During WW II, Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki was the only known member
of the Japanese Navy's high command to keep a diary. The
ever-prolific Hoyt (Hirohito, 1992, etc.) now draws on this
unusually candid journal (begun in October 1941) to offer an
absorbing appreciation of how the fate of a single honorable
officer, swept up in a terrible conflict over which he had little
control, mirrored that of his service and country. As chief of
staff to Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Ugaki helped plan the
sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, an enterprise neither man supported
wholeheartedly. Loyal to a fault, he rejoiced, albeit
apprehensively, in Japan's early victories throughout East Asia.
Then came setbacks at Midway, Guadalcanal, and elsewhere, which
Ugaki knew could not easily be made up for. When US interceptors
ambushed and killed Yamamoto, Ugaki was traveling in a second plane
that also was shot down - but the warrior survived, recuperated,
and eventually returned to sea. His flagship was shot out from
under him, however, during the battle of Leyte Gulf. Back in Japan
by the fall of 1944, Ugaki was chosen to direct naval efforts to
provide the home islands with air defense. "Special attack" units -
a euphemism for squadrons sent on suicide missions - were integral
to this program. But while the kamikazes took a significant toll on
American vessels, there was no stopping the Allies. When the end
came after the two atom bombings, Ugaki defied his beloved emperor
(who had instructed the Japanese military to lay clown its arms) to
keep faith with the hundreds of young men he had sent to their
deaths. Shortly after the surrender broadcast, Ugaki flew from
Kyushu toward Okinawa, where US night fighters on routine patrol
shot him out of the sky before he could damage Allied ships. An
insider's intriguing perspectives on an ill-starred belligerency,
plus savvy commentary and continuity from a veteran military
historian. (Kirkus Reviews)
This is the story of a man and a Navy--Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki
and the Imperial Japanese Navy. By 1945 the Imperial Navy was
physically destroyed and Admiral Ugaki was given the task of
defending the Japanese homeland against attack, and he sent
hundreds of kamikazes against the American naval forces operating
around Okinawa. After Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender
on August 15, Ugaki stripped off his insignia of rank, climbed into
a torpedo bomber, and flew to Okinawa, where he intended to crash
into an American ship. But like so many of the other kamikazes, his
mission was fruitless, his plane was shot down by American
nightfighters. But Admiral Ugaki died, as he has promised to do, in
the fashion of the thousands of young men he had sent to their
deaths. Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki was the only high official of the
Imperial Japanese Navy to have left a significant record, in the
form of a diary started during the preparations for the China
Incident, and kept throughout the war--from the planning phase of
1940, through the Pearl Harbor attack, and up until Japan's
surrender. Hoyt draws on the diary and numerous other accounts by
admirals and historians to create a picture of a Japanese Navy that
began in a position of strength but was eventually destroyed by
powerful Allied forces, shattering Japan's drive for conquest.
General
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