[Battle of the Bulge] Why were the Allies surprised?

Intro

The Battle of Bulge was the last major German offensive operation in World War 2. Yet, it caught the Western Allies by surprise. How was this possible? After all, the Allied military intelligence throughout the war was for the most part very good or even excellent. There were major successes for longer operations like the Battle of the Atlantic or rather short engagements like the Battle of Midway.

What were the reason for this? Did the Germans suddenly became sneaky or did the Allies become complacent of their victories? So, let’s find out and take a closer look.

The Allied “Mood” prior to the Attack

After the successful landings of the Western Allies at the Normandy beaches in June 1944, the Wehrmacht was defeated in almost all major operations, except the operations Market and Garden. In general, the Allied troops were advancing, whereas the Germans were retreating. The basic attitude of the Allied commanders is probably well expressed by the following situation: One day prior to the attack the British Field Marshal Montgomery asked General Eisenhower, if he can spend Christmas back in England, Eisenhower agreed. Additionally, Montgonomery reported:
“There is nothing to report on my front or the front of the American Armies on my right. I do not propose to send any more evening situation reports till the war becomes more exciting.” ( Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 623) Since Montgomery isn’t really that popular with most people , it should be added that his attitude in this case was by no means the exception, it was the same for other high-ranking officers too. ( Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 623)
This may sounds a bit like complacency, but let’s not make hasty conclusions yet.

German Preparations

Let’s take a brief look at the German preparations for the operation “Wacht am Rhein” meaning “Guard at the Rhine”.
The initial preparations were performed in August 1944 by creating a new Tank Army intended for offensive operations, yet any other information was omitted from the involved personnel. Only Hitlers closest officers were informed about his intentions at this time. In October 1944 the commander of the West was informed to prepare for offensive operations in the Ardennes area, but was instructed that secrecy of the operation was paramount. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 619-622)
The measures for keeping the operation secret were strict, in some cases units were moved into the assembly areas only the night prior to the attack, which thwarted any attempts for proper recon operations. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 623)

Additionally, the Germans were ordered to not use of radio transmission of orders during the preparation, thus signal interception program ULTRA by the Allies couldn’t pick up anything substantial. . (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 625)

Yet, the question is did this secrecy paid off or did the Allies pick up substantial information from others sources anyway.

Indicators of an Attack

So let’s look at the indicators for a German offensive that the Allies did pick up.
In the book “The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge” from the center of military history of the United States Army it is noted “With the advantage of hindsight, seven items can be discerned in the corps reports for the period 13–15 December which might have given the alarm.” (Cole, Hugh: The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge p. 59)
But there is one problem with this book, it was published originally in the 1960ies and at that time the ULTRA intelligence program was not declassified yet, hence crucial information was not available to historians back then.

Also looking just at the days before the attack might be a bit too limited. After all it was known to the Allies since August 1944 that the Army Group B (Heeresgruppe B) was preparing for a counter-attack. The Allies also knew about the creation of a Panzer Army and the German removal of motorized units on different front areas. Additionally, large parts of the Luftwaffe were concentrated in the area and an increasing number of rail and motor transports were noticed too. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 623-624)
The crucial indicators before the attack were: (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 624)
1) Warnings by defectors and civilians that the Germans amassed vehicles, tanks and bridging equipment.
2) The increased amount of weather reports sent by German submarines since the beginning of December.
3) Reports that the Germans planned an operation behind enemy lines.

Allied Interpretation of the Intercepted Indicators

All this information was not ignored by the Allied intelligence officers, but acquiring information is only one part, the other part is analyzing this information. So let’s take a look on how the Allies interpreted the information in context of the overall situation on the Western Front.

The area eastwards of the Ardennes was rather calm. Hence the major explanation for the troop concentration was that the area was used for regrouping and refreshing of combat troops before they were sent to the Eastern Front or used for counter-attacks in case of an Allied advance. The commanders noted the rather weak number of Allied troops in the Ardennes, but at the same time in the North and South the Allies were conducting offensive operations, which should have made a German attack unlikely. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 624)
Generally, the Allied didn’t rule out a German attack, but they assumed it would be a small operation or highly unlikely, due to a number of reasons, to quote an US historian:
“It may be phrased this way: the enemy can still do something but he can’t do much; he lacks the men, the planes, the tanks, the fuel, and the ammunition.” (Cole, Hugh: The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge p. 57)
This base assumption combined with the lack of information from ULTRA lead the Allies to interpret various indicators differently. As Dr. Pogue noted in his talk to the NSA:
“But nothing was coming from Ultra. […] So there was a tendency to feel that there was no great buildup. There was a tendency to explain what was occurring on other grounds.” (Pogue, Forrest C.: The Ardennes Campaign: The Impact of Intelligence. P. 3)

To cite two of his examples:
“Then we found out the Germans were issuing very strict orders on saving gasoline. We interpreted that to mean that they were about to run out of gasoline. The point was that it was a part of a strict conservation program to make sure there was enough gasoline for the attack.” (Pogue, Forrest C.: The Ardennes Campaign: The Impact of Intelligence. P. 3)

“There was evidence in October that a new Panzer Army had been created. But again that didn’t seem to upset anybody, because again the theory was that the Germans knew we were going to mount an attack somewhere around the middle of December in the area south of Cologne and that therefore they were setting up a reserve to meet that attack.” (Pogue, Forrest C.: The Ardennes Campaign: The Impact of Intelligence. P. 3)

So, basically due to indicators from Ultra the Allies drew wrong conclusions about existing intelligence. Furthermore, they knew that the German forces were in a dire situation.

Why did the Germans attack nevertheless?

Now, the question is, how could the Germans launch a major attack with their rather limited capabilities? Well, they did what most people do – even nowadays – if they basically have lost and can’t admit it, they literally played the Hitler card. [or maybe Hitler played them…]

And the Allies weren’t expecting Hitler. Probably the greatest irony is that Mongomery’s intelligence officer noted that he would expect a surprise action before Christmas if Hitler was running the war. But added:
“We know that von Rundstedt is now running the war and he is a cautious man.” (Pogue, Forrest C.: The Ardennes Campaign: The Impact of Intelligence, p. 4)

Now, the interesting part here is that the mentioned American historians are quite positive about von Rundstedt and blame mostly Hitler, whereas the German military historian Detlef Vogel notes that the operational plans from von Rundstedt and Model were also quite lacking in quality. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 625) Furthermore, the German commanders still were convinced that their officers were superior to the Allied ones on the tactical and operational level. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S.623)

Conclusion

To conclude, as so often it was not a single factor that explains properly why the Allies were surprised by the German attack in the Ardennes. It was a combination of several factors:
First off, the Allies knew that the overall strategic situation for the Germans was dire, thus the Germans ability to launch a proper offensive was limited and the result of the battle clearly confirms this. Second, based on the overall situation the Allies assumed that an attack would make no sense. Third, this basic assumption lead to misinterpretations of several indicators that could have alarmed the Allied commanders. Fourth, these misinterpretations were also not reevaluated because ULTRA didn’t pick up any indications of a major attack. Which of course, brings us to the fifth point, which is the lack of intelligence that was achieved by the high secrecy enforced by the Germans during the preparations of the operation “Wacht am Rhein”. Based on all this the Allies concluded that there were no indicators of major offensive, but Hitler wouldn’t have that.
Based on that, one might still argue that the Allies got complacent of their victories to a certain degree this is probably also true. Yet, after the initial German attacks the overall size of the offensive wasn’t known, nevertheless Eisenhower assumed a major attack and immediately reacted. He ordered troops into key areas. Probably best known the 101st Airborne Division to the Bastogne area. (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7, S. 627)

Now, if someone really wants to pinpoint only one factor, which I think is almost always an oversimplification, I would say the gravest error of the Allies was to assume that they were facing a rational enemy that wasn’t willing to risk everything even though the chances were extremely slim.

Sources

Germany and the Second World War. Volume VII. (amazon.com affiliate link)

Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7. (amazon.de affiliate link)

Pogue, Forrest C.: The Ardennes Campaign: The Impact of Intelligence. (Declassified by the NSA in 2007)

Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. United States Army in World War II

amazon.com amazon.co.uk amazon.ca amazon.de

Disclaimer amazon.com

Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Disclaimer amazon.co.uk

Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.

Disclaimer amazon.ca

Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon.com.ca, Inc. Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.ca.

Disclaimer amazon.de

Bernhard Kast ist Teilnehmer des Partnerprogramms von Amazon Europe S.à.r.l. und Partner des Werbeprogramms, das zur Bereitstellung eines Mediums für Websites konzipiert wurde, mittels dessen durch die Platzierung von Werbeanzeigen und Links zu amazon.de Werbekostenerstattung verdient werden können.

Why did the German Aces have so many air kills?

Intro

When it comes to World War 2 many people often cite the high kill numbers of German and Japanese Pilots. The problem is they usually try to use these numbers to make various points on how effective the Axis forces were, well, there are many problems with this. Luckily the third most successful German ace of World War Günther Rall, actually spoke out on this in a polite and indirect manner. He answered the question: why did German Aces have so many air kills compared to Allied pilots. I will use his answer and expand on it a bit.

The conditions stated by Günter Rall

Günther Rall outlined several conditions:
1) First off he notes that in order to shoot down enemy planes, you need a sufficient number of them in your mission area. Many Allied fighter pilots in the later stages of the war never saw a German plane and even if they did, they often heavily outnumbered their foes. In contrast this situation was very uncommon for the German side after late 1941, after all they faced the Soviet Union, British Empire and the United States. Each of them usually matched or outnumbered the Germans in total planes alone, together they had a considerable numerical advantage. Let’s just look at the initial numbers for operation Barbarossa. At the time of the German attack the Soviet Air Force consisted of about 10 000 to 15 000 aircraft, of which 7 500 were deployed in the Soviet’s Western theatre. Whereas the German Air Force had around 2800 aircraft deployed for Operation Barbarossa. (Jones, David R.: From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World Wars: p. 272)

Even earlier in the war during the Battle of Britain in summer 1940 the Germans had about the same number of fighter planes as the British. During the height of the battle in August 1940 the Fighter Command had around 1000 fighters, which was about the same number as the Luftwaffe. (Source: Overy – Battle of Britain)

This strategic disparity in planes didn’t necessarily transfer down to the tactical situation. Because the Germans could to a certain degree decide when, where and how to engage the Allied aircraft, particularly when they were attacking Germany and the occupied territories. Thus, tactical victories were still quite common and those improved the kill counts of German pilots.

2) Second, Western Allied pilots usually had a limited number of missions to fly and then they were rotated out or could return home. Due to the lack of German pilots this wasn’t a possibility, hence German pilots usually fought until they were killed, captured or incapacitated in one way or another way.

There were other factors as well, like the initial superiority of German training in combat pilots due to the pre-war build up and experiences from the Spanish civil war. Furthermore, nearly every major country used a different system for the counting of kills and losses in World War 2. Additionally, especially in air combat the kill claims for all sides could be up to twice as high as the losses of their enemies. In short, there are many problems with deriving valid and comparable kill to death ratios from these value across different countries.

In a strategic war the Average Pilot Counts

But let’s take at the bigger picture, one way to properly determine the effectiveness of combat pilots is by taking a look at the average pilot, because in a total war the achievements of exceptional individuals rarely have an effect above the tactical level. But the combined force of a large number of soldiers, pilots or sailors usually is the determining factor that has strategic effects.
This is the reason why proper training programs were so important, something both the Germans and Japanese didn’t put enough emphasis on during the war. Thus, armed forces should not be judged solely based on their current or initial quantity and quality, but also in their ability to maintain this quantity and quality during a war.

Conclusion

To conclude comparing the individual achievements of aces usually doesn’t provide meaningful information about major aspects of the air war. It usually only serves as an excuse for nationalistic tendencies and/or contempt, which in a way is probably the same thing. Most people note that national pride is important, and I agree with that, but I think real pride has no need for a comparison, it comes from within and not from an outside measuring stick. After all, it is important that we respect the achievements and service of all men and women that served, no matter if they flew 50 missions with no kills or were aces with more than 200 kills. Quite many pilots that once fought each other became friends after the war, I think they serve as great examples that mutual respect is a true virtue of a hero and that despite various differences an honest agreement on core values like respect is more important than the color of our flags.

The Interview with Günther Rall

Sources

Books and Articles

Overy, Richard: The Battle of Britain – The Myth and the Reality (amazon.com affiliate link)

Jones, David R.: From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World Wars. In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail (amazon.com affiliate link)

Jones, David R.: From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World Wars. In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail (amazon.de affiliate link)

amazon.com amazon.co.uk amazon.ca amazon.de

Disclaimer amazon.com

Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Disclaimer amazon.co.uk

Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.

Disclaimer amazon.ca

Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon.com.ca, Inc. Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.ca.

Disclaimer amazon.de

Bernhard Kast ist Teilnehmer des Partnerprogramms von Amazon Europe S.à.r.l. und Partner des Werbeprogramms, das zur Bereitstellung eines Mediums für Websites konzipiert wurde, mittels dessen durch die Platzierung von Werbeanzeigen und Links zu amazon.de Werbekostenerstattung verdient werden können.

Online Sources

Ask Historians (reddit) – Why did German fighter aces have so many more kills?

Why the Imperial Japanese Air Forces Failed in World War 2

Intro

The Second World War to a large degree was determined by the disparity of the economic capacities and manpower between the Axis and the Allies. Yet, solely looking at production numbers and men can lead to a deterministic or even fatalistic interpretation that prevents us from looking at other factors that also played a vital role in the defeat of the Axis Forces.
This video is based on the article: The Imperial Japanese Air Forces by Osamu Tagaya. (See Description)

High Level Organization

The Japanese leadership was well aware of its limited capabilities in both resources and industrial capacity. Yet, it failed to unify the two branches of the Japanese Armed Forces, notably the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy to focus on one strategy in the years leading to the war. The Army for a large part saw as their main enemy in Russia and later the Soviet Union, while the Navy determined the United States of America as their principal foe. Both branches couldn’t agree and since they were not subordinates of the Japanese Government, there was no unifying power to force them into cooperation. This lead to two different strategies that were competing with each other for resources, manpower and equipment. This also lead to parallel development of similar aircraft types, like bombers and prevented the creation of uniform standards. (Tagaya: p. 178-180) Such inefficiencies and waste of resources are problematic in general, but in combination with limited industrial capacity and resources such effects weigh several magnitudes higher than for industrial giants, like the United States.

Army Shortcomings – The Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF)

Let’s take a look at the shortcomings of the Japanese Army Air Force. Since the Japanese Army Air Force was mostly developed for tactical support of a land war against Soviet Union, it lacked capabilities for naval navigation and long-range capabilities, something that was crucial for their use in South East Asia and especially the islands of the Pacific. As a result the Navy had to fly long-range bombing missions in the Philippines for the Army. (Tagaya: p. 179-180)

One major problem was that the Japanese Army lacked strong advocates for air power in its ranks. This was due to the fact that the Japanese had a very limited amount of army officers with air combat experience. Although the Japanese were among the first to use combat aircraft in World War 1, it was a short a limited engagement in 1914. These experiences were too limited to convince enough officers of the importance air power. The army initiated two times the creation of an independent air force as a third branch, like Germany and the United Kingdom with the Royal Air Force. Yet, the Navy disagreed, because they feared that similar to the British RAF that the Fleet Air Arm would only play a marginal role in an independent branch. (Tagaya: p. 180-185)
The main roles for the Army Air Force lay in recon and air combat, whereas bombing missions received only limited attention. This is reflected in the slow build-up of its bomber squadrons in the 1920ies.(Tagaya: p. 182)

For a short time the Army like the Navy saw the United States as their main opponent, during that period the development of a large four engine bomber was started. Furthermore, there were projects to use aircraft catapults on land-bases in order to circumvent the problem of building long air strips after an invasion of the Philippines. Yet, once the Army focused again on Russia and Asia, these projects were discontinued in the early 1930ies. Due to annexation of Manchuria by the Japanese an extended land border to the Soviet Union changed the strategic situation. Furthermore, the development of the TB-3 bomber by the Soviets put the Japanese home islands into the range of the Soviet Air Force. (Tagaya: p. 182-185)
Around the mid 1930ies the Army started a major expansion of its air arm and in 1937 declared the destruction of the enemy’s air force as the primary mission. Yet, in the conflicts in China and with the Soviet Union the Army Air Force mainly contributed on a tactical level. Furthermore, in 1940 the emphasis on destruction of the enemy air force was weakened and the offensive power remained mostly on a tactical level. (Tagaya: p. 185)

The main problem with Japanese Army aviation lay in a lack of initiative and a conservative senior leadership that was mostly reacting to international developments instead of formulating its own doctrines. This lead to a shortage of officers with proper experience during the rapid expansion. (Tagaya: p. 186)
“This often resulted in poor leadership and unimaginative staff work, giving rise to operations that where questionable in their effectiveness and all too predictable and conventional in nature.” -Osamu Tagaya:The Imperial Japanese Air Forces, p. 186 (link in the description)

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN)

IJN Achievements

Now, before we take a look at the shortcoming of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which were quite different to those of the Army. Let’s take a look at their initial achievements first.
The Navy unlike the Army had strong advocates for air power in its ranks. This is due to the fact the modern Navies usually have a more open attitude towards technology and innovation. After all an infantry division consists mostly of men, whereas a battleships consists mostly of steel with a lot of technological components and a handful men.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was a pioneer in naval aviation. It built the world’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier the HIJMS Hōshō in 1922. Furthermore, it introduced the first operational deployment of an all-metal monoplane carrier-fighter plane in 1937. And in 1940 it was able to perform the mass deployment of torpedo and dive-bombers in coordination with fighters launched from several aircraft carries, something no navy at that time was able to do. Right before Pearl Harbor, the IJN had more aircraft carriers than any other Navy and had the world’s leading naval air arm.

Furthermore, there were some other aspects were the IJN achieved leading roles. In terms of aircraft the Zero outmatched all it counterparts and sometimes even land-based aircraft. Furthermore, the IJN possessed a strong land-based naval bomber force the so called “rikko” units, which were initially developed to counter the limits on the number of carriers due to Naval Treaties. These units sank the Royal Navy’s battleships the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse early on in the War. Also the attack on Pearl Harbor and the following half year the IJN basically marked the start of domination of aircraft carriers in naval warfare. (Tagaya: p. 186-187)

IJN Shortcomings

Yet, despite all these achievements in naval aviation, it is quite surprising that the IJN didn’t drop the battleship as a core weapon prior or after these initial successes of carriers. Its fleet organization still focused on the battleship and didn’t create a complete carrier task force organization, unlike the US Navy later in the War. Although, the enormous amounts of resources put into building the Yamato and Musashi super-battleships are to a certain degree understandable, because before the war in the pacific, it was not clear how important carriers would be, but the reluctance to change the naval organization was major flaw. This is also reflected by the presence of Japanese Battleship fleet at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. (Tagaya: p. 187-189)
One major flaw of the IJN was its focus to primarily target enemy warships and often ignore the enemy supply ships. Like after the defeat of the Allied cruisers at the battle of the Savo Island, where the transport ships were left unharmed. This was not just one incident, the IJN submarine doctrine focused on destroying enemy warships as did the Japanese air men. To some degree this maybe hindsight bias, but misjudging the strategic value of merchant ships and supplies, probably stemmed from the focus on a classical decisive battle thinking.
In defense of the Japanese, we need to take into account that even the Western Allies that focused on strategic warfare early on didn’t focus on the German supplies in their bombing campaigns, it took them until May 1944 to focus at fuel production, which severely limited the mobility and combat effectiveness of all German forces. (Deutsche Reich & 2. WK: Band 7; S. 483-485) In the Pacific with its long supply lines between the islands, the strategic value of attacks against merchant shipping was about as crucial as fuel for Germany. Because, without supplies and fuel ground, naval and air forces are extremely limited in their effectiveness. (Tagaya: p. 188-189)

Japanese Capabilities

Let’s take a look at Japanese capabilities. As mentioned before the focus of the Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy was on supporting battles. This narrow view lead to a neglect of logistics and other crucial elements. Similar to the German Luftwaffe there was a certain neglect for all elements that didn’t surround actual combat, yet to a far greater extent. After all, the Luftwaffe possessed one of the leading air transport arms in the beginning of the war quite contrary to the Japanese that lacked transport aircraft. For instance the Japanese lacked pilots for ferrying aircraft to the front lines and their capabilities to construct airfields was limited. Furthermore, there was a severe lack of warning and communication equipment like radar and effective radios sets for fighters. (Tagaya: p. 189; Corum: p. ) Unlike the German Air Force in Western Europe, the Japanese couldn’t rely on an existing infrastructure in the Pacific, thus these shortcomings reduced the combat effectiveness and readiness of their units. As a result naval bombers were used several times to drop supplies, because there were no transport aircraft available. This was in stark contrast to the Allies that airlifted an infantry division from Australia to New Guinea. Furthermore, the Japanese periodically used combat pilot to ferry planes due to lack of ferry pilots.
The lack of mechanized engineering equipment to create and improve existing airfields also had severe long term effects. It not only resulted in a huge delay and back-breaking labor on the Japanese side, additionally, the resulting installations were often very limited in size. As a result Japanese airfields were usually congested with planes that were parked closely to each other on several occasions this lead to severe losses when those air fields were attacked. (Tagaya: p. 189-190)

Often these attacks occurred without any warning, due the Japanese lack of radar equipment. Although the Japanese were once among the leaders in radar technology, they fell behind by not investing and employing the technology for military purposes.

In general the Japanese efforts and capabilities surrounding communication and coordination were limited. There was a lack of effective shortwave radios, thus Japanese fighter pilots basically communicated with visual signals. This prevented to a large degree that they could fully exploit their initial advantages in training and equipment. Furthermore, it also prevented the creation of a proper ground- or carrier-based-control capabilities like the British used during the Battle of Britain or the US Navy developed throughout the war. (Tagaya: p. 189-191)

Japanese Priorities and their Consequences

Let’s take a look at the Japanese Priorities and their consequences. The Japanese focus on battle and combat units was the determining factor throughout the war and the lack of unified strategy between the Navy and Army showed a lack of foresight and strategic perspective. The missing unified strategy prevented a proper and effective allocation of Japans limited resources before and during the war. In contrast even though the United States enjoyed an abundance of industrial capacity and manpower, it still committed to the Grand Strategy of “Germany First” with the British. (Tagaya: p. 191-192)

The Japanese aircraft industry lagged behind in terms of powerful engines, this problem was circumvented by using no armor plates and self-sealing fuel tanks in their early models. Due their experiences fighting the Chinese although they assumed that these measures were sufficient. Unlike the Germans that improved their aircraft after their experiences in the Spanish Civil war.
Thus, during the Guadalcanal campaign Japanese losses increased and their highly-trained airmen thinned out quickly. The lack of proper training programs were similar to the Germans and since the Western Allies put a strong emphasis on training early, this soon lead to a situation where the average Japanese pilot was less trained than the average Allied pilot. (Tagaya: p. 191-193)
“In the end, the initial margin of superior training and experience exhibitied by its airmen proved insufficient to prevent serious attrition.” (Tagaya: p. 193)

Japanese Aircraft Industry

Let’s take a look at the Japanese Aircraft industry. Japan before and shortly after the First World War was dependent on Western technology and imported aircraft and equipment at that time. During the 1930ies they reached self-sufficiency in engine and air-frame design, but their development cycles were still quite long. Furthermore, in aircraft components and subsystems, like radios Japan was still very dependent on Western imports. The duration of the development cycles was a problem. Yet, this could have been dealt with by ordering follow-up types early enough, but the Japanese didn’t issued specifications for follow-up designs early enough. Prior to April 1942 there was serious effort invested to create a successor for the Zero fighter plane. If these measures would have been taken in 1940, then the Japanese could have had an aircraft to counter the Corsair or Hellcat when they arrived, but they still had to fight them with their modified version of the Zero. Furthermore, the initial successor of the Zero the A7M “Reppu” failed and wasn’t abandoned soon enough thus delaying the N1K1-J “Shiden”, which entered combat in October 1944 and its improved version the “Shiden-Kai” (also known by older war thunder players as the UFO) was ready in March 1945. Hence, even though the development cycles of the Japanese were not as fast as that of the United States, this problem could have been averted by ordering a replacement at an early stage. (Tagaya: p. 193-195) As a result the end of the war, the Japanese only fielded a handful of types that introduced during the war, whereas the United States replaced a large amount of its pre-war models.

Result of Training and Industry Policies

As a result, in June 1944 the Japanese faced highly trained US pilots with new superior planes in their slightly upgraded planes flown by poorly-trained pilots. This resulted in an ineffective air force, which had almost no other option but to resort to Kamikaze attacks due to insufficient training and equipment. Note that we are talking about average pilots here, because those win the war not a small number of extraordinary aces. (Tagaya: p. 192-193)

Conclusion

To conclude, similar to Germany, Japan wasn’t ready for a war long-war on a global scale in terms of its industrial capabilities. But only looking at the industrial side of a country when it comes to analyzing a war can be misleading, because one might miss important areas of improvement. One way to avoid this is, to take a look at engagements, when the economic power of the winning factions wasn’t yet the determining factor. For the War in the Pacific these were the Guadalcanal campaign and the Battle of Midway. In both cases the Japanese committed various errors and the United States proved to be a skillful enemy even without superior numbers. Thus, the turning point of the war in the Pacific was before the United States could bring its full numerical advantage to the table. Something that was clearly different from the war in Europe. (Tagaya: p. 196-197) Finally, the Japanese reluctance to move away from their strong focus on combat at the cost of logistics and support, played an important role in the reversal after their initial successes. (Tagaya: p. 196-197)

Notes

The video a summary of the article listed in the sources.

Sources

Books & Articles

  • Tagaya, Osamu: The Imperial Japanese Air Forces, In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail
  • Corum, James S.: Defeat of the Luftwaffe, 1935-1945, In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail
amazon.com amazon.de

Disclaimer

Amazon Associates Program: “Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.”

Amazon Partner (amazon.de): “Bernhard Kast ist Teilnehmer des Partnerprogramms von Amazon Europe S.à r.l. und Partner des Werbeprogramms, das zur Bereitstellung eines Mediums für Websites konzipiert wurde, mittels dessen durch die Platzierung von Werbeanzeigen und Links zu Amazon.de Werbekostenerstattung verdient werden kann.”