RECONNAISSANCE Magazine Spring 2024 Issue

"From the Editor" column of the Spring 2024 Issue of Reconnaissance, the quarterly magazine of The Military History Society of New South Wales.

Welcome to the Spring 2024 Issue of Reconnaissance.

Angus Britts is an Australian naval historian and author of four books dealing, particularly, with the British Imperial experience, including in the Pacific theatre of World War II. He has presented to our Society on two occasions and both times left the audience with a much clearer perception of the imperatives that drove the course and outcome of the Pacific War. On 6th April this year, Angus homed in on the strategic and doctrinal thinking behind Japan’s naval operations over the fateful years 1941 to 1945, the year of catastrophic defeat. In this issue of Reconnaissance, we are pleased to publish an article version of that lecture.

Most people could be excused for assuming that the Japanese behaved in similar ways to other imperial powers. Having decided to capture and occupy territory the focus would turn to defensive systems for preserving those gains. However, as Angus explains forcefully, there was another dimension to Japanese actions. While resource-grabbing expansionism was at play, senior military planners like Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto were under the influence Kantai Kessen (strategy of the Decisive Battle), the “longstanding plan to defeat the United States Pacific Fleet in a Jutland-style showdown”. As Angus writes, “the scheme involved luring the American fleet into the vicinity of the Mariana Islands for the major engagement”, on the basis that Japanese forces would have “already whittled the opposing battleship and carrier forces down to something approaching parity with the Japanese fleet via prior air and submarine attacks”. The assault on Pearl Harbor was to be a key event of this whittling phase but as we know, the crucial American carriers escaped destruction.

In conjunction with Kantai Kessen, conquest of the ‘Southern Resources Area,’ was pursued “in accordance with the concept of Kenteki Hissen (‘fight the enemy on sight’) which prescribed a total commitment to offensive operations ...” Angus argues that these doctrines account for Japan’s ad hoc attention to defensive measures, ending in disaster once the Americans recovered from initial setbacks and brought their vastly superior industrial capacity to bear.

We also present Dr Tom Lewis’s intriguing investigation of the question “how many unexploded bombs lie near Darwin?” Dr Lewis points out that during World War II the Northern Territory saw 135 Japanese air incursions, with 77 of them raids into the Darwin area. The main bomber used, the twin-engined ‘Betty’, made 603 flights into the NT and carried a bombload of one 1,000 kilogram bomb; or two 500 kg weapons, or one 500 kg and 10 x 60 kg bombs. Using these basic facts, Tom embarks on a fascinating enquiry onto what percentage of these bombs (5% - 10%?) may have failed to detonate and lie embedded at various points around Darwin. His final hypothesis: it could be as many as 670, a figure, however, which should be subjected to a number of caveats.

Dr John Haken was kind enough to provide another of his fact-filled unit profiles, this time of the Permanent (as opposed to Volunteer) Forces of Colonial New South Wales. Following withdrawal of the British Garrison troops in 1870, five Permanent Units were raised over the years, but all, except the Artillery were very short lived. Elements of these units served in the Boer War and Boxer Rebellion.

Finally, I thank Dr David Martin for two excellent book reviews, of Mark Dapin’s LEST: Australian War Myths and Tom Whipple’s The Battle of the Beams: The Secret Science of Radar that Turned the Tide of the Second World War, and David Phillipson for his fine review of Mark Baker’s Buckham’s Bombers: The Australian airmen who hunted Hitler’s deadliest battleship.

I hope you enjoy the magazine.

Editor, Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance is available to members of The Military History Society of New South Wales. Interested in becoming a member? Go to our website here:

https://militaryhistorynsw.com.au/membership/