Let me recommend Ian W. Toll's The War in the Pacific trilogy. Volume I is Pacific Crucible, volume 2 is The Conquering Tide, and volume 3 is Twilight of the Gods., all in paperback. I am in volume 1, and it is very well written, a real page turner.
The chapter on the political situation in Japan is worth the purchase price just to understand how war decisions were made in Japan. The government was essentially taken over by the army by means of assassinations -- oppose the army and prepare to die. The army and navy hated, but needed, each other. The inter-service rivalry severely hampered Japan's decisionmaking.
The only rational military leader in Japan was Admiral Yamomoto. He warned the government that the United States would be a difficult enemy and that Japan could not win a war of attrition against the United States' productive capacity. Yet he planned and executed the attack on Pearl Harbor because war was inevitable and he thought destroying the U. S. fleet offered the only chance that Japan had to win. Unfortunately for him the American carriers were at sea during the attack, and it destroyed what turned out to be the least important part of the American fleet--the battleships. The attack forced the U. S. to convert from a battleship navy to a carrier navy. Ironically, Japan, which brilliantly pioneered carrier warfare through Yamamoto's influence, still clung to the Mahanian battleship concept. After Midway Japan was essentially a battleship navy, and it suffered the long term consequences..
The chapter on the political situation in Japan is worth the purchase price just to understand how war decisions were made in Japan. The government was essentially taken over by the army by means of assassinations -- oppose the army and prepare to die. The army and navy hated, but needed, each other. The inter-service rivalry severely hampered Japan's decisionmaking.
The only rational military leader in Japan was Admiral Yamomoto. He warned the government that the United States would be a difficult enemy and that Japan could not win a war of attrition against the United States' productive capacity. Yet he planned and executed the attack on Pearl Harbor because war was inevitable and he thought destroying the U. S. fleet offered the only chance that Japan had to win. Unfortunately for him the American carriers were at sea during the attack, and it destroyed what turned out to be the least important part of the American fleet--the battleships. The attack forced the U. S. to convert from a battleship navy to a carrier navy. Ironically, Japan, which brilliantly pioneered carrier warfare through Yamamoto's influence, still clung to the Mahanian battleship concept. After Midway Japan was essentially a battleship navy, and it suffered the long term consequences..
