Japanese Navy in World War II, The

The Japanese task force attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, was the first engagement in what became the greatest naval war in history, marking the culmination of a rivalry in the Pacific that had endured for generations. The initial hostility to the United States that followed the opening of Japan to Western trade by Commodore Perry and his squadron in 1854 was succeeded by an era of friendship and close commercial ties, marred only occasionally by American resistance to Japanese attempts to gain hegemony over portions of the Asian mainland in the early years of the Twentieth Century.

This book’s articles present a Japanese view of significant and tactical operations during the Pacific War. The authors provide a different perspective for these events and clarify many hitherto confusing episodes by combining first-hand knowledge with subsequent interviews and painstaking research in the records. Understanding the erstwhile enemy - his aspirations, the reasons for his decisions, the disagreements, the mistakes, and the repercussions of success and failure - adds dimensions to the study of war and of human activity.