Tameichi Hara - Military Career

Military Career

On 13 November 1942, Hara’s destroyer, Amatsukaze sank the USS Barton (DD-599) during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Hara, as commander of the Amatsukaze, also participated in the Battle of the Java Sea, the sinking of the submarine USS Perch (SS-176) and the occupation of Christmas Island. While serving with the Shigure, Hara was involved in several of the naval engagements during the latter part of the Solomon Islands Campaign. He commanded a Japanese destroyer in all major Pacific sea conflicts: Empress Augusta Bay, Coral Sea, the invasion of the Philippines, Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Midway. While on a re-supply mission through Blackett Straight in August 1943, upon noticing a fire-ball explosion near the destroyer Amagiri in front of his destroyer Shigure, he ordered his ship's crew to shoot at Lt. John F. Kennedy's Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109, sinking it.

Hara's last sortie was as captain of the Yahagi, the light cruiser which accompanied Yamato's fateful last mission as part of Operation Ten-Go, which he survived. He ended the war at Kawatana training Japanese sailors to operate Shinyo suicide boats. He later commanded merchant ships which transported salt. His memoirs were later translated into English and became an important reference for the Japanese perspective for historians writing about the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In his memoir, Hara objects to compulsory suicide as official doctrine, because he sees this as a violation of bushido values. He turned pacifist before the Bomb. Hara was the only IJN destroyer captain at the start of World War II who survived it. His personal doctrines demonstrate why he survived and the Japanese lost the war--they were inflexible, and he was not. His doctrines were "Never ever do the same thing twice" and "If he hits you high, then hit him low; if he hits you low, then hit him high," the latter a maxim of MacArthur's. Hara criticizes his superiors for using cavalry tactics to fight naval battles; never understanding the implications of air power; dividing their forces in the face of enemy forces of unknown strength; basing tactics on what they thought their enemy would do; failing to appreciate the speed with which the enemy could develop new weapons and accepting a war of attrition with a foe more capable of maintaining it.