Tameichi Hara (1900–1980)

Exactly as the title states. Captain Hara was in The Philippines at the start of the war, made the trip to Midway and completed multiple sorties making up part of the Tokyo Express.

He was then stationed in Japan heading torpedo boat training for a year, before gaining command of a cruiser that was sent on a one-way trip to oblivion with the Yamato in April of 1945.

Written a couple decades later, Hara is unsparing in his criticism of IJN leadership, including Yamamoto.

Happy to have stumbled across this one of a kind memoir.… (more)

classic war memoir that was a best seller in both Japan and the United States during the 1960s. Originally published as a paperback in 1961, it has long been treasured by World War II buffs and professional historians for its insights into the Japanese side of the surface war in the Pacific. The book has been credited with correcting errors in U.S. accounts of various battles and with revealing details of high-level Imperial Japanese Navy strategy meetings. The author, Captain Tameichi Hara, was a survivor of more than one hundred sorties against the Allies and was known throughout Japan as the Unsinkable Captain.… (more)