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
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