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 N: THE ROLE OF OIL IN THE PACIFIC WAR

Global Oil Output: Output of crude oil, which had taken a generation to reach 200m barrels of oil per annum in 1910, exploded as the mechanized demands of the auto sector and World War II grew exponentially. By 1920 oil output had quadrupled from a decade earlier and by 1930 had reached 1.5bn barrels. The Great Depression brought an oil glut and collapsing prices but ten years later output had risen to 2.0bn barrels and added another 500m barrels during World War II in spite of the forcibly collapsed demand from the auto sector.


The main producer of this remarkable rise in output was the United States, which by 1940 accounted for 62 per cent of global output. Venezuela and the USSR accounted for approximately 10 percent of global output each while the Dutch East Indies, the nearest major oil-producing nation to Japan produced just 2.6 percent of global output. Japan, which produced just 7 percent of the energy it consumed, was thus almost entirely dependent on the output of Standard Oil of California, which supplied over 80 percent of their needs; the Dutch East Indies provided the balance of about 10 percent. [See Chart: N.2 and Chart: N.3] As Japan embarked on its attempt to conquer China in 1937, the paradox was that they were doing with California oil. As one American pamphlet protested, “America furnishes the airplane, gasoline, oil, and bombs for the ravaging of undefended Chinese cities.”11


In the early 1930s foreign companies controlled 60 percent of Japan’s internal oil market with Rising Sun, an affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell and Standard Vacuum, dominating a market that had some 30 Japanese companies sharing 40 percent of the market. In order to obtain more control of their market the military forced that passage of the Petroleum Industry Law [1934]. The legislation gave the government power to control imports, set inventory levels and prices. In large part the aim was to build up Japan’s domestic refining capacity to make it less dependent on foreign made high margin products, particularly aviation fuel. Meanwhile in its newly acquired Manchukuo, the Japanese government established a government owned petroleum monopoly.


Realizing the importance of increasing self-sufficiency, Japan passed the Imperial Fuel Development Company Act [1937] and the Synthetic Oil Production Industry Act [1938]. With some 22bn tons of coal reserves Japan planned to utilize these resources to create oil self-sufficiency. The first of these laws presaged the establishment of Teikoku Nenryo Kogyo KK (the Imperial Fuel Development Company) to manufacture and sell synthetic fuel using the mainly the low technology LCT (Low-Temperature Carbonisation) method. Some of the synthetic oil used the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) method but the synthesis gas process required sophisticated and expensive high-pressure apparatus and catalysts. The Japanese government planned to build eighty-seven synthetic fuel plants by 1944 producing 6.3m barrels of synthetic oil and gasoline per annum.


Almost immediately it was a plan that was hampered by shortages of strategic metals such as nickel and iron. In practice by 1945 only 15 synthetic plants had been built producing a peak production of 717,000 barrels of oil. In large part Japanese technicians failed to make the transition from laboratory to large-scale manufacture. As Historian, Anthony Stranges has concluded, “Curtailing or by-passing the intermediate pilot-plant stage of development led to serious operating problems and doomed their synthetic fuel program to technological failure.”12


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