What is the best book on the IJN you have read?

[bengtsson]

I've been reading whatever I could find about the IJN over the last 40 years, I started very young. Well, I wonder what book or books some of you found to be most informative on the IJN. Or what was the best book on the technical side of the IJN's warships. I will have to say I found the most detailed and interesting book to be "Combined Fleet Decoded" by John Prados. Printed in 1995. As the last of a long string of books I've read, this one seems to combine the most information ,alot of it newer, and in a very readable style.
Bob B.

[Werner]

I can absolutely recommend Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War, by Eric Lacroix and Linton Wells, USNI Press, 1997

[bengtsson]

Oh yes, that is one of the few IJN books I have not read yet. I'll put it on the top of my 'to buy' list! I gather it's pretty expensive.

Bob B.

[Werner]

Yes, but it is definitive, complete for historian and modeller, and can be regarded as "the last word" on these ships.

W

[bengtsson]

Sounds good, I like warship books that cover both the operational history and the technical aspect of the ships. Much like Mike Whitley's books on German warships, he has done a great job in his volumes of covering both sides of warships.
Bob B.

[Nansung]

I recommend Gakken series.

[Gone Asiatic]

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

The above is good for technical and doctrinal data. I learned from this book that the "birth place" of IJN tactical doctrine occured when a group of naval officers met at a buddhist temple in the 1870`s on Tsurga Bay near the fishing town of Shimizu (the temple - Seiken-Ji at Okitsu). Visited the place soon thereafter; there is a train station (Okitsu) nearby - about a ten minute walk. The structures are extant from before the Meiji Era. Tokugawa Ieyasu (the Shogun-dude...you know..from the movie/TV series - Toranaga was it?) is said to have been held hostage there for a time in his younger days. Quite a pretty garden in the rear of this temple and spectacular views of Fuji-San from nearby;..it`s nestled against a hillside.

For the fighting spirit of IJN, Tameichi Hara`s book, Japanese Destroyer Captain is a very good read, though he seems to me to have been a bit (perhaps rightly so) vain. IJN views of some of those violent surface actions over Iron Bottom Sound are a good read here. I`ve visited Iron Bottom Sound (mid-1980`s), though didn`t get ashore on Guadalcanal proper.

Gone Asiatic`s favorite is Requiem for Battleship YAMATO (YAMATO No Saigo) The author,Yoshida Mitsuru, was an IJN Ensign, Radar Officer, who manned his post on YAMATO`s bridge and had a front row seat to the entire action. Lucky to survive, he wrote perhaps the most significant literary accomplishment of Japan`s WWII experience. This book certainly does not glorify war. Any YAMATO fans out there should consider ordering this book and read it...might motivate you to improve the PE and details you add to your model....should I read it again...might even motivate frigate-biased G.A. to build........A YAMATO!!! (1/700 of course...and after USS ALASKA [awaiting keel laying] or a USS MISSOURI!!)

Good luck! You should be able to find these titles in your local libraries or from bn.com or amazon. Don`t confuse my post for being pro-imperial Japanese; check what ships are in my on-line Picture Post folder.

[TomD]

This one is pretty good:



It lists all the ships from the 1869-1945 period with data, line drawings and fates.

[hood]

found this to be great book the reluctant admiral yamamoto and the imperial navy by hiroyuki agawa. good portrait of the man and his times. well worth looking out for. :

[Werner]

This one is pretty good:



It lists all the ships from the 1869-1945 period with data, line drawings and fates.

German edition is much more interesting, with translations of the ship names, etc.

W

[Foeth]

A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-45 by Paul Dull and Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 by David Evans & Mark R. Peattie are quite intereseting. The book by Lacroix and Welles is magnificent, couldn't be more happy as a naval architect, but hardly from a historical point of view.

[bengtsson]

Yes, all good books. I've added all of them to my naval book collection over the years. Another old one is the Naval Institute book that collected first hand Japanese accounts of some aspects of the naval war. "The Japanese Navy in World War II" in the words of former Japanes Naval Officers. Alot of interesting aspects of the Japanese naval effort including their almost non exisitent ASW efforts. Admiral Ugaki's diary "Fading Victory" while lacking in full coverage of the war, shows some really brilliant analysis of the major naval campaigns.

Bob B.

[TTTTTTTTTT]

Hello,

Here's one you might not have already:

Japanese Merchant Ships at War: The Story of Mitsui and O.S.K. Liners Lost During the Pacific War

Hisashi Noma, 2002 (I think), forewords by Arnold Kludas and Bill Miller

It's a dual-language paperback with lots of B&W and color illustrations of merchant ships in action, under attack, etc. The author interviewed dozens of veterans and survivors of sinkings. It's pretty scarce, I was lucky to find a copy recently.

Best,
Ted

[TomD]

This one is pretty good:



It lists all the ships from the 1869-1945 period with data, line drawings and fates.

German edition is much more interesting, with translations of the ship names, etc.

W

So one would have to translate the names from Japanese to German to English? I'd bet dollars against donuts that somehow the translation will get screwed up and find that Japanese ships named after clouds, or mountains, or other non-military-sounding stuff.

[Werner]

Yes, but to learn that a particular destroyer's name means "waves whose shape suggests figures woven on silk" doesn't lose that much even if you have to go through the extra step.

W

[Filipe Ramires]

Also a very good book on IJN actions is "The Pearl Harbour papers - Inside the japanese plans" from Donald Goldstein.