War plan
Desperate War of Japan in the Pacific
This page contains kanji characters.

Crisis in 1941
What happend in the world in 1941 till the break of the Pacific War?
    1941Jan10 German-Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement was signed
    1941Jan31 FDR announced building of 200 merchant ships
    1941Jan-- US imposed embargo of copper, zinc and nickel on Japan
    1941Jan-- RN began rebuilding German merchant ship Hanover for an auxiliary aircraft carrier
    1941Feb08 Ambassador Nomura met Secretary Hull
    1941Feb14 Second meeting with Nomura and Hull
    1941Feb17 Proposal for agreement between Japan and US
    1941Feb-- US imposed embargo of Radium and Uranium on Japan
    1941Mar11 US Lend Lease Act
    1941Apr06 Germany invaded Balkan
    1941Apr09 Nomura's proposal for agreement between Japan and US
    1941Apr13 Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact was signed
    1941Apr14 Hull proposed 4 principles
    1941Apr19 Hull met Nomura and proposed 3 principles about China
    1941Apr28 USS Essex was laid down
    1941Apr-- US announced 112 wartime merchant ships building of Plan #2
    1941Apr-- Germany warned Oshima cracks of codes of MOFA
    1941May06 US applied Lend Lease Act to China
    1941May12 Nomura proposed an amended draft to Hull
    1941May31 US proposed new draft
    1941Jun02 USS Long Island was commisioned
    1941Jun22 German-Soviet War stopped import of machine tool from Europe
    1941Jun30 USN ordered 584 F4U-1 and 2 trials of F6F-1
    1941Jul05 Ambassador Craigie expressed concern for intended invasion of Japan
    1941Jul18 Foreign Affair Minister Matsuoka resigned
    1941Jul18 Nippon Yusen stopped Hong Kong-San Francisco line
    1941Jul25 US froze Japanese prosperity in the US
    1941Jul28 Stationed troops in the south of French Indochina
    1941Jul-- US announced 418 wartime merchant ships building of Plan #3
    1941Aug01 US imposed overall embargo of oil on Japan
    1941Aug0- US decided 10.7 billion dollars armament aid to Soviet
    1941Aug08 Nomura proposed Konoe-Roosevelt talk
    1941Aug09 Atlantic Charter
    1941Aug17 Roosevelt met Nomura and warned
    1941Aug17 Nippon Yusen stopped Yokohama-Seattle line
    1941Aug-- Intelligence against Russia reported Chief of IJA General Staff that Germany would not win
    1941Sep11 Roosevelt announced that he had ordered USN to attack German and Italian war vessels in the "waters which we deem necessary for our defense"
    1941Oct02 US proposed a warning note
    1941Oct18 Sorge Inciden
    1941Oct19 Germany invaded Kiev
    1941Oct31 USS destroyer Reuben James sank
    1941Oct-- US announced 632 wartime merchant ships building of Plan #4
    1941Nov06 US decided 1 billion dollars loan to Soviet
    1941Nov07 Nomura proposed draft A
    1941Nov13 US Congress passed mended Neutrality Acts
    1941Nov20 Nomura proposed draft B
    1941Nov17 US Neutrality Acts were repealed
    1941Nov23 9 IJN destroyers steamed out of the Hitokkapu Bay for Pearl Harbor and escorted 6 aircraft carriers
    1941Nov25 Germany began a campaign of attacking Moscow
    1941Nov26 US proposed Hull's note
    1941Nov-- USN established Japanese Language School at California and Harvard University
    1941Dec05 Germany gave up attacking Moscow
    1941Dec08 Government declared war against US
Japan and the US resumed diplomatic negotiation in April. Japan and Russia signed a neutral treaty in April. IJA and IJN agreed to use of force in case of US and UK sanctions on Japan in June. Although British ambassador Sir Craigie expressed concern for intended invasion of Japan on 5 July, IJA and IJN occupied the south of French Indochina on 28 July. US imposed overall oil embargo on Japan on 1 August.
Rikukaigun to Nansin

Goverment's policy
IJA and IJN had powers to govern Japan since uncontrolled military actions and assalts against governers in 1930s. As it were a bureaucratic military state. Prime Minister Tojo showed 3 options how Japan would action on 30 October 1941.

  1. Japan must bide her time (²é¿Å¾¨ÃÀ).
  2. Japan prepare a war agaisnt US at once (³«Àï·è°Õ).
  3. Japan make a diplomatic effort while preparing a war operation (³°¸ò»Üºö).
A long meeting began on 1 November 1941. It lasted 17 hours. All most ministers agreed to option 3. Chiefs of GSIJN and GSIJA agreed to option 2. Chief of IJNGS Nagano said, "War time is now, it will not come later." So diplomatic time limit was at 0 O'clock on 1 December in the meeting.
66th Dai-honei Seifu Renraku Kaigi
Daihonei to Naikaku no tairitsu
Taiheiyou Sensou he no Michi

However, IJA Russia section of intelligence had already decided that Germany would not win Russia. War board game of IJN had shown that Japan could not bring back resources in Indochina in May.

 Total war research chamber
Tatsumi Eichi adovacated that Japan also needed an institute to study cooperaion with armies and civilians like UK. IJA established the total war research chamber in March 1938. At first 4 civil scholars took part in. The total war research chamber changed into the total war institute in September 1940. Iimura Joh, Chief of the institute selected 36 researchers on Apr 1941. The researchers drilled 1st war simulation in June. They drilled 2nd war simulation on July. The simulation was almost the same fact except for Pearl Harbor raid and nuke bombardment. They reported the result at Kantei on 27 and 28 August. Iimura remarked that it was not good to adopt a diplomatic policy to delay the conflict with US and UK. Army Misister Tojo referred that real war was different from board war. He sometimes looked into the drills. He emphasized uncertain elements. Tojo and Iimura ignored the coclusion. How did Konoe think?
Gunzo, p98-104 No.57
Souryoku-sen Kenkyu-sho
Iimura Joh (1888-1976)

Maeda Katsuji, a researcher from Nippon Yusen simulated merchant ship loss with data of Roys registers. He concluded loss of 100 thousand GT per month, while ship building was 50 thousand GT per month. At the result, Japan would not be able to run ships in 4 years.
Nippon Yusen

Aftermath
Japanese bureaucratic leaders did not understand enough how Americans thought, and could not politics in Europe as Yoshida told.
Hitler Morotov kaidan

Japanese people were too much concened in Shanghai where we reached over night voyage. Only a few people including Kita, Matsuoka, Ishihara and Ishibashi understood China issue was direct American strategy. Tojo said, "Eirei ni mousiwake nai." about withdrawal troops in China. As a result of the decision, Japan had to open the Uraga channel on 2 September 1945 under 31-star flag again. US leaders understood the Japanese better than the Japanese leaders thought before the Pacific War. How were Japanese leaders different from the US? I hope that the difference was not our nationality, as historians often write. 'Eirei' is not a simple historical issue. We must consider 'Eirei' in future of ourselves, how some governers and law makers show an attitude for 'Eirei.' This is reflection and requiem of our nation. I say, "We consider humanism and 'Eirei.'

Yoshida Shigeru was an ambassador in London, when Tatsumi was an attache. So Tatsumi was one of Yoshida's brains after the Pacific War. He advised on Japan's armament, when Yoshida was Prime Minister. It was found that Tatsumi was an agent of US CIA. His code name was POLESTAR-5.
Tatsumi Eichi (1895-1988¡Ë

WPD
As for US Army, WPD had fifty-two officers.
US Army in WWII
The Victory Plan of 1941
Allied Operations in the Pacific
Bibliographical Note

 Imaginary war policy in January 1945
Ministers of Japan decided the final war policy on 25 January 1945. The major ministers concerning the policy were Prime minister Koiso, Army Sugiyama, Navy Yonai, Transport Maeda and Munitions Yoshida. The document consisted of 7 articles. Article1 was a guideline that referred to modern war, national and force capability. Article2 was a summary refferring to sucide attack weapons, air defense for production facilities, fast transportaion of aviation gasoline and other resources unavailable in domestic. Article3 was description of national and force capability which consisted of 8 parts. Article4 was transportation.

The document referred to mass production of sucide attack weapons. I think that government of Japan admitted mass sucide attack officially in document. And more govenment found there was a bottle neck of domestic logistics. Production and transportation values were, as follows,

Production
Iron production by charcoal in farming and mountain villages because of unavailablity for transportaion. I show daily values in brackets.

  • Steel production ; 3 million ton (8,200ton)
  • Domestic coal production ; 55 million ton (15,000ton)
  • aluminum production ; 150,000 ton (410ton)
  • Liquid fuel production ; 2 million kL (5,500kL)
  • Freighters shipbuilding ; 1.07 million gross ton (2,900ton)
  • Aviation fuel tankers shipbuilding ; 380,000 ton (1,000ton)
  • Burges shipbuilding or something ; 140,000 ton (380ton)
  • Locomotive engines ; 207 (17 per month)
  • Train carriage ; 7,500 (21)
  • Automotive trucks ; 5,500 (15)
  • Carts ; 149,000 (408)
  • Aircraft ; 20,000 (55)

    Transportaion

  • Bauxite ;
  • Oil product ; 500,000kL in 6 months (2,800kL, 83,000kL/month)
  • Rubber ;
  • Sugar from Taiwan ;

    Transportaion availability

  • Sea cargo ; 32 million ton (88,000ton)
  • Ground cargo ; 85 million ton (23,000ton)

    Other articles
    These articles wrote no actual values, but bureaucrats' favorite Kanji. They showed hopes full of unnecessary qualifiers.

  • Article5 ; kokunai-taisei kyouka sasshin youkou
  • Article6 ; seisin-douin, kyokoku souryokusen taisei
  • Article7 consited of 9 items; kokusei-unei narabi kokunai ippan-taisei
    Item7 was reform and abolishment for the productivity. Item8 was cleanup of black markets and efficient ration system. Item9 was check of production and transportaion, productivity of industries
    Kessen hijyou soti youkou

    My view
    I know government could not do item 8 of article 7 well even after the war. Though government hoped the gasoline production of 5,500kL per day, they planned only 2,800kL (83,000kL/month) of transportaion. The actual transportaions of oil were 3,443t, 2,394t, 1,786t, 13,674t, 2,511t and 1,130t only in the past 6 months. The actual average was 4156t. This is 5% of planned value. The actual maxium value of oil transportaion was only 15,924t in April 1942. The ministers had not better plan the war policy rather than do work at all. I think Ministry of Transportaion was responsible for fraudulent means. Government realized that productivity was very importatn for mass production. This caused QC of Japanese style later.
    Shosen ni yotte yusou sita syuyou busshitu, Ooi, p412-413

    Secret research for defence
    IJA researched worst option secretly in the end of the Pacific War in autumn 1944.

    1. US Army staion in Japan main land
    2. Disarmament of IJA and IJN
    3. Removable Emperor system
    IJN also studied how Japan ceased the Pacific War on May 1945. Takagi of IJN thought US war policy against Japan.
    1. Establishment of Japanese Government that cooperate with US and challange against US in future
    2. Liberal and democratic government change that sweep militarist power
    3. Emperor system reform
    4. Japanese people genocide
    Option 4 is not practical for considering the other Asian nations. Option 3 is profit of Russia. After all US would select option 1 and 2, Takagi concluded.
    NHK6, p168-171


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