The Japanese Navy had already anticipated the advent of the no-treaty age, as early as the commencement of the preliminary talks in London. The Naval General Staff ordered the Technical Department to commence a study of mammoth battleships which far exceeded anything in existence at the time. The outcome of this study was a construction plan for four extraordinary super battleships with a displacement of 72,000 tons each, mounting nine 18-inch main guns. The construction would mobilize Japan’s unique and very sophisticated ship-building technology. For the sake of confidentiality, the project was code-named Maru-3 Plan. As early as July, 1936, it was decided to construct two ships initially, the Yamato and the Musashi, and under top secrecy, their construction began at the Kure Naval Shipyard and the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard.
It was after my enrollment in the Naval Staff College as a “Category-Ko” student [Lieutenants or Lieutenant Commanders who reached 10 years of service after graduating from the Naval Academy were eligible] on December 1, 1936, that I heard about the existence of this Maru-3 Plan. There were 24 Category-Ko students in our 36th class, and seven were involved in aviation. The curriculum for Category-Ko students was two years long, and the 35th class ahead of us also had seven students focused on aviation. These 14 students were encouraged to enlighten others with one voice—pointing out the uselessness of the super battleships and trying to persuade the higher-ups to change the Maru-3 Plan away from battleships to aircraft carriers. However, the majority inside the Navy remained unaware of the fast progress of aviation military power, still believing strongly in the Big Ship-Big Gun theory of sea power since the Battle in the Sea of Japan. To them, what we called the “Versatility Theory of Aviation” was just a set of meaningless words.
In view of this situation, we held what we called Aviation Study Workshops at Tokyo Suiko-sha, the naval officers’ club, every Sunday. We asked Captain Takijiro Onishi, who was the training director of the Aviation Headquarters at that time, to take a leading role. Participants included aviation-related parties from the Ministry of the Navy, General Staff, Aviation Headquarters, Naval Staff College, Yokosuka Air Squadron and Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal. Studies covered specialties of strategy, operations, techniques, technologies and other subjects. We also made announcements to invite officers from non-aviation departments.
In this study workshop, there was an active exchange of opinions among young aviation experts, and my impression was that the Navy had never before seen such a productive workshop. Many of the enthusiastic opinions suggested foresight as well as insight in light of how rapidly everything was changing. Nevertheless, the naval authorities ordered us to wind down as a private study workshop. The reason they gave us was that it was discussion of a private nature. As a result, this workshop was dissolved after only three meetings, which was a shame and a loss.
Looking back, we should have been more tactful in enlightening our colleagues. Instead, we were critical and cocky: “There are three idiotic items in the world—the Battleship Yamato, the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids,” which annoyed to no end the top leaders of the Navy, who saw the construction of the Yamato and Musashi as the Navy’s salvation.
However, I was discontented. If they did not like our private meetings, why didn’t they pick it up as an official workshop? This Aviation Study Workshop was the very lifeline of enlightenment the Japanese Navy needed in those days. How dare they call it private discussions? Here was potentially the biggest reason Japan lost the Pacific War many years later. Instead of listening to what we had to say, the traditionalists were pursuing a dream of sea power that was based on the antiquated historical treatise of Big Ship-Big Gun.
9
Commander of the
Akagi’s Air Squadron
Upon graduating from the Naval Staff College, I was assigned as the aviation leader of the Ryujyo, a medium-sized aircraft carrier. I joined the special Guangdong Attack Operation. In the dive-bombing team under my command, experienced and superior pilots, like Lieutenant Takashige Egusa and Lieutenant Mamoru Seki, gave me the confidence to run around the battlefield leading the war-horses. However, the Guangdong Attack Operation was easily and successfully completed before I had a chance to flex my muscles as a leader.
Back then, probably because of excessive drinking with these guys, I vomited up blood and experienced major stomach problems. The chief doctor examined me and said I had a gastric ulcer.
“Doctor, I just vomited up some tomatoes I ate a while back.”
To my bluster, he said, “I am not a horse doctor who would confuse tomatoes and the vomiting of blood.” I gave in, and ever since I have suffered a lot being restricted in both drinking and smoking.
This incident seemed to have reached the Personnel Department, and I was assigned as staff to the Sasebo Naval District the following year. It was an easy job which doubled as recreation. In the meantime, my physical condition was restored, and I was assigned as the Group Aviation Commander of the Akagi. It was November 1, 1939 and I could not have been happier. For a man who advocated the supremacy of aircraft carriers in naval operations, I was given a choice assignment.
That year, the Akagi belonged to the First Aviation Fleet. Since her consort, the Kaga, was away from the fleet for renovations, the Akagi was the only aircraft carrier in the First Aviation Fleet. Our Commander was Rear Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, and the Commander of the ship was Captain Ryunosuke Kusaka.
Commander of the Combined Fleet at the time was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Yamamoto understood aviation quite well, but he still appeared to me to be too soft in his awareness that the central force of the battle fleet was shifting to aircraft carriers and that battleships had become mere back-up forces.
At that time, the Combined Fleet was engaged in intensive training day in and day out based on the revised battle guidelines, in anticipation of the addition of the Yamato and the Musashi. And the staff who were involved in the battle revisions were self-satisfied. Their assumption was that, “When the enemy masts come in sight above the horizon, the distance is 48,000 meters. We will then order deployment and commence firing at a distance of 45,000 meters, at all times maintaining a distance out of the enemy’s range.” They expected a repetition of the dream of the Battle of Tsushima, where Japan defeated Russia. It irritated me just to hear their senseless talk. Whether the shooting range was 45,000 or 50,000 meters, it was not “out of range.” They did not seem to be aware that the shooting range of an air attack was 300 nautical miles.
I admit that in those days, it was accepted wisdom in the Navy that aircraft carriers were categorized as auxiliary forces. In principle, therefore, aircraft carriers were dispersed and deployed individually, and their main duty was search and reconnaissance. They might be called on to engage in an air attack, but the expectation was limited to include mainly cooperation with the submarine fleet to harass the enemy fleet. This was also the case whenever we had map exercises at the Naval Staff College. Under the prevailing common thinking, even if the aviation leader held the rank of Naval Lieutenant Commander, his repeated explanations that the aircraft carrier was the main element of the fleet sounded like an overblown theory of aviation’s versatility. I was determined to prove the attack capabilities of aircraft carriers—by all means—as the first step in enlightening the rest of the Navy, and I led the Akagi aviation squadron with determination.
Ozawa’s original specialty was torpedoes, and it appeared that aviation was new to him. But what he emphasized from his arrival was the importance of concentrated air attacks launched from aircraft carriers as well as unified command.
I was encouraged by what the Commander had to say: “Fuchida, carrier-based air power is the key factor in sea battles.” He also added,”This power should be employed en masse.” Since this is what I had consistently argued, I was immensely overjoyed. Consequently, I had great esteem for this Commander, one who had such a superb understanding of aviation’s role.
In those days, Japanese naval aviation was cha
racterized by elitism. There is nothing wrong with elitism, but the point was that they seemed to have forgotten that the essence of air power lies in mass deployment. In this respect, I valued Commander Ozawa very highly. Although he was an amateur in the field of aviation, he quickly saw that the key point of aviation is collective deployment. Consequently, I wanted to be under his command for the following year—fully involved in mass assault practice drills by carrier-based air power. Unfortunately, there were not enough opportunities to practice. The First Aviation Squadron consisted solely of the Akagi, and only Soryu remained in the Second Aviation Squadron this year because of Hiryu’s absence due to remodeling. Besides, in practice drill or training, Akagi and Soryu often assumed enemy positions against each other.
Still, Ozawa was very enthusiastic about mass assault, taking every opportunity to negotiate with various air branches to establish coordination with land-based medium bombers or even with seaplanes of the homeland battle squadrons. As the group commander of the Akagi air squadron, I always took unified command of the combined group, but what gave me a headache each and every time was the problem of group assembly. If assembly is not done perfectly, the intended mass assault is sporadic, failing to exert its concentrated power. However, with the planes of several air squadrons coming from diverse locations, it was not an easy job to assemble at a pre-determined point above the ocean at a fixed time. I got fed up as we had not succeeded even once in getting together at the assembly point at exactly the fixed time, always being obliged to wait. In view of the situation, I came up with an idea.
The idea was that the problem of assembly over the ocean occurs because of the independent deployment of individual carriers. However, this can be solved by group deployment. Such a simple matter was out of consideration in those days. The conventional wisdom that prevailed was independent deployment, the objective being to make the carrier less visible and to reduce the risk of enemy attack in light of the carrier’s vulnerability. However, even for this problem, group deployment of carriers can provide a bigger number of anti-air escort planes to protect the entire carrier group more effectively and with greater protection.
I recommended this idea to Ozawa. “Commander, if Akagi and Kaga of the First Air Squadron and Soryu and Hiryu of the Second Air Squadron are organized as a single aviation fleet, we can carry out our practice drills for massive assault as a carrier air force. Based on a concentrated deployment of the four carriers, everybody in the Navy will realize that carrier air strength can be the main player in decisive battles. Please recommend this to the authorities immediately.”
Ozawa nodded with a smile, “I will.”
Thus, after practice was ended in the first half of 1940, Ozawa submitted his opinion to the Minister of the Navy regarding the organization of the aviation fleet. Its substance was as follows.
“In order to exert maximum air power in a sea battle, it is required to concentrate all the striking power of our planes. In order to concentrate all our aviation striking power, an organizational structure with unified leadership of all naval fliers under a single commander is required from peace time, enabling practice under his command at any time.
“If such a unified command of all aviation troops is based on a temporary military division, the resulting command will be temporary as well, ending up with a weak mental unity of the leader and subordinates and an uneven degree of proficiency, making it difficult to implement effective command for a mass assault. This is evident based on the fact that we failed to achieve a satisfactory result after all our practice in the first half of this year, in spite of repeated practices, by putting each aviation troop of the First and Second Aviation Squadrons and the First Combined Air Troop under a single temporary leadership. Therefore, we must organize the aviation fleet immediately in the Combined Fleet by transferring all the carriers to the fleeting order to expedite practice in view of the threatening international situation.”
I was happy as my ideas were fully reflected in Ozawa’s recommendation to the Minister of Navy.
From the beginning, I strove to make rapid progress in the air squadron’s proficiency by taking initiatives ahead of, rather than following, directives from the command center, in the belief that it was a demonstration of the power of carriers to the entire nation.
First of all, we did takeoff and landing practice. It is nonsense if carrier crews have any problems with takeoff and landing. Therefore, we did sufficient basic training, taking enough time until all air crews were able to takeoff and land without trouble. Then the next step was fast takeoff and landing.
Fast takeoff and landing is a method to have planes land in succession while keeping landed planes at the forward end of the flight deck. This avoids having to lower the landed planes one-by-one to the hangar deck by elevator, and it eliminates the excessive time required to clear the deck before the next plane is allowed to land. However, in order to prevent those planes at the forward area from being damaged by a plane that crashed during landing, we put up a barricade to stop such planes. At a minimum, this would limit the damage to the landing plane.
If, however, this method is forced on crews with insufficient skills, they will inevitably hit the barricade and damage the landed planes. Therefore, the policy was to allow fast landing for skilled pilots only. While the plan from the command center followed this procedure this year as well, it was clear that this would hamper the achievement of mass deployment because of operational backups. I recommended that we allow fast landing for all crews.
Captain Kusaka suspiciously asked, “Commander, is it OK?” to which I responded assuredly and proudly, “No problem, Sir.”
Thus, I imposed fast takeoff and landing practice on all crews, and every one of them did a perfect job without any problems. Ever since, we always performed landing operations by fast landing, and there was not a single incident throughout the year of a plane hitting the barricade. It proved that proficiency can be improved dramatically by well-controlled instruction and morale enhancement.
The next step was night takeoff and landing. The capability to engage in nighttime action is based, of course, on proficiency in night takeoff and landing. Up until this point in time, this requirement also was imposed only on limited crews with superb proficiency. They were called night pigeons. I recommended that all crews be trained in night takeoff and landing. In response, Staff Aviation Officer Takeshi Aoki of the Command Center asked with a doubtful look, “Commander, won’t there be any problems?”
Actually, night flight was still risky in those days. A few days earlier, there was a splashdown accident in the Second Aviation Squadron caused by a flare dropped during night drill. The air staff had good reason to be concerned. There was also a rule set by the Combined Fleet prohibiting the illumination of planes during night practice or drill for safety reasons.
However, I regretted that if planes should crash only because they were illuminated, we would never harness air power. We should give night action capability to all crews rather than call them night pigeons. Night takeoff and landing are fundamental to everything else. Pounding my chest, I told the aviation staff to leave it to me. After all, these recommendations of mine were simply because of my desire trying to respond to the will of Commander Ozawa who said, “Aviation is about mass.”
One day, I was talking to the chief doctor in the Akagi’s officers’ room. “Doctor, I understand medical progress has made eye transplant operations possible. I wonder, can a tiger’s eyes be transplanted to me? “
The perplexed chief doctor was laughing, but I was serious. If my eyes could be replaced by a tiger’s, I wanted the operation in order to engage in night torpedo attacks.
It was early November, nearing the end of the year. The Combined Fleet engaged in various training drills en route from Ariake Bay [officially called Shibushi Bay] to Saeki Bay in the north. It was the finish of the annual training program called sengi [combat training], and many sengi commissioners were sent from the central authority to
investigate our performance.
Our Akagi air squadron was going to launch actual torpedoes at night with drill heads attached, targeting four battleships of the First Squadron. The serial number of this particular drill was Operation No.112.
I took off from the Akagi, leading 27 planes of the torpedo bomber squadron and nine planes of the reconnaissance and lighting squadron, flying in search of the First Squadron. The point of a night assault is, first, detection of the enemy by the reconnaissance squadron, followed by the dropping of flares by the lighting squadron, and, finally, launching of torpedoes by the torpedo bombers. This operation will not succeed unless coordination among the three squadrons is done with perfect precision. On this night assault drill, the three parties worked in perfect harmony and assured a successful attack. While we were returning after the drill, we happened to catch a radio message from Commander-in-Chief Yamamoto on board his flag ship, Nagato, to Commander Ozawa that said, “Operation No.112 was superb.”
I was satisfied, but it was not merely because our operation was praised, but because we had succeeded in enlightening the Navy, even if to a limited extent, by actually proving the full capability of air power.
The results of the sengi commissioners’ performance investigation showed a hit ratio of 80% for the 27 torpedoes that were launched, with all four battleships declared eliminated ships. This meant that, if this had been an actual battle, the ships had already been sent to the bottom of the sea. This was certainly clear proof that the source of naval power had already shifted to airplanes. It made me grind my teeth to think that they might come to understand this obvious fact—only after an actual battle—that battleships were floating just to be sunk by an air attack.
For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor Page 5
