The Oddest Thing About WW2

In some ways it would appear that both the Germans and the Japanese were not particularly interested in winning the war, or at least they had greater priorities. This isn’t entirely surprising since both societies were fragmented and pushed to war by a fanatical faction that the more conservative elements of society feared and attempted to control.

Japan

In Japan the fanatical faction consisted of younger Army officers who believed the Japanese people were destined to rule Asia and probably the world. They asserted power by acting on their own in attacking China in Manchukuo and by assassinating superior officers and officials who disagreed with them. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto was forced to exercise command of the Imperial Combined Fleet from a battleship (rather than more comfortable and convenient facilities on shore) because it was believed he was safer there.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) staff was not eager for a war with the west and was quite pessimistic about their chances in such a war, but they were placed in a position where they could not say no when the army -- which also knew that it couldn’t defeat the Soviets -- asked it to secure Southeast Asia.

Germany

Hitler was not mistaken in suspecting the loyalty of the German Navy, Army General Staff, and Foreign Service. Elements of each of these institutions worked against the Nazis and attempted to collaborate with the Allies both before and throughout the war. The attempt to assassinate Hitler was only the most striking of these anti-Nazi efforts.

But even within the groups that eagerly drank the Koolaid and wanted the war, the priorities seem strange.

Core Fanatics: Japan

Hindsight always gives you an advantage, but it is hard to detect any particular “plan” for victory on the Japanese side. The three major Allied powers made no end of mistakes, but they all came up with plans to pursue the war and then implemented those plans to create the weapons and forces required for the task at hand. The Japanese were consistently more interested in dying well.

Having demonstrated the importance of airpower (and trained aircrews) in warfare both on land and especially at sea, The Japanese did strikingly little either to build up their force of trained pilots or to conserve the pilots they already had. As the war progressed they noted, with surprise, the durability of American warplanes and the extraordinary measures taken by the U.S. Navy to recover downed airmen (which included the use of flying boats, submarines, and Motor Patrol Boats), but they did nothing to emulate measures that returned thousands of American airmen to service.

The defense of Okinawa, doomed in any case, was undermined by the over eagerness of elite Army unit officers to die “honorably.”

Core Fanatics: Germany

Some questionable production decisions were made early in the war having to do with U-boats, tanks, and planes, but most of the battlefield mistakes were made by Hitler second guessing his command staff. Almost as damaging were the conflicting goals of the slave labor/death camp system. On the one hand Germany was dependent on slave labor for both construction and production; but on the other hand the Nazis actively undermined the effectiveness of this labor force. This is the equivalent of refusing to feed the horse you are riding. Abusing the people they hated appears to have been more important to them than the war effort.

(To be fair, Stalin also sent most all of his best aircraft designers to Siberian labor camps -- but he at least allowed them to continue to work there so this had little detrimental effect on the war effort.)

The person who probably hurt the German cause the most was Field Marshal Göring. I have in mind his undermining of the Navy’s attempt to develop naval airpower and his promising to do more than he really was capable of against Britain and the Soviet Union. As the number two man in the German hierarchy, I still have no idea what game he was playing.