A big part of WWII history is the emergence of carrier warfare, particularly in the Pacific. The US was brought into the war from a surprise attack from carrier-based bombers. Historians have said that at the beginning of the war, Japan had the best trained Naval Aviators in the world, due to both rigorous training and combat experience in their war with China, which had been going on many years leading up to Japan’s war with the US.
However, I’m wondering if their carrier might is overstated. This is based on the fact that even in relatively pitched battles, where both sides had relatively equal forces, Japan’s carrier forces lost a lot of planes. They did well in situations where the battle was one-sided in their favor, under the element of surprise, or due to sheer weight of numbers. But in a matched battle their carriers and planes didn’t seem all that great- Compared to Japan, US carriers had radar they could use to vector fighters around, they used a much larger CAP to protect their flattops, and better damage control.
It seems like due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and other surprise attacks, there is this illusion that their carriers and planes were very effective. But when you take away the battlefield advantages that would benefit any carrier-based force (surprise, numbers, luck), you’re left with a pretty lackluster navy extremely vulnerable to any losses incurred, that gradually hemorraged ships, planes, and pilots over 3 bloody years.
Yep, you pretty much covered it-the Japanese believed in the virtue of the offensive stance to an almost pathological level-they were designed to fight a quick decisive war, but could not afford a grinding attritional war, which is what they actually got. And in terms of aircraft tech the Americans soon outclassed them after an initial period of rough parity, while the Japanese struggled to get some newer more effective models into service.
Not a WWII expert by any stretch, but I don’t think they were a paper tiger. My understanding is that they WERE the best trained and equipped fighter force at the beginning of the war, but that their pilots were never rotated out to act as training cadre, and instead basically fought until they were killed. So, you didn’t have veteran pilots being rotated home to transfer lessons learned to the new pilots, and so a lot of ‘corporate knowledge’ was lost. New replacement pilots didn’t get the training that they should have or could have gotten from those veterans, so it was a slippery slope.
Also, the Japanese fighters were quick and agile but the trade offs were that they were more vulnerable (i.e. less survivable to their pilots), and didn’t have things like self sealing gas tanks…which meant that pilots were more at risk. They also didn’t have the depth of pilots at the beginning of the war, going for quality instead of quantity, and as their losses mounted it drained them of good pilots…which meant that in the mid-game part of the war they were putting rookie pilots in vulnerable air craft with a few veterans up against more rugged and survivable air craft up against veteran pilots on the US and allied side…which is why you got those huge kill ratios favoring the US and allies in the mid-point and beyond in the war.
I forgot about the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks.
One of the reasons they resorted to Kamikazes later in the war was that even when they had the naval air resources in a battle, it was at a point where they were both outnumbered/outclassed. In other words, even if the IJN had the carrier force from 1941 in 1945, they’d still get stomped.
I once saw an interview of a Japanese serviceman, in a documentary. I think he was a mechanic rather than a pilot, but I don’t remember. He said, in effect, ‘When we salvaged an American fighter, each one was better than the last. It was then that I knew the war was lost.’
I know the Japanese couldn’t hope to match American industry, but did they have the designs to even try? What I mean is that American designers were probably getting feedback from British and Russian aviators as well as their own from varied theaters on what worked and what didn’t. There had to be a lot of knowledge, hard won from fighting the Germans, that the Americans had access to. Did Japan have anything like that?
I agree with this. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a very complex plan executed perfectly. Complex plans usually suck when they hit reality.
The cream of the crop naval aviators for Japan were wiped out in the Battle of Midway, where they lost four carriers of the very best naval pilots, largely due to overreaching of the high command and very poor carrier commander decisions, and certainly not because of the pilots themselves. The American forces got every break possible at Midway, starting with knowing the objective.
Also, the US kept improving the tech being put in service throughout the war, while the Japanese rarely improved their tech.
The high command should have listened to Admiral Yamamato who advised against attacking the US because Japan would win for six months straight and then lose everything thereafter because the Americans would not give up. His prediction was exactly right. He was US educated and had more experience with Americans than any of the warmongers.
Don’t forget another huge problem the Japanese carriers had - the Americans had broken the Japanese naval codes. Not a flaw in the carriers themselves but it meant they were pretty much always fighting at a disadvantage.
As someone mentioned earlier, the Japanese pilots basically fought until they died. American pilots in the Pacific Theatre could come back and share their knowledge. The Japanese were certainly bringing back shot-down Grummans, and they certainly had some capable aircraft. But by the time the F6F Hellcat came out, the were outclassed. Whether they did not have the industrial base available to match American fighters because they were trying to hold onto territory, or they couldn’t get the resources back because of our submarines, or if it was just a different fighting philosophy, I don’t know. They would have done well to rotate their experienced pilots home to teach lessons learned in battle. But the type of war they were fighting, they needed them on the front.
No, the IJN was definatly not a paper Tiger. They did run wild as Yamamoto said for about 6 months, the defeat at Midway was as much due to bad luck as anything, they shot down something like 100 USN fighters before the attack by Messr McClusky and Co. Even afterwards at Santa Cruz Islands and Guadalcanal they did vert well.
Modern war is a battle between the industrial might of nations and the ability to trabslate that into battlefield might. The Japanese just dod not have the infrastructure to maintain anything quite like what the US had.
Incidentally, its not true that the Japanese did not rotate pilots, they did, just they lacked the infreastructure to maintain such a large force in the field for such lenght.
No, they definitely weren’t a paper tiger. Even after Midway, they were able to score a tactical victory at the Battle of the Santa Cruz islands, sinking the Hornet. However, later in the war they were facing a combination of superior aircraft, better trained aircrews, superior numbers, and massed AA defences. It’s not surprising their performance dropped off a cliff.
US industrial capacity was several times that of Japan, they were doomed once it inevitably became a production war.
There was some exchange of technical information with Germany, which supplied aircraft designs for example. IIRC, Japan did build a couple fighter types that were comparable in performance to US aircraft, but were unable to produce them in large numbers.
The IJN started the war with the excellent Zero fighter-which was fast and maneverable-better than any USN fighter. But they were still flying the Zero in 1945.
Also, as has been mentioned, the bulk of their experienced pilots were gone after Midawy.
Japan had a chance to win-if the war was short. They had no chance of winning a prolonged struggle-particularly as Japan had to import everything by ship-once the USN subamrine force sank the Japanese merchant marine, the war was lost.
Actually, while Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific, it wasn’t quite the disaster for the Japanese it is frequently portrayed as. While four carriers were lost, they only lost 110 aircrew at that battle. This compares to 90 lost at Coral Sea, 61 lost at the Eastern Solomons, and 148 lost at Santa Cruz (October 1942). By that time, about 400 out of the 765 pearl harbour veterens were dead. After the last battle, two undamaged carriers were recalled to Japan, due to a pilot shortage, and were not deployed again for another 8 months or so. The attrition of pilots was more significant than the loss of flight decks.
The Japanese blundered by not ramping up their pilot training programs prior to the start of the war. Of course, their planning was for a short, decisive war, which proved to be unrealistic. In contrast, the US had a much larger educated population, and larger numbers of civilian pilots, making it much easier to train aircrew.
In one regard they were a paper tiger. They had the striking power to seriously mess up what they aimed for. But, in addition to the defence issues above, they were not able to hold off attackers or survive the ones that got through their CAP. They had ccomparitively little AA on the carriers and not much more on the escorts. The carriers themselves were just not able to take a pounding. They were lightly built compared to USN carriers and suffered much more damage from hits than say the Yorktown or Enterprise did. The IJN was deficient on damage control. Only engineering personnel were even trained to handle fires or repair damage while everyone else stood around or got in the way. Unlike US carriers, the IJN carriers did not empty the aviation fuel lines running all over the ship and fill them with CO2 to reduce fire risk.
While those are all valid points, I think the significance of the poorer damage-control procedures is somewhat over-stated. At Midway, the Japanese were caught fuelling and arming planes, US carriers probably wouldn’t have fared much better in that situation. Remember, Lexington and Wasp were also lost when fires burned out of control. Later in the war, Franklin was gutted by a fire started by two bomb hits while the rear avgas system was operating. All carriers were vulnerable to fires, and could be potentially knocked out of action by a well placed bomb hit.
This, this, a thousand times this. Y’all can debate plane specs or naval tactics till the cows come home - but by '42 the IJN radio broadcasts were essentially plain text to the US (as was PURPLE, the high level strategic & diplomatic communication cypher), while the reverse was definitely not true. This ensured the Japanese never fought a “fair” fight. You combine that with grossly mismatched industrial capacities, and you’ve got a curb stromp.
The IJN could have been twice as advanced and thrice as large - it still wouldn’t have had a chance.
The only planes that were caught fueling and arming at Midway were the few Zeroes of the CAP on the flight deck. The strike force was already armed and fueled but down in the hanger deck awaiting spotting for launch. Since the IJN carriers had closed sides and central elevators, the effect of any penetrating bomb hits and exploding deck ordnance was greatly magnified. So it was worse for the IJN that their strike force was down below.
Yes, USN carriers suffered too. But it usually took much more damage to bring them down. The Yorktown took a pounding, was evacuated, then reboarded and the fire brought under control. It was the subesquent torpedo from an IJN sub that finished her off.
The IJN was certainly a first rate carrier force in the early years. But from what I remember from a book dealing mainly with the Battle of Midway (“Incredible Victory” by Walter Lord), there was a large amounbt of arrogance and hubris by mid1942. The Battle of Coral Sea took place in May 1942. Essentially the Japanese won and suffered damage to the big carrier Shokaku and pilot losses to the Zuikaku (they lost the smaller Shoho). The Americans lost the big carrier Lexington and the Yorktown had damage estimated to take three months to repair. Yet the Yorktown was able to return to Pearl Harbor, get repaired enough in 72 hours to join the Hornet and Enterprise at Midway against the four remaining large Japanese carriers. I don’t think the Japanese made enough of an effort to get the Shokaku and Zuikaku in action. Lord says the Japanese pilots on the four carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu) looked down at the Coral Sea carriers, figuring they were "sons of the concubine did so well, the legitimate sons should do great). Poor intelligence in air and submarine patrols didn’t detect the American carriers in time. And when the Japanese retaliated after losing three carriers in an attack that hit just as armed planes were ready to take off. they first attacked the Yorktown. when they returned a couple hours later for a second strike the Yorktown hwich had been “burning furiously” was repaired enough to be attacked again. The second strike force figured this couldn’t possibly be the same carrier.
That’s been pretty well disproven. Even after fueling and arming are finished on the hangar deck, the strike force planes have to be brought up to the flight deck and spotted, then the engines prepped, started, and warmed up before the pilots even get to them. The engine part alone takes 20 minutes or so. The Japanese flight logs show that the planes on the deck of the IJN carriers around the time of the USN attack were Zeroes of the CAP. So at the time of the strike on the IJN carriers, they were at best 45-60 minutes from launching their own strike. The claims about them being “five minutes from launch” come from a) American pilots who could easily have mistaken the refueling CAP as the strike force and b) the IJN air group commander who has long been judged even in Japan as having lied to save face for all sides.