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I understand that as a naval "geek" one might want to have seen those ships preserved, but in 1945 the US was committed to grinding the Japanese war machine to paste. Keeping those ships around would have meant their retention as symbols of Japanese martial prowess and that went against the goal of the occupation administration in empowering Japan's newly installed civilian run government.
I honestly can't think of a single logical argument for what those ships should have been kept. There are arguments that we probably shouldn't have wasted the time, lives and resources to bomb them, but that was about revenge as much as anything.
I don't disagree with you. Not in the least. I started this thread because I was genuinely curious if anyone thought there could have been some practical reason for preserving the few remaining Japanese capital ships, and I've gotten some good and thoughtful variations on a single answer: NO!
The history buff in me wishes that some more tangible items from World War II had been preserved. It still gnaws at me that we didn't preserve the USS Enterprise (CV-6), given that she was clearly the one single ship that most symbolized our naval victory. (Yes, I know that a preservation effort had been mounted and fallen short.) I am very glad that at least some of our ships have indeed been preserved.
If I had been in a position of authority in 1945, and if I had somehow possessed the foresight to see 70 years into the future, I would have fixed up Haruna and Katsuragi and sailed them to some backwater port somewhere far away from Japan, and put them in mothballs for about 30 years or so, until such time as Japan was firmly back on her feet as a responsible member of the international community. Then I would have given them back (well, SOLD them back, hehe), so that the Japanese people could have the opportunity to connect with a tangible piece of their history.
But of course, no one in 1945 was thinking in those terms, and rightly so; it's not at all reasonable to suggest that the country that had just finished waging a savage, brutal conflict against a no-holds-barred aggressor should want to preserve any part of their former enemy's war-making capability for no more than sentimental reasons. If there had been a more utilitarian reason to preserve those ships (and the clear consensus here is that there was not), that would have been one thing; but I do fully understand why the Americans of 1945 weren't interested in preserving future Japanese military museums.
Oh, and one more thing: as to why I've focused on Haruna and Katsuragi instead of the far more wow-inducing battleships Yamato and Musashi, or carriers Akagi and Shokaku, the reason should be obvious: those latter-named ships were sunk in combat, because they posed a direct threat to us. Haruna and Katsuragi survived to the end (more or less), and by the time the war was over, they still existed above water and no longer posed a threat to us. Thus, it would not have harmed our national interest to preserve them, at least in theory (notwithstanding the point made above about them becoming a symbol of Japan's former military prowess and thus a hindrance to the new post-war civilian government).
If Yamato had survived to the end, she's the one I would have kept. (I say that even though I find Haruna to have had a far more interesting history.) But that's an alternate-history thread for another time.
Why on God's green Earth, would you allow a defeated enemy to maintain it's arms.
For the obvious reason that unless one intends a permanent occupation, they ultimately have to defend themselves against the encroachment of an adversary that is more important than the already-broken enemy (which, by that time, would have been reconstituted with friendly individuals running things).
You know, West Germany was allowed to arm itself post-war. So was Italy. Hell, even the Soviets allowed the Warsaw Pact nations to arm themselves. Do you think the USSR was worried about being overrun by the armed forces of East Germany? Hardly. Neither were the post-war Allies worried that Japan, smashed and defeated, were going to suddenly threaten them again if they were allowed enough arms to reasonably defend their islands.
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Perhaps you are not aware, but four years of fighting Germany and Japan resulted in the deaths of slightly over 400,000 U.S. military personal.
I suggest you try to explain this opinion to the remaining veterans of of Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, The Coral sea, Midway, Attu, Manila, Guadalcanal, Singapore, etc. etc..
This is just plain silly.
What's just plain silly is the idea that post-war policy should be dictated by not hurting the feelings of those who fought the war. Perhaps you are not aware of Werner Von Braun, Nazi-turned-American rocketeer? (to name just one of a great many WWII adversaries who became Americans after the conflict)
Now, I'm not saying that Japan should have retained their WWII vessels, the few that survived being ill-designed for the post-war roles Japan would need. But the last reason to not do so is because it might make some veterans grumpy.
Near the end of World War II, it became a point of propagandist pride for the U.S. to deliberately target and destroy the small handful of remaining Japanese warships, even though these ships were immobilized in port due to lack of oil and were no longer an offensive threat. I'm not faulting the decision-makers at that time for not having the mindset of people 70 years removed from the event. But with the benefit of hindsight, should the U.S. have let Japan keep their surviving ships to form the nucleus of their Self Defense Force?
Had we not indulged in the morale-boosting exercise of attacking Kure near the end of the war, there would have been a handful of ships available:
Aircraft carriers: Amagi, Katsuragi, Junyo, a few escort carriers
Battleships: Nagato, Haruna, Ise, Hyuga (the latter two being battleship-carriers)
Heavy cruisers: Tone, Aoba, possibly also Takao and Myoko
Plus some light cruisers and destroyers. (In the actual event, only Katsuragi, Junyo, and Nagato survived above water, and only Katsuragi was truly seaworthy.)
Admittedly, the remaining ships were a mixed bag. Junyo was underpowered and not a very effective design. The battleships were old; and also, the half-battleship-half-carriers Ise and Hyuga were pretty much useless in either role. But Amagi and Katsuragi were brand-new; Nagato was still powerful; Haruna was still fast; and Tone was still fairly modern.
Would any of those ships (the ones listed above plus the remaining light cruisers and destroyers) been useful as Self-Defense vessels? Would keeping them have helped the U.S. by not having us have to use our own ships to provide for Japan's defense in the early post-war period? Or would there have been no real benefit to retaining them in service?
Pardon being late to your post but some of the above ships were sunk as in Haruna, Aoba and Tone as in being awash with internals flooded or destroyed internally as was Takao after the midget submarine attack. Myoko also submarine attack.
Some were used postwar and manned by ex-IJN personnel as transport ferries repatriating Japanese troops.
As for the rest which were seaworthy well the war against Japan to me appears as a personal vendetta by the King with the USN as his apparatus. The political need for an ally with naval power may not have been apparent until 1949.
IJN ships were very poor in the areas most needed by surface ships post-WW2 to be relevant- ability to mount strong AA and ASW. Much easier to provide the IJN with Ex-USN ships which already had the necessary equipment than retrofit their very cramped pre-ww2 designs. You see the difference in comparing an IJN Kagero bridge layout vs. a late war Fletcher or Gearing class. AA was going the radar directed power driven 40mm mount or auto. 3"/50, Large equipment for IJN hulls. Plus radar suite, squid, mousetrap,etc.
The lucky Yukikaze was stripped of all her IJN main armament and carried the 3" and some AA and ASW. A novelty as few of those IJN fleet dds survived unscathed. Easier to use a Fletcher or Gearing as was done all those decades.
The Germans did not get any ships larger than a MS back either. Italians did much better.
Pardon being late to your post but some of the above ships were sunk as in Haruna, Aoba and Tone as in being awash with internals flooded or destroyed internally as was Takao after the midget submarine attack. Myoko also submarine attack.
This is true, of course. But if the US Navy had decided to not waste their bombs on the remaining IJN ships at Kure, then Haruna, Aoba, and Tone would have been still afloat.
But I guess it really doesn't matter. As you point out below, the remaining IJN ships weren't suitably equipped in AA and ASW. So even if they had not been bombed at the end of the war, they probably weren't fit for anything more than the scrapyard anyway.
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Originally Posted by Felix C
IJN ships were very poor in the areas most needed by surface ships post-WW2 to be relevant- ability to mount strong AA and ASW. Much easier to provide the IJN with Ex-USN ships which already had the necessary equipment than retrofit their very cramped pre-ww2 designs. You see the difference in comparing an IJN Kagero bridge layout vs. a late war Fletcher or Gearing class. AA was going the radar directed power driven 40mm mount or auto. 3"/50, Large equipment for IJN hulls. Plus radar suite, squid, mousetrap,etc.
Even the winners of WW2 failed to preserve important parts of their naval history. We still have quite a few WW2 era battleships but what of all the smaller ships that really fought in harm's way like the early carriers and escort carriers, crusiers, destroyers, PT boats, landing ships, ect? Minus a couple of notable exceptions we pretty much only saved Battleships and submarines from the era.
The French saved nothing... the Richelieu would have been quite the tourist attraction today.
But if any country blew it, it was the British. The Royal Navy was the largest and most powerful fighting force in the world when WW2 began but almost nothing remains save the HMS Belfast. The world is a poorer place today because there isn't a HMS Nelson, Duke of York, Rodney, King George V, Vanguard and/or Ark Royal museum ship to visit today.
But it's hard to see so far into the future... in 1946 nobody thought of those old war-worn ships as fascinating pieces of history that people would actually pay money to see.
Maybe in 75 years my car, smartphone or tennis shoes could be a valued part of a museum collection. If nobody saves 'em, they could be very rare and interesting by then!
The IJN ships listed by the OP made their last voyage under tow to a place called Bikini Atoll
for use by the US Navy in Operation Crossroads (1946) . The Navy wanted a better understanding of the effect of nuclear weapons attack on ships and placed a representative sample of ships and submarines at various ranges from Ground Zero in Bikini lagoon. The Navy used 46 ships for the test . The first bomb an air burst didn't sink any ships but would have seriously contaminated them but simple washing might have made them safe to operate. The blast also caused superficial damage like charred paint and wooden decks and of course broken glass and damage to masts and bridges. Plus small fires. The blast on a barge (surface burst) sank ships near to the barge and the contamination from a tsunami like wave made the rest of the ships seriously radioactive and unusable. The underwater shot basically tore the bottoms off the ships and sank the lot where they still sit today a mildly radioactive monument to the atomic age. In AEC (US DOE) records these These shots are listed as atomic tests number 4, 5, and 6 Test 1 being Trinity, 2 Hiroshima and 3 Nagasaki. All told the USA has exploded over a thousand nuclear devices (bombs) to date. The tests gave the Navy what it needed to know in planning for use of nuclear weapons by the fleet and launched efforts to develop a new weapon to destroy submarines -the nuclear depth charge safely employed at a sufficient distance from the Navy vessel using it. You wouldn't want to sink your own ship while deep sixing the enemy would you.
Last edited by mwruckman; 02-29-2016 at 12:36 AM..
Even the winners of WW2 failed to preserve important parts of their naval history. We still have quite a few WW2 era battleships but what of all the smaller ships that really fought in harm's way like the early carriers and escort carriers, crusiers, destroyers, PT boats, landing ships, ect? Minus a couple of notable exceptions we pretty much only saved Battleships and submarines from the era.
The French saved nothing... the Richelieu would have been quite the tourist attraction today.
But if any country blew it, it was the British. The Royal Navy was the largest and most powerful fighting force in the world when WW2 began but almost nothing remains save the HMS Belfast. The world is a poorer place today because there isn't a HMS Nelson, Duke of York, Rodney, King George V, Vanguard and/or Ark Royal museum ship to visit today.
But it's hard to see so far into the future... in 1946 nobody thought of those old war-worn ships as fascinating pieces of history that people would actually pay money to see.
Maybe in 75 years my car, smartphone or tennis shoes could be a valued part of a museum collection. If nobody saves 'em, they could be very rare and interesting by then!
Well at least the British saved the HMS Victory (Nelson's flag ship at Trafalgar at the Portsmouth Navy Yard (Its well preserved ansd still flies the Royal Navy Ensign like the USS Constitution flies the Stars and Stripes as the Oldest Comissioned ship in the USN) ), and the copper bottomed Cutty Sark (The best of the China Clippers). From a time when you could sing Rule Britannia with a straight face.
PS I had a relative who went down on the HMS Prince of Wales when the Japanese sank most of the Far Eastern Squadron based at Singapore in Dec 1941 . About the same time Japan was bombing Pearl Harbor, and Manila in the Philippines.
Near the end of World War II, it became a point of propagandist pride for the U.S. to deliberately target and destroy the small handful of remaining Japanese warships, even though these ships were immobilized in port due to lack of oil and were no longer an offensive threat. I'm not faulting the decision-makers at that time for not having the mindset of people 70 years removed from the event. But with the benefit of hindsight, should the U.S. have let Japan keep their surviving ships to form the nucleus of their Self Defense Force?
Had we not indulged in the morale-boosting exercise of attacking Kure near the end of the war, there would have been a handful of ships available:
Aircraft carriers: Amagi, Katsuragi, Junyo, a few escort carriers
Battleships: Nagato, Haruna, Ise, Hyuga (the latter two being battleship-carriers)
Heavy cruisers: Tone, Aoba, possibly also Takao and Myoko
Plus some light cruisers and destroyers. (In the actual event, only Katsuragi, Junyo, and Nagato survived above water, and only Katsuragi was truly seaworthy.)
Admittedly, the remaining ships were a mixed bag. Junyo was underpowered and not a very effective design. The battleships were old; and also, the half-battleship-half-carriers Ise and Hyuga were pretty much useless in either role. But Amagi and Katsuragi were brand-new; Nagato was still powerful; Haruna was still fast; and Tone was still fairly modern.
Would any of those ships (the ones listed above plus the remaining light cruisers and destroyers) been useful as Self-Defense vessels? Would keeping them have helped the U.S. by not having us have to use our own ships to provide for Japan's defense in the early post-war period? Or would there have been no real benefit to retaining them in service?
The Navy had nothing better to do during this period a large number of carriers to do it with. No one was thinking about the post-war re-construction of Japan at the time. The atom bomb was unkown unkown early in 45. Unconditional surrender was the objective, and to do that, it was thought you had to eliminate Japan's ability and will to defend itself, by carrier and land-based bombing, by isolating Japan from all colonial sources of food and raw materials and by invasion, if necessary.
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Should the U.S. have let Japan keep their surviving WWII ships?
