Naval air power: Aircraft carrier tactics in the Pacific War

In Italy, the distant Battle of Taranto proved the effectiveness of aircraft carriers

In November 1940, a British aircraft carrier launched an aerial attack against the forces of Fascist Italy. At the Italian port of Taranto, 21 Fairey Swordfish biplanes wreaked havoc on Mussolini’s fleet. These planes were “torpedo bombers,” meaning that they were designed to drop torpedoes at a point in the water near to an enemy ship. The torpedoes were then supposed to plunge towards their targets, and hit it beneath the waves. By inflicting a hole on the submerged part of the enemy ship, they would allow water to pour in, and (if all went well) send the target sinking to the bottom of the ocean. People were understandably skeptical about whether these torpedoes would work in the shallow waters of Taranto harbor. They were worried that the torpedoes would instead plunge into the muddy bottom of the harbor itself. But, at the cost of two British aircraft, the British had damaged one heavy cruiser, two destroyers, and two enemy fighters. Most importantly, they had actually disabled three Italian battleships, which were then supposed to be the most formidable ships afloat. At Taranto, Mussolini’s Italians had lost 59 killed and 600 wounded, while the British had lost only 2 killed and 2 captured. The Battle of Taranto was powerful evidence about the effectiveness of the latest aircraft carriers, and their ability to sink these supposedly “invincible” battleships.

Aftermath of the Battle of Taranto, showing a beached Italian battleship – Italy, 1940

Forgotten battlegrounds of the World Wars: Asia and the Pacific

Warning: This blog post contains some disturbing pictures. One of these, in particular, is very graphic, and may merit special caution.

We are often told that World War II began in Europe, with the 1939 (Nazi) invasion of Poland. And, in truth, there is a good argument to be made for this date. But some would date it earlier, to the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. Some would date it even earlier than that, to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. You could make an argument for any of these three dates being correct, so I will not attempt to settle this controversy here. But either way, there is much about the war in the East that is unknown to the general public. Whenever and however it became a part of World War II, it is clear that this massive conflict began long before Pearl Harbor. This post will dive into a few of the forgotten aspects of the war in the East, and discuss its roots in local colonization by both Western and local Asian powers.

Vietnamese soldier, 1889 – during the French conquest of Vietnam

Background on prior European (and Japanese) colonization of Asia

For example, the Japanese had colonized Iwo Jima as early as the sixteenth century. And there was actually a corporation from the Netherlands called the “Dutch East India Company.” This private company had invaded what is today Indonesia as early as 1603. But the region later fell under the control of the Netherlands government back in Holland in 1800, creating the province of the “Dutch East Indies.” And the British East India Company had gained control of India, in the 1757 Battle of Plassey. India may be the most populous overseas territory that any empire has ever possessed. In the 1820s, the British Empire later gained control of Malaya, which then included Singapore. The British also fought their first war in Burma in the 1820s, partly to maintain their control of nearby India. The British also fought the First Opium War with China from 1839 to 1842. The second British war in Burma came in the mid-1850s, with the great “Indian Mutiny” coming in the late 1850s. Control over India then passed from the British East India Company to the British Crown, thus beginning the era of the “British Raj” in India. From 1850 to 1864, Britain and France were also involved in China’s Taiping Rebellion. And from 1856 to 1860, Britain and France fought the Second Opium War against China. In the late 1860s, there was a civil war in Japan, sometimes called the Boshin War. In 1879, the Empire of Japan annexed the Ryukyu Islands, which included the island of Okinawa. In 1885, there was a third British war in Burma, which saw Burma annexed into British India – with sporadic resistance there for decades afterward. In 1886, though, the British returned to separating the provinces of Burma and India from each other. Back in 1858, the French had begun their infamous conquest of what is today Vietnam. In 1887, the process was completed, and the province of “French Indochina” was born – although resistance there continued into the twentieth century, long after World War II. In 1893, the French also had a brief war with Siam (later renamed to Thailand). At the end of that war, Siam thus ceded some land to French Indochina. In 1894, the Japanese fought their first war with China (with an early invasion of Manchuria), today called the “First Sino-Japanese War.” This was partly about who would control nearby Korea. At the end of the war, the Japanese then began to rule the island of Taiwan in 1895. Between 1899 and 1901, China experienced the Boxer Rebellion. The Russians also invaded Manchuria in 1900. There was an alliance between Britain and Japan starting in 1902. But the Japanese soon attacked the nearby Russians, and beat them in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The Japanese then made Korea into a Japanese protectorate in 1905, and formally started to colonize Korea for themselves in 1910. Japanese rule of Korea and Taiwan would then remain unchallenged for decades afterward.

Japanese infantry during the occupation of Seoul – Korea, 1904

Air power in the World Wars: From “expensive toy” to a serious weapon

“There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, and we shall see.”

– Royal Air Force general Sir Arthur Harris (a.k.a. “Bomber” Harris), in a speech given in 1942 (during World War Two)

In 1903, the Wright brothers showed the world that “man really can fly” (to paraphrase Dieter F. Uchtdorf). As Wikipedia puts it, Orville and Wilbur Wright made “the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles (6 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at what is now known as Kill Devil Hills.” (see source) Planes have since been used for scientific and commercial reasons, but they have also been an important part of warfare for more than a century now. They have altered the way that warfare has been fought, on both the land and the sea. The history of military aviation is one of conflict between carrier and battleship theories, between heavy bombing and close air support theories, and other changes in military strategy and tactics. I freely confess that I’m no expert on any kind of aviation, but my paternal grandfather was well-versed in the subject, and taught me some of what he knew about it. This post will thus focus on aviation in the two massive World Wars, particularly as used by the United States. This was my grandfather’s biggest area of historical expertise.

German biplane shot down by the Americans in the Argonne, 1918 (during World War One)

A review of “Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II” (BBC)

Warning: This blog post contains several disturbing pictures. One of them shows the body of a child.

The Japanese were racist against other Asians and Pacific Islanders, not just Whites …

Apologists for the Imperial Japanese seem to have multiplied in recent years, even in the West. They do have some valid points, including that there was some real racism against the Japanese in the West – including in my home country of the United States. But there was also racism in Japan as well, and not just against the “White Westerners.” They were racist against anyone who was not Japanese – including the Chinese and other fellow Asians and Pacific Islanders, whose countries the Japanese would soon be invading. Some of the Japanese officers interviewed on camera here admit to such racism, as do some of the Western officers fighting against them. Japanese propagandists used the slogans of “Asia for the Asians,” and a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” But the truth was far different from these grossly misleading slogans, because they wanted an Asia exclusively for the Japanese. No other Asian groups benefited from Japanese imperialism, as the record shows.

A review of “The Road to War” (BBC)

Why did World War II happen? It’s a complicated (and interesting) topic, involving causes in many different nations. Some of these involve Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while others involve Imperial Japan – which is quite distant from these European nations. This topic has enormous power to explain the events of the twentieth century. Most importantly, it explains World War II itself, the largest war in history. Thus, the BBC undertook to explore the causes of the war. In four episodes, they cover the events that shattered the peace, in a documentary aptly titled “The Road to War.” Incidentally, this documentary is written (and narrated) by the British journalist Charles Wheeler.

Neville Chamberlain

A review of David Grubin's “The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha” (PBS)

For practicing Buddhists, Siddhartha Gautama was just the first Buddha …

At the time I write this, I have watched eight other films by David Grubin – and I am a fan of all of them. These include Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and RFK (a lot of initials there). Every film on this particular list is a biography, and David Grubin is very good at making them. But as you may have noticed, all of these other biographies are about Western individuals; and few of his films cover more Eastern topics. As far as I know, this was his first foray into Asian history; but seems to have been a good one despite this lack of prior experience with the region. It is a good introduction to understanding Buddhism, because it examines the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the man whom Buddhists revere as the first “Buddha.” In the Buddhist religion, any good person can become a “Buddha”; so he is only held to be the first of them. Nonetheless, there’s a reason that most people think of Siddhartha Gautama when they hear a phrase like “the Buddha.” He was the founder of the religion, and one of the world's great religious leaders.

A review of “Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire” (PBS Empires)

Japan's initial contact with the West in 1543

In the year 1543, a Portuguese trading ship arrived in the Japanese island of Tanegashima. Its passengers were the first Europeans to set foot in Japan. From a European perspective, they “discovered” Japan; but from an Asian perspective, they were not the first people to “discover” these islands; since these islands had been inhabited for centuries by that time. An ancient civilization resided here, with its own language, culture, and religions. At least one of its major religions (namely, Buddhism) had been imported from outside, but its Shinto religion was native to Japan itself. To those who lived in Japan, their empire was no “secret.” But to the people back in Europe, this island was indeed a “secret empire.” The European empires were equally “secret” to the Japanese, of course; and to the Japanese, these Christian Europeans were something of a novelty; and so were the strange goods that they carried.

Japanese painting depicting a group of Portuguese foreigners

Early trade with Europeans, including in weapons

The Portuguese carried valuable cargo that they wanted to trade for the Japanese goods. Both sides were eager to engage in this trade, as it turns out, and so Japan's first contact with Europeans established a long relationship with the West. This relationship would not always be as friendly as it was here, but the strange European imports have long fascinated the Japanese. The most important of these imports at this time was the musket. The Japanese realized very early on that these European weapons were very powerful. The Europeans were willing to sell them these weapons for a price, and certain tribes in Japan took them up on this offer. The ones that “got in” on this trade the earliest were able to dominate the other tribes via these weapons, and so these weapons had a massive effect on Japanese internal politics. This documentary starts at the moment of initial contact in the sixteenth century, and continues on through the end of Japanese isolationism in the nineteenth century. Internal Japanese politics are also covered, of course, but there is also a strong emphasis on Japan's complicated relationship with the West.

Various antique Tanegashima muskets

A review of “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (1970 movie)

“Thus, the earnest hope of the Japanese Government to adjust Japanese-American relations and to preserve and promote the peace of the Pacific through cooperation with the American Government has finally been lost. The Japanese Government regrets to have to notify hereby the American Government that in view of the attitude of the American Government it cannot but consider that it is impossible to reach an agreement through further negotiations.”

– Closing lines of the “Japanese Note to the United States,” on 7 December 1941 (which was delivered an hour after the Pearl Harbor attack, and did not contain an actual declaration of war anyway)

Pearl Harbor was part of a series of attacks throughout the Pacific …

On a warm Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese carrier planes attacked the United States fleet in Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. But contrary to popular perception, this was not the only place that they attacked that day. The attack was actually simultaneous with moves elsewhere in the Pacific on places like British Malaya, British Singapore, and British Hong Kong. Prior to these attacks, neither the United States nor Britain had been at war with Japan; so these two countries were thus drawn into the Pacific theater of World War II at almost the same time. Other American possessions that were attacked at around this time were Guam, Wake Island, Midway Island, and the Philippines.

"Battleship Row" at Pearl Harbor (photograph taken from a Japanese torpedo plane, 1941)

Why dropping the bombs on Japan was the RIGHT thing to do

“We the undersigned, acting by authority of the German High Command, hereby surrender unconditionally to the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and simultaneously to the Supreme High Command of the Red Army all forces on land, at sea, and in the air who are at this date under German control.”

– “Act of Military Surrender Signed at Berlin,” on 8 May 1945

Nazi Germany had just surrendered, but the war in the Pacific continued in full force …

In May 1945, Nazi Germany finally surrendered to the Allies. It was a day of great rejoicing, and the Allies had cause to rejoice at that time. But the Second World War was not yet over, because there was another conflict going on in the Pacific. That conflict was with Japan; and it continued to produce American casualties as a great battle raged at Okinawa. My grandfather was fighting there at Okinawa, and he was among a number who were psychologically scarred by the experience. Others were physically scarred, and others were sent home in coffins, never to be heard from again (or seen alive again). Okinawan civilians jumped off cliffs at this time, in the “certain” knowledge that they would be mistreated by the Americans. The few survivors were glad to find out that the Americans were much nicer than the Japanese propaganda films had portrayed them to be; but many a Japanese soldier preferred suicide to surrender, and actually committed suicide at this time. If we had been forced to invade the Japanese home islands, it seems that this scenario would have been repeated time and time again, with the same grim costs in human life. Such was the wisdom of instead bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

US Marines pass a dead Japanese soldier in a destroyed village - Okinawa, April 1945

A review of “A History of Japan” (by R. H. P. Mason & J. G. Caiger)

"We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land, and resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government, do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution."

- Preamble to the "Constitution of Japan" (1947)

How did the Japanese become so successful?

This might seem a strange way to begin a blog post about Japan; but in the politics of Islamic terrorism, some have claimed that a Western-style democracy would not work in most Islamic countries, because their values and beliefs are so dramatically different from those found in the West. A liberal friend of mine in college made this argument to me; and I pointed out to him that people had once said the same thing about Japan - which was another culture where suicide was glorified for religious reasons, and used as a deliberate tactic in wartime. People in the West would not have predicted that Japan would modernize as well as it did; and yet it became one of the world's great economies, with its economic success deeply rooted in Western-style democracy and free-market capitalism. How did the Japanese become so successful, it might be asked; when countries in the Islamic world languish in such poverty, and even factional conflict?

The Marshall Plan: Helping the poor, keeping the peace, and stopping the communists

"If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation."

- John Maynard Keynes, in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" (1919), Chapter VII, Section 1

There was never a "Marshall Plan" after World War One (like there should have been) ...

It might seem strange to begin a post about the Marshall Plan this way, but the end of the First World War a generation earlier was so poorly handled that a second war became necessary twenty years later, to finish the work of the first. Why did the second war happen? The debate is long and complicated, but there are two themes that often come up as explanations. One is the failure to obtain an unconditional surrender from the Germans, and change their system of government enough to make a second war less likely. The other is the imposition of reparations, or the plan to force Germany to pay for the damages that it had caused. This angered the Germans enough that they went to war again a generation later, largely as revenge for the impoverishment caused by the reparations.

Germans demonstrate against Treaty of Versailles, Reichstag 1919

... but there was a "Marshall Plan" after World War Two, and it may have kept the peace

No one will ever know for sure, but I think that it could have been prevented - that rebuilding Germany, instead of punishing it, would have been a better way to prevent a second war. In short, what they needed was a Marshall Plan; and the Marshall Plan following World War II (which was the plan to provide economic assistance, to rebuild postwar Europe) may have been a large part of the reason that the peace with Germany was kept after the war was over. The Allied troops did what they had to do to stop Germany; but after the war, the best thing they could have done for their countries was to turn their former enemies into friends, and win the hearts of the people so that they would not be likely to invade their neighbors again. They had won the war - now they needed to win the peace, and the Marshall Plan was a large portion of the reason why the peace has lasted as long as it has.

Devastation of postwar Berlin, June 1945

A review of “The World at War” (World War Two series)

"This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin Nevile Henderson handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, that a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country [Great Britain] is at war with Germany."

- British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, in a speech given from the Cabinet room at 10, Downing Street on 3 September 1939

World War II is a subject that continues to fascinate millions throughout the world. From people in the losing countries to people in the winning ones, everyone seems to be fascinated by World War II. Because of this, there continue to be media of all kinds about the subject, and a viewer interested in it has many options to choose from. Indeed, there almost seems to be a choice overload (a nice problem to have), and it's hard to know which ones are the best.

D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach - Normandy, 1944

This documentary depicts stories from all over the world, on both sides of the conflict

"Best" is a subjective term, and what is best in the eyes of one may not be best for another. But if asked my opinion on which documentary is the best, my vote would go to "The World at War," the classic British documentary from the 1970s. From the British and Americans to their reluctant Soviet allies, to the Axis powers of Germany and Japan, stories from all over the world are told, and woven together into a fascinating narrative about the events of World War II.