The Imperial Japanese Navy is not something that I know much about so I hoped I’d come away with a better grasp of matters from reading this book. This book delivers that by focussing on one ship which was not sunk (somehow! we had plenty of chances…) during WW2 then panning out to set our little destroyer, Yukikaze, in the wider context.

What came through very clearly was that the Naval HQ lived in cloud cuckoo land rather than reality which meant they used the wrong tactics, built the wrong ships and ultimately lived (or should that be died?) so that the ancestors would not be dishonoured in defeat. This meant that whilst the Imperial Japanese Army rampaged through SE Asia, the Navy was never going to be able to support them as they wouldn’t be able to hold the vital shipping lanes. The “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” (AKA the Japanese Empire, what a euphemism) was therefore always doomed to failure once it extended south of China.

There were lots of details that I’m sure I missed (lots and lots of ship names and I gave up trying to remember all the classes of ship) but a good read nonetheless and one I’d re-read, probably at a slower pace and in hard copy so I could flick around in it.

I received an advance review copy (ebook) for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I am very pleased to be able to report on my read of Brett L. Walker's "Yukikaze's War: The Unsinkable Japanese Destroyer and World War II in the Pacific", provided to me in the form of an ARC by Cambridge University Press. The Japanese Destroyer which provides the linchpin for this thoroughly entertaining survey of the Imperial Japanese Navy's experience in World War II was one of the very few survivors of the conflict at the time of Japan's surrender, and she was famous for her good luck as she was present for much of the most intensive fighting in the Pacific theater of operations yet seldom received more than relatively minor damage. The key to examining this book, which surprised me, is understanding that the combat record of the ship in the title is not really the point; this book is so much more than this. It is a rather sympathetic but accurate account of the Japanese Navy's development and employment in the context of Japanese history since the Meiji Restoration until the end of World War II. The author's depth of knowledge and ability to draw many different complex cultural and social features of Imperial Japan and its history and show how they played out in the naval campaigns of World War II is an absolute tour de force. I am not easily impressed, but this work should be mandatory reading for anyone seeking to understand the role played by the Japanese Navy in World War II. Battles, technology, personalities, strategy and tactics all seem to blend seamlessly in the author's account. I recommend the book without reservation. It is outstanding!