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WW2 Japanese Army - Do they get a Complete Crap Army Award?

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julianj

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I was in an argument on another (political) forum, with someone who is a contrarian and knows little about warfare. He was contending that the two atomic bombs had to be dropped because the invading allies would suffer 250,000 casualties. I couldn't be bothered debating him, but I started thinking about the Japanese army and its pretty poor overall performance.

After a bit of research I have begun to think that the IJA was the worst Army of WW2 and is in contention for a Complete Crap Army of All Time award. Apart from being lucky during the first part of the war when it fought against even worse forces, it then lost pretty much every battle after '42. The 1939 Red Army kicked its ass.

It seems to be a meatgrinder for its own troops, with 6:1ish casualty ratios, in favour of the attackers, when fighting from solid defences. Whenever it counterattacks, it seems to just get its men slaughtered.

While researching I've come up with these negative factors - poor equipment: very poor steel helmets, no SMGs, no SP guns, outdated AT guns,
inadequate artillery, poor mgs. Tanks that were obsolete in 1939.

Soft factors include: Brutal discipline, C3IR very bad, very poor mission planning, and (I kid you not) soldiers being unwilling to recrew mortars and mgs unless they had got specific orders, as punishments were extreme.

Logistics were very bad, to the extent that soldiers sometimes resorted to cannibalism. I'm not sure how the quartermaster would report that, but I can say it means that your army is a bit lacking somewhere.

Banzai charges are obviously terrifying, but if the allied soldiers keep their heads, the Japanese just get whacked.

I got one of the Osprey downloads, US Marine v. Japanese Infantryman (by Gordon Rottman) which covers Guadalcanal in 1942. So I would say that the USMC was not at the top of its game and under-equipped with Springfield bolt-action rifles and 37mm guns, for example. Nevertheless it inflicted a decisive defeat on the Japanese. Particularly instructive is the two Japanese counterattacks over a river and sandbar: both in the same place, the first with infantry, the second with tanks/infantry. Both were slaughtered. The tank attack went in on the wrong day (early) so its planned artillery bombardment didn't happen. How can an army that bad at planning be considered as anything other than a pile of donkey dung?

In all, 33,600 17th Army and 3,100 SNLF [JAPANESE] personnel fought
on the island. Over 14,800 died, 8,500 in action, and 1,000
were taken prisoner. Thousands died of disease and starvation.
Marine casualties ashore were 1,097 dead, 109 died of wounds,
2,916 wounded, and 298 missing and presumed dead. The
US Army lost over 600 dead and missing and more than 1,400
wounded. Osprey P.76
Click to expand...

I make it 4120 US casualties, a 3.5 to 1 ratio.

The Japanese never got much better, while the allies learned from their mistakes and kicked the Japanese out from each of their island strongholds.

I don't think that a refusal to surrender and thus get slaughtered, is a military virtue.

Am I missing something? I'm far from an expert in the area.
 
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I opine the really crap WW2 army award goes to the Italians or Romanians. Fighting the Japanese was brutal. Their enemies considered them jungle warfare experts and intractable defenders. The Pacific Theater was a savage time and place; each side viewed the other as sub-human. My father stood alongside the tarmac on Tinian and watched the Enola Gay refuel en route to Hiroshima without realizing what was about to happen. He once told me years ago that dropping the atomic bombs, as horrible as they were, probably saved his life and allowed for his demobilization and safe return home. Otherwise he would have been slated for the Operation Olympic assaults on the home islands and planners at that time projected one million US casualties participants with a high casualty rate. Whether those numbers were inflated or not, I'm inclined to agree in this instance with your contrarian gadfly.

EDIT: I mis-wrote "casualties" for participants initially.
@julianj - If it helps to accept that your contrarian is more right than wrong, even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day. ;)
 
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And, to add on to what @Badger73 said, as an American, I feel zero guilt over our dropping those two bombs on Japan at the time. It was time for the war to be over. We also were very kind to Japan after the war, helping them to rebuild and become an economic powerhouse, and an ally. But yea, at the time, they were a brutal enemy.
 
Thanks for your replies. What I am looking for is analysis based on factual information, as we of course know a lot more now than then. I understand the feelings of the men at the front of the time, that they wanted to get it over with.

Yes, the Japanese forces were brutal, both to soldiers and civilians (and their own men).

But the Japanese weren't jungle experts, far from it. We can't believe propaganda of the time. Lots of WW2 myths have been debunked and I see no reason not to analyse the Pacific War likewise, as more factual information is available now.
 
I think a lot of it is hindsight and history written by the winners.

Wars are won and lost for many other reasons than the qualities of the opposing armies. The Germans are usually considered a "good" (as in effective) WW2 army, but I read so many reports of how they bungle their operations and tactics, and not only in the last part of the war.
 
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Meat Grinder said:
I don't feel qualified to judge any of the armies that participated in WW2. They all went through hell, IMO. We can only imagine the hardships they endured, while sitting in our air conditioned rooms.
Click to expand...

Hey, my room is not air conditioned... and I'm out of beer. This is an insufferable hardship entitling me to judge history. Also the music stopped and I have to click a whole button to start it again.
 
Bulletpoint said:
Hey, my room is not air conditioned... and I'm out of beer. This is an insufferable hardship entitling me to judge history. Also the music stopped and I have to click a whole button to start it again.
Click to expand...

Yea, but don't you live in one of those ice encrusted countries? You have probably barely even heard of air conditioning. The beer running out I'll give you, and hey, I'll click on the music button. :)

 
@julianj I have heard the dropping the bombs saved lives view come up twice recently. On Dan Carlin's podcast and a book HERE. Must be the latest topic although no doubt its been around for a long time.

I agree with the views above about taking into account other factors. For example, don't forget the Japs were involved in a long war in China before and throughout WW2. They were also effectively fighting a two front war after Pearl Harbour by land AND sea. I also understand there forces were quite dysfunctional because of an Army vs Navy split, each off doing their own thing. I am sure there are many factors influencing their performance.

What about their efforts in the Sino Japanese War, your view appears to be only formed against the Western Powers and '39 Soviets?
 
@julianj The high casualty figures expected took into account the fact that the Allies would not only be fighting the Japanese armed forces on their home soil, they would be fighting the entire populace, the Allies had already had a taste of this at Okinawa with civilians being drafted in as cannon fodder or the many cases of Okinawans committing suicide based on propaganda from the Japanese.
If you apply the same level of fanaticism to the entire Japanese population, some seventy two million people, then invading seems like a very grim prospect. This is of course what the Japanese intended.

The Japanese army had obsolescent equipment from the start of WWII, bearing in mind that they had already been fighting in China for several years at this point, so by the time 1945 rolls around the disparity in materiel between the Japanese and the Allies has become a yawning chasm. However, a lot of the Japanese success early in the war can be attributed to two things, the sheer fanatical doggedness of the Japanese soldier brought about by their ruthless training, and the Allies dismissing their abilities out of racial prejudice.

I realise this is a movie, but it probably demonstrates the general mindset of the western nations before facing the Japanese.



We can be thankful that the Germans and Japanese did not cooperate more closely together, the Japanese army with German materiel and doctrine would be a frighting prospect indeed.

As for the Atomic bombs, I feel they were dropped as much for political reasons as to save allied lives, and when looked at it through the prism of what might have happened if the Atomic bombs had not been dropped, ie, the invasion occurs, tens of millions die, the invasion doesn't happen, Japan is blockaded but doesn't surrender, tens of millions of Japanese starve (due to their reliance on imports), or the Atomic bombs are dropped, hundreds of thousands die but the war ends - the latter is the least worst option.
 
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