Tameichi Hara (1900–1980)

Well this one was different from the other Japanese books I've been reading. An historical biography dealing with some key naval events of WW2

This guy was a destroyer captain of great fame during the war. His stories are so gripping and at the same time so tragic when recounting the losses on either side. Honest in an almost clinical way and never shying away from painful truths.

And although so different from the other Japanese books, once again that whole idea of face and shame coming show more through as the underlying root of much bravery and many foolish mistakes. At times while reading this book I could feel the simple unrelenting force of these 2 abstract ideas being manifest in such tangible terms and with such a horrendous toll in human lives.

The meeting of these naval forces and the clash of the Japanese psyche and the American psyche being very much like old world meets new world, the sedate and the brash, the structured and the fluid, the honourable and expedient.

I was gripped to the very end, and what a candid telling of the end days and the "kamikaze madness' that filled those last tragic days. show less

No student of WWII in the Pacific can afford to bypass this book, as Capt. Hara was there and he includes maps of seven naval battles. This is the best Japanese memoir by a distinguished and wily IJN officer. It is a good evening's read, and I often dip into it to quell some of the odder people on the internet. The PT 109 intelligence account is included, for fans of Lt. John F. Kennedy.

Exactly as the title states. Captain Hara was in The Philippines at the start of the war, made the trip to Midway and completed multiple sorties making up part of the Tokyo Express.

He was then stationed in Japan heading torpedo boat training for a year, before gaining command of a cruiser that was sent on a one-way trip to oblivion with the Yamato in April of 1945.

Written a couple decades later, Hara is unsparing in his criticism of IJN leadership, including Yamamoto.

Happy to have stumbled show more across this one of a kind memoir. show less

Interesting read and great insight into the true vagaries of battle. makes a perfect companion to Neptune's Inferno, the US Navy at Guadalcanal. Fascinating to compare both sides of the battle.