Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender in World War II. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force was formed between 1952 and 1954 after the dissolution of the IJN.
The IJN was the third largest navy in the world by 1920, behind the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. It was supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service for reconnaissance and airstrike operations from the fleet. It was the primary opponent of the Western Allies in the Pacific War. The IJN additionally fielded limited land-based forces, including professional marines, marine paratrooper units, anti-aircraft defense units, installation and port security units, naval police units, and ad-hoc formations of sailors pressed into service as naval infantry.
The origins of the IJN date back to early interactions with nations on the Asian continent, beginning in the early feudal period and reaching a peak of activity during the 16th and 17th centuries at a time of cultural exchange with European powers during the Age of Discovery. After two centuries of stagnation during the country's ensuing seclusion policy under the shōgun of the Edo period, Japan's navy was comparatively antiquated when the country was forced open to trade by American intervention in 1854. This eventually led to the Meiji Restoration. Accompanying the re-ascendance of the Emperor came a period of frantic modernization and industrialization. The IJN saw several successes in combat during the early twentieth century, sometimes against much more powerful enemies, such as in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, before being largely destroyed in World War II.
Origins
Japan has a long history of colonial naval interaction with the Asian continent, involving transportation of troops between Korea and Japan, starting at least with the beginning of the Kofun period in the 3rd century.Following the attempts at Mongol invasions of Japan by Kubilai Khan in 1274 and 1281, Japanese wakō became very active in plundering the coast of China. In response to threats of Chinese invasion of Japan, in 1405 the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu capitulated to Chinese demands and sent twenty captured Japanese pirates to China, where they were boiled in a cauldron in Ningbo.
Japan undertook major naval building efforts in the 16th century, during the Warring States period when feudal rulers vying for supremacy built vast coastal navies of several hundred ships. Around that time Japan may have developed one of the first ironclad warships when Oda Nobunaga, a daimyō, had six iron-covered Oatakebune made in 1576. In 1588 Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a ban on Wakō piracy; the pirates then became vassals of Hideyoshi, and comprised the naval force used in the Japanese invasion of Korea.
Japan built her first large ocean-going warships in the beginning of the 17th century, following contacts with the Western nations during the Nanban trade period. In 1613, the daimyō of Sendai, in agreement with the Tokugawa Bakufu, built Date Maru, a 500-ton galleon-type ship that transported the Japanese embassy of Hasekura Tsunenaga to the United States of America, which then continued to Europe. From 1604 the Bakufu also commissioned about 350 Red seal ships, usually armed and incorporating some Western technologies, mainly for Southeast Asian trade.
Western studies and the end of seclusion
For more than 200 years, beginning in the 1640s, the Japanese policy of seclusion forbade contacts with the outside world and prohibited the construction of ocean-going ships on pain of death. Contacts were maintained, however, with the Dutch through the port of Nagasaki, the Chinese also through Nagasaki and the Ryukyus and Korea through intermediaries with Tsushima. The study of Western sciences, called "rangaku", through the Dutch enclave of Dejima in Nagasaki led to the transfer of knowledge related to the Western technological and Scientific Revolution which allowed Japan to remain aware of naval sciences, such as cartography, optics and mechanical sciences. Seclusion, however, led to the loss of any naval and maritime traditions the nation possessed.Apart from Dutch trade ships, no other Western vessels were allowed to enter Japanese ports. A notable exception was during the Napoleonic Wars when neutral ships flew the Dutch flag. Frictions with the foreign ships, however, started from the beginning of the 19th century. The Nagasaki Harbour Incident involving in 1808, and other subsequent incidents in the following decades, led the shogunate to enact an Edict to Repel Foreign Vessels. Western ships, which were increasing their presence around Japan due to whaling and the trade with China, began to challenge the seclusion policy.
The Morrison incident in 1837 and news of China's defeat during the Opium War led the shogunate to repeal the 1825 law to repel the foreign ships, and instead to adopt the 1842 Edict for the Provision of Firewood and Water that recognized the need to provide basic provisions for the visiting foreign ships. The shogunate also began to strengthen the nation's coastal defenses. Many Japanese realized that traditional ways would not be sufficient to repel further intrusions, and western knowledge was utilized through the Dutch at Dejima to reinforce Japan's capability to repel the foreigners; field guns, mortars, and firearms were obtained, and coastal defenses reinforced. Numerous attempts to open Japan ended in failure, in part to Japanese resistance, until the early 1850s.
As a part of the effort to strengthen coastal defense, western-style sailship Sōshun Maru, a small twin-mast military vessel with 22 oars, two mortar and six Japanese made Carronade-like smoothbore guns, length of 16.7m and beam of 3.9m, was built in 1849. Sōshun Maru was lost in a fire in 1850, but the design was mostly copied by nine more vessels for the protection of Edo Bay by 1853, mostly under Uraga regional office of the government manned by samurais from Aizu Han.
During 1853 and 1854, American warships under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry, entered Edo Bay and made demonstrations of force requesting trade negotiations. After two hundred years of seclusion, the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa led to the opening of Japan to international trade and interaction. This was soon followed by the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce and treaties with other powers.
Development of shogunal and domain naval forces
As soon as Japan opened up to foreign influences, the Tokugawa shogunate recognized the vulnerability of the country from the sea and initiated an active policy of assimilation and adoption of Western naval technologies. In 1855, with Dutch assistance, the shogunate acquired its first steam warship,, and began using it for training, establishing a Naval Training Center at Nagasaki.Samurai such as the future Admiral Enomoto Takeaki was sent by the shogunate to study in the Netherlands for several years. On 8 May 1857, another Naval Training Center was completed in Edo, and the school relocated to this new facility in Tsukiji. In 1857 the shogunate acquired its first screw-driven steam warship and used it as an escort for the 1860 Japanese delegation to the United States. In 1865 the French naval engineer Léonce Verny was hired to build Japan's first modern naval arsenals, at Yokosuka and Nagasaki.
The shogunate also allowed and then ordered various domains to purchase warships and to develop naval fleets, Satsuma, especially, had petitioned the shogunate to build modern naval vessels. A naval center had been set up by the Satsuma domain in Kagoshima, students were sent abroad for training and a number of ships were acquired. The domains of Chōshū, Hizen, Tosa and Kaga joined Satsuma in acquiring ships. These naval elements proved insufficient during the Royal Navy's Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863 and the Allied bombardments of Shimonoseki in 1863–64.
By the mid-1860s the shogunate had a fleet of eight warships and thirty-six auxiliaries. Satsuma had nine steamships, Choshu had five ships plus numerous auxiliary craft, Kaga had ten ships and Chikuzen eight. Numerous smaller domains also had acquired a number of ships. However, these fleets resembled maritime organizations rather than actual navies with ships functioning as transports as well as combat vessels; they were also manned by personnel who lacked experienced seamanship except for coastal sailing and who had virtually no combat training.
Creation of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1868–1872)
The Meiji Restoration in 1868 led to the overthrow of the shogunate. From 1868, the newly formed Meiji government continued with reforms to centralize and modernize Japan.Boshin War
Although the Meiji reformers had overthrown the Tokugawa shogunate, tensions between the former ruler and the restoration leaders led to the Boshin War. The early part of the conflict largely involved land battles, with naval forces playing a minimal role transporting troops from western to eastern Japan. Only the Battle of Awa was significant; this also proved one of the few Tokugawa successes in the war. Tokugawa Yoshinobu eventually surrendered after the fall of Edo in July 1868, and as a result most of Japan accepted the emperor's rule, however resistance continued in the North.On 26 March 1868 the first naval review in Japan took place in Osaka Bay, with six ships from the private domain navies of Saga, Chōshū, Satsuma, Kurume, Kumamoto and Hiroshima participating. The total tonnage of these ships was 2,252 tons, which was far smaller than the tonnage of the single foreign vessel that also participated. The following year, in July 1869, the Imperial Japanese Navy was formally established, two months after the last combat of the Boshin War.
Enomoto Takeaki, the admiral of the shōguns navy, refused to surrender all his ships, remitting just four vessels, and escaped to northern Honshū with the remnants of the shōguns navy: eight steam warships and 2,000 men. Following the defeat of pro-shogunate resistance on Honshū, Admiral Enomoto Takeaki fled to Hokkaidō, where he established the breakaway Republic of Ezo. The new Meiji government dispatched a military force to defeat the rebels, culminating with the Naval Battle of Hakodate in May 1869. The Imperial side took delivery of the French-built ironclad Kotetsu and used it decisively towards the end of the conflict.