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 

E. Typhoons and Divine Winds: Kamikaze

Halsey: After Leyte Gulf: The overwhelming victory at the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 26 October should have provided a period of respite for Halsey’s battle weary ships and sailors. Furthermore it should have given Halsey, chastened by his mistakes at Leyte Gulf, time to plan for the first strikes to be made against Japan’s home islands since his daring ‘Doolittle Raid’ two and a half years earlier. However, these plans were interrupted. Torrential rains and topographic problems on Leyte Island put back the Seabees’ construction of airfields, which prevented General Kenney from advancing his Air Force to their planned bases. As a result the Third Fleet remained stationed off the Philippines to provide air cover.


Between 5 and 25 November 1944, Halsey mounted seven mass attacks on Luzon’s airfields. 800 Japanese aircraft were destroyed. In addition five enemy transports were sunk with the loss of 10,000 Japanese troops along with their three escorting destroyers. Even by sea, by 1944, the US could deliver devastating air power against Japan’s land based forces. The old shibboleth that aircraft carriers should always stay out of range of land-based airfields had been reversed. It was a superiority that reflected massively improved American equipment against a Japanese Air Force that was never able to produce a mass produced fighter plane to succeed the Zero; in just three years, the Mitsubishi Zero had become technologically outdated. As an American ace pilot wrote, “The Corsair was a sweet-flying baby if I ever flew one. No longer would we have to fight the Nip’s fight, for we could make our own rules.”1 [The Vought F4U Corsair, mainly built under contract by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, was designed principally as a carrier aircraft though, because of its poor landing characteristics, it ended up mainly being used by the Marine Corps land based forces. It was introduced at the beginning of 1943. Heavily armed with six machine guns and four cannon, the Corsair was also faster (+37 mph) and had a 5.5 per cent faster climb rate than the American carrier fleet’s Grumman F6F Hellcat, itself a replacement for the Grumman F4F Wildcat, that was already significantly outperforming the Japanese Zero.]


Such was the success of Admiral Halsey’s mission and the increasing paucity of the Japanese opposition that the last major air strike against Luzon took place on 18 November. Halsey cancelled further major operations and set up a system of patrols. “Bull Halsey’s Third Fleet has been doing quite a job on the Japs on Luzon,” gloated Seaman James Fahey.2 But, in spite of Halsey’s air superiority over the Philippines, a new threat emerged to quickly dampen any lasting joy from the victory at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

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