From the US Navy comes Japanese Naval Ground Forces "Know Your Enemy!".....As the war draws closer to the main islands of JAPAN, enemy units are forced into new functions of home defense. Naval ground units, which played an important part in JAPAN's early victories, may assume an equally important role in the final attempt to deny beaches and approaches to troops invading the Empire. An earlier survey of this subject ("Weekly Intelligence," Vol. I, No. 12) pointed out that in the period immediately following the MARIANAS campaigns the overseas use of Naval ground units by the enemy was decreasing. The offensive power of these troops, blunted in the GILBERTS and MARSHALLS, had been largely ended during the NEW GUINEA and MARIANAS campaigns. Many units had been destroyed. Disbandment and absorption of others apparently indicated that JAPAN intended to confine Naval troops outside the Empire to purely defensive garrison and service functions. The PHILIPPINES campaign may result in the isolation of most of the remaining garrisons. In the Empire, however, the functions of Naval ground units remain important. The Navy bears the formal responsibility for the defense of harbors, Naval stations and the approaches to the Inland Sea. It seems likely, moreover, that reactivated and increased Naval ground troop units will cooperate with the Army in defensive fighting in almost any threatened locality. The home reservoir for Naval ground replacements is large. Despite recent heavy ship losses there has apparently been no curtailment in JAPAN's Naval training programs. The number of personnel awaiting assignment in receiving barracks, training schools and other shore stations must therefore be rapidly increasing. It is logical to assume that much of this surplus Naval personnel will be used to organize and enlarge to combat strength such badly-needed organizations as [anti-aircraft] AA Defense Units, Guard Units and Special Naval Landing Forces [SNLF] (now assigned primarily defensive functions). In any case, unattached Naval personnel awaiting assignment are at least given temporary combatant organization and duties as a part of the enemy's defensive preparations. Large numbers of permanent personnel attached to the Empire's many Naval Stations will also presumably be given an emergency defense role. Considerable new information on Naval ground units has appeared in official captured documents. This and other information is summarized in the three basic charts enclosed herewith, which are believed to present a more accurate view of the organization and disposition of Jap naval ground units than has hitherto been available.Reader please be advised that some of the charts and or maps may appear blurry and hard to read. (They are old)

In this exploration of U.S. naval operations and intelligence-gathering efforts, Douglas Ford introduces a new perspective on the clash between the United States and Japan in the Pacific. At the outset of the war, the U.S. Navy could not accurately determine the fighting efficiency of Japan's Imperial Navy and land-based fighting forces. As the capabilities designed to improve intelligence gathering evolved, technology, ingenuity, and sheer luck often combined to produce useful, but incomplete, information.

Featuring evocative artwork plates and carefully selected photographs, this book assesses the US Marines and Japanese troops who contested the islands of Tarawa, Roi-Namur, and Eniwetok during 1943–44. On November 20, 1943, amphibious vehicles carrying Marines of the 2d Marine Division reached the shores of Betio Island in the Tarawa Atoll, defended by a determined Japanese garrison that would fight to the last man. This began a test by combat of over two decades of US studies, analyses, and planning for capturing and defending naval bases in Micronesia. The Tarawa assault was followed in February 1944 by the rapid capture of the Kwajalein and Eniwetok atolls in the Marshall Islands. In these battles US Marines fought a mix of Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army ground units. All but a handful of the defenders, whether they were organized ground combat troops or infantry improvised from aviators and service troops, were determined to die for the Emperor while killing as many of the enemy as possible. In this study, Gregg Adams shows how the US Marine Corps and US Navy drew upon these pivotal actions to improve their tactics, organization, and equipment for the next round of amphibious operations. He also explains how their Japanese opponents – realizing that isolated island garrisons were doomed to destruction or isolation if the Imperial Japanese Navy could not defeat the US Navy at sea – moved from seeking to repel an invasion to one inflicting maximum American casualties through prolonged defensive fighting.

 During the first 10 months of the war in the Pacific, Japan achieved air supremacy with its carrier and land-based forces. But after major setbacks at Midway and Guadalcanal, the empire's expansion stalled, in part due to flaws in aircraft design, strategy and command. This book offers a fresh analysis of the air war in the Pacific during the early phases of World War II. Details are included from two expeditions conducted by the author that reveal the location of an American pilot missing in the Philippines since 1942 and clear up a controversial account involving famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai and U.S. Navy pilot James "Pug" Southerland.

This book is an archaeological study of the cultures of conflict through an examination of caves and tunnels used during the Pacific War. Referred to here as “karst defenses,” WWII caves and tunnels can be found throughout the karst landscapes of the Pacific. Karst defenses have been hidden, literally by the jungle and figuratively by history, for over 70 years. Based on a study of karst defenses and their related artifacts and oral histories in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, this book uses karst defenses to investigate the varied human experiences before, during and after the Pacific War. Historically, the book reveals new knowledge about the overall defense strategies used in the Pacific. Karst defenses were a central component of Pacific War defense and were constructed and used by civilians, the Japanese military and U.S. troops as early as 1942. Karst defenses also functioned as command posts, hospitals, shelters, storage units and combat positions. The book sheds light on the social aspects that influenced the construction and use of karst defenses, including the fragmented relationship between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Japanese Army, the social status of civilians under Japanese rule and the clandestine plans of the U.S. in Micronesia. The book also discusses the complex contemporary meanings of this dark, shared heritage.