CHUICHI NAGUMO

was a senior admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.

Contents

Biography

Early life

World War II

Final days

Promotions

References

Books

External Links

Notes

Biography

Early life

Nagumo was born in Yonezawa city, Yamagata prefecture in northern Japan in 1887. He graduated from the 36th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1908, with a ranking of 8 out of a class of 191 cadets. As a midshipman, he served on the cruisers ''Soya'', ''Nisshin'' and ''Niitaka''. After his promotion to ensign in 1910, he was assigned to cruiser ''Asama''.
After attending torpedo school and naval artillery school, he was promoted to sub-lieutenant and served on the destroyer ''Aki'', followed by ''Hatsuyuki''. In 1914, he was promoted to lieutenant and was assigned to the battleship ''Kirishima'', followed by the destroyer ''Sugi''. He was assigned his first command on 15 December 1917: the destroyer ''Kisaragi''.
Nagumo graduated from the Naval War College, and was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1920. His specialty was torpedo and destroyer tactics. From 1920-1921, he was captain of the destroyer ''Momi'', but was soon pulled to shore duty with various assignments by the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff. He became a commander in 1924. From 1925 -1926, Nagumo accompanied a Japanese mission to study naval warfare strategy, tactics and equipment in Europe and the United States.
After his return to Japan, Nagumo served as an instructor at the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy from 1927-1929. Nagumo was promoted to the rank of captain in November 1929 and assumed command of the light cruiser ''Naka'' and from 1930-1931 was commander of the 11th Destroyer Division. After serving in administrative positions from 1931-1933, he assumed command of the heavy cruiser ''Takao'' from 1933-1934, and the battleship ''Yamashiro'' from 1934-1935. He was promoted to rear admiral on 1 November 1935.
As a Rear Admiral, Nagumo commanded the 8th Cruiser Division to support Imperial Japanese Army movements in China from the Yellow Sea. As an leading officer of the militaristic Fleet Faction, he also received a boost in his career from political forces.
From 1937-1938, he was Commandant of the Torpedo School, and from 1938-1939, he was commander of the 3rd Cruiser Division. Nagumo was promoted to vice admiral on 15 November 1939. From November 1940 to April 1941, Nagumo was Commandant of the Naval War College.

World War II

On 10 April 1941, Nagumo was appointed Commander in Chief of the IJN 1st Air Fleet, the Imperial Japanese Navy's main Carrier battle group, largely due to his seniority. Many contemporaries and historians have doubted his suitability for this command, given his lack of familiarity with naval aviation.
By this time, he had visibly aged, physically and mentally. Physically, he suffered from arthritis, perhaps from his younger days as an athletic ''kendo'' fencer. Mentally, he had become a cautious officer who spent every ounce of his effort going over tactical plans of every operation he was involved in. ^[3].
Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara had some doubts with his appointment, and commented, "Nagumo was an officer of the old school, a specialist of torpedo and surface maneuvers.... He did not have any idea of the capability and potential of naval aviation." At home, Nagumo did not receive a loving description, either. One of his two sons described him as a brooding father who was obsessed (and later disappointed) with pressuring his sons to follow his foot steps into the navy. Contrastingly, Nagumo's junior officers in the navy viewed him as precisely the father figure that his sons did not.^[4]
However, while commanding the 1st Air Fleet, Nagumo oversaw the effective attack on Pearl Harbor. (Although later “arm chair critics” have criticized his failure to launch the third wave of attack against Pearl Harbor, which might have destroyed the repair stations which would have rendered the most important American naval base in the Pacific useless).
Nagumo was surrounded by able lieutenants such as Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida. He also fought well in the early 1942 campaigns. He was the fleet commander during the Bombing of Darwin and his Indian Ocean raid on the British Eastern Fleet was a success, sinking an aircraft carrier, two cruisers and two destroyers, and causing Admiral Sir James Somerville to retreat to East Africa.
At the end of his trip into the Indian Ocean, Nagumo's personal score card saw five battleships, one carrier, two cruisers, seven destroyers, dozens of merchantmen, transports, and various other vessels. He was also responsible for downing hundreds of Allied aircraft from six nations. Destruction brought upon Allied ports also disabled or slowed Allied operations. All the while, he had lost no more than a few dozen pilots. ^[4]
However, at the Battle of Midway, Nagumo's near-perfect record finally came to an end. His Carrier Striking Task Force lost four carriers in what proved to be the turning point of the Pacific War.
Afterwards, Naguma was re-assigned as Commander in Chief of the IJN 3rd Fleet and commmanded aircraft carriers in the Guadalcanal campaign, but his actions there were largely indecisive, and in hindsight he slowly frittered away much of Japan's maritime strength. In particular, the massive aircrew losses at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands would prove decisive to the performance of the Japanese navy in later engagements.

Final days

On 11 November 1942, Nagumo was re-assigned back to Japan, where he was given command of the Sasebo Naval District. He transferred to the Kure Naval District on 21 June 1943. From October 1943 to February 1944, Nagumo was again Commander in Chief of the IJN 1st Fleet, which was largely involved in training duties by that time.
However, as the war situation continued to deteriorate against Japan, Nagumo was once against given a combat command. He was sent to the Mariana Islands on 4 March 1944 as commander in chief of the short-lived IJN 14th Air Fleet, and simultaneously commander in chief of the equally short-lived Central Pacific Area Fleet.
On June 15, 1944, days after the failed Battle of the Philippine Sea by Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa cost Japan 500 aircraft, Nagumo and his Army peer General Yoshitsugu Saito attempted to defend the island of Saipan against the American assault. On 6 July, during the last stages of the Battle of Saipan, Nagumo committed suicide; not in the traditional method of seppuku, but rather a pistol to the temple. His remains were later found by American Marines in the cave where he spent his last days as the commander of the Saipan defenders. ^[6] He was posthumously promoted to admiral.

Promotions

★ Midshipman - 21 November 1908

★ Ensign - 15 January 1910

★ Sublieutenant - 1 December 1911

★ Lieutenant - 1 December 1914

★ Lieutenant Commander - 1 December 1920

★ Commander - 1 December 1924

★ Captain - 30 November 1929

★ Rear Admiral - 15 November 1935

★ Vice Admiral - 15 November 1939

★ Admiral - 8 July 1944 (Posthumous) ^[1]

References

Books

★ Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II, , Andrieu, D'Albas, Devin-Adair Pub, 1965, ISBN 0-8159-5302-X

★ A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945, , Paul S., Dull, Naval Institute Press, 1978, ISBN 0-87021-097-1

★ Hold the Marianas: The Japanese Defense of the Mariana Islands, , D. Colt, Denfeld, White Mane Pub, 1997, ISBN 1-57249-014-4

★ D-day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan, , Harold J., Goldberg, Indiana University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-253-34869-2

★ Oba, The Last Samurai, , Don, Jones, Presidio Press, 1986, ISBN 0-89141-245-X

★ New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944-August 1944, ''vol. 8 of ''History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, , Samuel Eliot, Morison, University of Illinois Press, 2001 (reissue), ISBN 0-252-07038-0

External Links

★ Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, IJN, (1886-1944)

★ Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor

★ http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=11

★ Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan (Marines in World War II Commemorative Series)

★ Materials of IJN: Nagumo, Chuichi

Notes

1. Nishida, Imperial Japanese Navy
2. http://navalhistory.flixco.info/H/106056/8330/a0.htm
3. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-ja3.htm
4. http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=11
5. http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=11
6. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-C-Saipan/index.html Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan
7. Nishida, Imperial Japanese Navy