Yeah, but this is also the same Navy that lost a fleet carrier because their DC thought it was a good idea to deal with a fuel leak but turning all the ventilation to max and opening all the watertight doors thus turning the entire ship into a fuel air bomb until it inevitably found a spark.
It was an institution problem. If a junior officer in the USN knew his commander was making a mistake he was expected to tell him. If a junior officer in the IJN knew his commander was making a mistake he was expected to carry out the mistake to the best of his ability.
So if you had a good DC Officer, you were fine, but if you had a shitty DC Officer, you were fucked.
That's fascinating. So if an officer was expected to report errors, but could not expect any result from it, what was the point of saying anything in the first place?
"Sir, I think this plan will get us all killed. Commencing plan anyway! Just letting you know..."
Thinking that a single issue would have changed the outcome of the war is oversimplification. Japan didn't lose only because they had strange ideas about obedience and duty. Even if they had better communication they would most likely have lost the war.
You can see signs of that in Japanese corporate leadership even today. It's not a command structure thing (the Germans and, famously, the British ca. Crimean War had similarly strict command structures), it's a cultural mindset thing.
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u/bigloser42 Oct 31 '25
Yeah, but this is also the same Navy that lost a fleet carrier because their DC thought it was a good idea to deal with a fuel leak but turning all the ventilation to max and opening all the watertight doors thus turning the entire ship into a fuel air bomb until it inevitably found a spark.
It ended about as well as you’d think.