During the interwar years, the leadership of the Japanese Navy split over the naval disarmament
treaties. The Fleet
Faction opposed any
restrictions on construction by the Japanese Navy while the Treaty Faction favored the
treaties.
The Fleet Faction rejected the pragmatic view of
the Treaty Faction and condemned the naval disarmament treaties as an
affront to the perogative of the divine Emperor to command as large a navy
as he wished. The Fleet Faction also argued that the 3:5 battleship ratio imposed by the
treaties was insufficient to guarantee parity in Japan's own waters
with an attacking Western fleet.
The leaders of the Treaty Faction served in high positions in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of war in the Pacific, and they were able to check the power of the Fleet Faction until shortly before war broke out. The most senior commander identified with the Fleet Faction was Nagumo Chuichi, who led the Pearl Harbor Strike Force.
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2008 by Kent G. Budge. Index