From the War Chronicles of Imperial Japan:
Extra sheet of the Tōkyō Shinbun from Friday, May 03, 1929
Attempted suicide of Navy Minister Okada Keisuke failed!
Dramatic minutes at the Navy Ministry in the early hours of the morning. Adjutant prevents the minister's suicide at the last second.
Early this morning, Navy Minister Okada Keisuke tried to commit seppuku. At that very moment, his adjutant and two other non-commissioned officers entered the minister's office to deliver a dispatch from the Japanese embassy in Berlin. According to the Deputy Minister of the Navy, the three officers were able to prevent the suicide. In the ensuing scramble for the minister's tantō, his adjutant and one of the two non-commissioned officers were seriously injured. The minister's adjutant is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Minister of the Navy Okada Keisuke is in the military prison under the supervision of the Kempeitai.
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Extra sheet of the Tōkyō Shinbun from Friday, May 17, 1929
Navy Minister Okada Keisuke back in office!
After Minister of the Navy Okada Keisuke renewed his oath to the Emperor to serve the Emperor and the Japanese people until he was recalled by the Emperor, the Minister was allowed to leave the military prison. His first trip led the minister to the hospital, where he convinced himself of the well-being of his adjutant after he had struggled for his life for days.
However, the chapter about the unfortunate events off Formosa is probably far from over. From well-informed circles it was learned that the Imperial Japanese Navy is to undergo fundamental changes. It is not known whether this is to refer to the command structures, training or the floating units.
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Extra sheet of the Tōkyō Shinbun from Saturday 01 June 1929
The war is over!
Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi announced this morning the end of the war with the German Empire.
Secret negotiations in Paris mediated by the French government have allegedly convinced both sides to silence the weapons. Details are not yet known.
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>> Memorandum of the Kaigun-chūjō Kichisaburō Nomura on the German-Japanese Spring War of 1929 <<
Honored officers and members of the 大本営 (Daihon'ei),
In deep gratitude for the tasks entrusted to me, I have the privilege of expressing my experience to you as commanding officer in both battles of the German-Japanese Spring War.
This war began surprisingly and ended unexpectedly. His two battles were also surprising.
The Japanese battle tactics, which have proven themselves for almost thirty years, no longer work!
I cannot deny that on the basis of personal experience, the Admiralty cannot deny that. Even if Japan was ultimately able to gain new bases, this is not due to the results of the naval battles, but to the overall disadvantageous strategic position of our adversary.
Tactically, however, the commander-in-chief of the German High Seas Fleet - Admiral Erich Johann Albert Raeder - did everything right. We have to acknowledge and understand that. The fact that the naval battle in the Yellow Sea on March 19, 1929 ended in our favor was more luck and coincidence than the superiority of our own forces.
During the convoy battle off Keelung on April 27, 1929, our luck was exhausted. A technically far superior enemy ship has literally demonstrated our fleet despite overwhelming numerical superiority. Despite the phenomenal torpedo hit by student pilot Genda Minoru, this did not change the overall situation. The ambitions of our new delivery weapon may be great, but the successes are not. Nevertheless, it remains to be said that without the aircraft carrier we would not have scored a torpedo hit at all. Our destroyers had no opportunity to build on their earlier successes. I therefore note: Naval aviation is not yet able to sink an enemy and the destroyers are no longer able to sink an enemy. In addition, our modern capital ships are available in such small numbers that the use of these units depends on chance and our older capital ships do not deserve this name.
I recommend that the 軍令部 (Gunreibu) of the Imperial Japanese Navy significantly intensify the training of the pilots. To advance the construction of aircraft and to increase the construction of aircraft carriers. Capital ships are not superfluous, but henceforth of limited importance for the Japanese Navy. Our old warships have lost their usefulness! The importance of destroyers in future conflicts must be worked out more precisely by the honorable lords of the 軍令部 (Gunreibu).
Long live the Rengō Kantai, long live the Imperial Japanese Navy, long live the Emperor!
Kaigun-chūjō Kichisaburō Nomura, June 01, 1929
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#012 After the war is before the war!
Editorial Board of the Tōkyō Shinbun – Saturday, June 1, 1929
Stunned, Osaki Satoshi sat alone in his office late at night. Later in the afternoon, details of the peace treaty between Germany and Japan had become known and these details shed a new light on the attempted suicide of Navy Minister Okada Keisuke.
Japan had committed itself to scrapping 142 warships!
Among them are all twenty coastal submarines:
5 coastal submarines Type I-1
3 coastal submarines Type I-10
5 coastal submarines type I-22
7 coastal submarines Type I-33
One hundred and twelve destroyers and corvettes:
23 Asama Maru-class corvettes (600 tons each)
11 Murasaki Maru-class corvettes (600 tons each)
22 Akikaze-class destroyers (500 tons each)
7 Umikaze-class destroyers (600 tons each)
14 Oshio-class destroyers (600 tons each)
18 Minazuki-class destroyers (500 tons each)
10 Nowaki-class destroyers (600 tons each)
7 Ikazuchi-class destroyers (500 tons each)
Eight heavy cruisers:
6 Asama-class heavy cruisers (7,300 tons each)
2 Aso-class heavy cruisers (16,000 tons each)
And the two aircraft motherships:
2 Oryoku Maru-class aircraft motherships (5,000 tons each)
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For the Imperial Japanese Navy, this was a considerable bloodletting.
The number of heavy cruisers has halved. The same applies to the number of escort ships, if you consider destroyers and corvettes together. With the submarines it was also considerable, but not quite as dramatic, especially since the coastal submarines had never really played an important role.
However, the scrapping of the two aircraft motherships was completely incomprehensible. These were not only the two newest ships on the entire list, but also ships whose weapon system supposedly represented the future – the aircraft.
Did this war end with a victory or a defeat for Japan? They had won German bases, but was it worth it? In terms of numbers, it was the biggest cut for the fleet in recent decades and the destroyers have been Japan's pride and joy so far. Virtually all naval victories of the last thirty years have been due to the powerful Japanese torpedo weapon. These were the terror of the seas, if you asked representatives of European nations. This is exactly why there was certainly the biggest cut here. Could the Imperial Japanese Navy cope with this cut?
Osaki Satoshi knew that the next few months and years would be more exciting than they had been for decades.
He remembered. Back to that memorable Fourteenth of July, in the year Eighteen Ninety-Seven!
On this day, he entered the office of the Minister of the Navy Saigō Tsugumichi for the first time with his foster father, editor-in-chief Kamata Itachi. The opulent office with its gold decorations, which he had entered so often afterwards. On this day he was completely inflamed by the Imperial Navy, on this day he was one of the first to gain insight into the new fleet of the Japanese Empire. Exactly this feeling from back then came back to him now – Japan left these old ships behind – it was now necessary to build up a new fleet that would be prepared for the future!
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Editorial Board of the Tōkyō Shinbun – Thursday, July 4, 1929
What followed barely a month later was logical from Osaki Satoshi's point of view. The navy scrapped practically all old capital ships.
At the same time, this was a slap in the face to the French government!
Japan was thus declaring to the entire world that it had planned to scrap its obsolete ships anyway, because these ships were not on the list of negotiations of the peace treaty. This also made it clear why the Japanese emissaries had so readily agreed to the negotiations in Paris. Of course, not without announcing a drama and that this was the death knell for the Imperial Japanese Navy, but nevertheless conspicuously willing to agree.
Japan may not have wanted this war – at least not at that time – but it could live more than well with the result, Satoshi now realized.
He briefly speculated whether the loss of the Nisshin was also a set-up? But he rejected this thought as quickly as it had come.
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Editorial office of the Tōkyō Shinbun – Monday, August 5, 1929
With the summer, the quiet day-to-day business in peacetime began again. As editor-in-chief, it was now up to Osaki Satoshi himself how he dealt with his editorial team. There was less work than in wartime, but on the other hand it was clear that a change was imminent. So he would turn his attention to the shipyards, as he had done before.
He could guess what direction the fleet would take. But he also knew that the military was always good for surprises – even if it required murder!
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#178 RTW2-JAP#
