The goal was to emulate the nations the Japanese perceived as the most powerful nations. The Navy emulated the reigning sea power, England, while the Army modeled itself on the Imperial German Army. When the two European powers went to war in 1914, Japan joined the Allies but expected Germany to win. The Army was surprised by Germany’s defeat, but the nation was happy to occupy Germany’s Chinese and Pacific possessions.

The Treaty of Versailles and the later Treaties of Washington (1920) and London (1930) limited the Japanese. The Navy was upset with the officers who negotiated the treaty, including Isoroku Yamamoto. The officers countered with the charge that a war with the west would be suicidal, because of the superior industrial output of the west.

Yamamoto was a vocal advocate for peace, and was targeted for assassination by the right wing extremists. Admiral Osami Nagano, the Supreme Commander, transferred him to take command of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which saved his life.

What the radicals did not understand was that their was a complete lack of coordination between the army and the navy. Naval officers were sent to Washington and London, and Army officers were sent to Moscow. The two branches of the Armed Forces perceived very different opponents. The naval officers, who toured the United States and attended American colleges (Yamamoto studied at Harvard) saw firsthand the immense industrial output, which even though it was idled by the depression, was still capable of greater output than the Japanese economy.

But by 1943, the Japanese would be losing their trained officer core while the Americans were gaining bitter and bloody experience in night fighting. The new F4UCorsair and F6F Hellcat, combined with USAAFP-51 and P-47 fighters, were better than the JapaneseA6M Zero, which was in service until the end of the war.

Bu the biggest problem with Japan’s navy during the war was the lack of training. The number of hours that the naval pilots had in 1941 would never be achieved again during the war. While American pilots had several hundred hours in the air, Japanese pilots were limited by lack of fuel to some 50 hours before combat. The Japanese never had a sustained pilot training program to turn out large numbers of pilots.

In August 1945, the last remaining ships of the once proud Imperial Japanese Navy, without their Imperial insignia, were scuttled or transferred to the Allies. The last Japanese battleship afloat, the IJN Nagato, was sunk off Bikini Atoll in 1946 as part of the atomic weapons tests.

The other ships, including the entire fleet that attacked Pearl, was on the bottom of the Pacific. Only a few destroyers and submarines were left. Rusting hulks dotted the shores of Kure and many other ports once held by the Nihon Kaigun.