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The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II

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In the early days after Pearl Harbor, 25 Japanese fleet submarines surrounded the Hawaiian Islands. Off the East Coast at the same time, a mere five German U-boats crated havoc with merchant shipping.
In the North Pacific, however, after a few vessels plying between the West Coast and the Hawaiian Islands were surprised early in December, the Japanese submarine threat was negligible.
Authors Carl Boyd, an American professor, and Akihiko Yoshida, who is on the staff of the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo, attempt to explain why the large and capable Japanese submarine force did not do more damage to its enemies.
It was purely a matter of doctrine. Though eventually outnumbered, the Imperial Japanese Navy's undersea fleet was comparatively ineffective even in the early days when it could have had the upper hand.
This was because the Japanese remained committed longer than any other navy to using the sub as an arm of the battle fleet. The true role of the slow diesel submarine was as a commerce raider, and in the Pacific war the American subs massacred the Japanese merchant navy.
Had the Japanese navy followed a similar logic, Maui might have been a much hungrier place in 1941-45, as Malta was.
As it was, although the Japanese made a strategic mistake with their submarines, their tactical successes in 1942 were impressive. 'The Japanese submarine force has frequently been misrepresented in Western literature' as a complete failure, write Boyd and Yoshida.
The U.S. Navy had only six fleet carriers in the Pacific in 1942, and Japanese submarines torpedoed three of them (the Saratoga twice) and the threat of Japanese subs had a lot to do with the loss of a fourth carrier, the Lexington.
You could hardly ask for more from a light force against an opponent's capital ships.
But slow subs were not a long-run challenge to fast surface warships, and the Japanese submariners turned increasingly to dead-end types, such as midgets, long-range airplane carriers and supply subs. (It is now suspected, however, that one of the five midget subs sent against Pearl Harbor did manage to get a torpedo into the battleship Oklahoma.)
Surface fleets ruled supreme in 1941-45, so much so that almost the only communication possible between allies Germany and Japan was by passage of a few submarines carrying antimony, plans and other war material. The amounts were trivial and eventually even this route was choked off.
'The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II' concentrates heavily on statistical data, operational orders and staff memos. There must have been many adventures in the Japanese submarine fleet, but very few of the crewmen survived to relate their stories.

The authors do a good job covering the subject of Imperial Japanese Submarine operations in World War 2. Despite limited personal accounts from Japanese submarine crews, the authors make good use of available sources of information.

Presented in a mainly generalized format, the main stratagies employed by the Japanese for their submarine fleet are well covered. I was a bit disappointed as major and minor campaigns rarely received more than a page or two, and sometimes just a few paragraphs. Perhaps source materials did not allow a more in depth presentation of these battles, but I felt as if many operations received a cursory discussion at best.

The authors refer to the Japanese strategic operations plan for submarines developed in the decades prior to the war (the last being 1934) many times throughour the book. However, the actual plan is contained in appendix 1. A recommendation to the reader - read appendix 1 before reading he book. This will allow you to see submarine operations and strategies through the eyes of the Japanese commanders who were raised on this doctrine. It will make the seemingly random movements of assets by Japanese commanders more clear and put you squarely in tune with their line of thinking.

Despite these shortcomings, the book does a fine job shedding info and insight into a difficult and elusive subject.

This book does a good job explaining how how ineffective their submarine forces were despite having superior numbers and large subs. They do a good job on describing the technical aspects of the subs and the men who served on them.