U=boats vs US subs: an alternative perspective

[RF]

Indeed it is.

[Bgile]

I would like to be able to go to a thread and read something actually about that thread. Would that be too much to ask?

[RF]

Not at all. I was asked a digressionary question which I answered with as much brevity as possible, I have no control over the length and direction of other people's posts.

This is in any case a fairly old thread that has probably run its course.

[Mostlyharmless]

Another factor at the time was that Japan had no tradition or capacity for a general Liberal education of the officer and middle class ( in the sense of developing free ideas and unfettered thinking ) and much of what is perceived now as fanatical/slavish sticking to objectives/orders might better be ascribed to an inability for independent thought and/or a lack of imagination/initiative .

This is more so for the IJA rather than the IJN, the officer corps of the latter was of course trained by the RN back in the days Japan was an ally by treaty with Britain.

Well maybe just a BIT, but I dont think the Naval Missions down the years would have spent much time on Literature , Art , comparative religion , Ethics , Philosophy , etc .
I suppose what I was trying to say was that Japan had no long history of university or religious-academic educational centres to generally develop thinking , per se , in its intelligent population .

One point not mentioned above is that the IJN simply lacked officers in their thirties in 1941. There were plenty in their fourties from the days when an 8-8 fleet was planned and plenty in their twenties trained after rearmament began. However, there was a huge drop in the number trained after Washington. Compare two entries from Nishida's site for Kinashi Takakazu who was born in 1902 and had the distinction of graduating 255th out of 255 http://homepage2.nifty.com/nishidah/e/px51.htm#r007 and Fukumura Toshiaki who was born in 1905 and was 41st out of 68 http://homepage2.nifty.com/nishidah/e/px54.htm#r001. Meanwhile the USA continued to train more than 400 officers each year through the Twenties.