"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

Well yes but the army retained the upper hand, its not as if they
were doing nothing. There was this little war going on in China
If you read Yamamoto's biography its clear that the navy OPPOSED
war with the western powers.

Where in the world did you get this information? The Japanese army
longed to attack Russia. The Japanese navy longed to attack into the
"southern treasure chest", incidentally liberating Asia from British,
Dutch, and American imperialism.


From the biography of Admiral Yamamoto which was written
by Hiroyuki Agawa published by Kodansha International

War with the western powers (American, British, Dutch) was precisely
the navy's grand strategy, and the one that prevailed in the summer of
1941. The army had a busy six months, scrambling to get ready for a
war it had never planned for.


The decision to go to war with America was taken by the
Japanese cabinet after the fall of the government led by Prince Konoye
The Konoye government had been following a policy of
attempting to negotiate a solution with the USA, the navy
minister in this government was Admiral Yamamoto who
had advised that war with the USA should be avoided at
all costs.


The Japanese leader who took over in Oct 1941 was of course
General Hideki Tojo who was a hard liner and it was under
his leadership and that of the army that the decison for war
was taken

Its a matter of record that Yamamoto was against this policy and the he
was sent to sea to avoid assassination by the pro-war faction.

This was of course the reason that the
Japanese army air force went to war with fewer than 100
retractable-gear Ki-43 Hayabusa fighters, the army's equivalent of the
navy Zero.


The Ki-43 'Oscar' was an entirely different aircraft from the zero of
course and its only real opposition in the initial attacks were
the Brewster Buffaloes of the RAF in Singapore. On the one
occasion it encountered the handful of Hurricanes available
they came off very much second best.

Keith