Does someone really understand IJA's dumb decisions?

[xj900uk]

You also have to remember the political infighting between the IJN, IJA and politico-military leaders that also plagued the Japanese war effort. For exampl,e the IJN baned all knowledge of what happened at Midway and never even told the IJA until 1945 that it had no carriers or pilots left to man them! And a lot of the problems at Guadalcanal could have been averted if the IJA and IJN had actually co-operated and talked to each other. eg the IJN based at Rabaul knew that the range to Guadalcanal and the southern Solomons was really pushing it for the Zero's even with drop tanks and they desperately needed an emergency landing field for damaged planes on the way back. The Army was in control at Shortlands and there was a partially built strip there that their engineers could easily have finished off - not perfect but ideal for damaged or low on fuel planes to touch down and get patched/fueld up. But the Navy never ever told the Army what it needed, and the Army never decided off it's own back to finish the strip for their own planes... ridiculous! Instead they made plans to build a brand new fighter base at Munda in Feb/March '43 (after the fighting at Guadalcanal had finished!)
Sakai summed it up excellent in 'Samurai' - 'the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing'.

[awadley]

Just as you stated the IJA and IJN did not tell the truth.  It goes all the way down to the soldiers and pilots when they over stated their victories and under stated their loses to their higher HQs.  Then the Generals and Admirals never told the real truth about their own fronts.  No trust in each others way of fighting, no support of the other service. etc, etc.

[Grit]

ORIGINAL: FatR

At tactical, operational and strategic level, as well as in its organization and traning IJA consistently demonstrated as much or more competence as its opponents. It is just that being on the losing side of the war and fighting against overwhelmingly superior enemy highlighted most of Japanese FUBARs, while hiding all but the most blatant Allied ones. Japanese logistics were mostly hampered by objective problems. Military production could have been planned better, but most problems there stemmed from IJA/IJN enmity (and overall lack of industrial power, of course).

Now on grand stratefic and political level, several huge miscalculations were made by IJA top brass. The situation of China was well covered above, I can only add, that Japanese had to go forward and try to turn the entire China in their puppet state - just like any potential stable Chinese government had to attempt returning Manchuria. And Japanese invested too much money and effort in Manchukou to even contemplate giving it up.

One very crucial Japanese mistake that is often forgotten, is overestimating Germany's power. They believed that Germany will be able to at least hold off Western Allies and also overrun USSR. On political level this influenced their overal willingness to risk open confrontation with USA and Britain, and on strategical level they kept a large part of their best forces in Kwantung Army, waiting to grab Sovier Far East after the collapse of USSR, that never happened.

Finally, they were too charmed by the outcome of Russo-Japanese war, forgetting how narrow, and to what extent caused by factors beyond Japanese control, their victory actually was. Sure thing, Japanese military failed to enter the same river twice and produce an unbroken 1.5-year string of apparent victories again.

I'm not sure I agree that Japanese training was very good. From the ground soldiers to the pilots they were trained to be killers and be good at what they do. They were also trained to hate and not have any respect for their foes or their ability. One reason it was so easy for the Japanese to mistreat Allied POW's.

One problem with the training was if they lost an officer in battle things quickly became confused. They simply weren't trained to step up and take charge or make tactical decisions. I'm not saying they weren't great fighters or extremely tough soldiers. I'm just saying it takes more than great fighters to win great battles.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Grit
I'm not sure I agree that Japanese training was very good. From the ground soldiers to the pilots they were trained to be killers and be good at what they do. They were also trained to hate and not have any respect for their foes or their ability. One reason it was so easy for the Japanese to mistreat Allied POW's.

One problem with the training was if they lost an officer in battle things quickly became confused. They simply weren't trained to step up and take charge or make tactical decisions. I'm not saying they weren't great fighters or extremely tough soldiers. I'm just saying it takes more than great fighters to win great battles.

The Japanese did centralize command and control too much. The officers were special and the troops were their cannon fodder. Other armies did a much better job of giving responsibility further down the chain so subordinates were capable of taking over if their superior went down. The US was fairly good in this respect, but the Germans were probably the best.

Japanese mistreatment of POWs is a bit more complex than just being taught to hate. The Code of Bushido taught that it was a great dishonor to surrender and anyone who surrendered was as good as dead. So they thought of POWs as the walking dead.

The Japanese also treated their soldiers with extreme brutality. As the saying goes, the brown stuff flows downhill. The soldiers who mistreated POWs were probably going a bit beyond how they had been treated, but only by degrees. Many times prison camp guards were Koreans or people considered unfit for combat positions (ie people of low status). These people would take out their frustrations on the prisoners and the commanders did little to stop it. In some cases the commanders participated (they were also in lowly positions instead of honorable combat ones, so they had their own frustrations).

I have read that after WW II, the Japanese POWs in the US often chose not to go back to Japan. The few who did were shunned.

Bill

[Dora09]

I think what has been left out of this discussion is while the average Japanese fighting man was very tough, confident and brave in combat, their leaders were (particularly in the navy) were often indecisive and lacked confidence in many key battles. Indecisiveness at Midway was the source of that disaster, and when the Yamato and the rest were poised to easily cause the destruction of the invasion force off Leyte, they ran from a hand full of destroyers. There were many times the Japanese had the advantage but their leaders lacked the courage to see it through or to be decisive.

On the otherhand, the Samurai spirt allowed the Japanese to hold out on little scraps of land against overwhelming odds, while being cut off, and without airpower and under appalling conditions and still cause the allies huge losses. I'm not so sure allied forces would of held up so well under those conditions.

[Q-Ball]

Off topic a bit, but in response to Dora09, SENIOR leadership in the IJN was at times indecisive, but the overall quality of the Naval Officers was excellent; in fact, almost too good, as the IJN suffered from an officer shortage when they expanded the fleet.

In Germany and Japan, the Army and Navy attracted the best and brightest to the officer corps; for this reason, they were excellent, often better than the Western democracies, where there were many more options for talented men. The fact that the Wehrmacht attracted Germany's best and brightest was the secret to it's success IMO; right to the end of the war, they outperformed the Russians, US, and all armies at a tactical level. This is because of superior officers, and superior institutional memory.

Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

[Grit]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

I think they lost because of the little Corporal with the funny mustache. Stalingrad really, come on, why not stick with the origina plan?

All kidding aside, if Germany had the resources (oil, metal, etc.) and the Generals were allowed to make decisions the world might be a different place today.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Grit

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

I think they lost because of the little Corporal with the funny mustache. Stalingrad really, come on, why not stick with the origina plan?

All kidding aside, if Germany had the resources (oil, metal, etc.) and the Generals were allowed to make decisions the world might be a different place today.

Not so sure about that. Hitler was a genius; an evil genius, but a genius. He overrode his generals on several occasions, and turned out to be correct, particularly when assessing the moral courage of western leadership before the war and early in the war. Even the "Hold Fast" order in winter of 1941 was correct, and against the wishes of his generals, because Russia was a terrible place to retreat.

Later, YES, he did get a little bonkers, and Stalingrad was dumb. And Hitler's somewhat goofy decision on weapons priorities are also well-documented. But on balance, I would argue that he had a singular genius for military matters, and had more vision than his generals.

You could argue that Hitler's mistakes were Grand Strategic ones, but not tacitcal military ones (grand strategic like invading the Soviet Union, declaring war on US etc).

[Grit]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Grit

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

I think they lost because of the little Corporal with the funny mustache. Stalingrad really, come on, why not stick with the origina plan?

All kidding aside, if Germany had the resources (oil, metal, etc.) and the Generals were allowed to make decisions the world might be a different place today.

Not so sure about that. Hitler was a genius; an evil genius, but a genius. He overrode his generals on several occasions, and turned out to be correct, particularly when assessing the moral courage of western leadership before the war and early in the war. Even the "Hold Fast" order in winter of 1941 was correct, and against the wishes of his generals, because Russia was a terrible place to retreat.

Later, YES, he did get a little bonkers, and Stalingrad was dumb. And Hitler's somewhat goofy decision on weapons priorities are also well-documented. But on balance, I would argue that he had a singular genius for military matters, and had more vision than his generals.

You could argue that Hitler's mistakes were Grand Strategic ones, but not tacitcal military ones (grand strategic like invading the Soviet Union, declaring war on US etc).

You're probably right.

But will we ever know what the Generals would have done differently if the atmosphere had been different. How many Generals did Roosevelt and Churchill have shot? Would Roosevelt send you to Alaska for disagreeing with him? Did Patton worry about his wife being visited by the FBI in the middle of the night?

I also don't think Roosevelt worried about General Marshall planting a briefcase bomb either.

If the Generals had been given free reign to be Generals would things have turned out differently? I don't think we'll ever know but it's something to think about.

[jetjockey]

Please do not confuse Hitler’s audacity with genius. Many of his decisions were made not because of any grand insight on his part, but rather because they went against the wishes of the German General Staff, whom he hated with a passion. That he was often proven correct is more a testament to the drive and vision of the “Young Turks” that he favored, then making their way up through the ranks. These men recognized and capitalized on the changing realities of the battlefield, a trait not shared by the vast majority western leaders.

Also, Hitler’s “Hold Fast” orders did indeed prove to be correct, however, only after steadfastly refusing the army permission to make preparations to “winter over.” Had the army been able to go into “Winter Quarters” so to speak, the losses of men (veterans all) and material would have been greatly reduced. This army would have been able to resume offensive operations as the weather cleared rather than spend time reorganizing. All things being equal, this means that the 6th Army could have been at the “Gates of Stalingrad” two months earlier.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Dora09

I think what has been left out of this discussion is while the average Japanese fighting man was very tough, confident and brave in combat, their leaders were (particularly in the navy) were often indecisive and lacked confidence in many key battles. Indecisiveness at Midway was the source of that disaster, and when the Yamato and the rest were poised to easily cause the destruction of the invasion force off Leyte, they ran from a hand full of destroyers. There were many times the Japanese had the advantage but their leaders lacked the courage to see it through or to be decisive.

On the otherhand, the Samurai spirt allowed the Japanese to hold out on little scraps of land against overwhelming odds, while being cut off, and without airpower and under appalling conditions and still cause the allies huge losses. I'm not so sure allied forces would of held up so well under those conditions.

Many of the Japanese senior field commanders came from an era before the Code of Bushido corruption. They were not old enough to remember the Meiji Restoration, but they were only one generation removed from it and grew up with stories of Japan before the military took over the national psyche.

Kurita specifically, who was in charge of the Center Force that hit Taffy 3 in the Battle Off Samar was the son of a scholar of the classics. He could read and write ancient Chinese and had grown up steeped in the real Japanese history. He saw the Code of Bushido for the load of horse droppings it was. He knew what the real Samurai Code was. The Code that was perpetuated in the Japanese military was a massive corruption intended to make their military men more determined to give their all for the emperor.

Kurita was a more cautious admiral as a result. He followed orders, but always looked for an excuse to save the lives of his men and to keep his forces intact to fight another day.

At Samar, he had been brutally air attacked the day before and lost one of his best battleships. Before that, US subs had taken out a couple of his cruisers. He had made a nail biting crossing of the San Bernardino Straits at night. He knew the US fast carriers were out there somewhere, but didn't know where. When he encountered Taffy 3, he didn't know what he had encountered, but all the feints by TBFs from the CVEs, the courageous last stand of the escorts eroded his will. When the other planes from the other CVEs started showing up, he thought they were from Halsey's carriers and decided beating a retreat was the best course to save his force to fight another day.

I don't recall if he knew the fate of Nishimura's Southern Force or not. There was a lot of radio traffic generated among Olendorf's force the night before. If his force had been listening to the right frequencies, they would have been able to piece together the details and know the Southern Force had been crushed like an egg with a sledge hammer.

The other senior commanders in the IJN and the IJA had either "drunk the Kool Aid" with the Code of Bushido and were fanatical, or they had enough education predating it to know it was made up. The former group tended to get themselves killed off and the latter were more like Kurita, they did their job, but didn't take unnecessary risks and tried to save men and machines for later battles.

Bill

[Dora09]

I agree with Jetjocky-
Hitler was no military genius. The real geniuses were guys like Manstien, Rommel and Gudarian etc. Hitler like many of the Japanese Senior commaders were paralizingly indecisive at times and irrationally stuborn at others. Also, Germany didn't loose at the factory per se, they produced more in 1944 than in the lead up to the war. They chose to produce weapons that ate up the industry they had (ie, the Tiger and Panther tanks). If Germany lost at the factory they lost before the war started and they were aware that they couldn't win a protracted war with the industrial giants. This is why Blitzkrieg was developed and why they never produced a strategic bomber. They knew (as did Japan) that if they were to win they would have to win quickly, they didn't. They ended up fighting a type of war they knew they couldn't win.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: jetjockey

Please do not confuse Hitler’s audacity with genius. Many of his decisions were made not because of any grand insight on his part, but rather because they went against the wishes of the German General Staff, whom he hated with a passion. That he was often proven correct is more a testament to the drive and vision of the “Young Turks” that he favored, then making their way up through the ranks. These men recognized and capitalized on the changing realities of the battlefield, a trait not shared by the vast majority western leaders.

Also, Hitler’s “Hold Fast” orders did indeed prove to be correct, however, only after steadfastly refusing the army permission to make preparations to “winter over.” Had the army been able to go into “Winter Quarters” so to speak, the losses of men (veterans all) and material would have been greatly reduced. This army would have been able to resume offensive operations as the weather cleared rather than spend time reorganizing. All things being equal, this means that the 6th Army could have been at the “Gates of Stalingrad” two months earlier.

I think Hitler was consumed with the nature of fanaticism. When things went well, he did sometimes make some brilliant decisions. Hitler, for all his faults, was brilliant at reading people. He had met many of the leaders he faced early on before the war and he had their measure. He made bold moves knowing how they would react. Hitler had never met many of the leaders who came along later and he was poorer at predicting them and they had fewer exploitable flaws. Stalin, the one Allied leader he knew who did stick around changed in late 1941. Stalin switched from trying to motivate people with communist rhetoric to using Mother Russia rhetoric. He wisely realized that Russians would fight for their homeland, but not for the more abstract ideals of communism.

When things go well for fanatic movements, the fanatics can be seen as geniuses. In many cases they are. The fanatic leaders are relaxed and happy with their success, so they think clearly and make successful decisions. When things turn against a fanatic movement, the leaders tend to make horrible decisions because they are acting out of fear and anxiety.

All people make better decisions when they are relaxed and bad decisions when they are stressed and anxious, but this is amplified for people who are fanatical. It's the black and white nature of fanatics. People who normally see the shades of gray may pick a darker gray if they are stressed, a fanatic only sees black and white, so will chose black if stressed about the way white is going.

As the war went worse and worse for Germany, Hitler became more and more unhinged and issued worse and worse orders. He was falling apart mentally as his physical empire disintegrated.

If Hitler hadn't been as fanatic, Nazi Germany never would have happened. Or if it did, it probably wouldn't have evolved the same way. That fanaticism was a two edged sword that also sowed the seeds of its own destruction.

Bill

[Dili]

The successes of Hitler were not due too his supposed genius but to the disgraced opposition he had. He played poker, in a logical world France would never let German eat Poland then let German lick it's wounds of Poland adventure "drole de guerre", prepare for another round, adding in the way all Skoda industries from Czechs. To not talk about the invasion where there was 1:1 in forces. But France was a morally sick country. Divided, sclerotic leadership, a culture of defeatism, believing in a Maginot Line that indeed worked but after all wasn't the end of all things.

[xj900uk]

Kurita specifically, who was in charge of the Center Force that hit Taffy 3 in the Battle Off Samar was the son of a scholar of the classics. He could read and write ancient Chinese and had grown up steeped in the real Japanese history. He saw the Code of Bushido for the load of horse droppings it was. He knew what the real Samurai Code was. The Code that was perpetuated in the Japanese military was a massive corruption intended to make their military men more determined to give their all for the emperor.

Kurita was a more cautious admiral as a result. He followed orders, but always looked for an excuse to save the lives of his men and to keep his forces intact to fight another day.

At Samar, he had been brutally air attacked the day before and lost one of his best battleships. Before that, US subs had taken out a couple of his cruisers. He had made a nail biting crossing of the San Bernardino Straits at night. He knew the US fast carriers were out there somewhere, but didn't know where. When he encountered Taffy 3, he didn't know what he had encountered, but all the feints by TBFs from the CVEs, the courageous last stand of the escorts eroded his will. When the other planes from the other CVEs started showing up, he thought they were from Halsey's carriers and decided beating a retreat was the best course to save his force to fight another day.

I don't recall if he knew the fate of Nishimura's Southern Force or not. There was a lot of radio traffic generated among Olendorf's force the night before. If his force had been listening to the right frequencies, they would have been able to piece together the details and know the Southern Force had been crushed like an egg with a sledge hammer.

Interesting insights on Kurita, thanx. History has often painted him as the hunter that missed the sitting target at Leyte, and threw away the IJN's one good chance of anything like a 'decisive victory'.
BTW don't 4get that Nagumo was over-cautious as well. Caution caused him to cancel the 3rd strike at PH as he did not know where the US carriers were, and he saw more his duty to return the KB intact back for His Majesty than do any futher damage to the US. Also he was over-cautious at Midway (aided by some very dubious reconissance) and prevaricated at hte worst possible time. Had Yamuchita (Admiral on board the Hiryu) been in charge, he would have launched every strike plane at the US (regardles of whether there were any escorts available to accompany them) the moment the first vague 'estimated ten unknown ships approaching you from the NNE range 220 miles' came through

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Kurita specifically, who was in charge of the Center Force that hit Taffy 3 in the Battle Off Samar was the son of a scholar of the classics. He could read and write ancient Chinese and had grown up steeped in the real Japanese history. He saw the Code of Bushido for the load of horse droppings it was. He knew what the real Samurai Code was. The Code that was perpetuated in the Japanese military was a massive corruption intended to make their military men more determined to give their all for the emperor.

Kurita was a more cautious admiral as a result. He followed orders, but always looked for an excuse to save the lives of his men and to keep his forces intact to fight another day.

What Kurita seems to have totally misunderstood is that his entire mission was simply a "kamikazi" strike. He wasn't supposed to return, he was supposed to inflict maximum damage on the enemy and disrupt their speed of advance. The Navy had two years of utter failures to atone to the Emperor for, and he was leading part of the "atonement force". Can he really have thought at that point of the war that his forces were EVER going to have a better chance to hurt the Americans? I don't think so.

[xj900uk]

Kurita was not a good choice to lead in the battleship TF but then there were three others converging on the landing area and his was the only one that turned up at the right place & at the right time (the other two having been attacked and largely anihilated).
By late '44 Ozawa was probably the best active ocean-going Admiral the IJN had but he was way to the north commanding the sacrificial carrier fleet - privately he thought the entire Sho plan was doomed to disaster and he would loose every ship in his command

[jiajia1]

This topic is too big. You have 2 choices.
1. Simply accept someone's opinion at your own risk then may find it has problem later soon and change to another.
2. Do a lot of read written by Americans, Japanese and Chinese (of course first hand official docs are best choices like Japan's War History Series) and form your own thought gradually.

Surely 99% person will choose 1 then start to comment on it.

[BBfanboy]

I read the start of this thread and the last page, so I can't say for sure but it looks like there is another factor in Japan's decision to go to war with the Western powers that may have influenced their decision in favour. All industrial nations in the West suffered the effects of the Great Depression (from collapse of an unsustainable stock market system) followed by the Dirty Thirties drought that devastated agriculture.

Japanese leaders would have seen the pictures of men in ragged clothes lining up at soup kitchens or riding on top of railway cars to go looking for work. That would give the impression that the industrial powerhouse they were worried about had been much weakened, and would take many years to recover.

[Mike Solli]

...ignoring completely logistical aspects...

That has been an issue with armies throughout history with many countries. It is happening today. Just check current events.

How often has a country thought it could start a war that would be over in months, or even weeks? They would misjudge their ability (much more capable than reality) and the ability of their opponent (much less capable than reality).