Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33 by Hector C. Bywater
Authors: Hector C. Bywater
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turret containing a pair of 8-inch 250- pounder guns. This turret was rotated by electrical power, and the guns had a clear field of fire in every direction save astern. Three 4-inch rapid-fire guns were also mounted. On deck there were two torpedo tubes, with eight more built into the hull below the water line. For each 8-inch gun 500 rounds of ammunition were provided, and for each of the ten tubes four torpedoes. Thick armour plate covered the turret, the conning tower, and the whole of the deck that was visible when the ship was running on the surface. This carapace of steel made her invulnerable to all but the heaviest gunfire. The hull was exceptionally strong, for the purpose of resisting bomb or depth-charge attack. Sufficient oil could be stored in the tanks for a voyage of 24,000 miles at moderate speed. In spite of her enormous weight and great length, the ship, when manned by a highly trained crew, was supposed to be no more difficult to handle than a submarine only one-tenth her size. In deep water she could dive in less than two minutes. This remarkable vessel was named Nagasaki .
Five others of similar design were laid down before she had finished her trials, but one of these was a mine-layer, carrying in place of the two heavy guns a few light rapid fire pieces, together with 2,500 mines. No other navy possessed underwater craft of such remarkable size and power as these six giants. As will be seen later, however, their fighting value was greatly overrated.
The active personnel of the Navy included 7,500 officers and 70,000 men. The proportion of officers to men, it will be observed, was abnormally high — about one to nine; whereas in the United States Navy it was only one to seventeen. This disparity was due to the Japanese practice of carrying on board each vessel at all times the full complement of officers, both staff and specialist, who would be required in war. In the same way, the crews were invariably kept at ninety to ninety-five per cent of the full war establishment. Though this system naturally added to the cost of maintaining the fleet in time of peace, it conduced to a high state of preparedness for war.
So far as the first-line fleet was concerned, it lived always on a footing of instant readiness for action, and mobilisation was therefore only the affair of a few hours. Behind this active personnel stood a reserve of nearly 50,000 officers and men, who averaged fifteen days' training per year during the seven years they remained in the first ban . Japanese naval discipline, at one time extremely good, had tended to deteriorate in recent years, probably owing to the spread of anti-militarist doctrines among the class of population from which the seamen were drawn. Nevertheless, for all-round quality the personnel was equal to that of any other fleet. The officers were well-educated, painstaking, and absorbed in their profession; the men were intelligent, and, when properly led, obedient and devoted to duty. Technical training was on very sound lines. Although not mechanical by temperament, the Japanese are imitative to a degree, and in the Navy, at any rate, they had successfully mastered the intricacies of modern technique as applied to warfare at sea. Gunnery and torpedo practice were well up to the mark. Both in the design and construction of ships, machinery, and equipment they had adopted, and in some cases improved upon, the best Western models.
In no branch had they made more progress than in aviation. By the year previous to the war the naval flying corps had attained a strength of 1,200 pilots and 900 planes, many of which were equal to the best in service abroad. So well had the domestic aircraft industry developed that an output of 150 machines a month was easily attainable without special effort. Prominent among naval planes were the huge Asahi bombers, carrying a ton-and-a-half of bombs, and powerful torpedo-planes, each armed with two 23-inch short torpedoes. The Japanese
Five others of similar design were laid down before she had finished her trials, but one of these was a mine-layer, carrying in place of the two heavy guns a few light rapid fire pieces, together with 2,500 mines. No other navy possessed underwater craft of such remarkable size and power as these six giants. As will be seen later, however, their fighting value was greatly overrated.
The active personnel of the Navy included 7,500 officers and 70,000 men. The proportion of officers to men, it will be observed, was abnormally high — about one to nine; whereas in the United States Navy it was only one to seventeen. This disparity was due to the Japanese practice of carrying on board each vessel at all times the full complement of officers, both staff and specialist, who would be required in war. In the same way, the crews were invariably kept at ninety to ninety-five per cent of the full war establishment. Though this system naturally added to the cost of maintaining the fleet in time of peace, it conduced to a high state of preparedness for war.
So far as the first-line fleet was concerned, it lived always on a footing of instant readiness for action, and mobilisation was therefore only the affair of a few hours. Behind this active personnel stood a reserve of nearly 50,000 officers and men, who averaged fifteen days' training per year during the seven years they remained in the first ban . Japanese naval discipline, at one time extremely good, had tended to deteriorate in recent years, probably owing to the spread of anti-militarist doctrines among the class of population from which the seamen were drawn. Nevertheless, for all-round quality the personnel was equal to that of any other fleet. The officers were well-educated, painstaking, and absorbed in their profession; the men were intelligent, and, when properly led, obedient and devoted to duty. Technical training was on very sound lines. Although not mechanical by temperament, the Japanese are imitative to a degree, and in the Navy, at any rate, they had successfully mastered the intricacies of modern technique as applied to warfare at sea. Gunnery and torpedo practice were well up to the mark. Both in the design and construction of ships, machinery, and equipment they had adopted, and in some cases improved upon, the best Western models.
In no branch had they made more progress than in aviation. By the year previous to the war the naval flying corps had attained a strength of 1,200 pilots and 900 planes, many of which were equal to the best in service abroad. So well had the domestic aircraft industry developed that an output of 150 machines a month was easily attainable without special effort. Prominent among naval planes were the huge Asahi bombers, carrying a ton-and-a-half of bombs, and powerful torpedo-planes, each armed with two 23-inch short torpedoes. The Japanese
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