sector and its citizens.


In this transformation, the depression was actually a boon to America. Militarization of its economy was cost free in the sense that spare capacity of labor, capital and equipment could be turned to war endeavor without the difficult ‘guns or butter’ choices faced by Germany or Japan. In spite of much harrumphing by the US press, American citizens were only a little inconvenienced by war, except for the hardships and possibility of death and injury for those serving on the front lines in the army, at sea or in the air. Given that some 12.2m Americans served in the armed forces in World War II of which just over 400,000 died there was a 1:30 chance of not surviving war. For the twenty-nine out of thirty who survived, as the war progressed, living standards actually rose, particularly after 1943.


Rearmament and increased prosperity were also achieved with minimal impact on the level of inflation. In part this was enabled by the absorption of the spare capacity provided by the depression and also by the remarkable productivity gains achieved through the widespread application of technology and the techniques of mass manufacture developed largely in the auto industry. Exceptionally in World War II, unlike in subsequent wars in Korea and Vietnam, there were no deleterious consequences for living standards to turn American citizens against its foreign military expedition to regain its imperial assets and to crush Japan, its Asian geopolitical competitor. Almost uniquely in the annals of warfare, America’s militarization of its economy and the fighting of a global war from 1941 - 1945, on a scale never seen before and unlikely ever to be seen again, was achieved with a rising tide of economic benefit to its citizens.

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