Well, it was very interesting for getting perspective from the other side of the war, but it ends abruptly and Hara comes off less well than I think he intends to appear. The skeptical historian in me has to consider in any autobiography the influence of bias, and I can't help but think that we have a capable man who might not have had nearly the clear insights, courage, and admirable opinions he has chosen to remember himself having. He records readily things he remembers saying to others, but

Well, it was very interesting for getting perspective from the other side of the war, but it ends abruptly and Hara comes off less well than I think he intends to appear. The skeptical historian in me has to consider in any autobiography the influence of bias, and I can't help but think that we have a capable man who might not have had nearly the clear insights, courage, and admirable opinions he has chosen to remember himself having. He records readily things he remembers saying to others, but spends very little time recording what anyone told him. He complains continually at never being listened to, but at the same time portrays himself as an obnoxious, abrasive, drunk who never listened to anyone. He is prone of remembering large numbers of premonitions he had of disaster before every disaster, plays himself as Cassandra whose prophesies were rarely heeded, but has almost every single Japanese victory in South Pacific the result of some comment or note of his that someone heeded. He distances himself almost completely from the Kamikaze doctrine, despite heading the school that taught it's naval branch and in the end agreeing to be part of Operation Ten-Go personally. While he admits to some mistakes in moment's of clouded judgment, he's really only admitting to mistakes that are a part of the historical record. His behavior at all points he is the sole record of events is largely exemplar in every respect but his alcoholism - which he personally finds an admirable trait in a leader.



Much is revealed by what he says that he doesn't think to comment on. Hara comes off to me like some sort of knight from a gritty Arthurian tale or a Viking Saga, dressed in 20th century trappings. Samurai, indeed. And it's clear that whatever else, he remains an ardent Nationalist that believes the war was wrong only to the extent that Japan lost it. He ends the book abruptly with what he calls 'The Death of the Japanese Navy', which means that this is not actually the personal story we would most like. He gives us no insight regarding those critical months leading up to and after the Japanese defeat.



Some of the complaints read as darkly humorous counterparts to American frustrations. For instance, the Americans began the war with a wholly substandard torpedo that infamously would refuse to explode. Hara records frustration that thier very excellent torpedoes were so sensitive, they'd frequently explode when encountering a ship's wake, ruining otherwise excellent attacks.



He makes a scathing indictment of Japanese high command generally, which holds up for the most part as it generally isn't very revisionist and generally accords with traditional Western assessment. But his attack on Yamamoto, I don't think holds up well in part because Hara doesn't show much understanding of grand strategy and is not aware at the time of the writing that Yamamoto's disasters are mostly the result but of US code breaking that rendered his elaborate deceptions moot. His most important insight for me is that the Japanese High command was increasingly isolated from the reality of the war because despite having started with war with a better understanding of how WWII naval combat would be fought than any other power, and despite having mastered those ideas initially, they were unprepared for the pace of technical change that the US war would impose on them. Additionally, they continued to believe their own propaganda. But much of his insight just appears to the be griping of any front line soldier against command, because his criticisms are not consistent even from page to page (beyond the fact of his own neglected foresight, recorded in hindsight). He'll complain on one page how the command staff spent too much time collecting forces together before committing to an attack, and then on the next page praise the operation that resulted from the delay for its use of overwhelming force. Then on the next page he'll complain that forces were rushed to battle too quickly and destroyed piecemeal. Even his own dictum drawn from Sun Tzu that one should not do things the same way twice, seems less of an insight because he fails to understand why it is true, and instead believes in it in a way that feels more like superstition than strategic calculation. It's hard to gather any insight into what could have been done differently, beyond that something should have, which is again in hindsight rather obvious.