by John Prados
The post-Midway reckoning culminated in a full-dress conference held over the weekend of June 20. Senior officers and planners from the Navy General Staff and the ministry, and officers from the fleet, all participated. It was cloudy with a light rain that Saturday morning at Hashirajima. The brass attended a reception and lunch, with talks in the afternoon. Kusaka Ryunosuke of the Kido Butai presided over this part, where officers from the forces engaged at Midway recounted their experiences, advising changes in tactical procedure that could reduce the danger of fresh tragedy. Debate continued late into the night. Apart from anything else, the exchanges served as an auto-da-fé for the Combined Fleet.
A smaller group, the inner circle, gathered early on Sunday. Now the talk focused on measures to increase Japan’s fighting power and compensate for the Midway losses. Among those present were the chiefs of the ministry’s aeronautical bureau, its shipbuilding department, budget planners, and NGS staffers for naval administration and aeronautics. The Imperial Navy had already programmed two new classes of fleet carriers, one of them a large vessel with an armored flight deck, the other a more conventional design. Taiho, the supercarrier, had been under construction nearly a year. The design for ships of the Unryu class, ordered in 1941, was complete and the lead ship about to be laid down. The construction program would be modified, with the Taiho class increased to five vessels and the buy of smaller Unryus expanded to as many as fifteen. In addition the Shinano, a Yamato-class battleship already on the way, would be completed as a supercarrier instead. Admiral Ezaki Iwakichi described the ministry’s building plans, and ministry officials, the General Staff, and Combined Fleet officers agreed on the figures. Ugaki’s observation after the conference sums it up well: “What we need at present is numbers, and no choice remains in this respect.”
But it would be two years before the first fruits of these decisions could take to the sea, and much longer until the new warship programs would be completed. Bridging that gap was the problem. There was a war to fight. Admiral Yamamoto was well aware that the massive U.S. building program for a “Two-Ocean Navy,” adopted in 1940, would begin to kick in very shortly (indeed, the first vessels of American fleet and light carrier classes were about to be launched). Much anguished deliberation aboard the Yamato that day concerned stopgaps to get through the time of danger. For Ugaki the debate over which warships or merchant vessels could be converted into aircraft carriers seemed interminable. His take from Midway was that all the Japanese carriers had been lost due to hangar deck fires and inadequate damage control. The fleet would increase the proportion of fighters in its carrier air groups and work harder at defense. The striking force, Kido Butai, would be reorganized around the surviving fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, with slower or less capable vessels making up for the lost ones. Even older, slower ships, more vulnerable, would have to be used in a strike role, and must be prepared to make sacrifices. The Nagumo force, less formidable, would still pack a punch. This new Third Fleet was established in mid-July with Admiral Nagumo at its head.
Combined Fleet commander Yamamoto summed up the sense of the meeting. Shipbuilding must proceed. Fighting must proceed. Measures to reduce vulnerability would be taken. There was no time to lavish on conferences, however useful. Ugaki reinforced that message in private.
Beyond the question of platforms—air-capable warships—lay the issue of the planes themselves, along with aircrews and maintenance personnel. The Navy Ministry briefings that day had been based upon discussions within the “Red Bricks”—as officers knew the ministry building in Tokyo—which had considered those questions. This brought new decisions to increase the pace of training for pilots and other personnel. That will be considered later, but for the moment it is worth noting that one of the worst consequences of Midway from the Japanese point of view was the loss of experienced aircraft maintenance personnel on the four destroyed aircraft carriers. The ministry created new training courses for damage control and arranged that officer aspirants received instruction as part of their education. All this might improve the fleet in the future, but the inescapable fact was that the next campaign would be fought by forces in being.
Many histories of the Pacific war take it as an article of faith that Midway crippled the Imperial Navy, according superiority to the Allies. This is really a retrospective judgment, flowing more from how the war ended. Certainly the Ugaki diaries express none of the desperation that might be expected in the private ruminations of a senior commander suddenly faced with complete inferiority. Only after several weeks does the Combined Fleet chief of staff allude to the Midway results, and then he terms them the Americans’ “small success.” Prominent Japanese officers Fuchida Mitsuo and Okumiya Masatake, who collaborated on the first detailed account to appear in the West of the Imperial Navy at Midway, similarly display no such fear. Recording the atmosphere at the Navy General Staff, they write, “The Japanese Navy still had more warships of every category than the United States Navy had in the Pacific.” They were right.
If Midway did anything it was to affirm the decisive role of the aircraft carrier as the primary bearer of naval offensive power. Despite the grievous losses, on the day the Yamato anchored at Hashirajima and officers began their deliberations, the Combined Fleet still possessed eight aircraft carriers, twice as many as the U.S. Pacific Fleet. While it was true the Americans had three heavy carriers in the Pacific to Yamamoto’s two, the Imperial Navy vessels had spaces for 382 aircraft, compared to 300 on the U.S. warships. Moreover, the Japanese had another carrier already fitting out to join the fleet and two more in late stages of construction. The American industrial colossus would deliver only small escort carriers during 1942, and more than two-thirds of them went to the Atlantic. The U.S. building program would not hit its stride until the following year. For the moment Japan retained the advantage.
As for aircraft, the Imperial Navy was as strong as it had been at the beginning of the war. Until May and June, which featured the successive carrier battles of the Coral Sea—the first significant action of the Solomons campaign—and Midway, Japanese air losses had been limited. Production kept pace. From the outset of fighting through the end of June, according to Imperial Navy records, Japanese naval air losses totaled 1,641 aircraft. Almost half occurred during the months of Coral Sea and Midway, the bulk in June and many of those at Midway itself. Over the same period aircraft deliveries numbered 1,620. The most significant shortfall was in single-engine attack aircraft—dive-bombers and torpedo planes—where 374 were lost against 240 new warplanes. Commander Okumiya Masatake, an air staff officer and experienced pilot, records that at mid-July 1942 the naval air force order of battle was slightly stronger in fighters than before the war, though it had declined by roughly a quarter in attack aircraft. Land-based medium-bomber strength was actually greater than it had been on December 7, 1941.
Apart from numbers of planes with the forces, the Imperial Navy was also in good shape with respect to new aircraft designs. It is hardly noticed in histories that two of the three fighters that promised significant advances over the Zero were already in advanced development. The J2M Raiden (Jack), already in prototype, had made its maiden flight in March 1942. Another warplane, the N1K1-J Shiden (George) prototype, was under construction. It would fly for the first time in December. The plane the Navy specifically intended to follow the Zero, the A7M Reppu (Sam), to be innovated by the Zero’s designer and manufacturer, Horikoshi Jiro and Mitsubishi, had earlier been put on hold, but in April 1942 was dusted off, with specifications issued a month after Midway. A carrier bomber to replace the current standard was already present in small numbers at Midway, though problems forced the Navy to convert it to a scout. The next-generation bomber, also exhibiting problems, had been delayed but would be ready for carrier landing trials by the end of the year, and its follow-on existed as a prototype by May 1942. New-model floatplanes were being tested at that same time. Only in the category of heavy bombers were the Japanese significantly behind
their adversaries.
As regards pilots, the Japanese were also in relatively good shape. The Navy had begun the war with nearly 2,000 pilots, almost all of them quite expert, and about half of whom were carrier-qualified. Careful studies later showed that most of the initial cadre had more than 600 hours of flying experience, many of them master pilots with thousands of hours in the air. A typical U.S. Army Air Force pilot in the autumn of 1942 went to the front with 300 flight hours. Casualties at Midway were not so bad as advertised. Study there shows that a large majority of Kido Butai aircrew returned despite the sinking of their ships. Somewhat more than a hundred crews or pilots perished. Again the worst aspect was that losses were concentrated among the carrier attack squadrons. The Imperial Navy would train about 2,000 new pilots in 1942. That summer, when the Solomons campaign began, it is estimated that over 85 percent of naval pilots still met the expert standard of more than 600 flying hours.
In other categories of naval strength the Combined Fleet was well off. The light carrier Shoho had been lost at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May. Until the sinking of cruiser Mikuma and the carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu at Midway, she had been the biggest Japanese combatant to go down. Only a few other vessels had been sunk, fleet auxiliaries mostly, and no warship larger than a destroyer. Until now Japanese luck had held. They remained powerful. Admiral Yamamoto would need all his strength to meet the test of the Solomons.
Among those who made the pilgrimage to flagship Yamato was Rear Admiral Matsuyama Mitsuharu, who visited with Ugaki on June 17. Matsuyama was on his way to Truk in the Central Pacific to assume command of Cruiser Division 18. While it was customary to touch base with top leaders when taking posts under them, Matsuyama was closer to Admiral Ugaki than that. They had graduated together from Etajima in 1912. The three-year course there threw midshipmen into close proximity, playing sports and in classes. Over the years they had risen through the ranks, with the brilliant Ugaki promoted to captain first, but perhaps gazing longingly at the gunner Matsuyama, who had skippered a succession of cruisers and other vessels, where Ugaki advanced mostly through staff and school billets. Ugaki had been master of a cruiser and a battleship but spent only two years at sea. Then he had made admiral and been drawn away to yet more staff assignments. Matsuyama sailed the Pacific. It was a measure of their relationship that ten days before Pearl Harbor, with the press of fleet business so intense, Ugaki took the time to visit Matsuyama at Kure naval base, where his comrade supervised the barracks and guard unit. Matsuyama’s return drop-by was a reunion of old associates, marking his first unit command. Admiral Ugaki had once led a cruiser division, but only for a few months. Now Matsuyama would lead a cruiser division too—but into battle. Ugaki wished him good luck.
Cruiser Division 18 was hardly the Imperial Navy’s cutting edge. It comprised a pair of the oldest light cruisers on the active list, assigned to the “South Seas” (nanyo)—what the Japanese called the islands they had taken from Germany in World War I—and had then been mandated by the League of Nations. But Matsuyama’s would be a seagoing command, and he expected, with the FS Operation impending, to play an important role.
It is not clear whether Admiral Ugaki told his friend that that endeavor stood in jeopardy. Less than a week later, two of Combined Fleet’s key staff officers went to Tokyo to present fresh objections, including that the Kido Butai should not be expected to engage air bases, only warships. Concerned about the weather, Ugaki was relieved that his officers took the train. More important, however, was that the staffers would oppose a fully agreed IGHQ project. An appraisal filed at the end of June by the land-based air command the Eleventh Air Fleet deepened doubts. The air fleet argued that numbers of Zero-type fighter aircraft were insufficient and that Allied strength in New Guinea had to be neutralized. Admiral Tsukahara Nizhizo of the air fleet advocated delaying the invasions to begin with the New Hebrides in late September, New Caledonia and Fiji in October, and landings on Samoa only in November 1942.
There were renewed consultations during the second week of July. It now seemed the FS Operation could not be carried out even with a delayed schedule. The NGS first cut back the Samoa component to provide only strikes against that island; then it proposed indefinite postponement of the entire endeavor. On July 9, Combined Fleet agreed to postponement. On July 11, Emperor Hirohito approved. Combined Fleet also dropped a renewed attempt against Midway. Three days later the Navy General Staff issued Directive No. 112, canceling the South Pacific offensive. The NGS suggested substituting a foray into the Indian Ocean. Combined Fleet studied this idea. Having opposed the NGS Fiji-Samoa plan, Ugaki resisted a new Indian Ocean attack too. A cruiser-destroyer force that had sailed to the west coast of the Malay Peninsula to prepare for that mission had just reached the area when recalled.
With the demise of the FS Operation, strengthening the “Outer South Seas” (soto nanyo), as the Japanese called the South Pacific, became critical. The Eighth Fleet had been intended to besiege Australia once the FS maneuver created blockade lines. Now it was activated for defense instead. Unknown to the Japanese—and a harbinger of what was to come—the Americans were immediately aware of this. On July 12—the eleventh at Pearl Harbor—the daily intelligence summary issued by the U.S. Pacific Fleet recorded activation of the Imperial Navy’s new Outer South Seas unit.
Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi was selected to lead it. Mikawa, who had shepherded the battleships of the Nagumo force, here enjoyed his first fleet command. He met his newly assigned operations officer, Commander Ohmae Toshikazu, at home in the Setagaya district of Tokyo on July 14. That day the heavy cruiser Chokai was designated fleet flagship—again a Japanese action that appeared in U.S. intelligence summaries the same day. Escorted by two destroyers, Mikawa left Kure in the Chokai on the nineteenth. That had to be gratifying, since Mikawa himself had skippered this vessel less than a decade earlier. As Mikawa departed, Ugaki was in Tokyo conferring with ministry and NGS officials on aircraft production and the Indian Ocean plan. Mikawa headed for Truk, the big base in the Mandates where the Fourth Fleet controlled the sea, a place of mysteries that U.S. intelligence had sought to penetrate for years.
So the first mission entrusted to Rear Admiral Matsuyama would not, after all, be an opening move in the FS Operation. Instead his cruisers sailed from Truk to convoy the 11th and 13th Naval Construction Units to an island in the lower Solomons called Guadalcanal. The builders were to prepare an airfield at Lunga Point along its north coast. This installation would be vital, for the Japanese intended to fly planes hundreds of miles to the south and east. Guadalcanal was to be the springboard, projecting an air umbrella over Combined Fleet task forces if they ever advanced toward FS objectives. A seaplane installation already on nearby Tulagi would fly scouts, while strike aircraft from Guadalcanal provided the hard punch. The Eighth Fleet would operate in tandem with the 17th Army.
Of course, plans hardly survive contact with reality, and so it would be here. The construction units sent to Guadalcanal had little heavy equipment—just four tractors, half a dozen hand-pulled earth compactors, and materials for a mine railway. The Korean laborers were not enthusiastic. The site also turned out to be more difficult than expected.
Meanwhile Allied intentions were becoming a factor. Why the Japanese should have missed this remains a mystery. After all, the Allies had tried to mount a carrier attack on the main Solomons base, Rabaul, as early as February 1942. In May, when the Imperial Navy set up its seaplane installation on Tulagi, that too had been struck by American carriers even as the ships unloaded. The bombing became an opening chord in the Battle of the Coral Sea, in which American and Australian forces repulsed a Japanese attempt to conquer New Guinea. The salient points were that the Allies were very sensitive to activity in the Solomons–New Guinea area, and that they often struck Imperial Navy bases. Preoccupied with fresh maneuvers in the Indian Ocean, belittling the South Seas as Tokyo had been wont to do, or discounting the potential for an Allied offens
ive, the Combined Fleet paid little heed to the other side of the hill.
Hard realities needed to be recognized. Admiral Mikawa sent Commander Ohmae to investigate conditions. At Truk the operations expert found Fourth Fleet staff had no indications of any American attack in the Solomons. Ohmae went on to the new fleet’s base, Rabaul, arriving at noon on the twentieth. A half-sunken wreck in Rabaul’s Simpson Harbor demonstrated the Allies’ interest in this target. Light smoke plumed from the crater of a nearby volcano. Ohmae found Imperial Navy officers suspicious of the new Outer South Seas command, and air officers anxious to leave. Base personnel laughed when Ohmae wanted a building to house fleet headquarters—a naval commander should be afloat. He countered that Admiral Mikawa wished to minimize risks to valuable warships. Captain Kanazawa Masao of the 8th Base Force reluctantly set aside a dilapidated wood-frame shack. Situated near Rabaul’s cricket field, Eighth Fleet headquarters did not even have a toilet.
Japan might be powerful, but defending the soto nanyo would pose challenges. Another was revealed when Ohmae reunited with Mikawa at Truk. The Chokai reached there on July 24. At Truk there was a banquet hosted by Fourth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Inouye Shigeyoshi in honor of both Admiral Mikawa and his Army counterpart, General Hyakutake Haruyoshi. The 17th Army, it turned out, had been formed with a strength of just nine battalions—the equivalent of a single infantry division. That thin strength Hyakutake intended to concentrate against New Guinea. The Solomons might as well be on another planet. Meanwhile Inouye, concerned with his responsibilities in the Central Pacific, wanted no part of the Solomons either. At midnight on July 26, his Fourth Fleet ceded authority for the Outer South Seas to Mikawa’s Eighth. After a couple of days listening to Inouye’s briefs, Mikawa departed for Rabaul in his cruiser. The Chokai steamed into Simpson Harbor on July 31. After depositing Mikawa, Ohmae, and others at their new home, the warship left for Kavieng, a nearby port on New Ireland.
