65 years ago

[Werner]

Let's all take a moment to remember 13 & 14 November, 1942 and the two great naval battles that took place those nights off Guadalcanal. They marked a sure tipping point in WW.II. After the smoke cleared, and the airbase was still in American hands, the Japanese high command knew they had lost the war.

[Filipe Ramires]

the Japanese high command knew they had lost the war.

Errrhhhhhhh, huuummmmmmmm...I'll stand down for the moment...

[Werner]

11/12-5 was the last attempt to take Henderson from the Marines and Army. The Naval Battles resulted from the Japanese attempt to land reinforcements after putting the airfield out of action with naval bombardments. The shells were used instead to sink or destroy the USN task force, which paid for the airfield with blood. Atlanta, Juneau and several destroyers were sunk on the 13th, with San Francisco badly mauled. The next night, the US paid with more destroyers to stop the bombardment and keep the airfield open.

Within a month of the battle, the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal was underway.

A Japanese document captured shortly after this battle said, "It must be said that the success or failure in recapturing Guadalcanal Island, and the vital naval battle related to it, is the fork in the road which leads to victory for them or for us."[1]

Churchill chose this moment to proclaim "The end of the beginning."

[1] Morison, History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War Two, V., p. 287

[RickF]

Churchill's "end of the begining" speech was at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon, Mansion House following the victory at El Alamein in North Africa, London, 10 November 1942, three or four days prior to Guadalcanal. It had little if anything to do with the Japanese.

"The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Rick

[Werner]

Morison spoke of Churchill's speech on 287; perhaps he was trying to show a general trend in all theatres of war.

[Guest]

A Japanese document captured shortly after this battle said, "It must be said that the success or failure in recapturing Guadalcanal Island, and the vital naval battle related to it, is the fork in the road which leads to victory for them or for us."[1]

I don't think key persons in Japan were really that dull and unperceptive at the time as to think the fork in the road were really still ahead before Guadalcanal. But after the war they have a way of simultaneously casting a more rosy, story book glow to things that has been, while feigning ignorance or innocence of things that would, if acknowledged to have been known, would raise questions about the national character.

"See, we really were no war mongering beserkers. We were pushed into a war, and we had a genuine, objective chance for winning until......."

To be fair this treacherous trait really is common to all humanity. But in Japan's case she is being compared to the example of Germany, which made her look like she is more lacking in genuine reflection and penitence than she should be.

[Werner]

Many recent books, including Shattered Sword, indicate that Japanese grand strategy was to go over to a defensive war in the East, trusting the various barriers built and internal lines of communication would be so impregnable as to make the US and Britain sue for an armistice. That said, one has to define "Japanese victory" in different terms in order to make sense of their behavior.

[Guest]

Many recent books, including Shattered Sword, indicate that Japanese grand strategy was to go over to a defensive war in the East, trusting the various barriers built and internal lines of communication would be so impregnable as to make the US and Britain sue for an armistice. That said, one has to define "Japanese victory" in different terms in order to make sense of their behavior.

I think it's debatable if the Japanese had initially envisioned the island defenses as what they turn out to be - mere speed bumps for American fleet to slow American advance, or as some sort of maritime equivalent of prepared terrain that would greatly magnify the power of the combined fleet in defensive battles that were meant to stop the Americans and inflict decisive losses at the outskirts of the Japanese controlled territory.

I tend to think it was the latter, and with the losses at Midway, they lost their mobile reserve and could no longer employ the island defense the way they had meant to. They were forced to resort to trading space for time and use the islands as more as speed bumps. It's not that they were really under the illusion that time would do them any good against an enemy that is getting stronger than they are by the minute, but they had no choice.

[Guest]

Instead of thinking of Islands as mere pill boxes to wear down the Americans, think of them as field fortifications to enable the combined fleet to operate with a tremendous terrain advantage, then you see how something like the Shinano fits into the picture.

[Werner]

The situation confronting the Japanese in 1943-4 was roughly similar to the Germans defending the Monte Casino line in Italy. The shape of the battlefield allowed them to use a few mobile units effectively to bolster the large number of static units. They also lacked air superiority, and the submarines swept up the fuel train during this period, making further use of mobile units difficult and costly.

[Guest]

The situation confronting the Japanese in 1943-4 was roughly similar to the Germans defending the Monte Casino line in Italy. The shape of the battlefield allowed them to use a few mobile units effectively to bolster the large number of static units. They also lacked air superiority, and the submarines swept up the fuel train during this period, making further use of mobile units difficult and costly.

The Japanese either didn't have, or were unwilling to commit the necessary mobile units in 1943 and first part of 1944 to make any difference. This is why Island hopping succeeded. The necessary scale of mobile units the Japanese needed were the level above, or above, the fleet they lost in Midway.

[Tiornu]

There's no special connection between Shinano and Japanese island holdings. Shinano was an expression of the generalized principle of out-ranging the enemy. She can be grouped with Taiho, Ise, and Hyuga in that regard.
Japan's plans for fighting the US became an incoherent jumble shortly before the fighting started. Yamamoto appears to have understood that the standing policy was a passive one that depended on the Americans charging out to meet the IJN in a "quick encounter, quick showdown." Even the most extreme of the firebrands acknowledged that a short war was what Japan needed. Yamamoto developed a plan that allowed the IJN to seize initiative at the outset, but there was a built-in inconsistency--the Pearl Harbor raid negated any chance that the USN would advance to the "quick encounter." That dictated a long war, precisely the one that planners feared most and for which they never prepared--consider the submarine activities of the two opponents. It looks like the IJN got caught halfway into a fleetwide reform and was never able to get off the fence.

[Guest]

There's no special connection between Shinano and Japanese island holdings. Shinano was an expression of the generalized principle of out-ranging the enemy. She can be grouped with Taiho, Ise, and Hyuga in that regard..

With modifications she could certainly be used as a normal, if somewhat large and inefficient, fleet carrier. But her intended role as a huge carrier with a small air wing, but large facilities to support and repair other carrier's aircraft is unusual. It is not clear how that is intended to fit into conventional deep sea carrier vs carrier combat, which seem to have a propensity to be determined very quickly, thus putting a premium on being able to launch the largest number of aircraft all at once, and leaves very little room for a separate mobile repair base.

It would make more sense if she was intended to support combat operations in areas of many islands with many unsinkable air bases, and many disparate groups of warships and carriers operating a protracted but coordinated campaign. She is hard to fit into the context of a head-to-head confrontation of carriers.

[Tiornu]

The plan for Shinano's use was spelled out pretty specifically. With the other armored carriers, she would form a van force approaching in relatively close proximity to the enemy. Weaker ships (Unryus) could hang back well beyond the range of enemy attack; their planes could launch from extreme range and return, not to the their home carriers, but to Shinano and Taiho. Rearmed and refueled, they could repeat the process in reverse and end up back home. The obvious flaw in the plan is the supposition that the armored carriers, subjected to the full force of the American attack, would remain serviceable. If this failed, then the Japanese could effectively lose their entire air complement, either trapped aboard disabled armored carriers or running out of fuel trying to return to home carriers much too far away to reach.

[Foeth]

I don't quite see the difference if you have armor or not when hit by a bomb; the carrier deck will be unoperational. Belt armor and torpedo defenses might keep her afloat, but floating wasn't exactly the problem of the Midway victims. With the mediocro air defenses, Shinano doesn't really add up to the fleet defenses. However, she does consume fuel admirably.

[Tiornu]

Shinano and Taiho had flight-deck armor giving good protection against 500-lb bombs, but I'm less optimistic regarding 1000-pounders. Of course, the bomb could miss the flight-deck armor and accidentally hit a lift, or maybe the uptakes and filling the hangar with funnel gases, or cetera or cetera.

[Foeth]

But that never happens, of course