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(More customer reviews)This is a major study of Japanese intelligence in World War II by an academic.
Author narrates Japanese intelligence-gathering methods.Information was gathered from different sources: HUMINT,SIGINT,OSINT.Japanese realised the importance of code-breaking.IJA General Staff invited Jan Kowalewski of Polish Army to help break the cipher system used by Red Army. This was a new information to me.Tokyo exploited SIGINT for establishing foothold in northern Indo China. Japan was locked in a debilitating war in China and wanted desperately cut supply to Chinese forces.SIGINT ,however.failed in ascertaining Allied reaction when Japanese forces penetrated southern Indo China which led to the imposition of trade embargo and halting of oil exports to Japan.
Author says Japanese use of tactical intelligence prelude to Pacific War was good but fails to provide to details.Intelligence branch of IJN had a spy ring which operated from Japanese consulate in Honololu.Thanks to the spy ring IJN knew that northern sector of Pearl Harbor was devoid of air patrols. As plans for attack on Pearl Harbor mounted,IJN stepped up radio intelligence coverage of American military presence in Hawaii. Kwajelin DF station eaves dropped on the communication of Pacific Fleet and the US Army Air Corps in Hawaii. It established the rhythm and pattern of US air patrols which revealed that flights were exclusively to west and south of island and north where Japanese air fleet was to approach remained uncovered.Spy ring further reported water of Pearl lacked depth, an information which helped Japanese navy to modify torpedoes making it skim across shallow waters of Pearl.
At nine o clock in the morning of November 1, 1941 Japanese liner Taiyo Maru docked at pier 8 in Honololu harbor.Aboard the ship disguised as stewards were officers who served in the intelligence branch of IJN. The ship was on a secret mission. The men were told to check wind and atmospheric pressure while crossing especially how ships behaved in the stormy seas of north Pacific.During the voyage officers stood on the bridge scanning the horizon with binoculars.This was to find out whether there was any possibility of Japanese fleet being sighted by American Alaskan/ Midway-based air patrols. Japanese did not encounter any other ship while crossing. Information proved valuable as it helped IJN to plot the course of Adm Nagumo's fleet to Pearl Harbor.
Prelude to the Japanese invasion of Singapore and Malayan peninsula espionage organisation called Unit 82( which worked for the Japanese War Ministry) conducted a through reconnaissance of the area. Unit collected data about topography, road network,ports,military installations,airfields. It found British had about 200 obsolete aircraft.Quality of British Commonwealth forces needs lot to be desired.Defences were found to be deplorably inadequate.Unit gathered stunning intelligence on ground defences of Singapore.It was found fortress was solid and strong from the sea but rear facing the Johore area was weak.Not even Mr.Churchill perceived this vulnerability.
Author has tendency to put things euphemistically.Instead of saying ethnocentrism it would have better to say racism ,a quality which made Anglo Americans to fatally underestimate the Japanese. Another lacuna of the book, the author could have added a glossary section. The text abounds in acronyms, abbreviations. Glossary section of the book would have helped the reader to get quick grip of the jargons used. Due to its absence reader has to keep on flipping pages for reference.
Author is of the opinion that structural flaws hindered the smooth functioning of Japanese intelligence.Like the German Kriegsmarine, IJN thought its ciphers could not be hacked.Even after Adm Yamamoto's tragic death ,it failed to improve its cipher security. What I found appalling was lack of inter service co-operation in Japanese armed forces. IJN 's crptanalytical ability was definitely superior to IJN.It hacked M-138 ciphers used by State Department for routing its confidential messages and knew IJN's ciphers were vulnerable. But refused to share this information.Better inter service co operation would have helped Navy to plug holes in its cipher security prelude MI operation.
Final word has not been written on war time operations of Japanese intelligence.There are many things which we still don't know.Immediately after the war secret documents related to SIGINT were burned.Fearing punishment Japanese officers have remained mute about their war time activities. So details given in the book are fragmentary at best which author has managed to tease out from availaible records. Nevertheless, author has resurrected a study which has languished for so long.
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In the eyes of history, Japanese intelligence in World War II has fared very poorly. However, these historians have most often concentrated on the later years of the war, when Japan was fighting a multi-front war against numerous opponents. In this groundbreaking new study, Japanese scholar Ken Kotani re-examines the Japanese Intelligence department, beginning with the early phase of the war. He points out that without the intelligence gathered by the Japanese Army and Navy they would have been unable to achieve their long string of victories against the forces of Russia, China, and Great Britain. Notable in these early campaigns were the successful strikes against both Singapore and Pearl Harbor. Yet as these victories expanded the sphere of Japanese control, they also made it harder for the intelligence services to gather accurate information about their growing list of adversaries. At the battle of Midway in 1942, Japanese intelligence suffered its worst mishap when the Americans broke their code and tricked the Japanese into revealing the target of their attack. It was a mistake from which they would never recover. As the military might of Japan was forced to retreat and her forces deteriorated, so too did her intelligence services.
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