Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 [Hardcover]

David C. Evans (Author), Mark R. Peattie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1997

One of the great spectacles of modern naval history is the Imperial Japanese Navy's instrumental role in Japan's rise from an isolationist feudal kingdom to a potent military empire stridently confronting, in 1941, the world's most powerful nation. Years of painstaking research and analysis of previously untapped Japanese-language resources have produced this remarkable history of the navy's dizzying development, tactical triumphs, and humiliating defeat. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and attention to detail, this important new study explores the foreign and indigenous influences on the navy's thinking about naval warfare and how to plan for it. Focusing primarily on the much-neglected period between the world wars, David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, two widely esteemed historians, persuasively explain how the Japanese failed to prepare properly for the war in the Pacific despite an arguable advantage in capability.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 661 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press; 1 edition (1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870211927
• ISBN-13: 978-0870211928
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Second to none, March 30, 2007

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 (Hardcover)

A few years ago I read a short book on the Pacific War written by H.P. Wilmott. For those who don't know of him, Wilmott taught at Sandhurst for many years, and is probably one of the top two or three historians of the Pacific War. At the end of the book there was an annotated bibliography. I always like this, as opposed to a regular bibliography, because the annotations tell you what the author thinks of various sources, and that in turn tells you something about his thinking. But sometimes the recommendation is more direct: you trust the author, and he tells you something is worthwhile. In this instance, he said that he wasn't sure how Pacific War historians got along before the book Kaigun was published. Needless to say I went out and got one. It's not a cheap book, there aren't used copies cheaper, there's no paperback available. It's still worth every penny, and I will tell you below why you need it.

There are, of course, a bushel and a half of books about the war in the Pacific during World War II. Many of them note that the Japanese fought the war in an unusual fashion, and most note differences in technology, strategy, tactics, and philosophy. Some of these things are vaguely explained by the differences in Western and Japanese society, but at best the explanations are vague. This leaves a huge gap in the history of the Pacific War.

Kaigun fills this gap. The authors basically explain every question of this type involving the Japanese Navy in World War II, from why their cruisers had long ranged torpedoes to why their navy's intelligence was so poor to why they insisted in planning as if the American Navy would act in particular ways (even after it had demonstrated that it would act in other ways). Much of the differences between the Japanese and American Navies stemmed from the fact that the Japanese had to modernize so quickly. This circumstance had background in that Japan had little naval tradition, and no ships really on which to base a modern navy. While this meant that Japanese Naval modernization had many pitfalls, it also had advantages, notably a lack of old traditions and hoary rivalries that plagued other nations' Naval modernization programs.

The authors spend a considerable length of time discussing Japan's wars with first China and then Russia in the early stages of their modernization. China proved little challenge in a Naval sense, but Russia was a much more formidable opponent, though the Japanese defeated them decisively. While the war itself is discussed at some length, a great deal of time is also spent discussing the aftermath, and the war's influence on Japan's strategy, tactics, and philosophy in future wars. As far as the authors are concerned, Tsushima was the principle reason the Japanese Navy spent most of the thirties planning for a major confrontation between the U.S. Navy and their own combined fleet. The latter confrontation was apparently modeled rather closely on Tsushima, which was pretty much the same strategically, though the directions and the scale were of course different.

This book is full of information, much of it not available elsewhere in English. Frankly, if you are interested in the War in the Pacific, I agree with Wilmott, adding my faint echo to his endorsement: this book is invaluable. It's also, as a side note, very well written. Highly recommended.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important new work on Japanese naval doctrine and tactics, December 5, 1997

By 

Jonathan Parshall (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 (Hardcover)

I did some of the illustrations for the book, so maybe I am biased, but this book will be read by people interested in this area of naval history for years to come. David Evans and Mark Peattie have researched this work meticulously, (including using previously untranslated Japanese primary sources from the Japanese Self-Defense Force archives) to construct a view of the changing inter-workings of technology, strategy, and tactics in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The writing is excellent, the layout is elegant, and the maps and illustrations (ahem) are superb. The book also contains excellent back-matter in the endnotes, bibliography, and index. A MUST for any serious student of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, February 13, 1999

By 

Tom Munro "tomfrombrunswick" (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 (Hardcover)

Kaigun Strategy is a book that I had a lot of trouble putting down. This is perhaps strange for a book which discusses things such as the development of dry steam as a more efficient mode of propulsion, change in the composition of steel as it related to battleship construction and other very technical subjects. In a way the book said a lot about the Pacific War that had been said before. Yet in a way it was as startling revelation of the development of Japanese Society from the Meiji Restoration to the end of the second World War. The book is a discussion about the development of Japans Navy. Until 1945 the Japanese spent the staggering amount of 27% of their national budget on the navy. The reason for this lies with the now forgotten writings of Admiral Mahon.

Mahon was an American who in his day was as famous as Marx and Lenin. He wrote a history of sea power a book that argued that the reason for the wealth of great nations was the control of an empire through control of the sea. The Japanese were converts to his doctrines and being an island power thought that the key to the national destiny was the acquisition of empire. Kaigun Strategy is a study of how the Japanese Navy tried to develop a navy that would give them preponderance over that of the much stronger American Navy. The book goes into great detail about how the Japanese studied the most modern technology to develop a numerically inferior but well trained modern Navy. The belief in empire and the need to ensure oil supplies put Japan on a collision course with the United States of America.

The end of the war has led to Japan sheathing the sword and seeking to build up a strong economy. This has led to Japan becoming one of the richest and strongest countries in the world. How more productive that has been rather than putting most of the national wealth into a Navy which ended up on the bottom of the sea.

The book is fascinating at showing that whilst a large amount of Japans planning and development showed tremendous skill and intellect, at the same time ridiculous errors were made. Thus whilst Japan build up a modern fleet and air wing it failed to: · Adopt a convoy system during the war or to arm enough destroyers with sonar equipment to protect its merchant marine. · Did not realise till after the war started that there were not enough tankers in the possession of Japan to move enough oil from its new possessions to keep both the navy and industry going. · Made no attempts to develop code breaking in the way that its Axis Partner Germany and the Allies did. · Were not able to adopt the strategy once it became obvious that the war was evolving into one of attrition rather than a single decisive battle.

The book is a fascinating one and shows how the history of nations can be molded by the history of ideas.