Japan

The Battle of Okinawa — 65 Years Ago today, May 15, 1945

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May 15, 1945

On Okinawa, slow American advances and costly Japanese counterattacks continue. Heavy fighting is reported around the Sugar Loaf Hill and Conical Hill positions.

Marines on Sugar Loaf Hill, elements of US 3rd Amphibious Corps, withdraw because of Japanese fire.

The US 1st Marine Division advances along the Wana river valley, west of Shuri, against heavy Japanese resistance.

The US 305th infantry regiment and 77th Divisions, of US 24th Corps, achieve limited progress and have been reduced to 25 percent effectiveness in the fighting.

See Okinawa Map XXXV: Tenth Army Advances, 11-21 May 1945

Map XXXV: Tenth Army Advances, 11-21 May 1945

Campaign Background — Kamikaze!

According Appleman’s OKINAWA:THE LAST BATTLE:

Between 6 April and 22 June there were ten organized (aerial) Kamikaze attacks, employing a total of 1,465 planes as shown below:

Date of Attack…..Total…Navy Planes…..Army Planes
6-7 April……………355…….230…………….125
12-13 April………..185…….125………………60
15-15 April………..165…….120………………45
27-28 April………..115……..65……………….50
3-4 May……………125……..75……………….50
10-11 May………..150……..70……………….80
24-25 May………..165……..65……………..100
27-28 May………..110……..60……………….50
3-7 June…………….50……..20……………….30
21-22 June…………42……..30……………….15

TOTAL
………………………1465………860………………605

In addition, sporadic small-scale suicide attacks were directed against the American fleet by both Army and Navy planes, bringing the total number of suicide sorties during the campaign to 1,900.

The Battle of Okinawa — 65 years ago today

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Okinawa 65 Years ago today —

May 14, 1945

On Okinawa, 20 American Marines reach the summit of Sugar Loaf Hill. This is the first of several assaults that reach and be pushed off Sugar Loaf before it is finally captured.

The airfield at Yonabaru is captured.

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This is the belated beginning of an occasional 65th anniversary commemorative series on the of the Battle of Okinawa.

Background to this point:

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Holiday Book Ideas — Four That Are Good to Go

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I’m late, late, incredibly late on four books that authors gave me to review. That doesn’t mean that I can’t give credit where credit’s due … in plenty of time for the book-buying frenzy before the holidays. With luck, I’ll finish off the full reviews in December but since *I’m* buying copies of these books for friends and family, maybe one or more of them might fit someone on your list. All recommended for the categories of people headlined.

Economists, Physicists, History of Science buffs

Newton and the Counterfeiter describes Isaac Newton’s multi-year battle with one of London’s most successful counterfeiters. No surprise who wins in the end, but it is surprising how well Levenson provides background on the protagonists … without overwhelming the reader. Recommended for students or professionals with an interest in the history of money, finance, or just a fascination with what the great Newton did after he polished off the Principia. The counterfeiter’s “colourful” life precludes giving this book to a pre-teen but all others will find it, like the earlier-reviewed The Ghost Map, a fascinating snapshot of life in London.

Japanophiles, Asian culture fans, World History Buffs

I’m years late on this one but Through the Looking Glass is highly recommended for anyone wondering how Japan ended up with such a different culture … and why their adoption of Western technology at a breakneck pace in the late 19th century was so successful. Thought-provoking and such a good summary of Japanese culture that I’ve struggled for over 50 hours to epitomize in writing what the author has written in hopes of getting a full book review out the door. I’ve failed, but I’ve also bought more than a half-dozen copies of this book for friends on two continents with an interest in Asian culture.

Entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 cube jockeys, Economics students, Anglosphere buffs

Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson picks up where his Long Tail finished. The halving of computation, bandwidth, and data storage costs each year has made a new generation of businesses financially feasible. The freemium service (like Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) where basic services are free and a small set of customers pay for additional features, has become so common that it is now unremarkable. Anderson looks at the history of the word, the different definitions of free in the context of culture and business, and the gap in the academic literature in understanding the new generation of businesses that leverage “free” in profound ways. My book review will, like my earlier review of Long Tail, look at why the Anglosphere has been the source of so much “free” over the last couple of centuries and why it leads the way in both charitable and profitable businesses that leverage the idea. A “must have” for anyone thinking of starting a business. People under 30 will think “d’uh” but Anderson still offers a lot of context and some very good background on the history of “free” in business in the 20th century for younger readers. And a fun, even revolutionary, read. I’m buying copies for nieces and friends with an interest in media.

Ambitious NCOs, Military Officers, World History buffs, Prognosticators of the American future

Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present is a grand summary of the culture of the steppes, from the time of the domestication of the horse and the appearance of lactose-tolerant humans (see 10,000 Year Explosion), to the 21st century suppression of the Chechens, Tibetans, and Uighurs. A fascinating source book on the ebb and flow of culture across the “ocean of grass” and the firm focus these cultures had on trading with the great empires on their periphery. Trade with us … or die. Most of these cultures, and the direct influence they had on world history, has been largely unknown except to a handful of scholars. In Empires, the author brings all this background information together in one place, draws on the most modern scholarship in linguistics, history, and archaeology, and provides a ground-breaking introduction to the general public. The striking parallels with the European nations that built empires based on liquid oceans becomes clear only by the end of the book … as is the tentative nature of Russia and China’s hold on the vast interior steppe (triggered by the introduction of firearms, and only solidified in the final massacres of the Junghars by Qing China in the mid-18th century). Anyone with an interest in Russia, the Middle East, or China will learn a great deal about the role of the Central Asian Culture complex on these areas in the last 4,000 years. Nowadays, military folk posted to the ‘Stans or places like Mongolia will find this book invaluable … firstly as a brisk introduction to the cultural roots of the place, and secondly as a reference book to read and re-read in future years to grasp “the big picture.” If you have friends or family that are ambitious for learning about the continent (let alone the region), start them off at the beginning. Anyone senior to Captain should buy this book simply to have it ready when needed. Because it will be needed. You can’t understand the Chinese and Russians without understanding the “enemy” they faced for centuries and the echoes that continue in their territorial obsessions. Highly, highly recommended. My full review will comment on the author’s more personal assessments but his account of Central Asian history is a entirely straight-forward, well referenced, and real service to the English-speaking public. I’ve bought copies, again, for friends in Europe and North America.

“Turning Japanese”

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Christopher Wood puts the issue well in a WSJ op-ed piece:

With the U.S. government stepping in to keep markets from clearing, today’s U.S. economy in many ways resembles the post-bubble Japanese economy of the 1990s. Ultra-loose monetary policy and low demand for credit, combined with high unemployment and consumer deleveraging, could lead to a prolonged slump.
 
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All of the above behavior invites legitimate comparisons with post-bubble Japan, where banks took years to be cleaned up as a result of regulatory forbearance. The same kind of forbearance is preventing America’s increasingly distressed commercial real-estate market from clearing. Similarly, as was the case with Japan, monetary-base growth has exploded in the U.S. over the past year courtesy of the Fed, while bank lending is declining. This is why there is every reason to fear that America is already in a Japanese-style liquidity trap.
 
[…]
 
This is why Wall Street should make the most of the rally in U.S. stocks while it lasts. The next bubble in asset markets will not be in the West but in emerging Asia, led by China. The irony is that the more anaemic the Western recovery proves to be, the longer it will take for Western interest rates to normalize and the bigger the resulting asset bubble in Asia. Emerging Asia, not the U.S. consumer, will be the prime beneficiary of the Fed’s easy money policy.

Japan is still in the economic doldrums. Despite recent electoral turnover, its leaders shows few signs of having the understanding or guts needed to encourage the liquidation of bad assets and freeing of mummified capital. Instead of needed tax cuts and structural reforms to improve business incentives, the government will bail out JAL. This is business as usual and predicts that the economic slowdown that first took hold in Japan in the early 1990s will continue. The USA isn’t Japan but our leaders are doing their best to copy Japan’s failed Keynesian fiscal regime. The outcome is likely to be similar.

The money manager Marc Faber had it exactly right when he was interviewed recently on CNBC: As American business de-leverages, government is levering up. If we continue down the path of increased debt, bailouts, and enormous public spending that drains the risk capital out of the productive sectors of the economy, the government bubble will eventually burst, and the resulting economic crisis will dwarf the current one.