Japan was the principal Axis power in the Pacific, and fought what was effectively a separate war against the Allies from December 1941 to August 1945. Previous to the Pearl Harbor attack, she had been fighting a brutal undeclared war in China that alienated her from the United States and was a major contributing factor leading to the Pacific War.
Japan consists of four large islands plus many smaller islands with a total land area of about 145,000 square miles. From north to south, the major islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. All are part of an island arc formed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Asian Plate. Earthquakes are frequent and sometimes violent. A particularly severe earthquake in 1923 devastated Tokyo, and considerable assistance was donated by American citizens, which improved relations between the two countries for a short time. There are numerous active volcanoes in Japan, which overlie a sedimentary basement with some coal deposits and a few small oil fields. The latter fell very short of supplying Japan’s requirements. There are also some porphyritic sulfide deposits that supplied modest amounts of copper and small amounts of other metals. In general, though, Japan is poor in mineral resources.
Japan had a population of about 73 million people in 1941, plus approximately 30 million in Korea and Formosa. The ability of the Japanese population to adopt Western practices and technology was perhaps Japan’s greatest economic asset, since natural resources were extremely limited. Japan has some of the most productive farmland in the world, due to its damp temperate climate and mineral-rich volcanic soil, but the terrain is so mountainous that arable land is scarce.
Japan had to import almost all its essential raw materials, being self-sufficient only in coal. Virtually all of Japan’s iron ore, lead, oil, and phosphate were imported. Japan’s war strategy was to seize sources of these vital raw materials in southeast Asia, then set up an impenetrable defense perimeter that would force the Allies to the negotiating table. This strategy failed when the infuriated Allies proved unwilling to negotiate, and the defense perimeter proved vulnerable to leapfrog strategy.
An important factor in Japan’s collapse was the submarine blockade of Japan. Allied submarines destroyed half the Japanese merchant marine and isolated Japan from its resource areas. By the end of the war, the Japanese were out of oil, could no longer produce acceptable grades of steel or other metals, and were facing starvation.
The Japanese government theoretically derived its authority from the Emperor through the Meiji Constitution, which set up a cabinet and a bicameral Diet. The House of Representatives was popularly elected while the House of Peers was appointed by the Emperor. This gave the Japanese the trappings of a modern parliamentary democracy. However, the cabinet was appointed by the Emperor rather than the Diet. In addition, the armed forces answered directly to the Emperor, and the War and Navy Ministers were expected to be active duty officers of the corresponding armed services. This gave the armed forces considerable freedom of action independent of the civilian government, and either service could bring down the government by refusing to name a minister. These structural weaknesses, when combined with increasing militarism and nationalism in the larger society, were sufficient to allow the Army to turn Japan into an authoritarian military bureaucracy.
The role of the Emperor during this time period remains obscure. It seems clear that MacArthur, believing that the Emperor was essential for a successful occupation, acted to protect the Imperial Family from prosecution at the Tokyo war crimes trials. The consensus of most historians in the immediate postwar period was that the Emperor was little more than a figurehead who only exercised his theoretical powers in the final crisis leading to the surrender. More recent historical work suggests that the Emperor played a larger role in the conduct of the Pacific War than earlier historians acknowledged.
Operational control of the Army and Navy was exercised through the
Imperial General Headquarters, which corresponded roughly with the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff. The service ministries were responsible for
raising and training personnel and providing materiel and logistical support, like the
corresponding U.S. Army and Navy Departments. However, in the United
States,
these departments remained firmly under civilian control, as did the
supporting industrial complex. The Japanese military-industrial complex
was firmly under military control. Furthermore, the two services
distrusted each other to the point of maintaining separate industrial
complexes, as discussed below.
No nation had more courageous soldiers and sailors than the Japanese. All believed that their lives belonged to the Emperor, and they were resigned to death in battle to a degree that astonished Westerners.
However, the Imperial Army lacked the industrial base necessary for success in modern total war. Its superb troops were poorly equipped. The standard Japanese infantry rifle proved accurate and effective, especially from jungle cover, but Japanese machine guns and other heavy weapons were inferior to those of their opponents. The Japanese were especially lacking in artillery and in armored vehicles, though these were less important in jungle campaigns than on mainland Asia. The Japanese divisional wedge was very thin by Western standards, so that the number of support troops proved inadequate for sustained campaigns. Japanese soldiers in the far reaches of the Pacific suffered from hunger and lack of medical care because of the inadequacy of Japanese logistics.
The Imperial Navy was in better shape. Its sailors were well-trained and its main combat units were comparable in quality with those of Western navies. The Yamato, which was just being completed as war broke out, was the largest, most powerful battleship in the world. Japanese carriers lacked catapults and were somewhat lacking in underwater protection, but were otherwise the equal of their American counterparts. Japanese cruisers and destroyers were lacking in antiaircraft protection, but were armed with the deadly Long Lance torpedo, which was far superior to anything in the Allied arsenals.
Japanese aircraft shocked the West when they were first encountered. The Zero fighter was faster, more maneuverable, and had a longer range than most Western aircraft of 1941. It would be some time before its weaknesses were discovered. Japanese bombers were long-ranged, but vulnerable, and Japan never created a true strategic bomber. But Japanese light attack aircraft, such as the Kate and the Val, wrought havoc on Allied shipping.
Japan’s biggest edge at the start of the war was not quantity or even quality of weapons, but the superb preparation and training of its soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Japan’s subsequent military decline can be traced to the loss of its best warriors, and the failure to train adequate replacements, in the long battles of attrition that followed Midway.
One of Japan’s greatest military weaknesses was the bitter rivalry between the Army and the Navy. As was the case with most military powers, Japan’s armed services were insulated from each other by separate traditions and different skill mixes, and they competed for the same national resources. But, in addition, the Japanese Army was traditionally a stronghold of the Choshu clan, while the Navy was traditionally dominated by the rival Satsuma clan.
Cooperation was good during the first six months of the war. The war plan had been carefully negotiated between the services prior to Pearl Harbor, and things went pretty much according to plan. Thereafter, cooperation between the services deteriorated. Each service claimed its own share of the shipping pool, with no effort to coordinate shipping, until it was much too late. Each service planned its own operations, and extensive negotiations were required to secure any assistance from one service for the operations carried out by the other. Aircraft and weapons factories were often divided into Army and Navy sections, with the doors between the two literally locked and barred. It was almost as if the war was fought by two uneasy and distrustful allies rather than sister services of a single nation.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007 by Kent G. Budge. Index