Pearl Harbor attack revisited from a Japanese standpoint.

[a425couple]

For those interested in History there is an excellent article in the Dec
2016 Smithsonian magazine on the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese
thought processes prior and after.

Pretty decent read.
Here is a shortcut:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-almost-everyone-failed-prepare-pearl-harbor-1-180961144/

"Yamamoto did not drink much, but he bet a lot. ----

As proud of his country as anyone of his generation, as eager to see
Westerners pay some long-overdue respect to the Empire’s power and culture,
Yamamoto nonetheless had opposed its 1940 alliance with Nazi Germany and
Italy. That hardly endeared him to Japan’s extreme nationalists but did not
dent his renown.

In planning the Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto knew full well the power of
his adversary. During two tours in the United States, in 1919 and 1926, he
had traveled the American continent and noted its energy, its abundance and
the character of its people. The United States had more steel, more wheat,
more oil, more factories, more shipyards, more of nearly everything than the
Empire, confined as it was to rocky islands off the Asian mainland. In 1940,
Japanese planners had calculated that the industrial capacity of the United
States was 74 times greater, and that it had 500 times more oil.

If pitted against the Americans over time, the Imperial Navy would never be
able to make up its inevitable losses the way the United States could. In a
drawn-out conflict, “Japan’s resources will be depleted, battleships and
weaponry will be damaged, replenishing materials will be impossible,”
Yamamoto would write to the chief of the Naval General Staff. Japan would
wind up “impoverished,” and any war “with so little chance of success should
not be fought.”

But Yamamoto alone could not stop the illogical march of Japanese
policy.-----

For Yamamoto, the place was Pearl and the time was immediately after—an hour
or two after—the Empire submitted a declaration of war. He believed that an
honorable samurai does not plunge his sword into a sleeping enemy, but first
kicks the victim’s pillow, so he is awake, and then stabs him. That a
non-samurai nation might perceive that as a distinction lacking a difference
did not, apparently, occur to him."

Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-almost-everyone-failed-prepare-pearl-harbor-1-180961144/#FR6mmrsEFYoWdVIB.99
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Even more so, I appreciate the Yamamoto chapter in Neal Stephenson's
"Cryptonomicon" ?

Try this for Chapter 39 "Yamamoto"
is a very great read.
Here is a 'lead' for it and partial read for others to enjoy:
http://m.litread.in/read/117090/99340-101013?page=176
Perhaps this might lead others to buy and enjoy it.

"Chapter 39 YAMAMOTO
Tojo and his claque of imperial army boneheads said to him, in effect: Why
don't you go out and secure the Pacific Ocean for us, because we'll need a
convenient shipping lane, say, oh, about ten thousand miles wide, in order
to carry out our little plan to conquer South America, Alaska, and all of
North America west of the Rockies. In the meantime we'll finish mopping up
China. Please attend to this ASAP. ----

[Keith Willshaw]

Post by a425couple
"Chapter 39 YAMAMOTO
Tojo and his claque of imperial army boneheads said to him, in effect: Why
don't you go out and secure the Pacific Ocean for us, because we'll need a
convenient shipping lane, say, oh, about ten thousand miles wide, in order
to carry out our little plan to conquer South America, Alaska, and all of
North America west of the Rockies. In the meantime we'll finish mopping up
China. Please attend to this ASAP. ----

Yamamoto had of course spent a lot of time in the USA and understand
American resolve and its production capacity in a way that the insular
Japanese Army did not. Tojo's only experienc of the USA came from train
ride on his way back from Siberia after the intervention in Siberia
after WW1. The Japanese Army never had much contact with reality as they
displayed when they basically ignored logistical constraints in most of
their major engagements. From Guadalcanal to Burma this cost them dearly.

So out of touch was Tojo that his war aims included the annexation of
Australia, New Guinea, British India (all of modern India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh), Ceylon, New Zealand, the Canadian provinces of British
Columbia and the Yukon territory as well as the American state of
Washington and the territories of Alaska and Hawaii. In South and
central America he wanted Ecuador, Columbia, Honduras, Panama, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, British Honduras, Cuba,
Jamaica, Haiti and the rest of the West Indies. In addition to China of
course.

Yamamoto righly considered this to be pure insanity and said so. He was
reported by his aide to have told the Minieter of War that it it was
quite impossible as Japan simply did not have the men and resources even
if the Americans did not fully mobilize. He also warned that the USA DID
have the men and resources to invade and occupy Japan. The attitude of
Yamamoto had so enraged the Army that the naval high command had ordered
him to sea to avoid assassination.

For anyone interested in Yamamoto I highly recommend this book

The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy. It was published
in 2000 written by Hiroyuki Agawa and translated by John Bester. Agawa
was an intelligence office in the IJN during WW2 and had the misfortune
to be based in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped.

KeithW