Wastebasket of War

‘It’s true that I don’t know any cardinal state secrets, now that I’m serving at sea far from the center of government, but I’m sure it will be necessary to record frankly in my diary about matters of official business that won’t appear on official records, my opinions, my impressions, my speeches and actions, and my private matters, without regard to distinction, as they come into my mind day by day. This will be of some use to someone else in the future, because of my past guilt in bringing events to the state they’re in today, and because of my present post as chief of staff of the Combined Fleet that carries the burden of the welfare of the state. Accordingly, it will be appropriate to give this diary the name “Wastebasket of War” or, rather, “Seaweeds of War”. This is Matamo Ugaki - a Japanese admiral who died 75 years ago today in a kamikaze mission - writing about his reasons for starting a diary just two months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour.

Ugaki was born in 1890 into a farming family in rural area of Okayama, western Japan. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1912, was commissioned as ensign in 1913 and promoted to lieutenant in 1918. After graduating from the Naval Staff College he was promoted to lieutenant commander. He was a staff member of the Naval Gunnery School for three years, and was then appointed as a resident officer in Germany from 1928-1930 with the rank of commander. After promotion to captain, he was employed as an instructor at the Naval Staff College. In 1935, under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, he was assigned as a staff officer to the Combined Fleet for a year before being given his first command: the cruiser Yakumo. The following year, he was given command of battleship Hyūga.

As the Pacific War broke out, Uhgaki became a key figure in the Japanese Navy as the Chief of Staff to Yamamoto. In April 1943, he was flying with Yamamoto in separate bombers but both got shot down. Yamamoto died while Ugaki survived, thereafter, though, blaming himself for Yamamoto’s death. The following year, he commanded the First Battleship Division in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea. Near the end of the war, he was the commanding officer of the 5th Air Fleet, directing the kamikaze special attacks against Allied ships off Okinawa. 

On 15 August 1945, only hours after Emperor Hirohito had formally acknowledged defeat, and against the protest of his lieutenants, he donned a simple uniform without any rank insignia and flew a kamikaze mission. The Americans reported no successful kamikaze attacks that day, and thus it was assumed that Ugaki’s suicide mission ended in the sea. Ugaki was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. Further biographical information on Ugaki can be found at Wikipedia, World War II Database, Military History, Pacific Wrecks, and in Admirals of the World: A Biographical Dictionary, 1500 to the Present (Googlebooks).

1n 1991, the University of Pittsburgh Press published Ugaki’s diary: Fading Victory: The Diary of Ugaki Matome, 1941-1945, as translated by Masataka Chihaya, a former officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The title was re-issued in 2008 by the Naval Institute Press (see Amazon). The publisher says: ‘[The diary is] invaluable for its details of the Japanese navy at war, [. . .] augmented by editorial commentary that proves especially useful to American readers eager to see the war from the other side. When first published . . .  this diary was hailed as a major contribution to World War II literature as the only firsthand account of strategic planning for the entire war by a Japanese commander.’

It is explained in the book that members of Ugaki’s family preserved the diary after the war. The Etajima Museum of Naval History holds 13 of the original 15 volumes (always, apparently, written by Ugaki in a room dedicated to the Kamikaze Special Attack Forces). The volume covering the first three months of 1943 was lost after the war, and permission to use the diary entries for April 1943 to February 1944 (when Ugaki was convalescing after being shot down) was refused by his son Hiromitsu.

As a preface to his diary Matome wrote: ‘It’s true that I don’t know any cardinal state secrets, now that I’m serving at sea far from the center of government, but I’m sure it will be necessary to record frankly in my diary about matters of official business that won’t appear on official records, my opinions, my impressions, my speeches and actions, and my private matters, without regard to distinction, as they come into my mind day by day. This will be of some use to someone else in the future, because of my past guilt in bringing events to the state they’re in today, and because of my present post as chief of staff of the Combined Fleet that carries the burden of the welfare of the state. Accordingly, it will be appropriate to give this diary the name “Wastebasket of War” or, rather, “Seaweeds of War”.

Pacific Wrecks has one review of the diary, and the Kamikaze Images website another. The author of the latter explains that, generally, Matome focuses on the course of the war - with many entries summarising battle details. The website provides the following as a typical example of an uneventful day:

13 May 1944
‘Partly fair. We crossed toward the Shinnan islands and the north of Borneo. At 1830 we entered Balabac Channel. We sailed in a long line of columns. On the first day, two reconnaissance seaplanes cooperated with us in guarding from Singapore. Yesterday we didn’t dispatch any of our own aircraft. Apart from the extent to which it could help us, I was pleased to see they have come to cooperate with us at sea. After passing through the Balabac main channel, we took the northerly course, avoiding shoals. Fleet training wasn’t executed today. The sensitivity of enemy submarines' telephones has become stronger after entering the Sulu Sea.’

However, Matamo does, sometimes, include personal details in his diary, and the author of the Kamikaze Images review provides a summary of this personal content:

‘Although his wife Tomoko passed away in 1940, he remembers her fondly, especially on each anniversary of her death. On April 26, 1944, Ugaki writes (p. 364), “Today is the day on which four years ago the death of Tomoko, my wife, took place. Early in the morning I prayed for her happiness and told her spirit of my determination. It’s my firm belief that I owe her soul a great deal for my being able to do my duty today like this.” Ugaki also writes as a proud father about his son Hiromitsu, who was appointed as a naval medical officer in January 1945. Some diary entries briefly mention Ugaki’s pastimes, mainly hunting and poetry writing. Many poems he wrote in his original diary have not been included in this English translation, but a translated poem about special attack forces poignantly expresses Ugaki’s feelings toward the young men who died in suicide attacks. A few comments mention his personal health, including continuing problems with his teeth that sometimes cause him great pain. Just one week prior to the end of the war, he visits the hospital to get a crown for a tooth.’

Finally, it is worth noting that one of Ugaki’s diary entries - his last - is widely referred to in biographies. Wikipedia, for example, mentions it: ‘Ugaki made a last entry in his diary noting that he had not yet received an official cease-fire order, and that as he alone was to blame for the failure of his valiant aviators to stop the enemy, he would fly one last mission himself to show the true spirit of bushido [Samurai moral values]. HistoryNet has more on the diary and Ugaki’s final kamikaze mission.