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PaperclipPerfector
1d ago
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Notes -
So I just finished the second book in Ian W. Toll's Pacific War Trilogy: Conquering Tide. This book begins with the battle for Guadalcanal, which takes up a third of the book and culminates in the disastrous (for the Japanese) battle of the Philippine Sea. I liked this one even more than Pacific Crucible, because it filled in many of the gaps that I saw in that book (submarine war, army/navy conflict), although the series continues to be very Navy and American-centric. This is not a problem for me as I'm trying to read this series to help me understand my country's history and don't mind reading another book to learn about ANZAC, Burma, and China. More thoughts listed in roughly chronological order below.
Submarines were absolutely vital for the American effort in the Pacific, and were responsible for sinking something like 60% of the enemy tonnage throughout the course of the war. My favorite chapter in the book was one in which we followed the submarine crew of the Wahoo and its crazy Skipper "Mush" Morton throughout most of 1943. Unlike the Allies in the Atlantic, the Japanese didn't really give much of an effort in developing anti-submarine tactics, because of the "low prestige" of the job, nor did they really ramp up their own submarine attacks on American shipping. This seems like a huge oversight.
Guadalcanal seems like it absolutely fucking sucked for everyone. Swampy malarial jungle, poor supply situation, and constant aerial bombardments meant neither the Japanese nor the Americans got much rest when they weren't fighting.
American strategy at Guadalcanal seemed extremely smart to me: contest the islands just enough to continuously bleed Japanese air and sea power from bases further up the Solomons/Bismarks (mainly Rabaul). Kind of like the original plan for Verdun.
Japanese leadership in general seemed extremely bad. A lot of decisions seemed to be made for ego-stroking reasons, rather than around any kind of grand strategy to win the war. Of course if Japan had had competent leadership, it never would have bombed Pearl Harbor, or even invaded China in the first place, but even so, there were many things that the Japanese leadership could have done to improve their performance in the war. More careful shepherding of human resources, above all pilots, more extensive aviation training programs, strategic giving up of territory, better cooperation between the army and navy all would have turned many of Japan's most catastrophic losses into victories, or at least less bloody retreats. The two worst examples of this were lack of pilot rotations, meaning almost all experienced pilots were killed in 1942-early 1943, and the army's repeated use of Banzai tactics against US marines. It's not the 19th century anymore folks! In contrast the US leadership, especially Nimitz, seemed to me to be extremely high caliber. Maybe this was because the US military actually had some oversight from the civilian government so incompetents and fanatics could be removed?
Ideas like Elan, Warrior Spirit, and Bushido seem to be total bullshit in modern war. Time and time again Japanese troops and pilots make extremely brave and daring calls, but these aren't enough to overcome, and sometimes reinforce tactical stupidity. In contrast, the Americans are much more on a bell curve of bravery, but win the day because of better leadership and equipment. Of course the war was ultimately decided by American material might, but early in the book around Guadalcanal, Americans won engagements that they shouldn't have on paper because of far superior leadership and planning, despite maybe lower overall "quality" in the enlisted men.
At the same time, American tolerance for causalities is super low. In the first island hopping campaign in the Marshalls, Toll makes a big deal about Americans losing ~2k dead taking Tarawa. Casualties are similarly low for much of the rest of the action of the book, including on Saipan and Guam. Even on Iwo Jima and Okinawa had only about 12k dead each. Compared to the Eastern Front, WW1, or even the Civil War, these are pathetic numbers that the media made a storm about. I don't mean to take these deaths lightly, but proportionally this is nothing. This attitude has only gotten worse (Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan, current Iran war), and I think it makes it increasingly difficult to accomplish our geopolitical goals.
Battle of the Philippine Sea (the biggest carrier battle ever apparently) was kind of sad and anticlimactic. The Japanese pilots were so undertrained that they were shot out of the sky like turkeys by American aces. Earlier in the war, better pilots might have taken down quite a bit of the American Navy.
Complete and utter failure of Japanese intelligence and reconnaissance. The amount of times I read the words "surprisingly, the American fleet arrived undetected" was shocking, and indicates a lack of investment in code-breaking and reconnaissance by the Japanese leadership. Of course some of this was luck, but if something happens almost every time, it's not luck.
Great writeup. And now you definitely need to read Thunder Below.
I want to point out that 12,000 dead is actually a lot. Gettysburg saw 3,100 Union soldiers killed and maybe 4,700 Confederates. You might be thinking of casualty numbers.
More commentary to follow, maybe, but in short I think aversion to casualties is more complicated.
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