Abstract
How did the Japanese and American soldiers lead their men in combat? Drawing on the individual experiences of combat during the Guadalcanal campaign, characteristics of combat leadership exercised by the non-commissioned officers and junior officers of the Japanese Army and the American Army and Marine Corps are examined. The combat leadership styles of the American and Japanese soldiers are compared to see if there are any cultural differences or similarities. In particular, combat leadership principles espoused by the battle-seasoned soldiers on both sides are illustrated according to testimonies of the individual soldiers whom the author interviewed more than 20 years ago. Oral histories of primary and secondary sources are also used for describing combat leadership experiences. In conclusion, I argue that the hard-learned combat leadership principles in extreme situations like those on Guadalcanal are almost identical among the Japanese and American tactical leaders, although there are slight cultural differences.
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- 1.
Interview by author, March 10, 1993. Muehrcke enlisted in Illinois National Guard (132nd Infantry Regiment) in 1938. As a non-commissioned officer, he fought on Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the South Pacific, and after he was commissioned as 2nd Lt., he joined the 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, to fight in Okinawa.
- 2.
Kolditz defines in extremis leadership as “giving purpose, motivation, and direction to people when there is imminent physical danger and where followers believe that leader behavior will influence their physical well-being or survival” (Kolditz 2007, p. xvi).
- 3.
Since the major expected the enemy of the Imperial Japanese Army to be the Soviet Union’s Red Army, and the South Pacific was not expected to be an area of operation, few army staff officers knew about Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands (Tobe et al. 1991).
- 4.
Gen. Kawaguchi was relieved from the commanding position in the middle of the third offensive operation in October 1942, due to his insubordination to an officer.
- 5.
According to the Order of Battle, as of May 18, 1942, the 17th Army included the 35th Infantry Brigade (core unit: 124th Infantry Regiment), the Nankai Detachment (core unit: 144th Infantry Regiment), the Aoba Detachment (core unit: 4th Infantry Regiment), the 41st Infantry Regiment, and other artillery and combat support units (National Institute for Defense Studies 1969). As of November 20, 1942, the 17th Army consists of the 2nd Division (4th, 16th, and 29th Infantry Regiments), the 35th Brigade (124th Infantry Regiment, Ichiki Detachment), the 38th Division (228th, 229th, and 230th Infantry Regiments), and other units (Frank 1990, pp. 631–634). The September 12–14 attack was waged by the 35th Infantry Brigade commanded by Maj. Gen. Kawaguchi, and the October 24–26 attack was conducted by the 2nd Infantry Division led by Lt. Gen. Maruyama.
- 6.
Although the October attack Sgt. Pillarick faced was the second major attack by the Japanese Army, it was on Guadalcanal when for the first time, the American forces experienced the massive bayonet attack in the night by the Japanese infantry soldiers. Despite their eventual victory, the Americans learned what they would have to face: “a determined and skilled foe who would fight to the death rather than surrender” (Smith and Meehl 2004, p. 21).
- 7.
Interview by author, June 29, 1993. Pillarick volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1942, and was transferred to the 164th Infantry Regiment before being deployed overseas. As a Non-Commissioned Officer, he fought on Guadalcanal, Bougainville and Leyte before taking part in the occupation of Japan in 1945.
- 8.
The percentage shown in the parenthesis means comments made by those who replied to the question: “Generally, from your combat experience, what was most important to you in making you want to keep going and do as well as you could?” The survey was conducted with the U.S. infantry combat veterans, 568 in total, in the European theater in 1944. ‘Solidarity with group’ includes such comments as “cannot let the other fellows or the outfit down; sticking together; buddies depending on me; my friends around me” (Stouffer et al. 1949, pp. 108–109).
- 9.
The percentage shown in the parenthesis means comments made by those who replied to the question: “When the going is tough for your men, what do you think are the incentives which keep them fighting?” The survey respondents are 1116 company grade officers in the European and Pacific theaters in 1944. ‘Solidarity with group’ include “pride in outfit and esprit de corps; loyalty to comrades; opinions of other men; seeing others doing their job” (Stouffer et al. 1949, pp. 108–110).
- 10.
Interview by author, June 24, 1993. Hizman became a commissioned officer after the Pacific War, and stayed in the U.S. Army for 40 years, retiring as Lt. Col. He volunteered for the Illinois National Guard at age 15 in 1936.
- 11.
Interview by author, June 29, 1993. “[H]e was bayoneted and completely tied by his thumbs and his legs with rope or bamboo or whatever to a tree. And, we heard him scream all night and everybody couldn’t stand his screaming, because he kept going ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!’ And he finally died, with weakening voice and we didn’t hear him by morning, but we did find him completely dismembered, cut all up and so forth. Even his groin was cut off. It was a horrible sight, horrible. To this day, I could never understand why”.
- 12.
According to the same statistics, 2% of the officers, and 5% of the enlisted men identified ‘idealistic reasons’ as their combat incentive (Stouffer et al. 1949, pp. 108–110).
- 13.
As a member of a farmer’s family in Ohita, Kyushu, the southern island of Japan, he just wanted to complete his military service as a conscript in the army and to come back home early because his mother was waiting for his return (Kawano 2011, p. 343).
- 14.
Interview by author, July 18, 1993. Harada was captured by the Americans in mid-March 1943, more than one month after the Japanese force withdrew from Guadalcanal. He was suffering from malaria, and stayed at a field hospital when the evacuation operation was completed on February 7, 1943. The patients at the hospital were left alone. When he was barely surviving with another sick soldier in a small cottage, the American soldiers found them, and despite his attempts to hit his captor with a wooden hammer, he was knocked out, and taken to a POW camp. It was when he was surrounded by five or six American soldiers pointing their rifles at him and about to pull the triggers that he unintendedly shouted “Long Live the Emperor (Tenno Heika Banzai)!” The rifles were not loaded, and the American soldiers had a grin on their faces.
- 15.
Interview by author, July 26, 1993. On Guadalcanal, he was Corporal.
- 16.
Interview by author, July 28, 1993.
- 17.
Interview by author, June 28, 1993. Gen. Stannard regards these as his own personal principles of leadership and emphasized that they were never taught by someone else.
- 18.
Interview by author, April 23, 1993.
- 19.
Lyle Sheetz, a platoon sergeant of the 2nd Marine Corps Division, also made a similar comment: “You never want to ask somebody to do something that you can’t do yourself.” Interview by author, November 15, 1993.
- 20.
Interview by author, June 24, 1993.
- 21.
According to Fred Hitzman of the 132nd Regiment, however, the Japanese snipers intentionally fired at a man in the middle of a column so that the patrol could be split. It happened when he was leading the patrol on Guadalcanal. He was the only survivor of the men in the front half, and he ordered the men in the rear half to withdraw. As a result, he was left alone behind the Japanese lines for seven days. In order to spot well-camouflaged Japanese soldiers and machinegun bankers in the woods, every time he went out on patrol he would take a man with color vision deficiency with him. Few people knew it, but learning from his own combat experiences, he knew it was an effective way to find the enemy position that could normally not be seen by ordinary soldiers. Interview by author, June 24, 1993.
- 22.
Interview by author, September, 25, 1993. Manning was a platoon leader on Guadalcanal. He was later promoted to captain during the Pacific War.
- 23.
“[I]f they work with you, you’re gonna work with them and see that they can get liberty or whatever they want, or need clothes or need shoes or anything, while you work with ’em and get ’em.” Interview by author, November 15, 1993.
- 24.
Interview by author, July 29, 1993. Nakashima later went on to attend the Imperial Japanese Military Academy, and became a battalion commander of the 155th Regiment.
- 25.
According to an official history of the U.S. Army, “while the Marine battalion continued to hold back the Japanese, the soldiers entered the lines by detachments between 0230 and 0330, 25 October” (Miller 1989, p. 161).
- 26.
Capt. Katsumata successfully crossed over the barbed wire, despite heavy machinegun fire, and ordered his men to assemble at his position inside the enemy defense perimeter. Only four men were able to follow him. Realizing that the attack was not successful, he decided to get out of the enemy perimeter to reassemble his men to prepare for another chance of attack. At dawn, he crossed the barbed wire in order to return to the original position of the attack, and ordered his men to come to his position. A few men who survived the attack, including men of other companies, followed his order (Katsumata 1996, pp. 74–75).
- 27.
Interview by author, July 27, 1993. “At that time, I had no hatred against the American soldiers. As a soldier, we fight against enemies as ordered. They were just enemies. There was no personal animosity against them. We humans are so scary beings. We tried to kill the people whom we did not hate at all. […] It was just to kill or be killed. Nothing else”.
- 28.
Gentaro Ohtomo, Sergeant of Ichiki Detachment, also experienced ‘anxiety gathering’ when they were in combat on Guadalcanal. His men initially spread over 50 m wide but as fighting went on, the men got closer to him because they felt safer near the trusted squad leader. Interview by author, July 16, 1993. At the time of the interview, Ohtomo was the president of the Ichiki Detachment Veterans Association in Asahikawa, Hokkaido.
- 29.
Interview by author, July 26, 1993.
- 30.
Interview by author, July 26, 1993.
- 31.
Interview by author, March 10, 1993.
- 32.
Interview by author, June 28, 1993.
- 33.
Interview by author, July 16, 1993.
- 34.
Interview by author, July 27, 1993.
- 35.
Interview by author, June 28, 1993. However, he also adds that he was not going to say that he has never known fear in combat. His point is that he always kept it under control.
- 36.
Interview by author, July 29, 1993.
- 37.
Interview by author, September 25, 1993. Lt. Manning was later promoted to captain during the Pacific War.
- 38.
Interview by author, September 25, 1993.
- 39.
Kolditz points out that “leaders must avoid the temptation of encouraging followers to engage in destructive impression management or other forms of faking, panic, or paralysis when things are going wrong” (Kolditz 2007, p. 131). However, referring to an episode in the Vietnam War, he mentions a sergeant major who stood up against incoming fire, “being calm, fearless, and grinning,” which exactly shows how the act of impression management inspired other men in combat.
- 40.
The United States Army’s Officer Candidate School (OCS), located at Fort Benning, Georgia, trained potential commissioned officers for 12 weeks. The term “90-day wonder” refers to the short-length of the infantry officer training course, often used with a negative connotation.
- 41.
Interview by author, January 30, 1993. Sgt. Fenelon’s personal principle of leadership was to carry out an order while taking care of his men, protecting them, trying not to show fear so that he would not lose face. “You didn’t want to lose face and let your men down,” says Fenelon, adding “you had to show leadership and try not to show fear”.
- 42.
Interview by author, June 24, 1993. “But, sometimes that can do a lot of harm in a situation, where the man that does it by the book says it has to be done this way and so on. The guy who works his way up won’t say that, ever,” adds Hitzman.
- 43.
Interview by author, November 15, 1993.
- 44.
Interview by author, July 27, 1993.
- 45.
Interview by author, July 19, 1993.
- 46.
Interview by author, July 26, 1993.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
The answers by the NCO’s were similar to the privates. Those who were less confident in NCO’s: ‘none’, 14%, ‘few’, 62%; those who were more confident in NCO’s: ‘none’ 6%, and ‘few’ 25% (Stouffer et al. 1949, p. 128).
- 50.
Interview by author, June 24, 1993.
- 51.
Interview by author, September 24, 1994.
- 52.
Interview by author, September 24, 1993. Being a reserve officer, he did not want to stay in the army, so he retired as major in 1946. Walker holds a grudge against the West Pointers, asserting that 50% of the West Pointers were “alcoholics”.
- 53.
Interview by author, July 26, 1993.
- 54.
Interview by author, July 29, 1993. Nakashima was a reserve officer, and did not want to stay on in the army as a professional soldier. However, having been in combat in the China and Pacific theaters, he made up his mind to be an active duty officer. After the Guadalcanal campaign, he took an examination to enter the military academy and passed the exam. Graduating from the military academy, he was assigned to be a battalion commander of a regiment in northeastern Japan.
- 55.
Interview by author, June 28, 1993.
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Kawano, H. (2017). Combat Leadership on Guadalcanal: In Extremis Leadership of the Japanese and American Soldiers in World War II. In: Holenweger, M., Jager, M., Kernic, F. (eds) Leadership in Extreme Situations. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55059-6_18
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