[peabody]

Originally Posted by Admiral Von Gerlach

The planning of this Campaign sounds excellent in balance .... re the role of the IJN submarine force, one of the most informative books is this one....

The Japanese Submarine Force in WWII by Carl Boyd and Akihiko Yoshido and in the preface they give an outstanding overview....as follows:

"The performance of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Submarine force in World War II fell far short of prewar expectations. The Japanese Naval high command was inacucurate in its antipcation of the type of war it would embark upon in 1941, and the submarine force, in particular, quickly became a victim of unrealistic military planning and preparation. First designed to weaken a United States Fleet of 21 knot dreadnoughts in the western Pacific, the submarine force was from the outset of the war confronted by much faster US Aircraft Carriers after the successful Japanese Attack on battleship row in Pearl Harbor. The submarine force was left groping for an effective strategy and operational plan of action while a sophistaicated US Navy undersea force quickly hardened to the realty of wartime conditions.

The lackluster performance of Japanese submarines in Hawaiiian waters in December 1941 did not compel the high command to modify prewar plans for the submarine force. The formidable undersea arm of the Imperial Navy operated aimlessly and without a coherent strategy in the opening months of 1942. Inflexible prewar battle objectives usually held sway or any new ones were often ill conceived and incomplete. Morevover in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway the Japanese submarine force again failed to measure up to preware expectations but the opinon of the navy high command continued to hold that submarines should be used chiefly to assist in the decisive battle of capital ships. Then came the surprise American offensive at Guadalcanal, and the crisis situation after late 1942 seemed to require the use of submarines in particularly dangerous supply and evacuation mssions. The fate of the Japanese submarine force was sealed.
The force often operated helter skelter during the war, being constantly obligated to commit submaries to unanticpated and ever increasing and dangerous crisises. Submarines undertook a wide variety of assignments, for example, they were deployed along picket lines in an attmept to ambush and pursue enemy naval forces, only to be ordered and sometimes reorderd to dash elsewhere when enemy forces were discovere beyond the orignal picket lines. Submarines were assigned to reconnoiter heavily guarded enemy ports and advace anchorages. There they sometimes launched midget submarines, human piloted torpedoes and aircraft, with minmal results. Submarine aircraft also droppped a few incideary bombs on Oregon forests and submarine deck guns fired on other rminor targets on the American mainland and various islands. In addition to supply and evacuation operations with bypassed Japanese island garrisons, submarines transported highly explosive gasoline for refueling seaplanes. Moreover the Japanese undertook other dangerous submarine transprot operations with their German allies on the other side of the globe with whom they exchanged personanel and small amounts of strategic goods, such as quinine and tungsten, and blueprints and prototypes of war machinery. There were also varioius forays into the Indian Ocean, but crisis in the Pacific often forced the boats to concentrate there against strong and rapidly advancing Allied forces. These highly dispered operations characterized much of Japanese submarine starategic and operational activity throughout the war. The occasional entreaty advocationg concentration against enemy sea communications and extended US supply lines, particularly to the South Pacific and Australia, was always played down and usually rejected."

I will also note that there were top secret planes to use the largest fleet submarines with on board aircraft to drop plague and other highly infections diseases on the major US cities, of Seattle, San Francisoco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Only top level hostility between the Army and the Fleet prevented this horrific plan from being carried out, and prevented a huge disaster that might indeed have had major effect on the war effort.

I don't know how my little pea brain is going to keep up with all the info you are sending my way.

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