The Japanese Navy in 1941

THE PACIFIC WAR PAPERS .......................... 10771$ $$FM 02-08-05 09:29:45 PS PAGE i ALSO BY THE AUTHORS By Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon: The Williwaw War (1992) The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans (1993) Amelia: The Centennial Biography of an Aviation Pioneer (1997) By Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, with J. Michael Wenger: The Way It Was: Pearl Harbor: The Original Photographs (1991) D-Day Normandy: The Story and Photographs (1993) ‘‘Nuts!’’ The Battle of the Bulge: The Story and Photographs (1994) Rain of Ruin: The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombs (1995) The Vietnam War: The Story and Photographs (1997) The Spanish-American War: The Story and Photographs (1998) By Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, with Gordon W. Prange: At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (1981) Miracle at Midway (1982) Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring (1984) Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History (1987) December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor (1988) God’s Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor (1990) By Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, with Masataka Chihaya: Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki (1991) By Donald M. Goldstein and Harry J. Maihafer: The Korean War: The Story and Photographs (2000) America in World War I: The Story and Photographs (2003) By Donald M. Goldstein, Phil Williams, and J. M. Shafritz: Classic Readings of International Relations (1998) By Donald M. Goldstein, Phil Williams, and Hank Andrews: Security in Korea: War, Stalemate and Negation (1994) .......................... 10771$ $$FM 02-08-05 09:29:45 PS PAGE ii THE PACIFIC WAR PAPERS JAPANESE DOCUMENTS OF WORLD WAR II Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon Potomac Books, Inc. Washington, D.C. .......................... 10771$ $$FM 03-21-05 13:32:01 PS PAGE iii Copyright ᭧ 2004 by Prange Enterprises, Inc. Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. (formerly Brassey’s, Inc.). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Pacific War papers : Japanese documents of World War II / [edited by] Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon.—1st ed. p. cm. Pt. 2 consists of extracts from the diaries of Marquis Ka˚oichi Kido and Admiral Kichisabura˚o Nomura. Includes index. ISBN 1-57488-632-0 (alk. paper) 1. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, Japanese—Sources. 2. Japan. Kaigun—History—World War, 1939–1945—Sources. 3. Japan. Kaigun—Officers— Diaries. 4. Kido, Ka˚oichi, 1889–1977—Diaries. 5. Nomura, Kichisabura˚o, 1877–1964—Diaries. 6. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, Japanese. I. Goldstein, Donald M. II. Dillon, Katherine V. III. Title. D777.P33 2004 940.54Ј5952—dc22 2003028207 ISBN 1-57488-632-0 (alk. paper) Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard. Potomac Books, Inc. 22841 Quicksilver Drive Dulles, Virginia 20166 First Edition 10987654321 .......................... 10771$ $$FM 03-21-05 13:32:01 PS PAGE iv Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Part I The Japanese Navy before the Pacific War Introduction 3 The Japanese Navy in 1941 4 Atsushi Oi Ozawa Essays: Introduction 32 The Naval General Staff 34 Jisaburo Ozawa Chihaya Essays: Introduction 37 Organization of the Naval General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo 38 Masataka Chihaya Organization of the Japanese Naval Department 44 Masataka Chihaya The Principal Propelling Power in the Former Japanese Naval Department 48 Masataka Chihaya Short History of the Japanese Naval Bases in the Homeland 54 Masataka Chihaya Importance of Japanese Naval Bases in the Homeland 57 Masataka Chihaya Importance of Japanese Naval Bases Overseas 61 Masataka Chihaya Importance of the Inland Sea 67 Masataka Chihaya Ozawa Essays: Introduction 70 v .......................... 10771$ CNTS 02-08-05 09:29:49 PS PAGE v vi ͉ Contents Development of the Japanese Navy’s Operational Concept against America 71 Jisaburo Ozawa Outline Development of Tactics and Organization of the Japanese Carrier Air Force 76 Jisaburo Ozawa Fleet Organization 82 Jisaburo Ozawa Chihaya Studies: Introduction 85 Concerning the Construction of Japanese Warships 86 Masataka Chihaya General Characteristics of Yamato Class Battleships 91 Masataka Chihaya Some Stories Concerning the Construction of the Yamato Class Battleships 94 Masataka Chihaya Personnel Study 101 Toshikazu Ohmae Part II Prewar Diplomacy and Politics Introduction 113 Extracts from the Diary of Marquis Koichi Kido 115 Diary of Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, June–December 1941 136 Part III Post–Pearl Harbor Introduction 225 Japanese Monograph No. 102: Submarine Operations, December 1941–April 1942 226 Other Chihaya Studies: Introduction 257 The Movement of the Japanese Battleship Group at the Outbreak of the War 258 Masataka Chihaya Essay Concerning the Book Battle Report 266 Masataka Chihaya .......................... 10771$ CNTS 02-08-05 09:29:49 PS PAGE vi Contents ͉ vii Account of the Battle of the Java Sea 272 Masataka Chihaya Account of the Fiasco of Truk on 27 February 1944 279 Masataka Chihaya Some Features Concerning Changes in the Japanese Fleet Organization during the War 283 Masataka Chihaya Three-Part Report 290 Masataka Chihaya Two-Part Report 299 Masataka Chihaya Some Opinions Concerning the War 304 Nobutake Kondo Index 319 .......................... 10771$ CNTS 02-08-05 09:29:49 PS PAGE vii .......................... 10771$ CNTS 02-08-05 09:29:49 PS PAGE viii List of Illustrations Gordon W. Prange. Author’s Collection xii Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa. Author’s Collection 33 Adm. Kichisaburo Nomura, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States at the time of Pearl Harbor. Author’s Collection 137 Adm. Nobutake Kondo. U.S. Navy 305 ix .......................... 10771$ ILLU 02-08-05 09:29:55 PS PAGE ix .......................... 10771$ ILLU 02-08-05 09:29:55 PS PAGE x Preface Gordon Prange was the eminent scholar on Pearl Harbor and one of the eminent scholars on the Pacific War. What made his works different was that they presented the Japanese point of view as well as the American side. At the end of the war, the Japanese armed forces conducted a wholesale destruction of documents. Untold quantities of valuable historical material went up in smoke. During the occupation, the Military History Section of Headquarters United States Army Forces–Far East attempted to reconstruct events on the basis of the memories of survivors and bits and pieces of other documents. For this reason, this particular type of study cannot be adjudged as absolutely officially correct. Some of the studies herein are what Capt. Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the air attack on Pearl Harbor, called ‘‘memory documents.’’ There is no reason, however, to question the expertise or good faith of the officers engaged in their preparation, so these memory documents are probably reliable within the powers of human recollection. Most of the documents herein are available nowhere else. Many have never before been available in English. Indeed, few have been published in Japanese, either. Our purpose in preparing this book has been to make them readily available to scholars and buffs of the Pacific War. This book allows the scholar to use these rare papers without having to go to the library or send for them. Prange was very protective of his sources while preparing his manuscripts, but now that his books have been published, we are sure he would want to share them, so that they can be used to set the record straight from the Japanese point of view. We believe that The Pacific War Papers is the first attempt to put the Japanese story in proper context. The documents herein are primary source material and should be cited as such by any student making use of them. We have made no major changes that would affect the meaning or in any other way compromise the integrity of the material. Our part has been con- fined to minor grammatical corrections, identification where possible of in- dividuals not fully cited, a few explanatory footnotes, and the introductions to each part and to each individual study. There are no endnotes in this work because the individual documents are their own sources. They are major extracts from the Prange files, and we are happy to make them available to the layman, so that he or she may xi .......................... 10771$ PREF 02-08-05 09:29:59 PS PAGE xi xii ͉ Preface Gordon W. Prange. Author’s Collection better understand the war in the Pacific. This is the second of two volumes pertaining to these documents. The first volume, primarily on the Japanese attack, was published in 1997 and titled The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans. This volume, The Pacific War Papers, covers the Japa- nese Navy before World War II, pre–World War II diplomacy, and politics and documents pertaining to the post–Pearl Harbor naval war. It is divided into three parts: Part I, ‘‘The Japanese Navy before the Pacific War,’’ Part II, ‘‘Prewar Diplomacy and Politics,’’ and Part III: ‘‘Post–Pearl Harbor.’’ Specifically, Part I, The Japanese Navy before the Pacific War, contains monographs by Atsushi Oi, in 1941 a member of the Navy Ministry’s Per- sonnel Bureau; Masataka Chihaya, who may well have been the foremost Japanese naval expert of the 1990s; and Jisaburo Ozawa, who in 1941 was Commander in Chief of the Southern Expeditionary Fleet. These give the .......................... 10771$ PREF 02-08-05 09:30:03 PS PAGE xii Preface ͉ xiii reader an early overview of the vastness of the buildup to the war. A second Ozawa essay talks about the development of the Japanese Navy’s operational concept against America and makes some startling, telling points.

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