“Shooting Down the Kamikaze Myth”
(See J. Delgado, pp. 36-41, June 2003 Naval History)
Commander Ryo Sakai, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
Mr. Delgado is to be commended for his excellent historical analysis of the Mongol invasions of Japan. In particular, the de- scription of the excavation of the sunken Mongol warship near Takashima was very revealing, and is a good example of how modern archaeological work continues to improve and refine our view of long past events. There is one theme in the article, however, I believe is misleading and needs to be corrected. In the opening paragraphs, Mr. Delgado writes, “In the last desperate months of World War II in the Pacific, Japanese strategists turned to a powerful legend of how foreign invaders would never conquer the sacred soil of Japan. . . . [They] invoked the story of the kamikaze as Allied forces closed in on the home islands. . . . More than 2,000 young men turned themselves into ‘human bullets’ to turn the tide of the war. . . . From where did their deeply grounded belief come?”
Mr. Delgado’s dramatic prose suggests that Japanese combat aviators were motivated by a mythical or religious belief in the kamikaze legend. The true story, however, was more painful and prosaic, and involved a calculated command decision made during desperate military circumstances. The term most commonly used by the Japanese to describe the kamikaze units or tactics was Tokubetsu Kougeki Tai, which was shortened to “Tokko-Tai.” Later, when the kamikaze nickname started to be used by some people, the Japanese Navy preferred to use the Chinese reading of the characters: “Shinpu.”
The method of Tokko-Tai attack was not a groundless tactic, based on a mystical belief that it would protect a Divine Japan. On the contrary, Tokko-Tai tactics, although antihumanistic, were developed through logical and operational analysis by the Imperial Navy leadership in the midst of the serious strategic situation in 1944-
The impetus that drove the Imperial Navy to devise such a desperate and determined warfighting method was the decline in the quality of Japanese air power and the resulting inability of Japanese pilots to achieve required results through conventional strike tactics. It was only in late 1944, with the loss of carrier strike capability at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June and the destruction of land-based naval air power in the air battles for Formosa and the Philippines in September and October, that the Imperial Navy decided to employ Tokko-Tai strike tactics.
Under these desperate circumstances, the Imperial Navy adopted the use of piloted aircraft to conduct suicidal strikes against shipping as a last-gasp tactic. If these tactics had inflicted serious damage on U.S. carriers, then Japan might have gained valuable time to achieve its strategic goal of negotiating a conditional surrender, and avoided complete defeat.
The “Special Attack Force” first made its appearance in October 1944 as part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Sixteen Japanese airplanes conducted ramming attacks on U.S. Navy escort carriers and other warships, and some of the ships were sunk. Even though the U.S. fleet carriers were not damaged in the battle, the fact that other warships were damaged or sunk proved the effectiveness of the kamikaze attacks, especially for a Japanese naval air force that had been weakened to the point where conventional air-strike tactics were ineffective. The Japanese military command subsequently was unable to find or develop any other method of attack that produced the same level of combat results, so Tokko-Tai tactics became the standard air-strike tactics for both the Imperial Navy and Army.
It was only when Japan had been operationally weakened and pressed into a corner that military commanders made the morally difficult choice to order pilots to carry out suicidal attacks. I believe very few Japanese combat pilots or other military personnel really believed in the so-called “divine winds” that supposedly saved Japan 600 years before. Most of them probably were motivated for other reasons, and made grim personal decisions out of a sense of patriotism or fatalism, but with the ultimate aim of giving their lives in an effort to strengthen the military and political positions of Japan so as to avoid total defeat and subjugation.
“Pearl Harbor: Who Deceived Whom?”
(See P. Jacobsen, pp. 27-31, December 2003; R. Hakanson, p. 10, February 2004 Naval History)
Lieutenant Colonel Gordon S. Fowkes, U.S. Army (Retired)
By November 1941, the White House and 10 Downing Street knew war with Japan was inevitable. Both British and U.S. troops and ships deployed to Malaya and the Philippines well before 7 December only to march into captivity several months later. The movement of Red Cross supplies to Hawaii was consistent with the general conclusion that war was inevitable, but not that President Franklin Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor was a target.
U.S. carriers were away from Pearl Harbor on 7 December delivering fighter planes to Wake and Midway to protect the delivery route for B-17 bombers being flown to the Philippines. If one chuckles at the idea of 55 B-17s as the ultimate deterrence to Japanese aggression, considering what followed in the subsequent air war in the Pacific, one grasps the unreality of Allied perceptions of Japan’s threat. Allied ethnocentrism precluded the notion that Asians could pose a serious threat to Caucasians. Initial reports from Hong Kong on the Japanese attack there stated that the Japanese were being led by German officers and Japanese Zeroes were being flown by German pilots.
Any and all evidence that Japan would take a six-carrier force to attack Hawaii passed through an ethnocentric filter and was interpreted as unlikely or outlandish. It did not help that the leading military experts of the day stated unambiguously that multicarrier attacks and amphibious assaults were impossible in “modern” war. That included Billy Mitchell, Dwight Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur.
In the light of the morning after, the unlikely and outlandish becomes the obvious. And for that reason, then and now, the obvious is buried or damning. Franklin Roosevelt did not know Pearl Harbor was the target—but he could or should have.
Captain Akihiko Yoshida, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (Retired)
With regard to this excellent article, I wish to explain some things from the Japanese perspective. The program of “radio deception” before Pearl Harbor was actually a communications exercise. Confronted with the prospect of war, the Imperial Japanese Navy organized a number of new Combined Fleet organizations. Among them was the “Combined Communications Group” (Rengo Tsushin-Tai) that combined land-based communications units, inland and overseas, and included already established units, such as the 4th Communications Unit at Truk and the 6th at Kwajelein, as well as units that would be established after occupation, such as the 3rd at Manila and the 8th at Rabaul. Ships stationed in Japan in the Inland Sea or Kyushu waters and all land-based communications units that were part of the exercise were assigned as “simulated flagships of the fleet,” important combatant ships, or land-based communications units inland and overseas, all under the control of the Tokyo Communications Unit as flag. They sent exercise messages following detailed plans, call signs, addresses, text, sending times, and codebooks. The exercise was held from mid-November 1941 into December. As a result, what began as an “exercise” became a kind of “deception” for the U.S. Navy.
“FDR’s Undeclared War”
(See J. O’Connor, pp. 24-29, February 2004 Naval History)
Rusty Bloxom
I read Jerome O’Connor’s article with great interest and some concern. Although it is clear the writer is very knowledgeable about the naval policies and operations of 1941, I was bemused by what was missing. The omission early in the article of any reference to the USS Niblack’s (DD-424) opening hostile action against a suspected U-boat on 10 April 1941 was disappointing, if somewhat understandable given the uncertainties surrounding that event. 1 was amazed, however, to find no acknowledgement of the sinking of the USS Reuben James (DD-245) by the U-552 on 31 October 1941.
I have a hard time imagining this was a deliberate omission. I find it a little disturbing that the absence of material relating to the loss of the Reuben James tends to reinforce the writer’s final paragraph, with its debatable contention that “try as it did repeatedly, the U.S. Navy could neither manufacture a pretext [nor] discover an opportunity” to fight a major naval engagement with the Germans. Inclusion of such material might have called this statement into question, because although no major engagement occurred between the U.S. Navy and the German Kriegsmarine in 1941, the destruction of a U.S. warship by a German submarine certainly provided an unmanufactured “pretext” for such a battle. An article dealing with U.S. naval operations against the Germans in the Atlantic in 1941 should at least acknowledge the 115 Americans who were killed when the Reuben James was sunk, if not the diplomatic and strategic implications of the incident.
Joseph B. Potts
Jerome O’Connor mentions that the USS West Virginia (BB-48) was a “product of Warren Harding’s administration.” This ship was authorized as No. 48 in 1916 and laid down in April 1920, and thus was a product of Woodrow Wilson’s administration. She was completed in December 1923, four months after Harding’s death. In addition, the author says that “on the eve of war, most of the [U.S.] Navy’s battleships first sailed little more than a decade after the Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk.” Of the 15 pre-North Carolina (BB-55)-class battleships in commission in 1941, only three fit more or less into that age group: the Arkansas (BB-33), completed in 1912, and the New York (BB-34) and Texas (BB-35), both completed in 1914. The remaining 12 were completed from 1916 to 1923. It should be remembered that because of limitations imposed by the naval treaties of 1922 and 1930, most of the capital ships in the major combatants’ fleets in 1941 except Germany’s were as old as, or older, than the West Virginia.
Robert C. Austin
The quotation, “When they get in trouble they send for the sons of bitches,” attributed in the article to Admiral Ernest J. King at the time of his appointment to Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, in February 1941, may be in error in terms of its date. The biography of King has the quotation attributed to him when he was called to Washington on 8 December 1941, at a time when there certainly was trouble. In later years, when King was asked if he had made that statement, he is said to have replied that he would have said it if he had thought of it. At any rate, I rather doubt King made the statement in February 1941.
Lieutenant Richard G. Hopkins, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I read Jerome O’Connor’s article with great interest, as I took part in Roosevelt’s “undeclared war” in the USS Decatur (DD-341). Indeed, I took part in most of the Battle of the Atlantic. The article states that the Kearny (DD-432) took two torpedoes. In fact, she took one, on the starboard side, killing everyone in the forward fire room. We got her into Iceland and alongside the USS Vulcan (AR-5), a destroyer tender. We tied up on the other side of the Vulcan, so I was able to go on board the Kearny and see the damage; she would not have survived two torpedo hits. The battle with the wolf pack also took place on 17 (not 15) October 1941.
Donald A. Wambold Jr.
In 1998 I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Wright, a former Navy aviator and one of the original Flying Tigers (he is credited with shooting down the last enemy aircraft shot down by the Flying Tigers). Peter told me an amazing story of prewar U.S. activities in support of Britain. He remembers several unusual cruises in the spring and summer of 1941 on the Ranger (CV-4) and later on the Yorktown (CV-5). He flew a Vought SBU scout bomber. While not yet at war, his task force sailed in a triangle, west to Africa, then north to Ireland and back to Norfolk. He flew constant long-range scouting flights, covering a large swath of the Atlantic, and as instructed the task force reported any German ships spotted on an open radio frequency. A British task group always trailed this fleet over the horizon.
“Kimmel Case Dubbed ‘Totally Political’”
(See F. Schultz, p. 41, February 2004 Naval History)
Michael Gannon
There are several corrections I would like to make concerning my statements at the 6 November 2003 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. First, two of Admiral Kimmel’s grandsons participated, not three. In the fifth paragraph, I had said that I had discovered documents dating from five months prior to the attack indicating official U.S. Navy knowledge that the British (not the Japanese) had developed shallow-water torpedoes. The sixth paragraph should read: “Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King’s charge of dereliction of duty in 1944 [was] based on Admiral Kimmel’s decision not to conduct long-range aerial reconnaissance. Admiral King charged that Kimmel could at least have patrolled the ‘more dangerous’ sectors.” In addition, I hope you can state briefly (after the seventh paragraph) my third point of the day. It could read as follows: “Employing documents found in 2000 at the University of Wyoming, Gannon revealed that Kimmel’s replacement, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, fully expected a second Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In that situation, the historian pointed out, Nimitz maintained exactly the same state of readiness that Kimmel had in place on 7 December.”
E. Tom Child
Much has been published from time to time about “who knew what and when” regarding Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Proof that we helped Japan in the execution of its attack long has been public record, but the public is unaware. On 20 December 1945, during the hearings before the Joint Committee of the 79th Congress on the investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, William D. Mitchell, General Counsel, asked the Navy war plans officer to tell the purpose of the “Vacant sea order.” Under oath, that officer, Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, stated, “We were prepared to divert traffic when we believed that war was imminent. We sent the traffic down via Torres Strait [between Australia and New Guinea], so that the track of the Japanese task force would be clear of any traffic.”
Here are some examples of how the “Vacant sea order” worked: The Soviet ship Uritski had departed San Francisco on 28 November en route to Petropavlovsk. She was recalled and directed to Astoria, Oregon, where, on 1 December, she anchored in the Columbia River. Then, on 5 December, when the Uritski’s path would not encounter Japan’s carriers, she was cleared to proceed to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Another Soviet ship, the tanker Azerbaidjan, having departed the U.S. West Coast on 14 November, was far at sea and headed on an intercept course with Japan’s carriers. She was directed to alter her course southward so as to avoid Japan’s fleet. The USS Louisville (CA-28), escorting the A. T. Scott and President Coolidge, which were loaded with U.S. service dependents being returned home in anticipation of war, steamed from Manila to Honolulu by way of the Torres Strait.
“Japan—Changed but Unchanging”
(See P. Stillwell, p. 2, February 2004 Naval History)
Lieutenant Commander Theodore M. Robinson, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
This article reminded me of my own time in Japan immediately after the end of World War II. My early experiences as a PT-boat skipper fighting Japanese barges up close and personal in the Solomons had taught me that the Japanese were a very regimented people who seemed lost if they lost their leaders. By the end of the war, I found myself in command of something far larger than a PT boat. I was the captain of LST-1062, pounding north a month after the war ended with a full load of occupation troops. Her starboard propeller had been bent at Okinawa during a typhoon the week before. Once we got to Japan, the LST-1062 was the first U.S. ship in history to be placed in dry-dock at the Yokosuka Naval Shipyard for repairs.
As the repairs took about a month, it gave me and my crew an opportunity to tour Japan only a few weeks after the occupation, when few Americans were in the country. As a New Yorker I was anxious to take a ride on the Tokyo subway. Despite the extensive fire bombing, I found that even the elevated portions were intact. I seated myself in the front car near the motorman, who sat among the passengers behind a little rail. I soon realized I was the only American on the entire train and the subject of many covert glances of curiosity, submission, and possibly hate. I began to have second thoughts about coming alone unarmed even though the train was crowded and no one dared sit near me.
At the next station, however, a wild-eyed man got on, mumbling to himself in Japanese, who sat right next to me. He soon started yelling, and I thought perhaps was exhorting the crowd to attack me as well. The motorman got off at the next station (I realize now to get help, but at the time I was not sure). When the man got up and jumped into the motorman’s booth and started the train, I knew this was not supposed to happen. The passengers all looked alarmed, but no one did anything. I realized these trains traveled only a few minutes apart and there was probably another one stopped in the next station. We were in the front car and in grave danger. Why didn’t these people do something? Then I remembered they all depended on leaders, and at the surrender their Emperor had told them we were now their new leaders. I reckoned I was in charge, and after five years in combat I was not about to die on a subway. I jumped up and grabbed the man’s arms, pulling him away from the throttle. This caused the train to come to an abrupt stop, throwing me on top of him on the floor. I finally knew for sure he was crazy because he was foaming at the mouth, snarling, and biting my arm. We rolled on the floor, hut still no help came from the transfixed passengers. I started to choke him, and when he started to change from brown to blue I knew I had him. Even though the war was over I had conquered my last enemy, while probably saving hundreds of others.
I soon heard police whistles and doors slamming as the motorman, accompanied by the police, ran up the track and through the train. I stepped aside as they grabbed the guy and started to beat him so viciously even I began to feel sorry for him. They dragged him to the door and threw him out on the track. Then the strangest thing happened. The chief policeman gave an order. All the passengers stood up, faced me, bowed, and said “arigato,” which I knew meant “thank you” in Japanese. It was the only thing I understood in the entire strange experience. I got off at the next station and took a cab back to the ship. I had had enough of Japanese subway rides. It was such a surreal experience I began to think it never happened, until I got back to the ship and my shipmates asked about the teeth marks and blood on my arm. Maybe it was God’s way of letting me save some of those poor conformist souls to make up for those we had killed earlier in the war. I have since learned to admire the Japanese people despite their somewhat regimented ways.
“Archaeologist Turns Spy”
(See C. Harris and L. Sadler, pp. 42-45, February 2004 Naval History)
Frank Pierce Young
I was happily reading along until I got about halfway down the second column on page 43 and almost jumped out of my chair. I had to reread it three or four times to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. It was a name, Dr. John Alden Mason, one of those on the list of agents recruited by the redoubtable Sylvanus Morley for his work with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in Central America. In 1954, I returned to active duty at Naval Air Station Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, and went into its public information office. My boss was a creative and imaginative naval aviator whom I came to admire considerably, and who treated me (a draftsman [stuctural] third class) not like some enlisted handyman-cum-typist, but more like a graduate student who actually knew something about what he was doing (which I did). That man was Lieutenant John Alden Mason Jr. He had to be a son of the good Dr. Mason of ONI. If John Jr. still is alive, I would dearly love to be able to talk to or write to him.
“Underappreciated Victory”
(See J. Schlesinger, pp. 20-23, October 2003; G. Smith, p. 11, J. O’Connor, p. 11, W. Mercer, pp. 11, 16, D. Warren, p. 16, February 2004 Naval History)
Lieutenant Commander Richard W. Schuette, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I concur with Donald Warren’s assessment that the Battle of Midway was a critically important World War II victory for the United States. He, like most historians, gives the lion’s share of credit to Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, citing him as “Midway’s U.S. commander.” A review of the battle chronology in Gordon W. Prange’s fine book Miracle at Midway (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982) discloses that three of the four Japanese aircraft carriers present (the Kaga, Soryu, and Akagi) received the damage that ultimately caused their sinking between 1022 and 1042 local time on 4 June 1942—while Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was officer in tactical command of both Task Force 16 (the Enterprise [CV-6] and Hornet [CV-8]) and 17 (the Yorktown [CV-5]). Thus, Admiral Fletcher was responsible for all tactical decisions until his transfer from the damaged Yorktown to the cruiser Astoria (CA-34), at which time he relinquished command to Admiral Spruance because of the cruiser’s limited communications capability. There is no doubt that Admiral Spruance subsequently conducted a very competent finale: the sinking of the Hiryu, the strategic night withdrawal, and the later pursuit of the enemy surface force. But in the final analysis, the major credit for the Midway victory must belong to Fletcher.
Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I believe Dr. Schlesinger has missed the core reason why the Battle of Midway is “underappreciated,” at least in terms of memorials. It was a sea battle covering thousands of square miles. Memorials gain much of their impact from location and area to be comprehended. One can stand on Little Round Top at Gettysburg, read the interpretive materials, and see where the action described in nearby monuments took place. Similarly, one can stand on the heights above Omaha Beach at Normandy and see where the D-Day landings took place in 1944. But where does one memorialize the Battle of Midway? Midway Atoll is, literally, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and, difficulty of access aside, today is a bird sanctuary. How does one encompass actions that took place over, on, and under the sea, over such great distances, and deliver an emotional impact and immediacy to someone who was not an eyewitness to the battle?
“Being there” has much to do with a memorial’s relevance and effectiveness. When I commanded “Old Ironsides,” any time I was in the ship I could see our visitors look around her decks and be able to conjure up some idea of what it must have been like all those years ago when she was performing her remembered deeds. Their eyes would take on that “faraway” look, and their expressions would reflect the thrill, pain, or emotion of whatever they were imagining. Because of this involvement, the Constitution is, among other things, an extremely effective memorial.
Sailors—and airmen and astronauts— always will suffer short shrift because their milieus do not lend themselves to the support of monuments. They work in environments alien to the general public’s experience. One does not see a sailor or airman among the figures recalling the Korean War in that memorial because it just would not make sense—even though the Navy and Air Force certainly were involved. Would that Dr. Schlesinger had offered a possible solution rather than merely a call for some unspecified action.
From Our Archive
In a rare color photograph from World War II, three U.S. Navy WAVES stand by the north side of the tidal basin (with the Jefferson Memorial in the distance) while sightseeing in Washington, D.C, during the springtime cherry blossom season. The Navy’s women’s reserve, or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, was established in July 1942. By 1945, more than 84,000 women had enlisted in the Navy. This and other photos are available as prints through the Naval Institute Photo Archive. You may place orders or leave messages 24 hours a day at 1-800-233-8764.
“Death of a Destroyer”
(See P. Sherbo, pp. 36-41, December 2003 Naval History)
Captain Albert S. McLemore Jr., U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
It might be a small point, but in the name of historical accuracy I would like to point out that my father, Commander Albert S. McLemore Sr., did not attend the commemoration service held in Sydney, Australia, in 1999 as stated in the article. After the collision and ensuing investigation, he continued to serve in the Navy,, first as the commanding officer of Naval Inshore Undersea Warfare Group One and later as the administrative officer of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. He passed away in November 2001, and was laid to rest wearing his command-at-sea insignia and with a Navy honor guard in attendance. Before his death, he passed on his pride in serving his country to his grandsons. My oldest son is serving as a naval flight officer with Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 116. My youngest is currently attending the U.S. Naval Academy. I also am very proud of the fact that one of his sponsor families at the Academy is Captain and Mrs. George McMichael. Captain McMichael was my father’s executive officer on board the Frank E. Evans (DD-754). I believe I can speak for my father in saying that Captain Sherbo’s article is important not only from a historical standpoint, but also because it reminds all of us who ever have stood or will stand the officer-of-the-deck watch of the enormous responsibility we assume with the words “I relieve you, sir.”
“‘Deliverance from this Floating Hell”’
(See C. H. Gilliland, pp. 48-51, December 2003 Naval History)
Thomas P. Powers
As I read this article, it brought tears to my eyes, which I have done many times since my tour of duty in Gulfport, Mississippi. Prior to that, I lived in West Concord, New Hampshire, from birth until I enlisted in the Navy. During my childhood, we were not aware of what was going on in the South. Radio, newspapers, and teachers never informed us of the racial struggles there. When I was in Gulfport, my mother wrote me that my friend from West Concord was a line trainer instructor at Keesler Air Base in nearby Biloxi. Another friend and I decided to go to the air base to see him. On the bus we asked the driver for directions. He told us to walk a couple of blocks and we would see the sign. Sure enough we found the base, but we saw something no man or woman should witness.
Hanging from a post was a young black boy; he had been stripped naked. We could not help looking at him and at the same time we cried, what could a young boy have done to deserve this? The sheriff came by and said, “What the hell are you guys doing?” We pointed to the boy and he told us to move on, as he was going to hang there for a long time, “to teach those bastards a lesson.”
That was many years ago, but we still have a long way to go. Even in Vermont, where I live now, some people need to change their thinking.
I am proud to say that in my town of Essex Junction, the house used for the Underground Railroad remains standing.