Additionally the pilot pipeline for the Japanese military particularly the Imperial Navy was tremendously long. It took approximately one year to train and certify their pilots combat ready. In 1942 when the war starting heating up with the United States, the Imperial Navy took staggering losses at Coral Sea and Midway that decimated their pool of experienced pilots.
Why Japan lost the war!?! They lost the war by declaring war. Fun fact: by the end of the war the monthly economic output of California was greater than Japans entire economic output for the war.
a very interesting and appealing lecture-the connection with the bandsmen and code breaking, I have never heard of that before. Thanks for posting this.
This show may save me a lot of time as I complete some lifelong studies. Have known vets and folks that lived during the war, yet as said during the intro not much is discussed about "reasons" the Imperial Japanese lost the war... in other words, why the war did not go as planned.
Okay, first Yamamoto didn't go to Yale, he went to Harvard. Second, the battle of Leyta Gulf wasn't that the Japanese miss ID our carriers and destroyers, it's because those ships attacked the Japanese as if they were fleet carriers and battleships causing the Japanese to believe they were bigger than they were. The Japanese rifle was that much different than any other countries, only the US standard rifle was semi-auto and not bolt action. Remember the US was the only country which allowed open sales of firearms to its people creating better designs during war for our troops. I feel the biggest reason then as is now that US troops came out on top is 50% of US recruits arriving for basic training in the military already knew how to use a gun. They grew up with a gun and for many it was not new or scary.
The biggest reason was due to the fact that the average US soldier was supplied with 80 pounds of supplies. Where as the average Japanese soldier's supply was 8.
As someone who went to Yale for grad school I screamed when I heard him say that Yamamoto went to Yale. Not that I blame Harvard for WW II. I thought it was a fine lecture overall. I agree completely on how complex the Japanese plans were. They were overplanned, but it is almost miraculous that they were as successful as they turned out to be. In Leyte Gulf they were pulling the three part plan off without radio contact. On the issue of the rifle, both of you are partly right. The military was transitioning from the Springfield to the Garand, the former being bolt action and latter semi-automatic. But the lecturer was talking about the war as a whole and he was absolutely correct that the Japanese never upgraded to a semi-automatic rifle while the US had the Garand. However, I would point out to the lecturer that despite the lack of a self- Also, the Betty did not look like a B-25 Mitchell but a B-26 Marauder. The Japanese did have a bomber that could be mistaken for a B-25 and in the Doolittle Raid some of the Japanese who spotted the B-25s mistook them for their own medium bomber with a similar tail. But look at a drawing of a B-26 and a Betty. Same plane almost. I liked his point about most Japanese "battleships" actually being battle cruisers.
And meant to add. Drives me crazy reading about the Japanese about the raw materials. What were they thinking? And one think I meant to add, or was in the process of adding: prior to Midway the Japanese, despite not having self-sealing tanks and no armor nonetheless had a higher ratio of kill over American planes. That was the huge deal with Lt. Comdr. Thach's implementing his "Beam Defense" (later renamed by Jimmy Flatley to "the Thach Weave") at Midway. After one of the four planes in his group got shot down (he had sent two other of his six Wildcats down with the torpedo planes from the Yorktown), he managed to lead his three Wildcats for over 20 minutes against over 20 Zeroes, despite his two other pilots having never been in combat before (Thach, on the other hand, was arguably the top fighter pilot in the Navy). It was a huge moment, for not only did it keep the Japanese CAP down low so that the American dive bombers were able to attack unmolested, but the "beam defense" provided a strategy for the American planes from June 1942 on to defeat the Zero in combat. Prior to Midway the Zero enjoyed a higher kill ratio over the Wildcat; after Midway the Wildcat, either as the F4F or the FM2, had a much higher kill ratio over the Zero thanks to Thach's strategy. The Hellcat pilots were schooled in the same strategy but with a better airplane. Finally, Roosevelt had almost no opinion on wither or not to set up camps for Japanese Americans. But the governor of California, Earl Warren, did care. Popular sentiment was in favor of locking up the Japanese Americans, and he wanted to be reelected. FDR needed the cooperation of the Republican Warren on a number of matters, so he OKayed the camps. It doesn't mean FDR wasn't culpable, but his sin isn't what many imagine.
In the question of "Could Japan have won the war?" I would argue a definite yes they could have if by the "war" you define Japan obtaining the raw materials it desired. I took a class with Dr. Paul Dull, Univ of Oregon history professor who was at PH at time of the attack and claimed he was one of only seven people in US fluent in Chinese, Korean and Japanese at that time. He had traveled through China and Japan pre-war and had great stories. His argument was that Japan could have won if it had avoided the US and attacked the British and the Dutch which obviously they could have beat easily. They would have obtained their natural resources. He believed FDR would not have declared war to "save" the British Empire. As long as the US was not attacked, the American people would never have gone to war and would have been content to defend the Western Hemisphere.
+W B Martin No, Japan couldn't win. Japan was a small insignificant country, hardly any resources and small industrial capabilities. The English speakers had so much land, resources, people and we had world's biggest nation, most powerful Military. We defeated Japan in a matter weeks in 1939, and 1945 Glory to S U
The road untravelled always looks smooth. If not Pearl Harbor, something else would have dragged the US into that war. I've read and like Dull's stuff, btw.
The late Hedy Lamar was another musician actress who worked on codes and signals, her terrific musical background led to a patent that facilitated the torpedo guidance system, GPS and cell phone. The musician connection may very well be something there.
Great job with this been researching for the last couple of years and this is as good as anyone could do in the amount of time you did it. I like lectures that frame around something but speak broadly. If you could recommend any books to read that would be great all I've read so far are some of the Marines accounts the battles that are more popular and on iTunes I'm sure there are many more not an audiobook form that I should get a list would be terrific
+Bryan Lubeck : Lundstrom's stuff is pretty good. Also good overall history of the Pacific War by Edwin Hoyt. I'll have to check for others -- I have hundreds .
Very interesting . On the reverse it’s terrifying the amount of success Japan had given their limitations. The amount of casualties they inflicted - which given the 4 to 1 or greater casualty ratio already is crazy.
Actually, the story about the Hood is a bit more complicated. The Brits recognized the danger of “plunging fire” and part of the Hood had the deck armour upgraded. Because the Hood toured the empire, the work was never completed and a part of the deck was still unarmoured when the battle with Bismarck occured. The captain of the Hood was steaming towards Bismarck as fast as he could, trying to get from plunging fire that could penetrate the deck to flat trajectory, that would hit the armour belt of the Hood. He was aware of the danger, but that didn’t help.
I found this very interesting and informative. The style of delivery was excellent, it always held my attention, and of course there are numerous general summaries that are made that have skate over much of the intricate details of what happened and why. I'll try and find some more of your lectures now Dana.
I kind of stumbled on this presentation this evening. I thought it was excellent. I've read much of this is various other formats, but I thought this did a really good job of bringing together a summation of the Japanese thinking prior to, and during the war. The pictures and details surrounding Dana's father's experiences were fascinating and personalized the narration for me.My parents were living in Burbank, CA when Pearl Harbor was attacked. My mother told me there was a real fear that the West coast would be attacked, and also that Japanese spies had been present in Honolulu and had provided intelligence prior to that attack.The information that the code-breakers discovered plans to sabotage west coast defense plants was, however, new to me. It helps to support the fear that Japanese living in the West might be a fifth column within the United States. Does all of that support the internment of Japanese who were U.S. citizens? Hindsight might say "no", but fears at the time were high. I do recall my mother did not like the internment, but understood the rationale for it. Always like to see a different perspective on history. Thanks Dana!
Thank you for the kind words. I kind of wish the whole 90 minutes had been included, but I had no control . Yes, Tadeo Yoshikawa's activities at Pearl became widely know almost immediately, partially as a way to absorb some of the blame for the attack. Fwiw, I think given the same set of facts today, we would do the same thing.
In a war what is more important, a high fighting spirit or rational thinking. The essence of his talk is that rational thinking is FAR more important than a high fight spirit in a war.
Wonderful lecture with helpful slides. I have read several histories of the war in the Pacific, but this was the first time I have seen the errors in Japanese strategy and tactics compiled in such a concise manner. One book that I read was by a Japanese aviator who survived the battle of Midway and survived the war. He thought that the Japanese could have won at Midway. They had treated their battleships as the main force and kept them far behind the carriers. But by that point in naval warfare, the carriers were really the main force. So the battleships should have been kept near the carriers and could have provided some anti-aircraft fire as protection. Also, the diversionary force sent to the Aleutian Islands was a complete waste of resources, a point which Mr. Graham mentions in the context of overly complex Japanese battle plans. The later battle of Leyte Gulf was also too complex. One book that I read indicates that the decision of Admiral Kurita to turn back from a possible victorious assault on the warships and supply ships near the landing beach was partly from his desire to avoid wasted lives, since he apparently believed that Japan had already lost the war. But his admission of that fact was made very obscurely, after the war, to a long-trusted friend. He was the same admiral who at Guadalcanal had been successfully shelling the U.S. airfield, but who withdrew his ships far sooner than had been planned, thereby failing to destroy the airfield and the U.S. planes there, which were within his grasp. So perhaps he simply lacked the will to see a mission through to its end.
Frank Howard Relative to the Battle of Midway, the Japanese far out fire powered the Americans who really only had carriers to protect themselves and Hawaii with. And before and during the battle, so much of the guess work and coincidence went right for the Americans but wrong for the Japanese, who absolutely should have cleaned up but instead steamed home having essentially just lost the war.
+Frank Howard -- thank you Mr Howard. As noted above, this as actually a 90 minute talk pared down to 58 minutes for television. I prefer to believe that some of the non-sequiturs resulted from that. In the live lecture, for example, I do get into the idea that carriers had barely advanced beyond fleet auxiliaries by 1941, a notion often foreign to modern-day audiences. Gotta look at this stuff within the context of the time.
+Scott Jones : agree completely, tho I will say that the Japanese proclivity toward overly complicated battle plans resulted in a divided navy that might have prevailed otherwise. On the other hand, one could take the position that, with the overwhelming superiority they had and the limited time to be successful, tackling multiple objectives was smart. Condemnation of Yamamoto for dividing the fleet stems primarily from hindsight in knowing how it turned out.
Weren't the Japanese kicking our ass at Naval nighttime gunnery fights due to their radar targeting abilities at the beginning of the war ? Several of our battleships were heavily damaged by theirs and we even lost a few heavy Cruisers ! Japanese radar-based nighttime fighting was actually pretty good !
Dana Graham21 hours ago "I know. It was a 90 minute lecture distilled by the producers down to 58 for TV purposes," I sympathise and feel I may have been somewhat too critical of the omission of a few details.
Great video and thanks for it. I have included my opinion below, as an avid lifetime ameture WW2 historian on the Japanese conflict. There are many aspects of this huge conflict that make it appear a closer fight than it truly was. Japan entered this conflict with the express plan and hope the United States would find a negotiated peace more acceptable than a long and costly war to recover it's lost interest. Both sides leaders knew at the start who would win if negotiated peace failed. If the leaders of Japan knew they could not win why they lost is not a question? In short, Japan lost this war by starting it. They never had any chance to win at all and the principles concerned knew it. The hope was in being able to prevent defeat. In fact, they never won any strategic gain in any battle of the war with the U.S. including Pearl Harbor. Battleships, like those sunk at Pearl were relegated to mainland shore patrol during Midway as they were to slow for fast carrier task group operations. The Pearl Harbor attack was a huge tactical victory while at the same time a complete strategic failure that did nothing to hinder the U.S. ability to wage war. How Japan lost is the question of interest and again the answer is more simple than the size of the conflict may portray. The simple truth is Japan, for a short time only, had the ability to achieve minor tactical victories on a wide geographical scale. When all these tactical victories were achieved they hoped to defend them well enough to make recovering them not worth the cost compared to negotiated agreements. The problem that existed all along was a complete lack of the many resources needed to mount such a large area defense with meaningful concentration. In effect, the strategic aspects of the Japanese war effort did not exist in the reality of the circumstances. Once the U.S. reached even the very minimal of wartime footing Japan had already lost the initiative to conduct decisive offensive operations permanently. This occurred only 6 months into the war with Japan facing an enemy using a small portion of it's military power with mostly obsolete equipment and mostly unprepared for war. At the same time the majority of U.S. resources were going to the European war efforts. Japan was already on the way to losing the war before the U.S. focused even a fraction of the force eventually used. While the geographical territory was very large and involved many battles the Pacific war was very small compared to the levels of the European conflict. Considering that a huge portion of the destruction and casualties came from the air campaign that essentially flattened the Japanese homeland it appears even smaller. Most experts agree Japan was defeated long before it was compelled to make it official suffering near total destruction needlessly. If Japan had conducted itself as a western nation acceptance of hopeless defeat and surrender would have come much sooner.
Thank you for an interesting talk. It fit with my reading of history and one author's observation of Japan' s war making ability which he summed up with the phrase "Conducting war through wishful thinking." Japanese way games were always rigged to make sure Japan won. Your talk takes the same tone. Well done.
Right. Any more realistic negatives would have been seen as "defeatist", so battles were generally fought, as you say, in confident expectation of a miracle"
Viewers have to understand that Japanese military thinking (except for a few extremists) was not to invade the continental US but to gain enough ground to negotiate a "cease-fire" or "armistice" that would be favorable to the Japanese pursuit of their "East Asia Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere". Some of Japan's top brass and ambassadors such as ADM Yamamoto and GEN Kuribayashi (to name a few), knew that Japan did not have the manpower, the logistics, the industries, the transport, etc. to invade the US proper. The US and Canada (which was already at war via England) are simply too resourceful, spacious, industrialized, acclimated, etc. Japan did not believe that the US would fight back to the end, even if the US had lost its entire Pacific Fleet (carriers included), we would have time to rebuild/refit before Japan could move against the continent. Japan was more interested in invading Australia, New Zealand, and consolidating a perimeter of defense with wishful thinking that the US would accept these terms. Ciao, L
Strike all after "cease". I truly don't believe there will ever be an end to war, tho we have thought so and attempted to bring it about many times in the past.
Hi Dana, I am talking here about the professional well-educated well-rounded military leaders like ADM Yamamoto and GEN Kuribayashi who had "seen the world". I do not understand your question. Which war(s) are you referring to, the Pacific TOA WW II or wars since WW II. Happy Holidays, Ciao, L
Hi Menckencynic, I am not sure I understand what correction you are making on my comments or in what way do our opinions differ. We (US military) have studied/reviewed/analyzed, etc ad nauseam what happened in WW II, how it happened, why it happened, ... as these studies are very important to the formation of our future military leadership. My point (actually, what I learned at the War College) was that some of their top brass knew that they could not win a "slugging match" against the US. Most top military officers of most countries of that era were extremely well educated professionals - no fools by any means (some did "slip by" but the formation and selection of flag officers are similar in many ways regardless of one's country of allegiance (again with a few "political intervention" exceptions). I am putting fanatics, extremists, and politicians (of the era) aside here. Ciao, L
7 років тому
Your question went away. I can't read all of a large reply if you erase it. Yours ended at ""slugging match" against the US. Most..." Then three dots and nothing else.
There have been documentary film of Japanese pilots carrying long samurai swords into cockpits before they took off, I always thought that was odd, there is just barely enough room to move as is. Maybe it was just for propaganda. I've also read their pilots carried no parachutes, their planes had no armaments. For the first ten years they fought unopposed in Asia, until they met their match with US forces. Excellent chronology of the historical events. Spoken with a passion that is spell binding. I love it!
33:30 cause japan design those light cruiser so it can adapt 8 inch gun during war time ( they were design at the begin to arms with 8 inch gun and not 155mm , 155mm gun are just for treaty and peace time )
You are referring to Mogami class light cruisers, whose hulls were strained by the 8" guns, having been designed for 6". One result is that those ships were top heavy.
Aside from the raw materials and industry problem, Japanese army were in fact very badly equipped. Their infantry weapon technology (rifles,artillery,machine guns) was literally WWI grade, their tanks barely resisted rifle ammo. Only exception is their navy and aircraft like A6M2 zero, but even they became inferior with Americans develoing superior fighters.
Their navy and planes didn't resist a lot of fire either. As I said in the talk, it almost seemed as tho their stuff was designed with the idea that no one competent was going to be shooting back.
Dana I loved the lecture. It was very interesting. I even love the comments you got from others after. Both good and bad. Although I agree Kimmel and Short were used as "scape goats", they made huge mistakes ahead of time. Like lining up all the aircraft and such. Of course I realize it's much easier to see things from the future.
Many Japanese veterans firmly believe that the United States won the war against Japan thanks to its superior industrial might and technology but their fighting spirit was more powerful than Americans. However, his lecture taught me that there were many shortcomings which Imperial Navy neglected. In a nutshell, Japan`s war against the United States was unrealistic from the beginning judging from huge discrepancies of Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) between the two countries.
+MrEjidorie : Right -- Japan couldn't have won, but looking at it from their perspective at the time, one cannot quarrel with their decision to go to war.
After reading your question, I went out and bought it. I'm only on Ch 4 so far, but it is very interesting and makes a lot of sense so far. My only quibble so far is Hanson's assertion that US carrier Enterprise looked a lot like IJN Soryu. Yes, in the sense that they were both carriers. But that's a nit -- very good book so far, and a unique approach.
Almost finished with Hanson's book Carnage and Culture. As usual with most historians, he liberally employs hindsight in judging the actions of those on the spot, but a very impressive book.
Read the comments. Dana only slowly exposes how he's covered his topic - interviews, travel, reading, first hand accounts etc... Especially liked how he laid out how culture influenced military outcomes. I've been in poor countries recently, where technology use and sophisticated thinking are on par with the current US, yet the overall level of economic development is far behind where Japan was in WW2. The German war effort was (despite a similar total failure in practical forecasting at the top) vastly superior. I think it simply relates to the level of human development broadly, both intellectual and technological. The value of our leadership in the US, at the policy level, lags far behind a lot of the American population. We just haven't confronted our leaders with an organized alternative. This leaves us scratching our heads over the dumb and brutal wars our leaders are instigating. Our current military capabilities are, relative to the era, as good as the Germans in WW2. Tragically, our top leadership is also on par - out of touch with reality.
I appreciate your talk, but someone needs to do a long video on how the US carrier raid on Lae and Salamaua was the actual "turning point" in the Battle of Midway, given the "domino effect" that had on the Battle of the Coral Sea and thereby on the Battle of Midway. All three need to be considered together.
Why Japan Lost The War by Dana Graham Bruno Tata, being similarly interested, I too would appreciate Eddie Maddox's explanation of his rather strange view. The USA did have a modest carrier force off the north New Guinea coast sent there in response to the Japanese invasion of those two towns. But it was basically a land theatre of conflict fought by Australian divisions. The US 162nd RCT made an unopposed amphibious landing at Nassau Bay and brought some very welcome heavy artillery. And the US 503rd PIR gave a rapid lesson to some Australian troops to make a joint unopposed occupation of Nadzab airfield. But mostly it was bombing raids by US and Australian aircraft where the US was most helpful. The campaign ended in victory for the allies which lasted roughly Jan '43 to Sept '43. There was no great "carrier raid" on Lae and Salamaua, both towns were taken by land forces. The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought 4-8 May 1942 with US and Australian naval and airforces v those of the IJN. It was an indecisive battle but repelled an attack on Port Moresby, then capital of Australian Papua New Guinea. This did give rise to the Japanese attacks on Lae and Salamaua and their itention to take PM by a drive south through the Island. Guadalcanal campaign lasted August '42 to February '43. Strong US, Australian and NZ naval forces supported the landings. Contributing also were Solomon Islanders, Fijians and Samoans.Henderson Field now permanently in US occupation. Battle of Midway: Fought between the USN and the IJN, 4-7 June 1942. Regarded as the turning point in Japan's territorial expansion and aspirations to naval supremacy in the Pacific.
Instead of calling the Japanese plane a "Ronson" after the lighter, they should have nicknamed it the "Zipp-O". Although that might not have been considered appropriate as time went on and the World War transformed into a war of words.
You have to look at intel in context. There were a lot of things being predicted, 95% of which turned out to be false. Now that we know what happened, it's easy to go back and cherry-pick the ones that turned out to be right.
Interesting talk. I've always wondered about the Japanese penchant for Banzai charges and suicidal frontal attacks. Very poor use of resources. And the large numbers of suicides in caves etc. It seems like at the very least, the Japanese soldiers could have made better use of Guerrilla tactics.
The Imperial Army command structure was very rigid. There was no deviating from the original orders despite the obvious futility. Surviving Japanese soldiers all said that. And no survivors meant no one to go back and tell the higher-ups what might work better.
My uncle who served as an U.S.Marine 2nd division Betio, Saipan, and was on a transport that was sunk at okinawa...said that the Japanese wpuld drink and party just beyond the lines prior to Banzai charges usally just before daylight. But that would keep them awake and most people are usally there sleepiest just before dawn. And after an attack the bodies would be piled up like cordwood!!!
It takes at least a year or two to learn Japanese, much longer in order to break a military secret code. Training the USN band to do that right after Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941 doesn't quite fit the timeline. The diplomatic purple code was said to be broken before that date and the US knew A SNEAK ATTACK was afoot, before the Japanese ambassador submitted his resignation. The US did indeed break the Japanese navy code, just it would be incredulous that non native tongue USN band folks starting from zero could do that in just a few years, starting from after Dec. 7, 1941. Then who broke the diplomatic code prior to that? Did I miss something? Bob
+Bob Howard : breaking the code was a process, as you suggest. The musicians from the band demonstrated an aptitude. Joe Rochefort, Tommy Dyer and the boys (5 total) had been working on the code for about a year, as had the Redman brothers in DC. The band mostly did traffic analysis in the beginning. Japanese ambassador (Kurusu) did not resign before PH attack -- he was chewed out by Hull. Yes, US was expecting an attack, but no one was sure where. Thanks for watching.
Learning a language takes time, for sure. But the reason why musicians are so good at cryptanalysis is because codes, like music, tend to be mathematical patterns. So it stands to reason that musicians would be able to find patterns in a long chain. I don't think the Japanese had an alphabet at the time so I don't know how they sent the code, but I'm guessing it took numbers or something, which eventually become patterns.
The allies through wartime actions and post-war strategy can make the historically rare statement that they "won a war." The culture of the enemy has changed. Japan and Germany are no longer threatening. Both great nations have found ways to assert themselves globally and are admired. Look, I know each of those four sentences are generalizations and can be picked apart but the threat of war has not emanated from those borders since 1945. However: Eternal vigilance.
The Japanese ordered the banzai attacks because they had failed to modernize and industrialize to a profound degree, and had waited a profoundly long time to do so. Their attitudes were stuck in a time period hundreds or even a thousand years before. They were stuck in "sword culture," wherein a frenzied charge directly at the enemy was very effective. They were not used to Americans who had become proficient with firearms and could be lethal from a very long range. In firearm battle, firing from behind cover and shooting in a very calm, accurate manner is what wins the day. Even Robert E. Lee was stuck in the past in 1863 at Gettysburg when he assumed that the Yankees had old style muskets that would only fire one shot. He assumed that they would only fire one inaccurate shot and then the Rebs could charge them. Instead, they had deadly accurate rifles firing mini-ball ammo and they could reload much quicker. The result was that the Confederates got mowed down. It has to do with the mentality that is born of the technology.
Research what a rifle-musket is. Research what a mini ball really is. Research Napoleonic through civil war infantry tactics. Lee was very up to date(for the times) on tactics, strategy, weapons, logistics. Almost all infantry used Smith's or Hardee's or a close variation of those. It was not simply Lee stuck in the past, it was practically everyone on both sides. British soldiers with smoothbore flintlocks in 1775 were expected to get off 3 rounds a minute. In 1861 US and then Confederate soldiers were expected to get off that same 3 rounds a minute with a rifled, percussion lock rifle.
I've always thought the Japanese lost because they relied on Mahan to much. The Japanese went into the war looking to force a single massive battle to destroy the US fleet. This forced them into executing large and complex operations (think Midway) that were difficult to control and subject to multiple points of failure. The US, which in the early phases of the war wasn't looking not to win but just not to lose the war, operated with a great deal more tactical and strategic flexibility. The US struck only when it needed to, where it needed to, until it had amassed enough strength to go on a full-time offensive.
The US was immeasurably helped by knowing Japan's intentions via reading their messages, especially early in the War when meager assets could be put where they would do the most good. My discussion of the "decisive battle" aspect of Japanese strategy, unfortunately, ended up on the cutting room floor.
Yes, knowing the Imperial codes helped tremendously, but Japanese economic realities dictated their strategy. Their strategy, shaped by their operational philosophy (Mahan), made them predictable. Operational Intel was directed more at tactical information.
This is why Japan lost www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm it's called math. Example)The Americans had 4 large carriers at the start of the war and 33 at the end of the war. In 1944 the US built 96,000 planes and the Japanese made 18,000. Lasts but not least the States had the A-bomb 4 years before another country built one.
And that's why I call the lecture "The Other Reasons Japan Lost the War" -- other than that they were doomed to lose simply due to discrepancy in industrial capacity.
+William2020a : You are right in a way, but my thrust was intended to be the things Japan did to hasten their demise, granting that they could not have won.
Right, like the Vietnamese, Afghans and Iraqis. We owe the US Navy a massive debt for defeating the Japanese in the Coral Sea, but every other war they've dragged us into has turned into a debacle. I read an interview with two Generals at the start of the US invasion of Afghanistan - one an ex-Vietnam vet and the other a Russian veteran of their 80s invasion of Afghanistan. They both agreed that the military can only ever achieve what their politicians will allow them to achieve, but the Russian was adamant that Afghanistan was a graveyard for foreign forces and that the US would struggle to extricate itself regardless of the body count. As I type this, Coalition troops (predominately American) are still in Afghanistan, 16 years after the initial invasion. How many taxpayers / parents / voters signed up for that committment ?
2 things, MacArthur's landing on Leyte was not staged. The Japanese southern force was destroyed by American battleships in the last battleship vs battleship engagement in history, not by aircraft.
Halsey: 'The Gallant Hours'. Doesn't mention the Leyte landings and Halsey's awful mistake in chasing the empty carriers!! "Evacuation like Dunkirk"? try ,"Gallipoli.
Right, but when you know the result, it's easy to go back and pick out the events in isolation that led to it. Looking ahead is a different kettle of fish. As I said in the lecture, viewed objectively, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor made a whole lot of sense at the time.
How was the Hood the most powerful ship? It was just a big battlecruiser and its weakness was known. The problem was the speed of the Bismark, and the German ships were generally either waiting or running away. Their was a more powerful ship with the Hood while hunting the Bismark.
+Nick Zbinden : The point in bring up Hood was to illustrate the design fallacy of the Japanese battlecruisers that had been "upgraded" to BB's -- Kongo, Haruna, Kirishima, etc. My point was exactly that -- that they weren't powerful ships, but they looked good, which was really important to the Japanese. Having never been really tested in battle, they sort of lost sight of what was important. As to the Prince of Wales being more powerful than the Hood, yes on paper; but at the time of chasing Bismarck, she was not fully sorted and workmen were still on board, crew was still figuring stuff out, etc. Btw, this was a 90 minute lecture, so some of the stuff ended up on the cutting room floor to make 60 minutes.
Truman was also interested in impressing the Russians for post-War purposes. Dropping the bombs was the best decision at the time. If any significant number of US forces had been killed after the bomb became available and the public found out, Truman might have been impeached.
Dom Jermano this is the true reason. Some historical books also mentioned at some points American soldiers got tired with the Asia front battle because Japanese did not seem to give up no matter what.
The bombs did not win the the war, it was already won. The bombs forced Japan to accept surrender, making an invasion or a naval blockade, BOTH which would have resulted in many more lives lost from taking place. When you read the news release form the Truman administration after Hiroshima it is right there in plain English. The war is lost (and was lost since the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944), now we have the ultimate weapon, accept the surrender terms or face the consequences.
+Gerald Smith -- you are correct. My mistake in the heat of the moment. I also messed up by calling the Washington Naval Conference the London one. Live lectures are a bitch . Next time, I've gotta have notes. I will also say that this was a 90 minute talk and some material ended up on the cutting room floor; thus some information was left out and some of the transitions are awkward.
+Kenta Ro : I think the idea that Yamamoto was "with the US" is revisionist history. No time to address it now except to say that, generally, the further way we get from any historical event the more sense of the times is lost. Yamamoto, of course, had grave reservations about going to war with US, but came around when no alternative appeared.
I disagree with his assessment that there was no way Japan could win the war. This is using today's perspective. Try telling the marines and sailors fighting the Japanese back then...tell those veterans while they are being shot at and bombed..." There is no way Japan can win this war!" I think making this broadly misguided assessment that Japan could not have possibly won the war, diminishes the courage and sacrifice from our veterans. Of course Japan could have easily won the war! All it takes is ASSUMING YOUR ENEMY CANNOT POSSIBLY WIN
Mr. Graham neglects to mention it was America under FDR who goaded Japan to do the first attack, by eight actions including giving military aids including mercenaries known as flying tigers to Chiang Kai-shek's China, sending two divisions of submarines to the Orient, and complete trade embargo in collaboration with the British and Dutch cutting off Japan's supply of oil, scrap iron, rubber, etc.To be denied import of raw materials was to be condemned to the life of pre-industrial age. FDR had also authorized an attack on Japan's five cities in July 1941 months before the Pearl Harbor attack though it didn't materialize due to the planes being diverted to Britain. Speaking of Pearl Harbor, FDR had full advance knowledge of the attack as both Japan's military and diplomatic codes had been broken. So called Rape of Nanking is a product of China-US propaganda, not fact. It was part of War Guilt Information program that America prepared and implemented during 6 years of their occupation in Japan. The population of Nanking's safety zone at the time of Japanese invasion on December 13, 1937 was approximately 200,000 since the majority of people had already evacuated. A month later it was 250,000 and continued to increase as people began to return. There was no large scale massacre of civilians and the grisly photographs seen in books (Iris Chan's "The Rape of Nanking" and movies are either fake, photo-shopped, or come from somewhere else. Mr. Graham should probably stick his lecture to battle strategies and tactics.
+Sharon Isac : FDR did not have advance knowledge of the attack. Such postulates as those of Stinnet have been thoroughly disproven. Breaking JN 25 was a gradual process. Breaking the codes had only advanced to traffic analysis by the PH attack, which gives little info as to message content. You are right that FDR wanted Japan to strike first, but no one expected Pearl -- Philippines, Malaya, yes, but Japan was not assumed to have the capability to project sufficient power as far as Pearl. I knew people who escaped from Nanking just ahead of the "rape" and knew many victims. It does sound as though you have been snookered by post-war Japanese revisionism.
Sharon Isac, so Japan had a right to attack China and take whatever raw materials from other nations around it through military force? And because the US disagreed, and decided to use its own political and financial influence to divert fuel and raw material from Japan as punishment for Japan's military expansions, Japan had a right to attack the US in a surprise raid? Well, I guess if you assume Japan had a right to attack other nations around it for it's own economic good, then it would have a right to do the same to the distant US. But why then did the US not have a right to do the same to Japan in an exertion of its own agenda?
Btw, FDR's motivation for cutting off raw materials to Japan pre-PH was to coerce them, short of war, to end their escapades in China. I suppose if you want to characterize that as "goading" Japan into the war, you can. And again, neither FDR (or any other American) had reason to suspect the PH attack. That is simply wild, hindsight-filled speculation. "Japan's codes" had not been broken to a point anywhere close to knowing the attack was coming. My father was one of the code breakers and trust me, he would have told me.
Admiral Robert A. Theobald said FDR assisted in the secret plan of leaving Pearl Harbor open for a surprise attack by not telling Admiral Stack and General Marshall to warn Admiral Kimmel and General Short of the contents of the decoded Japanese message. And why did FDR appointed Robarts Commission to investigate Pearl Harbor, who found them guilty of dereliction of duty, softened the verdict to "failure of the commanders in judgement" but delay their right to be court marshaled in which case they would have been able to call their own witnesses?
Japan did not “take” but bought the supplies such as oil, rubber and tin essential to its industrialization and in order to support its growing population. As a matter of fact, the United States sold to Japan more than 70% of Japan’s oil supplies before the trade embargo. If you checked the US trade in those years you would find Japan one of the most reliable customers who always paid every penny owed. It should be well known among American people by now that FDR’s administration and his war cabinet were deeply infiltrated by the Soviet agents who had the direct hand in planning and implementing the 8-step provocation of Japan into making the first strike against the United States. Hamilton Fish, a Republican member of Congress for twenty-five years and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee 1933-45 writes in his book “FDR: The Other Side of the Coin (1976)”: President Roosevelt called the attack on Pearl Harbor the Day of Infamy and all Americans applauded and acclaimed him. We naturally believed him that it was an outrageous attack by the Japanese in the midst of peace negotiations. Not a single member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, had the faintest idea of the existence of President Roosevelt’s war-provoking ultimatum handed to the Japanese Ambassador Nomura at the State Department by Secretary Hull on the afternoon of November 26, 1941, ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. (p. 143)
Obe -- did you grow up in Japan in the post-War period? Much of the revisionism you post here sounds like what the Japanese schools taught in the decades following the War. I had personal friends that were in Nanking in 1937. Sorry, but the historical record is accurate on that one.
Old men with outdated strategies. They just could not admit that the airplane was replacing their "hotel battleships" and the things that kept them at their elevated social status were those military uniforms. Yamamoto was a terrible Commander of The Combined Fleet. He fed his ships into a meat grinder piece meal. The truly effective ships, the destroyers, were thrown away by being assigned to duties they were not intended to perform as transports and cargo ships. The cruisers and battleships were "saved" for the hoped for "All Out Battle" that never came. Their submarine fleet was misused also. Attacking cargo ships was beneath their dignity. There is a lesson here. Get rid of the dead weight in your military leadership before the war begins. The Japanese Admirals, Yamamoto, Nagano and Nagumo were worse than nothing. Their best Admiral, Tamon Yamaguchi died at Midway, foolishly going down with his ship just when a man of his intellect was most needed. I'm happy we won but the Japanese people deserved better.
I don't argue with any of it, but you employ hindsight in knowing what the outcome was. The argument can be made that Japan, knowing they had a narrow window to accomplish their goals, needed to take on many challenges simultaneously, which can partially explain their division of forces and approaching some on a "shoestring" basis. Had they gone as the Japanese foresaw, no one would be criticizing them today. Given the Japanese initial mindset that the Americans soft, and given their prior 20th Century battle history, their approach was not unreasonable, imho.
Very true, tho even their ability to fight battles was based on their post-Meiji experience against less than first-rate opposition. But to your second point, whether they knew how to or not, they simply didn't have the industrial base to compete with the roughly 20% of the US war effort that defeated them.
Excellent presentation! Yes! Kimmel and Short were fall guys! But what about that arrogant and narcissistic MacArthur?? He was given the MOH for his inaction (read: 8 hour warning) in the P. I.!!! Roosevelt may have thought, at the time, that we needed a hero. But MacArthur???
Wow, this was powerful. It's quite nuts that the code breaking hasn't been done at some top secret intelligent service bunker, but actually some random ship by some musicians :) I guess that's why they've built up the CIA in 47.
There was a code breaking operation in Washington DC, but Station Hypo were the real innovators, and yeah -- the USS California band helped out a lot in those early days.
Thanks, appreciate the clarification. That was a very, very interesting talk. Personally I didn't knew that Japans fleet was basically not created to withstand an attack.
The Japanese thought offensively. I don't think they took seriously the idea that they might come up against a competent enemy. Many of the guys who fought them early on around Java, etc, commented that the Japanese seemed truly surprised when anyone actually fired back at them. In that regard, they did not deal well with the unexpected, which frequently caused them to retreat (see Coral Sea, Leyte Gulf, etc).
I work in the video games industry, so I sort of know the japanese mentality. It's still a fairly weird military strategy given that they've probably gathered intel about the US fleet and knew that these are ships that don't get knocked out by one salvo. So they sure as hell will fire back :) It's certainly interesting how wars repeat themselves. Was just reading a lot about Roman legions and many authors claim most of the time they were victorious because they kept reserves in the background and had a very efficient rotation system so that tired soldiers could rotate back and rested comrades take their place. That way their losses were kept as low as possible. It's kinda comparable: You can probably not avoid getting hit by other ships in a large battle, but it's massively important to keep fires under control and maintain battle ready as long as possible.
Not really. The Japanese were as ignorant of the Americans as the Americans were of the Japanese at the outset of the War. They had the hubris born of centuries of self-imposed isolation and as little contact with the outside world after that (1868) as they could manage.
Surprised to even find a video on this subject. Japan lost the War simply because it was involved in a war of attrition with a nation with a hundred-times the war industry capability. The U.S. built more war material than it could even use; half of it all was just given away to its allies. Bushido means nothing without men left to hold non-existent rifles and living off non-existent rations. Banzai charges didn't occur right after the initial landings as the speaker says; the charges were last ditch efforts occurring at the end of the battles by desperate Japanese survivors. Always somebody who wasn't there telling everyone else what it was like.
That's why it's "The Other Reasons. . . ." I understand your point about being there, but being there doesn't always provide the best perspective on what happened. I've interviewed many veterans who were there, and their stories have to do with taking that hill or surviving the sinking of this or that ship. And banzai charges were often, not always, used to attempt to drive the landing force back into the sea before the beachhead became established.
Japan lost the war for the same reasons the South lost the civil war. They presumed that they were much better fighters than their opponents. They thought that their opponents would come to a negotiated settlement. And most importantly, they had not the resources in manpower and production to that their opponents had.
Right. It was a harbinger. Also affected Japan's decision to "strike south", rather than attack Russia. I discuss the oil and other resources in the lecture. What is your point?
Mr. D. Graham - was any treason from the the Nisei ever discovered - I know about the Combat regiment 100 and the 422 - and they fought bravely in the European Theater.
There was no actual activity discovered that I am aware of; however, in the context of the time, when the Japanese appeared to be supermen, and Axis running rampant everywhere, and with the discovery of the messages from the Japanese foreign office, waiting to find out simply wasn't an option. It's the 442nd btw -- I've interviewed several veterans of that and the 100th. Their service, in view of the camps, et al, is one of the more poignant parts of WW 2
Why Japan Lost The War by Dana Graham Dana Graham "If not Pearl Harbor, something else would have dragged the US into that war." Of course it would have. Within hours of attacking PH Japanese forces landed in the northern Philippines and bombed Clark Field north of Manila where Angeles City now stands. MacArthur's inaction and the destruction of his airforce amounted to dereliction of duty. Surveillance flights had reported that the Japanese air force on Taiwan was expected to take to the air at any time. Poor weather and visibility had delayed them for several hours. It has become clear that Kimmell and Short on Hawaii were deliberately provided with obfuscatory messages about the Japanese threat. MacArthur knew the threat was imminent and deliberately did nothing. He was the senior ranking officer in the whole western Pacific and could not rapidly be replaced as the two commanders in Hawaii were. With great reluctance, FDR promoted him. Simultaneous with the attacks on the Philippines and Hawaii, the Japanese landed strong ground forces in southern Thailand and north east Malaya. Within hours of the PH attack also the island of Guam was captured and occupied by Japanese forces. Similarly, Wake Island suffered attack by Japanese forces but held out until forced to surrender on 23rd Dec 1941. US marines defended bravely but stood no chance. I think the attacks on Guam and Wake may have stung the USA into retaliation. particularly after the massacre on Wake of nearly 100 US citizens engaged in construction and administration. You wrote in reply to Vladimir Eng: "Tho you didn't do so well 1904-5." This is most likely a reference to the Russo-Japanese War and is a comment on the successes of the Japanese forces against the military might of Russia. Indeed, the Russian Navy, after sailing all the way via the CGH and the Indian Ocean, lost all but one ship in a battle in the Straits of Tsushima. More importantly, she occupied the Russian Island of Sakhalin. In almost every aspect, Japanese equipment was superior to that of Russia. I would like to get a clarification of Eng's remark; "We defeated Japan in a matter weeks in 1939, and 1945.....", if possible.
The British were doing air strikes with Radar at night and had Radar on ships to hunt U-Boats by 1941. So its false to say that 'nobody believed in Radar'.
+Nick Zbinden : yes, but radar was very crude -- my point was to dispel any comparisons in my audience between what radar was then and what it is today. It's like any new technology -- one thing that ended up being cut was the comparison to early firearms in the 14th & 15th centuries. The average person wonders why firearms didn't instantly take over, but the tried and true weapons were more reliable and, on balance, more effective.
I like your analogy, which is similar to ultrasound technology. When they first had it you could tell that the baby was alive and it's orientation. Now, you can sex your baby and find out quite a bit more information than before.
Right. The analogy I used, which ended up on the cutting room floor, was that of early firearms: one is tempted to ask why, upon the invention of the handgun, did the longbow not immediately retire to the rubbish heap. But early guns were unreliable and as big a danger to the operator as to the enemy, had a slow rate of fire, and wouldn't work in wet weather, so the longbow was preferable into the 17th century even tho firearms had been developed 300 years before.
Nobody was good about damage control, the americans were not good at it. The British were not, see the Ark Royal. It took both the Brits and the US a couple of years to be really good at it. Japan never figured it out.
+Nick Zbinden : Americans and British were much better at it than the Japanese. Japanese certainly would have lost Yorktown at Coral Sea had it been their design, their crew. British didn't need to lose Ark Royal, but insisted that it come into Gibraltar under it's own power. A friend of mine, now 96, was a junior engineering officer on Ark Royal at that time (and during hunt for Bismarck). He is the guy who told the higher ups that "we have enough power to either run the pumps or the props, not both". The RN tradition of coming into port under their own power won out, but the ship went down 20 mi off Gibraltar. The Japanese, for the reasons stated in the lecture, simply put no emphasis on damage control and had very few people trained for it.
Why Japan Lost The War by Dana Graham. Dana Graham, it's something of a disappointment to listen to your very brief extolling of the US code-breaker Rochefort and give no mention [let alone credit] for the Bletchley Park efforts and the Australian contribution to the breaking of Purple and JN25 [among a number of other Japanese codes]. I recommend you read THE EMPEROR'S CODES by Michael Smith and A MAN OF INTELLIGENCE. The Life of Captain Eric Nave Australian Codebreaker Extraordinary by Ian Pfennigwerth. You'll discover that the USA was assisted considerably despite a rather parsimonious attitude prevalent among the higher echelon in the US code-breaking fraternity. In addition, your assurance that the hierarchy in Washington was not aware of an imminent invasion flies in the face of the expertise you claim to command. Doubtless you have read John Costello's DAYS OF INFAMY and Robert Stinnett's DAY OF DECEIT, each an author of widely acknowledged erudition, both of whom complain bitterly of the boxes of records still denied them, records aleady over 70 years old and falling into a dilapidation that will soon render them unreadable, records that still protect reputations that history can no longer harm. IMHO, you were wrong to give such a guarantee. As it is, the oft-stated injunction from Washington that Japan must be seen to strike the first blow is all you have to fall back on. As early as the Spanish-American War and the US invasion of the Philippines the USA regarded an eventual war between itself and Japan as a distinct possibility. I think the strategic planning undertaken as a result of this was named ORANGE. As to the likelihood of a Japanese invasion of Australia, the tyranny of distance via ocean navigation was recognised by Japanese strategists as an insoluble problem as were the huge problems of defending such a conquest. As far as they can be divined Japan's conquests were principally inclined toward a fomenting of rebellion and revolution in India through the figurehead of Chandra Bhose, wresting that nation from British rule, then crossing through Persia to meet up with German forces in the oil-rich Balkan regions. A grandiose scheme, it is granted and likely beyond the resources that Japan began the war with but consisting of resource-rich territory all the way. With those resources of The East Indies, Indochina, Burma, India and Persia the grandiosity gives way to a sinister appeal.
In hindsight cuz it didn't work out, but contemporaneously it looked like a reasonable course of action to them, who had no real concept of the character and strength of the American people and industrial might.
They crushed all of the European colonial powers, would certainly have defeated Australia and NZ had they tried to invade, for some time they were as unstoppable as the Germans were in Europe.
Not so sure about Australia and NZ. The Japanese themselves had trepidation about Australia and were becoming stretched pretty thin by Spring of '42. You are right about colonial powers as I said in my talk -- they pretty much had their hands full in Europe.
Excellent presentation. Lots of information I was not aware of. Have you done any similar presentations?
Thank you. I've given this taik around Southern California plus others on local history. Got a few more in my head, but no time to put them together.
Very, very interesting.
Thanks for uploading this material.
Cheers
Additionally the pilot pipeline for the Japanese military particularly the Imperial Navy was tremendously long. It took approximately one year to train and certify their pilots combat ready. In 1942 when the war starting heating up with the United States, the Imperial Navy took staggering losses at Coral Sea and Midway that decimated their pool of experienced pilots.
Why Japan lost the war!?! They lost the war by declaring war. Fun fact: by the end of the war the monthly economic output of California was greater than Japans entire economic output for the war.
They painted themselves into a corner, much of which was caused by a late start on industrialization due to their 250 year isolation.
a very interesting and appealing lecture-the connection with the bandsmen and code breaking, I have never heard of that before. Thanks for posting this.
+Ron Bishop : this was something my father told me personally -- I haven't seen it anywhere else. He knew all these guys personally.
This show may save me a lot of time as I complete some lifelong studies. Have known vets and folks that lived during the war, yet as said during the intro not much is discussed about "reasons" the Imperial Japanese lost the war... in other words, why the war did not go as planned.
The higher your point of view on a ship is, the further you can see. Adding height to the mast does add view range and gun range.
Okay, first Yamamoto didn't go to Yale, he went to Harvard. Second, the battle of Leyta Gulf wasn't that the Japanese miss ID our carriers and destroyers, it's because those ships attacked the Japanese as if they were fleet carriers and battleships causing the Japanese to believe they were bigger than they were. The Japanese rifle was that much different than any other countries, only the US standard rifle was semi-auto and not bolt action. Remember the US was the only country which allowed open sales of firearms to its people creating better designs during war for our troops. I feel the biggest reason then as is now that US troops came out on top is 50% of US recruits arriving for basic training in the military already knew how to use a gun. They grew up with a gun and for many it was not new or scary.
The biggest reason was due to the fact that the average US soldier was supplied with 80 pounds of supplies. Where as the average Japanese soldier's supply was 8.
When the US Marines invaded Guadalcanal, the arm of issue was the Springfield 03 bolt action rifle. Look it up.
Not to mention the fact that the US had far greater medical facilities for wounded.
As someone who went to Yale for grad school I screamed when I heard him say that Yamamoto went to Yale. Not that I blame Harvard for WW II.
I thought it was a fine lecture overall. I agree completely on how complex the Japanese plans were. They were overplanned, but it is almost miraculous that they were as successful as they turned out to be. In Leyte Gulf they were pulling the three part plan off without radio contact.
On the issue of the rifle, both of you are partly right. The military was transitioning from the Springfield to the Garand, the former being bolt action and latter semi-automatic. But the lecturer was talking about the war as a whole and he was absolutely correct that the Japanese never upgraded to a semi-automatic rifle while the US had the Garand.
However, I would point out to the lecturer that despite the lack of a self-
Also, the Betty did not look like a B-25 Mitchell but a B-26 Marauder. The Japanese did have a bomber that could be mistaken for a B-25 and in the Doolittle Raid some of the Japanese who spotted the B-25s mistook them for their own medium bomber with a similar tail. But look at a drawing of a B-26 and a Betty. Same plane almost.
I liked his point about most Japanese "battleships" actually being battle cruisers.
And meant to add. Drives me crazy reading about the Japanese about the raw materials. What were they thinking?
And one think I meant to add, or was in the process of adding: prior to Midway the Japanese, despite not having self-sealing tanks and no armor nonetheless had a higher ratio of kill over American planes. That was the huge deal with Lt. Comdr. Thach's implementing his "Beam Defense" (later renamed by Jimmy Flatley to "the Thach Weave") at Midway. After one of the four planes in his group got shot down (he had sent two other of his six Wildcats down with the torpedo planes from the Yorktown), he managed to lead his three Wildcats for over 20 minutes against over 20 Zeroes, despite his two other pilots having never been in combat before (Thach, on the other hand, was arguably the top fighter pilot in the Navy). It was a huge moment, for not only did it keep the Japanese CAP down low so that the American dive bombers were able to attack unmolested, but the "beam defense" provided a strategy for the American planes from June 1942 on to defeat the Zero in combat. Prior to Midway the Zero enjoyed a higher kill ratio over the Wildcat; after Midway the Wildcat, either as the F4F or the FM2, had a much higher kill ratio over the Zero thanks to Thach's strategy. The Hellcat pilots were schooled in the same strategy but with a better airplane.
Finally, Roosevelt had almost no opinion on wither or not to set up camps for Japanese Americans. But the governor of California, Earl Warren, did care. Popular sentiment was in favor of locking up the Japanese Americans, and he wanted to be reelected. FDR needed the cooperation of the Republican Warren on a number of matters, so he OKayed the camps. It doesn't mean FDR wasn't culpable, but his sin isn't what many imagine.
In the question of "Could Japan have won the war?" I would argue a definite yes they could have if by the "war" you define Japan obtaining the raw materials it desired. I took a class with Dr. Paul Dull, Univ of Oregon history professor who was at PH at time of the attack and claimed he was one of only seven people in US fluent in Chinese, Korean and Japanese at that time. He had traveled through China and Japan pre-war and had great stories. His argument was that Japan could have won if it had avoided the US and attacked the British and the Dutch which obviously they could have beat easily. They would have obtained their natural resources. He believed FDR would not have declared war to "save" the British Empire. As long as the US was not attacked, the American people would never have gone to war and would have been content to defend the Western Hemisphere.
My thoughts exactly.
How would've the Japanese avoided philippines going for the British/Dutch oilfields ..
It's somewhat similar to the China sea fiasco. .
+W B Martin
No, Japan couldn't win. Japan was a small insignificant country, hardly any resources and small industrial capabilities. The English speakers had so much land, resources, people and we had world's biggest nation, most powerful Military. We defeated Japan in a matter weeks in 1939, and 1945 Glory to S U
The road untravelled always looks smooth. If not Pearl Harbor, something else would have dragged the US into that war. I've read and like Dull's stuff, btw.
Tho you didn't do so well 1904-5.
The late Hedy Lamar was another musician actress who worked on codes and signals, her terrific musical background led to a patent that facilitated the torpedo guidance system, GPS and cell phone. The musician connection may very well be something there.
+Bob Howard : yep -- "frequency hopping"
Great job with this been researching for the last couple of years and this is as good as anyone could do in the amount of time you did it. I like lectures that frame around something but speak broadly. If you could recommend any books to read that would be great all I've read so far are some of the Marines accounts the battles that are more popular and on iTunes I'm sure there are many more not an audiobook form that I should get a list would be terrific
+Bryan Lubeck : Lundstrom's stuff is pretty good. Also good overall history of the Pacific War by Edwin Hoyt. I'll have to check for others -- I have hundreds .
Very interesting . On the reverse it’s terrifying the amount of success Japan had given their limitations. The amount of casualties they inflicted - which given the 4 to 1 or greater casualty ratio already is crazy.
Actually, the story about the Hood is a bit more complicated. The Brits recognized the danger of “plunging fire” and part of the Hood had the deck armour upgraded. Because the Hood toured the empire, the work was never completed and a part of the deck was still unarmoured when the battle with Bismarck occured.
The captain of the Hood was steaming towards Bismarck as fast as he could, trying to get from plunging fire that could penetrate the deck to flat trajectory, that would hit the armour belt of the Hood. He was aware of the danger, but that didn’t help.
I found this very interesting and informative. The style of delivery was excellent, it always held my attention, and of course there are numerous general summaries that are made that have skate over much of the intricate details of what happened and why. I'll try and find some more of your lectures now Dana.
I kind of stumbled on this presentation this evening. I thought it was excellent. I've read much of this is various other formats, but I thought this did a really good job of bringing together a summation of the Japanese thinking prior to, and during the war. The pictures and details surrounding Dana's father's experiences were fascinating and personalized the narration for me.My parents were living in Burbank, CA when Pearl Harbor was attacked. My mother told me there was a real fear that the West coast would be attacked, and also that Japanese spies had been present in Honolulu and had provided intelligence prior to that attack.The information that the code-breakers discovered plans to sabotage west coast defense plants was, however, new to me. It helps to support the fear that Japanese living in the West might be a fifth column within the United States. Does all of that support the internment of Japanese who were U.S. citizens? Hindsight might say "no", but fears at the time were high. I do recall my mother did not like the internment, but understood the rationale for it. Always like to see a different perspective on history. Thanks Dana!
Thank you for the kind words. I kind of wish the whole 90 minutes had been included, but I had no control . Yes, Tadeo Yoshikawa's activities at Pearl became widely know almost immediately, partially as a way to absorb some of the blame for the attack. Fwiw, I think given the same set of facts today, we would do the same thing.
In a war what is more important, a high fighting spirit or rational thinking. The essence of his talk is that rational thinking is FAR more important than a high fight spirit in a war.
I think that is undeniably true, especially as war has become more industrialized and mechanized.
yamamoto studied at Harvard University (1919-1921)
He studied at both...
Thank you Dana Graham for your fascinating insights into the War Against Japan. My only criticism is that your lecture was not 4 hours long!!!
Thank you for your kind words. It could have been, but I'm not sure the audience would have lasted that long .
My first wife was an orchestral flute player in the 1950s and the subject of musicians as apt code breakers came up in casual conversation.
Excellent presentation, Dana. Bravo.
thanks, good presentation.
Thanks
Fantastic talk. Thank you.
Thank you. It was fun.
Great speaker - very knowledgeable and accurate.
Great presentation!
Great presentation. Very insightful. Thank you.
Wonderful lecture with helpful slides. I have read several histories of the war in the Pacific, but this was the first time I have seen the errors in Japanese strategy and tactics compiled in such a concise manner.
One book that I read was by a Japanese aviator who survived the battle of Midway and survived the war. He thought that the Japanese could have won at Midway. They had treated their battleships as the main force and kept them far behind the carriers. But by that point in naval warfare, the carriers were really the main force. So the battleships should have been kept near the carriers and could have provided some anti-aircraft fire as protection. Also, the diversionary force sent to the Aleutian Islands was a complete waste of resources, a point which Mr. Graham mentions in the context of overly complex Japanese battle plans.
The later battle of Leyte Gulf was also too complex. One book that I read indicates that the decision of Admiral Kurita to turn back from a possible victorious assault on the warships and supply ships near the landing beach was partly from his desire to avoid wasted lives, since he apparently believed that Japan had already lost the war. But his admission of that fact was made very obscurely, after the war, to a long-trusted friend. He was the same admiral who at Guadalcanal had been successfully shelling the U.S. airfield, but who withdrew his ships far sooner than had been planned, thereby failing to destroy the airfield and the U.S. planes there, which were within his grasp. So perhaps he simply lacked the will to see a mission through to its end.
Frank Howard Relative to the Battle of Midway, the Japanese far out fire powered the Americans who really only had carriers to protect themselves and Hawaii with. And before and during the battle, so much of the guess work and coincidence went right for the Americans but wrong for the Japanese, who absolutely should have cleaned up but instead steamed home having essentially just lost the war.
+Frank Howard -- thank you Mr Howard. As noted above, this as actually a 90 minute talk pared down to 58 minutes for television. I prefer to believe that some of the non-sequiturs resulted from that. In the live lecture, for example, I do get into the idea that carriers had barely advanced beyond fleet auxiliaries by 1941, a notion often foreign to modern-day audiences. Gotta look at this stuff within the context of the time.
+Scott Jones : agree completely, tho I will say that the Japanese proclivity toward overly complicated battle plans resulted in a divided navy that might have prevailed otherwise. On the other hand, one could take the position that, with the overwhelming superiority they had and the limited time to be successful, tackling multiple objectives was smart. Condemnation of Yamamoto for dividing the fleet stems primarily from hindsight in knowing how it turned out.
Weren't the Japanese kicking our ass at Naval nighttime gunnery fights due to their radar targeting abilities at the beginning of the war ?
Several of our battleships were heavily damaged by theirs and we even lost a few heavy Cruisers !
Japanese radar-based nighttime fighting was actually pretty good !
great stuff
Dana Graham21 hours ago
"I know. It was a 90 minute lecture distilled by the producers down to 58 for TV purposes,"
I sympathise and feel I may have been somewhat too critical of the omission of a few details.
the banzai charge thing could also be because this attack tactic wroked fairly well in china, where most japanese soldiers gained valuable experience
Correct. A lot of stuff that worked in China didn't when up against a competent enemy.
good insights as you suggest, I just ordered Natome Ugaki book from my local library
Matt NY
+m lane I read the book. Interesting from the Japanese point of view. A great read.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you , very interesting speaker
Thank you very much. I'd like to get the whole 90 minutes on tape, but no one would probably sit thru it .
I am pretty sure any history buffs like me would . As a matter of fact I know they would . It's just excellent in my opinion
Great video and thanks for it. I have included my opinion below, as an avid lifetime ameture WW2 historian on the Japanese conflict.
There are many aspects of this huge conflict that make it appear a closer fight than it truly was. Japan entered this conflict with the express plan and hope the United States would find a negotiated peace more acceptable than a long and costly war to recover it's lost interest. Both sides leaders knew at the start who would win if negotiated peace failed. If the leaders of Japan knew they could not win why they lost is not a question? In short, Japan lost this war by starting it. They never had any chance to win at all and the principles concerned knew it. The hope was in being able to prevent defeat.
In fact, they never won any strategic gain in any battle of the war with the U.S. including Pearl Harbor. Battleships, like those sunk at Pearl were relegated to mainland shore patrol during Midway as they were to slow for fast carrier task group operations. The Pearl Harbor attack was a huge tactical victory while at the same time a complete strategic failure that did nothing to hinder the U.S. ability to wage war.
How Japan lost is the question of interest and again the answer is more simple than the size of the conflict may portray. The simple truth is Japan, for a short time only, had the ability to achieve minor tactical victories on a wide geographical scale. When all these tactical victories were achieved they hoped to defend them well enough to make recovering them not worth the cost compared to negotiated agreements. The problem that existed all along was a complete lack of the many resources needed to mount such a large area defense with meaningful concentration. In effect, the strategic aspects of the Japanese war effort did not exist in the reality of the circumstances.
Once the U.S. reached even the very minimal of wartime footing Japan had already lost the initiative to conduct decisive offensive operations permanently. This occurred only 6 months into the war with Japan facing an enemy using a small portion of it's military power with mostly obsolete equipment and mostly unprepared for war. At the same time the majority of U.S. resources were going to the European war efforts. Japan was already on the way to losing the war before the U.S. focused even a fraction of the force eventually used.
While the geographical territory was very large and involved many battles the Pacific war was very small compared to the levels of the European conflict. Considering that a huge portion of the destruction and casualties came from the air campaign that essentially flattened the Japanese homeland it appears even smaller. Most experts agree Japan was defeated long before it was compelled to make it official suffering near total destruction needlessly. If Japan had conducted itself as a western nation acceptance of hopeless defeat and surrender would have come much sooner.
I agree with all of the above, fwiw.
Thank you for an interesting talk. It fit with my reading of history and one author's observation of Japan' s war making ability which he summed up with the phrase "Conducting war through wishful thinking." Japanese way games were always rigged to make sure Japan won. Your talk takes the same tone. Well done.
Right. Any more realistic negatives would have been seen as "defeatist", so battles were generally fought, as you say, in confident expectation of a miracle"
Viewers have to understand that Japanese military thinking (except for a few extremists) was not to invade the continental US but to gain enough ground to negotiate a "cease-fire" or "armistice" that would be favorable to the Japanese pursuit of their "East Asia Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere". Some of Japan's top brass and ambassadors such as ADM Yamamoto and GEN Kuribayashi (to name a few), knew that Japan did not have the manpower, the logistics, the industries, the transport, etc. to invade the US proper. The US and Canada (which was already at war via England) are simply too resourceful, spacious, industrialized, acclimated, etc. Japan did not believe that the US would fight back to the end, even if the US had lost its entire Pacific Fleet (carriers included), we would have time to rebuild/refit before Japan could move against the continent.
Japan was more interested in invading Australia, New Zealand, and consolidating a perimeter of defense with wishful thinking that the US would accept these terms. Ciao, L
Strike all after "cease". I truly don't believe there will ever be an end to war, tho we have thought so and attempted to bring it about many times in the past.
Hi Dana, I am talking here about the professional well-educated well-rounded military leaders like ADM Yamamoto and GEN Kuribayashi who had "seen the world". I do not understand your question. Which war(s) are you referring to, the Pacific TOA WW II or wars since WW II. Happy Holidays, Ciao, L
My reply was to Mr Rosenberg. Can you clarify the question above?
Hi Menckencynic, I am not sure I understand what correction you are making on my comments or in what way do our opinions differ. We (US military) have studied/reviewed/analyzed, etc ad nauseam what happened in WW II, how it happened, why it happened, ... as these studies are very important to the formation of our future military leadership. My point (actually, what I learned at the War College) was that some of their top brass knew that they could not win a "slugging match" against the US. Most top military officers of most countries of that era were extremely well educated professionals - no fools by any means (some did "slip by" but the formation and selection of flag officers are similar in many ways regardless of one's country of allegiance (again with a few "political intervention" exceptions). I am putting fanatics, extremists, and politicians (of the era) aside here. Ciao, L
Your question went away. I can't read all of a large reply if you erase it. Yours ended at ""slugging match" against the US. Most..." Then three dots and nothing else.
He studied at both but is known mainly for harvard... he did 1 year in 1920 at yale...
There have been documentary film of Japanese pilots carrying long samurai swords into cockpits before they took off, I always thought that was odd, there is just barely enough room to move as is. Maybe it was just for propaganda. I've also read their pilots carried no parachutes, their planes had no armaments. For the first ten years they fought unopposed in Asia, until they met their match with US forces. Excellent chronology of the historical events. Spoken with a passion that is spell binding. I love it!
+Bob Howard : Thank you Mr Howard. No parachutes is true in the first 6-8 months of the War, thus leading to much loss of experienced pilots.
They carried these swords so that they could commit ritual seppuku if their mission failed/their were attacked by the Allies!!
Well done.
33:30 cause japan design those light cruiser so it can adapt 8 inch gun during war time ( they were design at the begin to arms with 8 inch gun and not 155mm , 155mm gun are just for treaty and peace time )
You are referring to Mogami class light cruisers, whose hulls were strained by the 8" guns, having been designed for 6". One result is that those ships were top heavy.
terrific video
Very articulate presentation
Thank you.
Aside from the raw materials and industry problem, Japanese army were in fact very badly equipped. Their infantry weapon technology (rifles,artillery,machine guns) was literally WWI grade, their tanks barely resisted rifle ammo. Only exception is their navy and aircraft like A6M2 zero, but even they became inferior with Americans develoing superior fighters.
Their navy and planes didn't resist a lot of fire either. As I said in the talk, it almost seemed as tho their stuff was designed with the idea that no one competent was going to be shooting back.
Dana I loved the lecture. It was very interesting. I even love the comments you got from others after. Both good and bad. Although I agree Kimmel and Short were used as "scape goats", they made huge mistakes ahead of time. Like lining up all the aircraft and such. Of course I realize it's much easier to see things from the future.
Right -- hindsight. Short (and everyone else) thought that the main threat was sabotage.
Damage control and armor for aircraft could be a book in itself.
Yes it could. The section on Japanese damage control would be very short.
I have served in Vietnam and later on most aircraft carriers and found this good. ignore the people who can do it better.
Many Japanese veterans firmly believe that the United States won the war against Japan thanks to its superior industrial might and technology but their fighting spirit was more powerful than Americans. However, his lecture taught me that there were many shortcomings which Imperial Navy neglected. In a nutshell, Japan`s war against the United States was unrealistic from the beginning judging from huge discrepancies of Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) between the two countries.
+MrEjidorie : Right -- Japan couldn't have won, but looking at it from their perspective at the time, one cannot quarrel with their decision to go to war.
I would like to ask Mr Graham if by chance he has read a book called Carnage and Culture.
I have not. I have an entire room full of books on the subject, but not that one. You recommend it, I assume?
After reading your question, I went out and bought it. I'm only on Ch 4 so far, but it is very interesting and makes a lot of sense so far. My only quibble so far is Hanson's assertion that US carrier Enterprise looked a lot like IJN Soryu. Yes, in the sense that they were both carriers. But that's a nit -- very good book so far, and a unique approach.
Almost finished with Hanson's book Carnage and Culture. As usual with most historians, he liberally employs hindsight in judging the actions of those on the spot, but a very impressive book.
Read the comments. Dana only slowly exposes how he's covered his topic - interviews, travel, reading, first hand accounts etc...
Especially liked how he laid out how culture influenced military outcomes.
I've been in poor countries recently, where technology use and sophisticated thinking are on par with the current US, yet the overall level of economic development is far behind where Japan was in WW2. The German war effort was (despite a similar total failure in practical forecasting at the top) vastly superior. I think it simply relates to the level of human development broadly, both intellectual and technological.
The value of our leadership in the US, at the policy level, lags far behind a lot of the American population. We just haven't confronted our leaders with an organized alternative. This leaves us scratching our heads over the dumb and brutal wars our leaders are instigating. Our current military capabilities are, relative to the era, as good as the Germans in WW2. Tragically, our top leadership is also on par - out of touch with reality.
Folks watch this video. One of the greatest. Trust me.
I am 99% sure at Guadalcanal the USA used calibar water cooled machine guns and not 50 calibar machine guns agaisnt Ichiki.
This was really good. I study War cause I was in one...............!
I appreciate your talk, but someone needs to do a long video on how the US carrier raid on
Lae and Salamaua was the actual "turning point" in the Battle of Midway, given the "domino
effect" that had on the Battle of the Coral Sea and thereby on the Battle of Midway. All three
need to be considered together.
Interesting, I have read a lot on the Pacific war and did not know this played such a pivotal role.
OK, maybe next time. I was lucky to get the 58 min. Hard to get from 1600 to 1945 in 58 minutes .
Why Japan Lost The War by Dana Graham
Bruno Tata, being similarly interested, I too would appreciate Eddie Maddox's explanation of his rather strange view. The USA did have a modest carrier force off the north New Guinea coast sent there in response to the Japanese invasion of those two towns. But it was basically a land theatre of conflict fought by Australian divisions. The US 162nd RCT made an unopposed amphibious landing at Nassau Bay and brought some very welcome heavy artillery. And the US 503rd PIR gave a rapid lesson to some Australian troops to make a joint unopposed occupation of Nadzab airfield. But mostly it was bombing raids by US and Australian aircraft where the US was most helpful. The campaign ended in victory for the allies which lasted roughly Jan '43 to Sept '43.
There was no great "carrier raid" on Lae and Salamaua, both towns were taken by land forces.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought 4-8 May 1942 with US and Australian naval and airforces v those of the IJN. It was an indecisive battle but repelled an attack on Port Moresby, then capital of Australian Papua New Guinea. This did give rise to the Japanese attacks on Lae and Salamaua and their itention to take PM by a drive south through the Island.
Guadalcanal campaign lasted August '42 to February '43. Strong US, Australian and NZ naval forces supported the landings. Contributing also were Solomon Islanders, Fijians and Samoans.Henderson Field now permanently in US occupation.
Battle of Midway: Fought between the USN and the IJN, 4-7 June 1942. Regarded as the turning point in Japan's territorial expansion and aspirations to naval supremacy in the Pacific.
Me either.
Instead of calling the Japanese plane a "Ronson" after the lighter, they should have nicknamed it the "Zipp-O". Although that might not have been considered appropriate as time went on and the World War transformed into a war of words.
Ronson = M4 Sherman in European theater
Hi Dana interesting talk, if the US knew in advance, why wasn't Pear Harbor put on alert?
You dismiss Duško Popov's warning to the FBI?
You have to look at intel in context. There were a lot of things being predicted, 95% of which turned out to be false. Now that we know what happened, it's easy to go back and cherry-pick the ones that turned out to be right.
Interesting talk. I've always wondered about the Japanese penchant for Banzai charges and suicidal frontal attacks. Very poor use of resources. And the large numbers of suicides in caves etc. It seems like at the very least, the Japanese soldiers could have made better use of Guerrilla tactics.
The Imperial Army command structure was very rigid. There was no deviating from the original orders despite the obvious futility. Surviving Japanese soldiers all said that. And no survivors meant no one to go back and tell the higher-ups what might work better.
Saving face Vs. Saving your ass
The Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal in February 1943, not April 1943.
My uncle who served as an U.S.Marine 2nd division Betio, Saipan, and was on a transport that was sunk at okinawa...said that the Japanese wpuld drink and party just beyond the lines prior to Banzai charges usally just before daylight. But that would keep them awake and most people are usally there sleepiest just before dawn. And after an attack the bodies would be piled up like cordwood!!!
It takes at least a year or two to learn Japanese, much longer in order to break a military secret code. Training the USN band to do that right after Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941 doesn't quite fit the timeline. The diplomatic purple code was said to be broken before that date and the US knew A SNEAK ATTACK was afoot, before the Japanese ambassador submitted his resignation. The US did indeed break the Japanese navy code, just it would be incredulous that non native tongue USN band folks starting from zero could do that in just a few years, starting from after Dec. 7, 1941. Then who broke the diplomatic code prior to that? Did I miss something?
Bob
+Bob Howard : breaking the code was a process, as you suggest. The musicians from the band demonstrated an aptitude. Joe Rochefort, Tommy Dyer and the boys (5 total) had been working on the code for about a year, as had the Redman brothers in DC. The band mostly did traffic analysis in the beginning. Japanese ambassador (Kurusu) did not resign before PH attack -- he was chewed out by Hull. Yes, US was expecting an attack, but no one was sure where. Thanks for watching.
Learning a language takes time, for sure. But the reason why musicians are so good at cryptanalysis is because codes, like music, tend to be mathematical patterns. So it stands to reason that musicians would be able to find patterns in a long chain. I don't think the Japanese had an alphabet at the time so I don't know how they sent the code, but I'm guessing it took numbers or something, which eventually become patterns.
Japan actually did not lost a great quantity of their pilots at Midway. Most were rescued by their destroyers.
The allies through wartime actions and post-war strategy can make the historically rare statement that they "won a war." The culture of the enemy has changed. Japan and Germany are no longer threatening. Both great nations have found ways to assert themselves globally and are admired. Look, I know each of those four sentences are generalizations and can be picked apart but the threat of war has not emanated from those borders since 1945. However: Eternal vigilance.
The Japanese ordered the banzai attacks because they had failed to modernize and industrialize to a profound degree, and had waited a profoundly long time to do so. Their attitudes were stuck in a time period hundreds or even a thousand years before. They were stuck in "sword culture," wherein a frenzied charge directly at the enemy was very effective. They were not used to Americans who had become proficient with firearms and could be lethal from a very long range. In firearm battle, firing from behind cover and shooting in a very calm, accurate manner is what wins the day. Even Robert E. Lee was stuck in the past in 1863 at Gettysburg when he assumed that the Yankees had old style muskets that would only fire one shot. He assumed that they would only fire one inaccurate shot and then the Rebs could charge them. Instead, they had deadly accurate rifles firing mini-ball ammo and they could reload much quicker. The result was that the Confederates got mowed down. It has to do with the mentality that is born of the technology.
Research what a rifle-musket is. Research what a mini ball really is. Research Napoleonic through civil war infantry tactics. Lee was very up to date(for the times) on tactics, strategy, weapons, logistics. Almost all infantry used Smith's or Hardee's or a close variation of those. It was not simply Lee stuck in the past, it was practically everyone on both sides. British soldiers with smoothbore flintlocks in 1775 were expected to get off 3 rounds a minute. In 1861 US and then Confederate soldiers were expected to get off that same 3 rounds a minute with a rifled, percussion lock rifle.
Doolittle was a Lieutenant Colonel when he bombed Tokyo....not a General
I've always thought the Japanese lost because they relied on Mahan to much.
The Japanese went into the war looking to force a single massive battle to destroy the US fleet. This forced them into executing large and complex operations (think Midway) that were difficult to control and subject to multiple points of failure.
The US, which in the early phases of the war wasn't looking not to win but just not to lose the war, operated with a great deal more tactical and strategic flexibility.
The US struck only when it needed to, where it needed to, until it had amassed enough strength to go on a full-time offensive.
The US was immeasurably helped by knowing Japan's intentions via reading their messages, especially early in the War when meager assets could be put where they would do the most good. My discussion of the "decisive battle" aspect of Japanese strategy, unfortunately, ended up on the cutting room floor.
Yes, knowing the Imperial codes helped tremendously, but Japanese economic realities dictated their strategy.
Their strategy, shaped by their operational philosophy (Mahan), made them predictable.
Operational Intel was directed more at tactical information.
This is why Japan lost www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm it's called math. Example)The Americans had 4 large carriers at the start of the war and 33 at the end of the war. In 1944 the US built 96,000 planes and the Japanese made 18,000. Lasts but not least the States had the A-bomb 4 years before another country built one.
And that's why I call the lecture "The Other Reasons Japan Lost the War" -- other than that they were doomed to lose simply due to discrepancy in industrial capacity.
Interesting .
I can give this lecture in 10 seconds or less. "Japan lost because it really, really, REALLY pissed off America."
+William2020a : You are right in a way, but my thrust was intended to be the things Japan did to hasten their demise, granting that they could not have won.
Right, like the Vietnamese, Afghans and Iraqis. We owe the US Navy a massive debt for defeating the Japanese in the Coral Sea, but every other war they've dragged us into has turned into a debacle. I read an interview with two Generals at the start of the US invasion of Afghanistan - one an ex-Vietnam vet and the other a Russian veteran of their 80s invasion of Afghanistan. They both agreed that the military can only ever achieve what their politicians will allow them to achieve, but the Russian was adamant that Afghanistan was a graveyard for foreign forces and that the US would struggle to extricate itself regardless of the body count. As I type this, Coalition troops (predominately American) are still in Afghanistan, 16 years after the initial invasion. How many taxpayers / parents / voters signed up for that committment ?
2 things, MacArthur's landing on Leyte was not staged. The Japanese southern force was destroyed by American battleships in the last battleship vs battleship engagement in history, not by aircraft.
Halsey: 'The Gallant Hours'.
Doesn't mention the Leyte landings and Halsey's awful mistake in chasing the empty carriers!!
"Evacuation like Dunkirk"? try ,"Gallipoli.
"All wars are won or lost before they are started" Bill Belichick.
I think this view requires a certain amount of hindsight.
It’s from Sun Tzu in the “Art of War”. I was just applying it to Belichick who is the master of preparation - and the master of winning.
Right, but when you know the result, it's easy to go back and pick out the events in isolation that led to it. Looking ahead is a different kettle of fish. As I said in the lecture, viewed objectively, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor made a whole lot of sense at the time.
How was the Hood the most powerful ship? It was just a big battlecruiser and its weakness was known. The problem was the speed of the Bismark, and the German ships were generally either waiting or running away. Their was a more powerful ship with the Hood while hunting the Bismark.
+Nick Zbinden : The point in bring up Hood was to illustrate the design fallacy of the Japanese battlecruisers that had been "upgraded" to BB's -- Kongo, Haruna, Kirishima, etc. My point was exactly that -- that they weren't powerful ships, but they looked good, which was really important to the Japanese. Having never been really tested in battle, they sort of lost sight of what was important. As to the Prince of Wales being more powerful than the Hood, yes on paper; but at the time of chasing Bismarck, she was not fully sorted and workmen were still on board, crew was still figuring stuff out, etc. Btw, this was a 90 minute lecture, so some of the stuff ended up on the cutting room floor to make 60 minutes.
Yamamoto went to Harvard......not Yale..........
They won the War, after Truman dropped the two A bombs.
Truman was also interested in impressing the Russians for post-War purposes. Dropping the bombs was the best decision at the time. If any significant number of US forces had been killed after the bomb became available and the public found out, Truman might have been impeached.
Dom Jermano this is the true reason. Some historical books also mentioned at some points American soldiers got tired with the Asia front battle because Japanese did not seem to give up no matter what.
The bombs did not win the the war, it was already won. The bombs forced Japan to accept surrender, making an invasion or a naval blockade, BOTH which would have resulted in many more lives lost from taking place. When you read the news release form the Truman administration after Hiroshima it is right there in plain English. The war is lost (and was lost since the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944), now we have the ultimate weapon, accept the surrender terms or face the consequences.
I believe Admiral Yamamoto wen to Harvard from 1919 to 1921 not Yale.
+Gerald Smith -- you are correct. My mistake in the heat of the moment. I also messed up by calling the Washington Naval Conference the London one. Live lectures are a bitch . Next time, I've gotta have notes. I will also say that this was a 90 minute talk and some material ended up on the cutting room floor; thus some information was left out and some of the transitions are awkward.
+Kenta Ro : I think the idea that Yamamoto was "with the US" is revisionist history. No time to address it now except to say that, generally, the further way we get from any historical event the more sense of the times is lost. Yamamoto, of course, had grave reservations about going to war with US, but came around when no alternative appeared.
That's a Type 99 light machine gun, not a Type 11.
I disagree with his assessment that there was no way Japan could win the war. This is using today's perspective. Try telling the marines and sailors fighting the Japanese back then...tell those veterans while they are being shot at and bombed..." There is no way Japan can win this war!"
I think making this broadly misguided assessment that Japan could not have possibly won the war, diminishes the courage and sacrifice from our veterans. Of course Japan could have easily won the war! All it takes is ASSUMING YOUR ENEMY CANNOT POSSIBLY WIN
No it doesn't.
Mr. Graham neglects to mention it was America under FDR who goaded Japan to do the first attack, by eight actions including giving military aids including mercenaries known as flying tigers to Chiang Kai-shek's China, sending two divisions of submarines to the Orient, and complete trade embargo in collaboration with the British and Dutch cutting off Japan's supply of oil, scrap iron, rubber, etc.To be denied import of raw materials was to be condemned to the life of pre-industrial age. FDR had also authorized an attack on Japan's five cities in July 1941 months before the Pearl Harbor attack though it didn't materialize due to the planes being diverted to Britain.
Speaking of Pearl Harbor, FDR had full advance knowledge of the attack as both Japan's military and diplomatic codes had been broken.
So called Rape of Nanking is a product of China-US propaganda, not fact. It was part of War Guilt Information program that America prepared and implemented during 6 years of their occupation in Japan. The population of Nanking's safety zone at the time of Japanese invasion on December 13, 1937 was approximately 200,000 since the majority of people had already evacuated. A month later it was 250,000 and continued to increase as people began to return. There was no large scale massacre of civilians and the grisly photographs seen in books (Iris Chan's "The Rape of Nanking" and movies are either fake, photo-shopped, or come from somewhere else.
Mr. Graham should probably stick his lecture to battle strategies and tactics.
+Sharon Isac : FDR did not have advance knowledge of the attack. Such postulates as those of Stinnet have been thoroughly disproven. Breaking JN 25 was a gradual process. Breaking the codes had only advanced to traffic analysis by the PH attack, which gives little info as to message content. You are right that FDR wanted Japan to strike first, but no one expected Pearl -- Philippines, Malaya, yes, but Japan was not assumed to have the capability to project sufficient power as far as Pearl. I knew people who escaped from Nanking just ahead of the "rape" and knew many victims. It does sound as though you have been snookered by post-war Japanese revisionism.
Sharon Isac, so Japan had a right to attack China and take whatever raw materials from other nations around it through military force? And because the US disagreed, and decided to use its own political and financial influence to divert fuel and raw material from Japan as punishment for Japan's military expansions, Japan had a right to attack the US in a surprise raid? Well, I guess if you assume Japan had a right to attack other nations around it for it's own economic good, then it would have a right to do the same to the distant US. But why then did the US not have a right to do the same to Japan in an exertion of its own agenda?
Btw, FDR's motivation for cutting off raw materials to Japan pre-PH was to coerce them, short of war, to end their escapades in China. I suppose if you want to characterize that as "goading" Japan into the war, you can. And again, neither FDR (or any other American) had reason to suspect the PH attack. That is simply wild, hindsight-filled speculation. "Japan's codes" had not been broken to a point anywhere close to knowing the attack was coming. My father was one of the code breakers and trust me, he would have told me.
Admiral Robert A. Theobald said FDR assisted in the secret plan of leaving Pearl Harbor open for a surprise attack by not telling Admiral Stack and General Marshall to warn Admiral Kimmel and General Short of the contents of the decoded Japanese message.
And why did FDR appointed Robarts Commission to investigate Pearl Harbor, who found them guilty of dereliction of duty, softened the verdict to "failure of the commanders in judgement" but delay their right to be court marshaled in which case they would have been able to call their own witnesses?
Japan did not “take” but bought the supplies such as oil, rubber and tin essential to its industrialization and in order to support its growing population. As a matter of fact, the United States sold to Japan more than 70% of Japan’s oil supplies before the trade embargo. If you checked the US trade in those years you would find Japan one of the most reliable customers who always paid every penny owed.
It should be well known among American people by now that FDR’s administration and his war cabinet were deeply infiltrated by the Soviet agents who had the direct hand in planning and implementing the 8-step provocation of Japan into making the first strike against the United States.
Hamilton Fish, a Republican member of Congress for twenty-five years and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee 1933-45 writes in his book “FDR: The Other Side of the Coin (1976)”: President Roosevelt called the attack on Pearl Harbor the Day of Infamy and all Americans applauded and acclaimed him. We naturally believed him that it was an outrageous attack by the Japanese in the midst of peace negotiations. Not a single member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, had the faintest idea of the existence of President Roosevelt’s war-provoking ultimatum handed to the Japanese Ambassador Nomura at the State Department by Secretary Hull on the afternoon of November 26, 1941, ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. (p. 143)
The answer to the heading is t3:41. The rest is just padding
OK I re-read above -- yeah, lack of resources was certainly an underlying cause.
10:56/7/8 bonsai charges? Try banzai
Apparently the Japanese had an army of little trees
Obe -- did you grow up in Japan in the post-War period? Much of the revisionism you post here sounds like what the Japanese schools taught in the decades following the War. I had personal friends that were in Nanking in 1937. Sorry, but the historical record is accurate on that one.
Old men with outdated strategies. They just could not admit that the airplane was replacing their "hotel battleships" and the things that kept them at their elevated social status were those military uniforms. Yamamoto was a terrible Commander of The Combined Fleet. He fed his ships into a meat grinder piece meal. The truly effective ships, the destroyers, were thrown away by being assigned to duties they were not intended to perform as transports and cargo ships. The cruisers and battleships were "saved" for the hoped for "All Out Battle" that never came. Their submarine fleet was misused also. Attacking cargo ships was beneath their dignity.
There is a lesson here. Get rid of the dead weight in your military leadership before the war begins. The Japanese Admirals, Yamamoto, Nagano and Nagumo were worse than nothing. Their best Admiral, Tamon Yamaguchi died at Midway, foolishly going down with his ship just when a man of his intellect was most needed. I'm happy we won but the Japanese people deserved better.
I don't argue with any of it, but you employ hindsight in knowing what the outcome was. The argument can be made that Japan, knowing they had a narrow window to accomplish their goals, needed to take on many challenges simultaneously, which can partially explain their division of forces and approaching some on a "shoestring" basis. Had they gone as the Japanese foresaw, no one would be criticizing them today. Given the Japanese initial mindset that the Americans soft, and given their prior 20th Century battle history, their approach was not unreasonable, imho.
The Japanese knew how to fight battles; they did not know how to fight a war.
Very true, tho even their ability to fight battles was based on their post-Meiji experience against less than first-rate opposition. But to your second point, whether they knew how to or not, they simply didn't have the industrial base to compete with the roughly 20% of the US war effort that defeated them.
Good quote. I think I will have to steal it. Yes it was that good. Haha
Excellent presentation! Yes! Kimmel and Short were fall guys! But what about that arrogant and narcissistic MacArthur?? He was given the MOH for his inaction (read: 8 hour warning) in the P. I.!!! Roosevelt may have thought, at the time, that we needed a hero. But MacArthur???
Thank you, and yup, but this was limited to why Japan lost the war, not US intra-service rivalries. Agree 100% on MacArthur -- way overrated.
Wow, this was powerful. It's quite nuts that the code breaking hasn't been done at some top secret intelligent service bunker, but actually some random ship by some musicians :)
I guess that's why they've built up the CIA in 47.
There was a code breaking operation in Washington DC, but Station Hypo were the real innovators, and yeah -- the USS California band helped out a lot in those early days.
Thanks, appreciate the clarification. That was a very, very interesting talk. Personally I didn't knew that Japans fleet was basically not created to withstand an attack.
The Japanese thought offensively. I don't think they took seriously the idea that they might come up against a competent enemy. Many of the guys who fought them early on around Java, etc, commented that the Japanese seemed truly surprised when anyone actually fired back at them. In that regard, they did not deal well with the unexpected, which frequently caused them to retreat (see Coral Sea, Leyte Gulf, etc).
I work in the video games industry, so I sort of know the japanese mentality. It's still a fairly weird military strategy given that they've probably gathered intel about the US fleet and knew that these are ships that don't get knocked out by one salvo. So they sure as hell will fire back :)
It's certainly interesting how wars repeat themselves. Was just reading a lot about Roman legions and many authors claim most of the time they were victorious because
they kept reserves in the background and had a very efficient rotation system so that tired soldiers could rotate back and rested comrades take their place. That way their losses were kept as low as possible. It's kinda comparable: You can probably not avoid getting hit by other ships in a large battle, but it's massively important to keep fires under control and maintain battle ready as long as possible.
Not really. The Japanese were as ignorant of the Americans as the Americans were of the Japanese at the outset of the War. They had the hubris born of centuries of self-imposed isolation and as little contact with the outside world after that (1868) as they could manage.
Surprised to even find a video on this subject. Japan lost the War simply because it was involved in a war of attrition with a nation with a hundred-times the war industry capability. The U.S. built more war material than it could even use; half of it all was just given away to its allies. Bushido means nothing without men left to hold non-existent rifles and living off non-existent rations.
Banzai charges didn't occur right after the initial landings as the speaker says; the charges were last ditch efforts occurring at the end of the battles by desperate Japanese survivors. Always somebody who wasn't there telling everyone else what it was like.
That's why it's "The Other Reasons. . . ." I understand your point about being there, but being there doesn't always provide the best perspective on what happened. I've interviewed many veterans who were there, and their stories have to do with taking that hill or surviving the sinking of this or that ship. And banzai charges were often, not always, used to attempt to drive the landing force back into the sea before the beachhead became established.
Japan lost the war for the same reasons the South lost the civil war. They presumed that they were much better fighters than their opponents. They thought that their opponents would come to a negotiated settlement. And most importantly, they had not the resources in manpower and production to that their opponents had.
Yup.
Amazing presentation ; history trolls will foam at the mouth, thanks
Japan lost the war by starting it but mostly because the civilian government lost control of the army. Thanks for coming.
Funny if I remember right the Soviet army humiliated the Japanese army in Manchuria. Ever heard of Dutch east indies and it oil.
Right. It was a harbinger. Also affected Japan's decision to "strike south", rather than attack Russia. I discuss the oil and other resources in the lecture. What is your point?
Dana Graham my point is that they are nuts .. not all of them, fortunatelly ...
Mr. D. Graham - was any treason from the the Nisei ever discovered - I know about the Combat regiment 100 and the 422 - and they fought bravely in the European Theater.
There was no actual activity discovered that I am aware of; however, in the context of the time, when the Japanese appeared to be supermen, and Axis running rampant everywhere, and with the discovery of the messages from the Japanese foreign office, waiting to find out simply wasn't an option. It's the 442nd btw -- I've interviewed several veterans of that and the 100th. Their service, in view of the camps, et al, is one of the more poignant parts of WW 2
Why Japan Lost The War by Dana Graham
Dana Graham
"If not Pearl Harbor, something else would have dragged the US into that war."
Of course it would have. Within hours of attacking PH Japanese forces landed in the northern Philippines and bombed Clark Field north of Manila where Angeles City now stands. MacArthur's inaction and the destruction of his airforce amounted to dereliction of duty. Surveillance flights had reported that the Japanese air force on Taiwan was expected to take to the air at any time. Poor weather and visibility had delayed them for several hours. It has become clear that Kimmell and Short on Hawaii were deliberately provided with obfuscatory messages about the Japanese threat. MacArthur knew the threat was imminent and deliberately did nothing. He was the senior ranking officer in the whole western Pacific and could not rapidly be replaced as the two commanders in Hawaii were. With great reluctance, FDR promoted him.
Simultaneous with the attacks on the Philippines and Hawaii, the Japanese landed strong ground forces in southern Thailand and north east Malaya. Within hours of the PH attack also the island of Guam was captured and occupied by Japanese forces. Similarly, Wake Island suffered attack by Japanese forces but held out until forced to surrender on 23rd Dec 1941. US marines defended bravely but stood no chance. I think the attacks on Guam and Wake may have stung the USA into retaliation. particularly after the massacre on Wake of nearly 100 US citizens engaged in construction and administration.
You wrote in reply to Vladimir Eng: "Tho you didn't do so well 1904-5." This is most likely a reference to the Russo-Japanese War and is a comment on the successes of the Japanese forces against the military might of Russia. Indeed, the Russian Navy, after sailing all the way via the CGH and the Indian Ocean, lost all but one ship in a battle in the Straits of Tsushima. More importantly, she occupied the Russian Island of Sakhalin. In almost every aspect, Japanese equipment was superior to that of Russia.
I would like to get a clarification of Eng's remark; "We defeated Japan in a matter weeks in 1939, and 1945.....", if possible.
Battles of Khalkhin Gol and the Soviet invasion of northern Japan at the end of World War II
The British were doing air strikes with Radar at night and had Radar on ships to hunt U-Boats by 1941. So its false to say that 'nobody believed in Radar'.
+Nick Zbinden : yes, but radar was very crude -- my point was to dispel any comparisons in my audience between what radar was then and what it is today. It's like any new technology -- one thing that ended up being cut was the comparison to early firearms in the 14th & 15th centuries. The average person wonders why firearms didn't instantly take over, but the tried and true weapons were more reliable and, on balance, more effective.
I like your analogy, which is similar to ultrasound technology. When they first had it you could tell that the baby was alive and it's orientation. Now, you can sex your baby and find out quite a bit more information than before.
Right. The analogy I used, which ended up on the cutting room floor, was that of early firearms: one is tempted to ask why, upon the invention of the handgun, did the longbow not immediately retire to the rubbish heap. But early guns were unreliable and as big a danger to the operator as to the enemy, had a slow rate of fire, and wouldn't work in wet weather, so the longbow was preferable into the 17th century even tho firearms had been developed 300 years before.
Nobody was good about damage control, the americans were not good at it. The British were not, see the Ark Royal. It took both the Brits and the US a couple of years to be really good at it. Japan never figured it out.
+Nick Zbinden : Americans and British were much better at it than the Japanese. Japanese certainly would have lost Yorktown at Coral Sea had it been their design, their crew. British didn't need to lose Ark Royal, but insisted that it come into Gibraltar under it's own power. A friend of mine, now 96, was a junior engineering officer on Ark Royal at that time (and during hunt for Bismarck). He is the guy who told the higher ups that "we have enough power to either run the pumps or the props, not both". The RN tradition of coming into port under their own power won out, but the ship went down 20 mi off Gibraltar. The Japanese, for the reasons stated in the lecture, simply put no emphasis on damage control and had very few people trained for it.
sooo....long story short....nukes.
Kind of, but those didn't exist at the start, so we had to get there both technologically and geographically.
Why Japan Lost The War by Dana Graham.
Dana Graham, it's something of a disappointment to listen to your very brief extolling of the US code-breaker Rochefort and give no mention [let alone credit] for the Bletchley Park efforts and the Australian contribution to the breaking of Purple and JN25 [among a number of other Japanese codes]. I recommend you read THE EMPEROR'S CODES by Michael Smith and A MAN OF INTELLIGENCE. The Life of Captain Eric Nave Australian Codebreaker Extraordinary by Ian Pfennigwerth. You'll discover that the USA was assisted considerably despite a rather parsimonious attitude prevalent among the higher echelon in the US code-breaking fraternity.
In addition, your assurance that the hierarchy in Washington was not aware of an imminent invasion flies in the face of the expertise you claim to command. Doubtless you have read John Costello's DAYS OF INFAMY and Robert Stinnett's DAY OF DECEIT, each an author of widely acknowledged erudition, both of whom complain bitterly of the boxes of records still denied them, records aleady over 70 years old and falling into a dilapidation that will soon render them unreadable, records that still protect reputations that history can no longer harm. IMHO, you were wrong to give such a guarantee. As it is, the oft-stated injunction from Washington that Japan must be seen to strike the first blow is all you have to fall back on.
As early as the Spanish-American War and the US invasion of the Philippines the USA regarded an eventual war between itself and Japan as a distinct possibility. I think the strategic planning undertaken as a result of this was named ORANGE.
As to the likelihood of a Japanese invasion of Australia, the tyranny of distance via ocean navigation was recognised by Japanese strategists as an insoluble problem as were the huge problems of defending such a conquest. As far as they can be divined Japan's conquests were principally inclined toward a fomenting of rebellion and revolution in India through the figurehead of Chandra Bhose, wresting that nation from British rule, then crossing through Persia to meet up with German forces in the oil-rich Balkan regions. A grandiose scheme, it is granted and likely beyond the resources that Japan began the war with but consisting of resource-rich territory all the way. With those resources of The East Indies, Indochina, Burma, India and Persia the grandiosity gives way to a sinister appeal.
They lost because they attacked, lol
Japan lost the war when they attacked Pearl Harbor. It's simple as that.
Tho attacking Pearl Harbor was, at the time, one of their better options. Hindsight says it was a mistake, but at the time it didn't look like that.
Dana Graham What I meant was attacking the US was their biggest mistake
In hindsight cuz it didn't work out, but contemporaneously it looked like a reasonable course of action to them, who had no real concept of the character and strength of the American people and industrial might.
They crushed all of the European colonial powers, would certainly have defeated Australia and NZ had they tried to invade, for some time they were as unstoppable as the Germans were in Europe.
Not so sure about Australia and NZ. The Japanese themselves had trepidation about Australia and were becoming stretched pretty thin by Spring of '42. You are right about colonial powers as I said in my talk -- they pretty much had their hands full in Europe.