Importantly, FECB collaborated closely with NID with
inevitable advantages here for intelligence distribution and exploitation.
Patrick Beesly, who worked for NID in the war, described FECB as a ‘well
thought out and comprehensive organisation, the first example of an
inter-service effort in the intelligence field, and for NID its most important
outstation’. When it moved to Singapore from Hong Kong in 1939, FECB acquired
its own Naval Operational Intelligence Centre (NOIC), modelled on that at the
Admiralty, the Pacific Naval Intelligence Organisation, which provided a plot
of all Axis naval activity from East Africa to the west coast of the Americas.
In his 1939 command review, Commanderin-Chief China, Vice Admiral Sir Percy
Noble, stated that FECB had ensured he knew with complete confidence the
whereabouts of all elements of the Japanese combined fleet on the outbreak of
the European war. It also located the German pocket battleship Graf Spee during
her brief foray into the Indian Ocean through long-range direction-finding
(D/F) fixes. In covering the IJN, FECB drew together intelligence from signals
intelligence (SIGINT), human agents, aerial reconnaissance, submarine surveillance,
diplomatic reporting and open sources.
Most important of all, Japan lacked the merchant shipping
resources necessary to sustain its economy during a war with the western powers
and to reap the benefit of its conquests, especially in regard to oil. Furthermore,
the IJN had neither thought about trade protection, nor devoted any effort to
procuring the relevant capabilities, drawing on Royal Navy lessons in the
Atlantic. When it began the war, the IJN had just four dedicated anti-submarine
escorts, and had no underwater detection equipment available at sea until
August 1942. At that time, the Royal Navy was deploying 2100 sonar equipped
ships. IJN doctrine was narrowly focused on the concept of a decisive battle
with the enemy fleet. Here it was ‘ingenious, imaginative and beautifully
crafted’. But it neglected the wider aspects of maritime power on which Japan
depended, and underestimated the limitations of Japan’s economic and industrial
capacity which threatened rapid obsolescence.
Some qualifications are nevertheless required. Japan
commissioned more carriers than either Britain or the United States in 1942,
almost compensating for its heavy losses that year, and it out-built Britain in
this category over the three fiscal years 1942–45. It also tripled aircraft
production across these years and introduced some competitive new designs. In
some respects its wartime aircraft industry outperformed that of the Soviet
Union. During the war years from 1942 to 1945, Japan also produced 3,392,814
tons of merchant shipping, including 986,159 tons of oil tankers. This was very
close to British output over this period, despite the huge disruption from
bombing Japan suffered from mid-1944. Without bombing, Japan might have
out-produced Britain in merchant shipping.
When due account is taken of all these factors, the evidence
that the Royal Navy formally and consistently marked the IJN down on fighting
efficiency is sparse. Three items are invariably highlighted: a 1935 report by
the Tokyo naval attaché, Captain J P G Vivian; the 1939 Tientsin papers, which
rated the fighting efficiency of the IJN at 80 per cent of the Royal Navy; and
the joint planning staff and Joint Intelligence Committee assessments during
1941 that Japanese air forces should be rated on a par with the Italians. These
items must be placed in context. The Vivian report attempted to identify traits
in Japanese national characteristics and culture which might limit its
efficiency. It undoubtedly attracted high-level interest in the naval staff
when it appeared, but it has probably received more weight than it merits,
simply because it has survived in the files, whereas alternative views have
not. There is no evidence it had lasting impact, or ever represented a
consensus. The 1937 Far East appreciation, two years later, assumed that, for
planning purposes, the IJN had equal capability to the Royal Navy. Indeed, it
specifically proposed the Royal Navy should aim for a capital ship advantage of
twelve to nine.
The 1939 80 per cent rating appears to have persisted as a
rough gauge of IJN quality over the next two years, but there is no sign this
had any practical effect, either. It is also important to underline that the
original reference was to maintenance, not to skill and commitment in battle.
The IJN discovered serious design flaws in several classes of ships in the
mid-1930s, notably the Mogami-and Takao-class cruisers and Fubuki-class
destroyers. Correcting these involved major remedial work, with ships out of
commission for long periods. It is likely the Royal Navy was aware of this and
it may have contributed, therefore, to an 80 per cent availability factor.
Admiral Sir William Davis, a captain serving as Deputy
Director Naval Operations (Foreign) in 1941, later said:
Many of us (on the Naval Staff) would not agree with the
estimate that the Japanese were only 80 per cent efficient compared with
ourselves. We thought they were tactically rather rigid and also behind us in
anti-submarine tactics. But frankly we knew nothing else (about their
efficiency) and many of us thought it best to over-estimate rather than
underestimate.
That view rings true, and fits with the cautious approach
the Royal Navy took on comparative battleship performance, as well as the
experience gained in submarine surveillance operations. There was also some
justification for questioning IJN fighting efficiency in terms of their
inability to provide the logistic and personnel support necessary for a
sustained war, and the Royal Navy may have acquired at least anecdotal evidence
of this. In that specific sense, the concept of an efficiency correction was
defensible.
Ranking the Japanese air forces with the Italians was
potentially more serious, if it implied they were an inferior opponent. It was
one excuse for the chiefs of staff limiting Far East air reinforcement in terms
of both numbers and quality, although it is harder to argue it was a decisive
factor, given the pressures to prioritise the Middle East. It is not clear from
the joint planning staff and Joint Intelligence Committee papers where the
analogy with the Italians originated. It seems likely it was a Royal Air Force,
more than a Royal Navy, judgement and, if so, it is difficult to judge how much
it influenced Royal Navy attitudes. It may at the least have encouraged the Royal
Navy to be more relaxed than was justified about the air threat to operations
in the South China Sea in late 1941, and to pose fewer questions about IJN
carrier power. While these comparisons with the Italian air force are viewed as
pejorative (and this was undoubtedly intended by the joint planning staff), the
Royal Navy, certainly Cunningham and Somerville, had learned to treat the
Italian air force with respect in the central Mediterranean.
By late 1941 the Italians had achieved significant
successes. For example, they had torpedoed four heavy cruisers, with varying
degrees of damage, in four separate incidents between September 1940 and July
1941. They had regularly attacked the fleet in Alexandria and conducted very
disruptive mining operations in the Suez Canal. Finally, they had torpedoed and
severely damaged the battleship Nelson during Operation Halberd, a convoy to
resupply Malta run from Gibraltar in late September 1941, just two months
before the Force Z operation. Ironically, Prince of Wales was part of the
battleship escort, shooting down two Italian torpedo bombers. In his memoirs,
Cunningham was unequivocal about the high quality of Italian air performance at
sea during the first part of the war. He stated that they appeared to have some
squadrons ‘specially trained for anti-ship work’; their reconnaissance was
‘highly efficient’ and ‘seldom failed to find and report our ships’; ‘bombers
then invariably arrived in an hour or two’; ‘Italian high level bombing was the
best I have ever seen, far better than the German’. This experience with
Italian air performance at sea would surely have tempered any Royal Navy
inclination to be complacent about IJNAF aircraft in Indochina if it had been
recognised they were armed with torpedoes, and available intelligence on their
range had been properly absorbed.
Overall, the Royal Navy’s picture of IJN capability, while
it missed the impact of the ‘revolution’ in its approach to air power in 1941,
was otherwise balanced and realistic. None of the key documents from 1937
onward show significant inclination to dismiss IJN fighting power, or to
contemplate a major engagement except on ‘favourable terms’. One final issue
deserves mention. Churchill told the First Lord, A V Alexander, in September
1940 that ‘The NID are very much inclined to exaggerate Japanese strength and
efficiency’. This quote has been much repeated over the years and become part
of the case against Churchill in assigning responsibility for the loss of Force
Z. There are two points to make here. First, the quote is not consistent with
the suggestion that the Royal Navy itself consistently underestimated the IJN.
Secondly, it is almost certain Churchill was recalling arguments over
comparative battleship strengths when he was First Lord earlier in the year. He
was frustrated that he was being asked to justify investment in additional
Royal Navy build on the basis of what he felt was little more than speculation
about IJN strength. Not for the first time, he was subjecting his briefers to rigorous
sceptical questioning.
How far the Royal Navy applied the intelligence picture of
the IJN described in shaping and executing a strategy for dealing with the
naval risk posed by Japan, from mid-1941 through to the outbreak of the Far
East war. The resources available to the Royal Navy to defend the eastern
theatre after mid-1940, and the Royal Navy policies and doctrine that
influenced how those resources were used.
Royal Navy resources for an eastern war in 1941
Britain implemented a modified New Standard naval building
programme over the three fiscal years 1937–39, designed to ensure adequate
parity with the combined fleets of Germany and Japan by 1942. The outbreak of
the European war in September 1939 triggered substantial changes to this
programme. The plethora of new wartime shipping requirements, both new build
and repair, and affecting both warship and merchant shipping needs, brought an
immediate slowdown to previous plans. In May 1940, in order to meet the
requirement for additional Atlantic escorts, merchant ships, and urgent army
needs, pre-war orders were suspended for six capital ships, one aircraft
carrier, eight cruisers and ten destroyers. In practice, most of the labour
effort released here was diverted to the fleet destroyer and destroyer escort
programmes, raising their manpower allocation by about 55 per cent. Not only
were those vessels already under construction, including those temporarily
suspended, all completed within the next two years, a further eighteen fleet
destroyers and forty-two Hunt class were progressively laid down after 1 June
1940 and commissioned before the end of 1942. This enhanced destroyer output
released older vessels for Atlantic escort, and was critical to supporting a
new Eastern Fleet in 1942.
The suspended capital ships were Howe, the final King George
V, the four Lion class and Vanguard. Howe was resumed in 1941 and completed in
August 1942. Vanguard was laid down in October 1941, but not completed until
1946. The Lions were later cancelled and broken up on their slips. The aircraft
carrier was Indefatigable, the last of the six Illustrious class. She was
resumed in 1942 and completed in May 1944. Her sister Implacable was also much
delayed, and completed even later in August that year. In September 1939 the
naval staff had expected Implacable and Indefatigable to be commissioned in
October 1941 and June 1942 respectively. Their availability in 1942 would have
made a significant contribution to the Royal Navy’s global commitments, and
made the Royal Navy the strongest carrier power until late 1943. The 1940
building programme agreed over the previous winter was also savagely pruned
back. The impact of these suspensions and cuts, alongside war losses, on Royal
Navy strength in 1941 and 1942 is illustrated in Table below.
Source: Future Strategy paper, September 1940, and H T
Lenton.
Target strengths reflect planned production following
May 1940 suspension and cuts, but do not allow for war losses. Actual strengths
achieved, which take account of real building rate, overseas purchases and war
losses are given in brackets. The figure of thirteen capital ships for August
1940 excludes Queen Elizabeth, undergoing modernisation until early 1941.
The message from these figures for Royal Navy resources
available to counter the naval risk from Japan is stark. As a result of the
demands of the European war, nominal Royal Navy strength in fleet units hardly
changed from the time the Far East appreciation was issued in August 1940 and
the outbreak of the Far East war in December 1941. In reality, the deficit
against target strength was greater than displayed in the table, because the
figures omit units under repair. Two fleet carriers and one battleship were out
of action for between six and twelve months in August 1941 following war
damage, and a further three capital ships were out of action for between six
and eighteen months in January 1942. The number of modern or modernised capital
ships able to engage Axis units on equal terms never exceeded eight in this
period, and was often less.
The table also fails to bring out an acute shortage of
modern fleet destroyers, since the destroyer figures in the table combine the
categories of fleet destroyers and destroyer escorts. The Royal Navy entered
the European war in 1939 with 103 modern fleet destroyers. By August 1940 war
losses had reduced this figure to eighty-seven. There was a further net fall to
eighty-three in August 1941, with a small increase to eighty-five by January
1942. However, during the second half of 1941, a further thirty destroyers
were, on average, unavailable owing to damage or refit, so effective strength
was rarely above fifty-five. This was a quite inadequate number to meet fleet
needs in three separate theatres and would be an important constraining factor in
building up an eastern fleet in 1941/42. The shortage was exacerbated by the
fleet destroyer suspensions ordered in May 1940, which inevitably extended the
period where losses outweighed gains from build. The balance in the destroyer
total in the table comprised destroyer escorts which fell into three
categories: older vessels completed before 1920 to First World War design;
around thirty-five old American destroyers acquired in the destroyer for bases
deal in August 1940; and the new Hunt class which began commissioning in
mid-1940 and reached a figure of forty-three by January 1942. The United States
actually provided fifty destroyers, but around fifteen were transferred to the
Royal Canadian Navy and allies such as the Royal Netherlands Navy. These American
vessels took around six months on average to refit for Royal Navy use and were
then of only limited value – barely satisfactory as Atlantic convoy escorts.
The Hunt class were originally designed for Atlantic escort, but their
sea-keeping was a disappointment, and they were generally deployed in coastal
escort and in the Mediterranean, where they often operated as fleet destroyers
with reasonable success.
On the positive side of the balance, the Royal Navy
inflicted proportionately greater damage on Germany and Italy in the period up
to December 1941. While nominal Royal Navy frontline strength grew over this
period, German and Italian strength in surface forces declined by about 40 per
cent in each case. By end 1941, the Germans had lost one battleship, one pocket
battleship, one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers and twelve fleet destroyers.
They had also lost fifty-three U-boats to end August 1941, almost the total
strength at the start of the war. The Italians had lost one battleship, three
heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, twenty-four fleet destroyers and twenty
escort destroyers. Italian submarine losses were also very heavy in this
period, at thirty-eight against a total build of eighty-five between 1930 and
1942.
Even more important, by diverting building resources away
from fleet units from late 1939 onward to meet the requirements of the Battle
of the Atlantic with the U-boats, and judicious management of merchant ship
resources, Britain substantially compensated, through a mix of new build, requisition
and capture, for the 9.1 million tons of merchant shipping lost during the twenty-eight
months to the end of 1941. Indeed, British-controlled shipping, comprising
vessels over 1600 gross registered tons, actually rose from 17,784,000 tons at
the outbreak of war in September 1939 to 20,693,000 tons at 31 December 1941.
This even included a net gain in the crucial category of oil tankers of some
1.2 million tons. The Royal Navy commissioned about two hundred Atlantic escort
vessels, primarily Flower-class corvettes, in addition to the destroyer escorts
referred to above, across the two years 1940 and 1941, with about a third of
these built in Canada. This provided a critical margin over U-boat build in
this period. Britain may not have been winning the Battle of the Atlantic at
the end of 1941, but it was in no immediate danger of losing. This was a far
better outcome than anticipated by the chiefs of staff in the Future Strategy
paper of September 1940 and their Strategic Survey prepared for the ABC-1 staff
talks three months later. It demonstrated that Britain had got its immediate
naval priorities right. The IJN would fail to do so. Finally, it is important
to note that the Royal Navy would see a steady improvement in its overall
destroyer situation in 1942. It would commission thirty-four fleet destroyers
that year, more than double the numbers in 1941, and thirty-eight escort
destroyers. Twenty-five fleet destroyers and eight destroyer escorts would be
lost, but this still left a significant net gain in strength.
This resource picture explains why, as the Admiralty reviewed options for Far East reinforcement immediately following ABC-1, the only readily available force was Force H. This could be redeployed in emergency from Gibraltar, with the added prospect of the four ‘R’-class battleships, if and when the Americans released them from Atlantic convoy escort. Five months later, by end August, the outlook was better. Admiralty planners could anticipate a small increase in capital ship availability by the end of the year as three King George V class came available, and three Illustrious-class carriers arrived from new build and repair. So long as there were no further losses, this would allow a defensive force of modern units to be established in the Indian Ocean by spring 1942, even without full US Navy ‘Atlantic substitution’ and relief of Force H. This resource situation underpinned the dispositions which the First Sea Lord presented to the prime minister in their correspondence in the last week of August.
The result of neglect and ignorance!
