The Pacific in World War II

It's 3.30 am and I'm feeling a bit fuzzy on this nightshift so I won't be going into too much interesting detail.

Suffice to say that the there was conflict between the branches of the Japanese armed forces - Army, Navy, Airforce. This was, at it's most basic level a struggle for glory for a particular branch and the rivalry was quite intense, even at very serior level.

Planning phases of operations were affected, Generals and Admirals would sit down to try and plan an action and get bogged down in which service performed the more important elements rather than the best overall strategic plan.

Throughout the war raw materials were at a premium for Japan , indeed the lack of any real natural resources on the islands of Japan was one of the major factors in it's attempt to carve out an Empire in the first place. Their decision to centralise most manufacturing on the mainland also meant that the raw materials could not be processed into weapondry where they were but had to be dangerously shipped.

This was compounded by an unwillingness to assign military resources to protect these essential ships. Neither the Airforce or the Navy was willing to shame it's men and officers with the dishonour of that duty, therefore anti-submarine warfare and the use of convoys was gravely restricted until it was too late. Instead ships were sent out alone and unprotected and swiftly sunk.

The fact that the government was controlled by the Armed forces meant that whatever little did get through was swiftly the object of the inter-service conflict rather than effective utilisation. The fact that the Army was almost always more politically powerful meant that it usually got more than it's ability to effectively wage war deserved.

The fact that the conflict was being won and lost in the air and on the seas didn't really detract from the Army's abilities to appropriate steel and oil. The fact that the Army couldn't seem to figure out a way to kill a squad of marines without gloriously losing five squads of their own didn't impact much either.

The lateness is showing and I waffling. Recommended texts as they say:

Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire by John Toland.
This is the daddy as far as this conflict goes, reads a little bit differently (and difficultly) than modern histories (was written in the sixties) but you won't mind once you're a bit in. It won the author a pulitzer back in the day. It manages to be both detailed and readable.

Fun stuff:
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is a fantastic novel roughly half of which is concerned with fictional events taking place during the pacific conflict. It's one of my favourite novels to start with but the sense of reality it gives the pacific war is truly wondeful.

I hope you find it interesting, Japanese history in general is just about my favourite topic. You know they had twenty million people living in an ordered society in the 17th century? Great Britain had 3 million, and they still thought baths were bad for you.

But I digress.