The Imperial Japanese Navy has been a personal subject of considerable interest for over a decade. Part of the reason is a personal desire to understand the nature of the Second World War in the Pacific, its causes and lessons to be gleaned from the incredible violence of those years. I have learned that much of the history I've been subjected to, is heavily slanted against Japan. That is not a surprise. What has been revealing is how Japan both became victim and aggressor at the same time. It is a complex subject, heavily nuanced by a culture I don't understand and a continuing, powerful, insistent mythology about the Pacific War that serves a persistent American mythology and flawed national memory.
Accompanying my historical curiosity is a deep appreciation for the facts of the rapid evolution of the Imperial Navy of Japan. As you may well know, Japan was a closed society that jealously guarded its privacy for centuries, allowing only some Portuguese trade access, and then on an extremely limited basis. In 1854 Commodore Perry forced entry into Japan, under threat of US naval bombardment. Fortunately, or not, Japan acquiesced and embraced the world's ways, adopting many things western from dress to classical music. In just 50 years Japan went from a Shogun society of War Lords to defeating the Russian Navy in a massive naval battle in 1905. That is an astonishing accomplishment worthy of appreciation. This is the bow of the flagship of that battle, the Makasa, now a museum. Note the Chrysanthemum seal of the Emperor on the bow. All IJN ships had it.
The Chrysanthemum, symbol of the Chrysanthemum Throne, is still seen on a Japanese passport today.
I have either built, or am working on, many ships from the Empire of Japan. My goal is to build a major ship from each class of ship in the IJN. I began with my first build, the heavy cruiser IJN Tone, 12 years ago. The Tone was present in most major sea battles of WW2. It was built as an escort cruiser for the fleet, with several arial reconnaissance airplanes that served to protect the fleet's flanks, and seek out the enemy. If you are familiar with the Battle of Midway, you may recall that the Japanese were late discovering the US aircraft carriers, because of one search plane having mechanical problems. That fateful plane was from the Tone, and rendered the IJN blind to the American presence in force, for several critical minutes. The model sits on a shelf in my Canadian workshop, in front of the IJN battleship Hurana.
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Unfortunately I do not have good quality pictures of this ship with me on Crete. The 1/350 model kit,78024, is produced by Tamiya. It is a fun build, with superb detail and easy to fit pieces. This next picture is not mine, but Tamiya's.
The deck of many IJN Ships featured linoleum, the brown, and in order to highlight the detail, the plastic model detail required a raised bar across the ship's beam, that looks like a tripping obstacle. Linoleum was not only used by Japan, but Japan used it generously because wood was harder to acquire. As anyone familiar with it knows, it burns hot and toxic. Navies have since replaced it. In the PE accessory sets, these are highlighted differently and flush to the surface. The float plane deck and catapults feature splendid detail. Again, this is not my image, but Tamiya's.
Of note is the arrangement of the forward heavy cruiser guns, two aimed directly at the bridge. It seemed odd to me to spend days on the bridge looking down the barrel of a heavy artillery piece.
This was a satisfying build and I may go back to it and add rails, or even get a new kit and acquire a set of Flyhawk Photo Etch, my favourite go to Photo Etch supplier.
The Empire of Japan has a curious history of amazing, rapid development, accompanied by seemingly foreseeable blunders, inexplicable incongruities, peppered with stunning successes, all culminating in the disaster that began with war in China, and evolved into the Pacific World War Two. The Japanese developed an odd naval procurement plan called the 8-8 plan. The plan called for 8 battleships and 8 battlecruisers, augmented by cruisers and destroyers. There is no known good rationale for this plan. It is well known, but not well explained in the record of the leaders of the day. The plan wavered between a 6-6 and even a 4-4 plan. It seems it fluctuated with the tide of politics and the huge cost of major ship building. When I worked with the Canadian Army, we called it the PUDOOMA plan, meaning 'pulled directly out of mid-air'. Whatever the thinking, it became muddled between political interference, the jealousy between the army and navy that openly competed and disagreed with one another, and the influence of the international treaty agreements of the 20's. Combined, these facts and more, resulted in a powerful navy, but one that lacked an internal coherence or clear purpose. The Japanese also seemed to have lacked understanding of what would be required to sustain control over a vast sea empire, failed to foresee the end of the age of battleships even though Yamamoto predicted it, and the failure to see that submarines woulds deny them free access to the seaways. For an island nation, dependent on resource procurement, these factors meant the war could not be won by Japan. Submarines couldn't defeat Japan, but they could, and did, deny them victories and freedom of movement. The war in the Pacific was lost before it began, as Yamamoto tried to warn the army generals. War with the United States was folly. No one listened. Still Yamamoto gave it a good go and did destroy the US battle fleet. The victory was temporary, as history shows.
Further, the Japanese had a self opinion that denied them the ability to see they could lose. Curiously, they thought themselves the superior human beings, yet failed to see the contradiction in adopting the technologies of the west in order to rise to be a competitive nation. Another prime example occurred in the prelude to the Battle of Midway. During the war games used to plan Midway, one young officer used the exact scenario used by Nimitz. The war games resulted in the IJN being defeated. This outcome was declared unacceptable, and dismissed. What irony.
The battlecruiser, turned battleship, IJN Hurana, was my second build. This 1/350 kit was produced by Fujimi and features even finer detail than Tamiya's, IJN Tone. The detail on this kit is typical of Fujimi kits, and this is reflected in the cost. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a stab at rails and rigging, but I chickened out. Still the build was satisfying and it did win a second place in a major Canadian model show.
Note the plane detail in picture eight. These were hard to build and I lost two in the process.
I painted the ammo boxes a green to highlight them. It seemed a good idea at the time. Again, note the detail of the numerous pieces.
The Hurana is an early pagoda ship. These high towering structures easily identify IJN capital ships. At the time of design, the idea was that the high lookout vantage point would allow easier detection of ships over the horizon, as the guns could fire projectiles further than the horizon.
At the time of the beginning of the war with America, the IJN was the third largest navy in the world and the leaders of Imperial Japan thought they were invincible. However, the nature of technology was on the brink of great changes and sadly, tragically, and even pathetically, the of the miscalculations, assumptions and pride of the Japanese Army, killed millions.
What's the difference between a battleship and a battlecruiser? Major war ships of the era had three elements that had to be balanced, each offering pros and cons. These are armour, armaments and speed. In general a battleship had heavy armour, large armament and therefore heavier, was slower. Conversely, battlecruisers sacrificed heavy armour for speed. The Hurana began as a battlecruiser, then was upgraded with new propulsion to give it greater speed, enabling it to keep up with fast carriers, and became a battleship. So, conclusion, the terms are interchangeable and the names mean little.
All the IJN models offer great builds.
