Traditions Vindicated: The Japanese assessment of what went wrong off Borneo
Japan was reeling from its defeat off Borneo. The government had tried desperately to gag the press and limit knowledge of Japan’s defeat, but the number of ships not returning home, especially the absence of
Kirishima and
Haruna, couldn’t go unnoticed for long. It started as whispers, as sailors took to their shore-leave it quickly became an open secret that not even the Tokkō could suppress. The mighty IJN had been beaten bloody.
The IJN needed to get a win under its belt else the government might face a crisis of public faith. So the question of the day became, how to fight the British.
Perhaps the most glaring issue was numerical. The Japanese had underestimated the extent to which the British would concentrate their navy at Singapore. Not unreasonably so, Britain had after all maintained local squadrons and mounted extensive Mediterranean operations during the Great War despite building the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. That Britain would completely strip Australia of even its own navy was unbelievably bold.
Nonetheless, Japan had sent nearly half its fleet to strike at an enemy that didn’t exist while the other half ran headlong into the largest battle line seen since the Great War. It was quite evident that Japan should have stuck to the tried and true Combined Fleet model. The entire IJN was surely a match for the forces that Britain could spare from the European Theatre.
The next matter was a matter of ship quality. At the most decisive point in the action, the confrontation between the two fast battle lines, the ships were actually even at two each. That the Japanese ships had been so clearly beaten indicated that the IJN had failed in its goal of procuring individually superior vessels to make up for its quantitative handicap with the British and Americans. That the British ships had a heavier (if inferior in other ways) armament became a point of obsession, and largely served to vindicate plans for the
Yamato-class’ 18” armament. Other areas of focus were the superior reaction time of the British aircraft and anti-air artillery, and the apparent vulnerability of the arrangement of the oxygen fueled torpedoes on Japan’s destroyers.
One of the massive turret wells aboard the incomplete Yamato.
IJN officials did note the extent of the attrition inflicted upon them by British submarines, and the RN’s apparent capacity for nighttime carrier operations. However, the majority of the IJN’s analysis and discussion of the western pincer operation was quite narrowly focused on the battle. Illustrative of this fact was a survey circulated of the captains who partook in the battle. Of its 33 questions only 8 did not exclusively pertain to the battle.
There was one take away of note that didn’t reinforce or refine existing doctrines. That perhaps
Akagi’s air compliment would have been better spent replacing losses amongst the compliments of
Kaga and
Hosho rather than disembarking for land. Though the main impetus for this seems to be that the army was agitating to have
Akagi’s former wings transferred to their control.
Japanese shake up: A new admiral steps up to bat
The question of who could salvage the situation was difficult to answer. The specific losses sustained would make winning a decisive gun battle difficult. This was especially if Britain continued reinforcing Singapore, and more British capital ships were due.[1]
Deciding the decisive battle had therefore fallen to the carrier wing, or at least that’s what Deputy Naval Minister Isoroku Yamamoto insisted.[2] He had a strong argument, given that the western pincer’s carrier force, despite its issues, still managed to force the British to break off their pursuit and rendered Britain’s torpedo bombers a non-factor. Meanwhile, their battle line had been battered.
Yamamoto’s solution was radical. An “air fleet”, Japan’s six[3] carriers acting as a highly mobile fleet capable of ravaging the enemy’s battle line from beyond the horizon. A single colossal strike package that would take out an enemy fleet in 1-3 sorties. This would also mean the fleet would need to travel a shorter distance to strike, thus reducing the amount of time the enemy’s attritional factors would have.[4] His argument was persuasive.
As a concession to the Fleet Faction[5], one of their own and a veteran of the Battle Off Borneo, Chūichi Nagumo, was raised to the rank of Vice Admiral so as to command this experimental fleet. He would be joined by Japanese naval aviation pioneer Takijirō Ōnishi, and together their first task would be to devise a means to retrieve
Akagi’s air wing,[6] for without it the 1st Air Fleet couldn’t even train.
On the 3rd of February Isoroku Yamamoto was promoted to the rank of Admiral and given command of the Combined Fleet. He alone would bear the responsibility to see through his innovative gamble.
Vice Admiral Nagumo and Admiral Yamamoto
The same day a very unseasonable tropical depression was observed off Yap, as though it were an omen of things to come.
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[1] many of Japan’s big gun lobby privately despaired that the war had been lost.
[2] and as one of the pioneers of the IJN’s air arm he had some need to stand up for his child. This was probably part of why he changed his tune from the previous year, when, as a dissenting voice in Japan’s headlong rush to war, he earned many death threats.
[3] including
Hiryu, expected to be ready in time for the decisive action.
[4] Turning Hong Kong into a forward base would also reduce the length of the journey to Borneo.
[5] militarist wing of the INJ.
[6] the pilot Minoru Genda seemed to be held in especially high esteem by Yamamoto.
A/N:
Sorry for the somewhat skimpy update, I’ve moved. Next time will cover... whatever Churchill is plotting.
