Tokyo Bay. Japan formally surrenders. The Second World War is over. Germany and Japan lie crushed and in ruins. Hitler is dead by his own hand. His ally Tojo tried to follow suit but he botched that job as badly as he he botched nearly everything he touched during the war. The putative samurai would meet his end, not by seppuku, but at the end of a hangman’s rope.
Japan went to war because she had contempt for her adversaries. China was backward and primitive, Britain was a paper lion, the Americans were a lazy people with no appetite for hard struggle.
Moral righteousness alone does not win battles. Evil causes do not necessarily carry the seeds of their own destruction. Once engaged, even just wars have to be won-- or lost-- on the battlefield.
Murray and Millett, A War to Be Won
Japan was defeated because she completely underestimated her victims. She could defeat Chinese armies but she could not conquer China. Britain refused to accept the ‘inevitable’ and turned the tide in every theater: the greatest defeat the Japanese army ever suffered came at the hands of the Slim’s 14th Army in Burma. Americans, it turned out, did not quit when faced with adverse odds nor did they collapse when faced with adversity.
Long before his death in 1943 Yamamoto must have realized that he had badly misjudged his main opponent. The Navy and the Marines had disrupted and thwarted his plans at nearly every turn. They had bombed the sacred soil of Japan. They had destroyed his proud Kido Butai at Midway. They had held on at Guadalcanal despite Yamamoto’s every effort to drive them off the island.
The United States Navy is a social organization of golfers and bridge players.
Admiral . Isoroku Yamamoto
The admiral’s successors had no greater success; nothing could slow down the inexorable advance. Tarawa was the tipping point. If Japan’s leaders were correct, the high cost in blood for a tiny atoll thousands of miles from Tokyo would have convinced the “nation of merchants” to negotiate. Instead, the American advance continued at an even more rapid pace.
On the eve of Midway Lt. Commander John C Waldron spoke to his men of Torpedo 8 on board the USS Hornet.
On the morning of battle, Waldron’s men did not find a favorable tactical situation. They did however do their utmost to destroy their enemies. They pressed their attack with courage and determination. Every plane was shot down. Only one man survived the battle. Their sacrifices helped deliver a decisive victory.
The approaching battle will be the biggest of the war and may well be the turning point also. It is to be known as the battle of Midway. It will be a historical, and I hope, a glorious event."
My greatest hope is that we encounter a favorable tactical situation, but if we don't and worse comes to worst, I want each one of us to do his utmost to destroy our enemies.
It was the courage of such men that brought the USS Missouri to Tokyo Bay.
No comments:
Post a Comment