NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 149, 26 June 1945, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR

TROOPSHIP ROLE JAPANESE NAVAL STRATEGY After three and a half years' war, fought on land, at sea, and in the air, Japan's navy, though sadly reduced, may still be described as "a fleet in being." Neither what units have been destroyed nor what are left is known precisely, but the fact that only for less than a year did Japan hold command of the sea in the Western Pacific and that not undisputed, and that no effort, after Pearl Harbour, seems to have been made to sweep what was left afloat of the United States navy from the seas, would indicate a different conception of the use of sea power from that adopted by the western Powers. "The normal factors in western ideas of sea power," writes Alexander Kiralfy in a chapter on "Japanese Naval Strategy" in Earle's compendium on "Makers of Modern Strategy ,v "are deducible from a study of the naval theories of Great Britain and the United States, on the one hand, and of the lesser European naval powers on the other. In Anglo-American doctrine decisive naval battle and pressure of the blockade held first place. But in the case, first of France, and then of Germany, interest centred upon commerce destruction and the whittling down of hostile fleets by secondary action, by the employment of such special weapons as the torpedo and bomb, and by reliance on tactics | that would lead to the destruction of detached parts of a numerically superior force." Now in the Pacific war there is no evidence of any organised attempt to destroy the American fleet, except by the treacherous initial air attack on; Pearl Harbour, which had its prototype in a similar attack —by torpedo craft—on the Russian Pacific Fleet in Port Arthur (February 8, 1904). No attempt at blockade was made, nor was there any conspicuous onslaught on Allied sea transport such as the Germans carried on throughout the European war by U-boat, air attack, and occasional surface raiding. There, have been numerous secondary actions with American fleet units, and a few large-scale engagements, not only with United f cates ships, but also with British and other Allied vessels in the earlier stages, but the purpose seems hardly to have been "whittling down" the enemy. Historic Traditions, Japan has no Mahan to expound naval theory and few other documents of any value in seeking a clue, but Kiralfy, closely examining Japanese history, which has naturally been concerned from the first with the sea, as an island power on the flank of a vast ocean, comes to certain conclusions which seem to make a plan out of the Japanese puzzle. The Japanese have always been an amphibious people, most- favourably situated for amphibious operations. They came by sea to the islands they now occupy, and, says Kiralfy, "while the principal invading! armies moved by land, important fleets skirted the coasts, where they landed strong forces on the flanks of the enemy in precisely the same way as the Japanese squadrons functioned during the early months of the present Pacific war." In brief, the Japanese navy has always been used as a troop-carrying fleet or an escort for troop transports. This was fully illustrated in Japan's three modern; wars before the present, the first' against China (1894-5), the second against Russia (1904-5), and the third as one of the Allies in the first World War (1914-18). The Japanese fleet was used, not primarily for the defence of Japan, which was never in danger, but to secure the passage of troops and their supplies to the areas they were attacking, Korea in the first war, Manchuria and Port Arthur in the second, and the Germany colony of Tsingtao in the first World War. Appreciation of Speed. The theory is borne out by other facts and factors. The Japanese naval designers at an early stage went in for speed and guns. "Speed," says Kiralfy, "made it possible for the Japanese to translate their strategic thinking into the domain of tactics, of battle practice. It meant that the Japanese could strike first, retire if hard pressed, and limit their risks as the occasion required. In the field of strategy it had been deemed necessary to inflict only that amount of damage which could.be. counted upon to keep an enemy away from 'troopship' waters. Tactically the Japanese objective was so to injure a portion of the hostile fleet as to compel it to turn away from these forbidden waters. Damage of a greater degree was to be inflicted only at a consider- i able reduction of accepted risk." So \ in the war against China "the amount of naval pressure employed by the Japanese was little more than was necessary to guarantee the unimpeded progress of their land forces. To have attempted more would have appeared unwise—as being unnecessary and hazardous, because a ship lost in an unnecessary battle or prolongation of a battle was a ship which could not be risked in the course of a necessary battle, one upon which the fate of the troopships might depend." Use of Air Power. In the present war the Japanese theory of sea power can be traced throughout. The first idea was to secure an area for the* -undisturbed movement of troopships with landing forces, and no hostile squadron was | chased merely for the sake of destroying it and assuring command of the sea. The Japanese, who had anticipated the dominating effect of air power, were after airfields, and these they seized or made in quick succession as their forces advanced. Their first shock came when they tried to take Midway Island from which to reconnoitre and, perhaps, attack Hawaii. The aircraft carrier came into its own. Action was taken thereafter only when hostile warships seemed likely to interfere with Japanese landing operations. Hence the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse by air bombardment oil Malaya, -the battle of the Coral Sea, and the numerous engagements in the waters of the Solomons, one of which the battle of Savo Island, illustrated perfectly the Japanese "hit and run tactics. The heavier engagements in the waters of the Philippines last October at the time of the U.S. landing on Leyte resulted from the same policy of the Japanese naval command. History alone will determine whether this policy of limited liability" in naval warfare has paid or not.