Japanese Destroyer Captain: Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway - The Great Naval Battles as Seen Through Japanese Eyes Paperback – Illustrated, August 15, 2011

It's not often that once I start reading a new book that I intentionally "go slow" and re-read paragraphs to make sure that I fully understand what's going on. In a sense, it's a strategy to prolong the pleasure of the read. This is one of those rare books. In addition to being one of the few decent Japanese accounts of WWII, the destroyer (and cruiser) commander's observations are noteworthy. He gives insights into tactical and strategic blunders on both sides of the conflict. Moreover, he participated in most of the major engagements of the War (although his role at Midway was very minor), and fills in details about how the Japanese Navy used and misused its assets from the very start. The grinding effect of growing material and technological advantages by the U.S. is clearly delineated, as is his grudging respect for the talents of American sailors as the War progressed. The only "difficult to digest" comments made by Captain Hara are assertions that Japanese actions such as the infamous rape of Nanking were "exaggerated". He retains the blinders that almost all Japanese have worn since the late 1930s concerning the realities of their actions in the Asian theater of War. Despite this, it's a truly fascinating book.

This first-person account of a Japanese destroyer captain, among the best of his breed, delivers an insider's look at the Imperial Japanese Fleet in World War II. It went from victory to victory, as did the Japanese Army, to the point it saw itself as victim of their own successes. "Victor's Disease," it was called after the astounding success at Pearl Harbor, Shanghai, Malaysia and various islands in the Pacific Ocean. Then came the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal, the beginning of the beginning of the end for this naval power that overreached itself. Revealing little of himself except as a warrior and a drinker, Captain Tameirichi Hara faithfully records the fall from the glorious heights to when his own ship is sunk on a suicide attack bound for the American fleet investing Okinawa.

I first read this book back in the late 1960s. As a history major at the time, I had been studying the naval war with Japan for many years and much about it just did not make sense. Why did the Japanese keep on making so many mistakes? There were not stupid, notwithstanding our own propaganda to that effect.After Captain Hara published his book, historians all over the world were jumping up and down. At last they had an inside view of how the Japanese military had been structured, how inflexible it had become, how it was strategically commanded not by naval staff, but by the needs of the Army. They also came to understand how in the early battles, the U.S. naval forces had fared so badly. Much of it was because of Captain Hara's torpedo doctrine and the navy's vastly superior long range oxygen driven torpedo. But the army was so focused on its own problems, it did not prepare for the obsolescence of its own equipment and/or the needs of the navy which it relied upon for so much.The Japanese naval high command was also a mess. It did not rely on battle hardened veterans, but rather stuck with its rigid class system and kept on promoting those who never understood the nature of the enemy they faced or the influence technology would have upon its outcome. That Captain Hara was critical of these commanders can only be seen as a very good thing. Many fine Japanese sailors died needlessly because of their errors. Hopefully, today they have eliminated these problems and will not be fighting the last war when the next one is forced upon them.I have recommended this book many times to young people who have shown an interest in the naval war in the Pacific. It is simply the best book to come out of the war, and notwithstanding the many fine military folks who disagree with me, preferring a more patriotic view, it reveals our enemy of the time in fine detail and tells a story of that conflict no one on our side could match. No study of the naval war could be complete without a thorough understanding of Captain Hara's great adventures. If he made mistakes in his depiction of various battles and/or facts, as some here have claimed, those mistakes have been matched many times over by our own battle observers and writers. That is the nature of war and bias.Gerald Lane Summers. See my own books. Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel

Very interesting book written by a destroyer captain who actually served through many of the most hard fought actions of the Pacific war. This is both the strength and weakness of the book. Captain Hara can appear very arrogant (according to him his view was correct in all cases), but he does also attempt to give the reasons for other characters decisions and is on the whole fair in his judgements. As a relatively low ranking officer he seems to have access to most of the senior Admirals, which in the highly structured Japanese navy is sometimes difficult to believe, but through this mechcanism several key points are discussed from both sides. Some inaccuracies on statistics on ships, but considering the book was originally written in 1955 facts may not have been available.I would recommend this book to scholars of the Pacific war as an excellent balancing source to the US view

Some of the best narratives emanating from the second world war are written by Destroyer men,the majority of these RN or USN,this one from the other side of the hill is one of the very best.Captain Hara never lost his initiative,so often the case in the Japanese millitary system of that era,he was also very lucky as he himself says,a fine fluid writer,the description of the loss of his cruiser in the air-sea battle that also saw the loss of the Yamato plus truthful criticism of Admiral Yamamoto and other high command personalities are just two of the many reasons why this book is indispensable to anyone studying the Pacific war and wanting a strong insight into the workings and mindset of the IJN.

Captain Hara was not at Pearl Harbor. He was at the Battle of the Java Sea. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. I found looking at WWII from a Japanese perspective valuable, if at times somewhat perplexing given that Captain Hara must have realised by the time he wrote the book that things haven't necessarily turned out for Japan as badly as originally feared they would and that Japanese sailors in WWII weren't exactly model colonial administrators.

ok

Excellent condition

Interesting perspective on the war in the Pacific. Overall, a well told and compelling personal account. The different cultural approach that comes though is particularly telling.

Exactly as described and in the time frame

This book tells it as it was warts and all. Captain Hara is very candid and fair in his telling of his story. The detail is amazing but that does not detract from the flow of the narrative. This is a must for anyone interested in the Pacific war or indeed naval warfare in general.

To begin with, I have reviewed a lot of WW2 memoirs, and have read far more. This book is a 6-star book. It really is quite amazing. As always, I will review it based on four categories: tactical, strategic, moral, and personal. I have never before read a WW2 memoir that satisfies each of these categories, but this book does. Captain Hara wrote this book after the war, which I think is more often better than diaries written purely during the war. It allows for introspection that only time permits, and Hara follows this up by validating his work with US sources as well as discussing the content with other Japanese captains who survived the war. Assuming his work is accurate and true, this is almost a perfect memoir.1- Tactical: Hara starts off low on the totem pole and works his way up to eventually becoming the commander of a group of Japanese destroyers. Along the way we learn about the tactics involved in each step, whether its commanding such a group, or a single ship, or firing torpedoes. Hara literally rewrote the Japanese naval manual on torpedoes prior to 1942. This makes him an expert on tactics. He fully describes each battle as best as he can recall, drawing on fellow surviving commanders where possible and US sources as well. Maps are included for each major engagement. These engagements range in tactics from guns to torpedoes to anti-aircraft. Hara analyzes the engagements and is brutally honest about how and why skill, luck, and technology determined the outcomes of each engagement. There is no pro-Japan bias here. He is quite open in criticizing poor Japanese (and American/Allied) tactics. As one of the most successful Japanese destroyer captains, Hara's judgment largely stood the test of combat, which offers it a strong degree of validity. And when he failed, he offers clear and reasonable reasons why (e.g., fear paralyzing judgment).2- Strategy: It is rare to encounter someone low enough on the chain of command to experience tactics who is also high enough to appreciate overall strategies. Hara is just that person. He meets with vice-admirals often throughout his naval career, including during the war. He is even brave and honest enough to refute their strategic decisions. Brave because he could easily have been court martialed for some of the comments he makes to superior officers. In essence, he feels that Japan was forced into a war it likely wouldn't win by the Army (an accurate historical statement) and was forced to fight by the rules of largely academic, overly cautious, leaders (also accurate). I normally don't hesitate to give away tactical or strategic decisions, but in this case, I think it might rob the book of some of its impact if I posted "spoilers". Suffice to say, Hara has much to say about both tactics and strategy, and that his discussions seemed both brutally honest and accurate. Again, that's really rare, and it makes reading this book a real pleasure from the point of view of learning about the Japanese naval side of WW2.3- Moral: It is not unusual for Axis memoirs to avoid this topic. Or even to be apologetic or defensive. Hara does none of that. The only quibble I had is that he claims the Nanking massacre was overblown. But that's one sentence. The rest of this book has plenty to say about the morality of starting a foolish war, of having fools send veterans into combat, about ordering men to their death, and about the samurai code of Bushido. Hara's grandfather was a samurai, yet Hara does not buy into foolish romantic notions about death and honor. He is brave and no coward, but he views his subordinates with dignity and hates to either hurt them (e.g., physical discipline) or to waste their lives (e.g., Kamikaze-style attacks). In fact, one of the frequent events in the book is Hara or other Japanese naval men crying over events or Hara drinking himself into a stupor to cope with the horror and insanity around himself.4- Personal: Which leads to the personal aspect. The book does start with a brief biography of his early years, but it quickly launches into, and dwells on, his experiences during WW2. His family is a major part of his life, but not of this book. Hara drinks. A lot. And although he doesn't often come right out and say it, it's clear that he drinks to cope with the horror and lunacy of war. He freely and openly critiques his superiors, either at the time or post-war in this book. But he recognizes their limitations, their frailties, and their own emotional crises as they tried to do the best that they could. This book isn't an apology for Japan in WW2, it's an explanation of their naval officer corps. Hara doesn't womanize or gamble or go on great adventures. He lives to be a naval officer, to train his men, to fight, to support his family, and when he can't do that, he drinks until he can.I could write much more, but this book really moved me. It was deeply educational on both the military and psychological sides. It's not a masterpiece of writing that needs to be read by everyone. But it does deserve to be read by anyone who wants to understand the Pacific theater of WW2 or the mindset of Japanese naval officers in WW2. As I said at the beginning, this is the most complete WW2 memoir, from any country, from any theater, that I've ever read. Hara packs in tactics, strategy, morals, and personal details into a brutally honest story. Five stars is the bare minimum I would give this book, making it a very easy recommendation.

If you're interested in the Pacific Theatre at WWII, or a naval afficionado, this is a great book for your collection. This is a first-person story of a japanese boy, born in a small village, that was able to join the Imperial Japanese Navy and, eventually, fight the americans.The book is not all about war, as he tells us a lot about how it was hard to get into the Navy in the 1920s and 1930s. The author suffered a lot of phisical abuse during his training, something that in the West is clearly unacepptable. However, the IJN doctrine somehow involved phisical punishment, for any reason, to destroy a man's will and iniciative. Of course, when you're at war, having soldiers with iniciative is a great asset; maybe that was one of the reasons behind the pityful tactical record of the japanese at WWII (when japan was imaginative he was able to achieve great victories at Pearl Harbour or at the land invasion of Malaysia; when using almost useless banzai charges or repeating tactics the results were slim).Mr. Hara was, and that's why I liked him, creative. He changed the japanese doctrine about the use of destroyer`s torpedos using acute observation and calculus. The Allies had enormous advantages over Japan in almost any technological or economic field during war (specially after 1942) , so it was a War where the final result was never a question. But Japan could hold a lead at SOME areas, as torpedos. Kudos to Mr. Hara for that (assuming that he's telling the truth, I'm not qualified to say he's not).The title is not exactly correct: his part at Pearl Harbour and Midway is almost none. But he do take part in a lot of heavy fighting around the Solomon Islands, and as a captain he explain the importance of having a good, motivated crew. His destroyer, against all odds, survives several battles against an enemy vastly superior in numbers, supplies and with air cover.This final battle, as a part of a heroic but clearly stupid kamikaze attempt on the fleet at Okinawa, is very dramatic. If this guy was an American, the last hours of Yamato and his fleet would be a movie much bigger than Alamo, Pearl Harbour and the Guns from Navarone combined, as one must admire how thousands of men face certain death only for the honor-sake. I personally don't agree with this kind of operation, as it doesn't have any significant strategical value, but this is a man who actually did it, and lived to tell.

This is a riveting account of a Navy Captains life as he was destined to be long before the war, He recounts all episodes and criticizes and Praises fairly as a Judge," BOTH" sides. This is a Must Read to fully understand what went through all participants at the time.

Das nunmehr von "Naval Institute Press" als unwiderbringliches Zeitdokument aufgelegte Werk zeigt die Erlebnisse eines Seeoffiziers der"Kaiserlich Japanischen Marne" (Imperial Japanese Navy = IJN). Ich kannte diesen Bericht bereits seit 1986- als Student konnte ich mir dieses Werk damals nicht leisten - wenige Jahre später war es bereits (zumindest in Deutschland) vergriffen.Achtung: Dies ist ein Offiziersbericht. Meint, grundsätzliche Kenntnisse der politischen Ereignisse werden ebenso vorausgesetzt wie die Kenntnis der Schiffe (Empfehlung mind. Weyers Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1940), Grundkenntnisse in Seemannschaft sind hilfreich. Denn sonst wird es recht "romanhaft". Einen erläuternden Anhang gibt es nicht!Der Untertitel "Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway- ...") ist etwas irreführend.Der Verfasser war Kommandant des Zerstörers AMATSUKAZE, später Chef der 27. Z.-Flottille auf dem Zersörer SHIGURE, nach einem kurzen Intermezzo mit Landkommando Chef der 2. Zerstörerdivision auf dem Leichten Kreuzer YAHAGI (Op. Ten-Go). Diese Schiffe waren an den vorgenannten Operationen nur bedingt beteiligt. Wie für einen Offizier gehörig vermeidet auch Kapitän Hara jegliche Spekulationen zu Ereignissen, die er nicht selbst erlebt hat. Aus seiner Kritik an den Befehlen der Admiralität (insb. Op. Ten-Go) macht er freilich keinen Hehl.Trotz englischer (amerikanischer!) Übersetzung: Unbedingt lesenswert!!

Fantastic. Hara is sharp, brutally frank and strategically very savvy.If Hara had run Japana's Navy, the U.S. Navy would have had a much, much harder time.This is a book full of strategic and leadership lessons. HIGHLY recommended!

Wir Europäer konzentrieren uns verständlicherweise auf den europäischen Kriegsschauplatz des 2. Weltkrieges.Hier nun finden wir die kritischen Aufzeichnungen eines hochdekorierten japanischen Marineoffiziers.Aufschlußreich und zum Nachdenken anregend. Wundern Sie sich nicht, wenn Ihnen bei der Lekture einige wohlgepflegte Klischees abhandenkommen!Sehr gut.J.V.K.

An amazing tale that not only recounts the surface actions in the Pacific with the clarity of a reference book but also adds a human voice and reminds us that the "enemy" is not so different from ourselves in thought and experience. I've never been so sad to have finished a book.