A little background re the BKS (Boeicho Kenshujo Senshishitsu = JDA War History Section) project for any actually interested:
S. E. Morison's history was only ~15 volumes, as I recall. We might more accurately compare BKS/SS with the Army's extensive Green Book series...which was over 70 volumes IIRC.
BKS/SS was written by numerous different authors, Rikugun & Kaigun--it was not a JMSDF project--some of whom were veterans of the campaigns covered. Also Research Dept. personnel & JSDF, but I suspect most of these, too, were vets of the Pacific War. (As an example, the author of Vols. 26 and 54 was a former crewmember of the heavy cruiser CHIKUMA...)
It began (in fits & starts) with the immediate postwar accumulation of Japanese Daitoa Senso records that were not destroyed--134 for Imperial Army, 79 for Imperial Navy--and which eventually formed the basis for the so-called Reports of General MacArthur. I believe this was just scratching the surface...
Work in earnest on what became "Senshi Sosho" did not start until June 1954 (initial preparations), followed by the creation of the War History office in Oct. 1955 which was then incorporated into the Institute of Defense Studies in May 1956. First offices were in Kodaira, then Shibaura, and finally Ichigaya in Tokyo. They had a Ten Year Plan & began serious work in FY 1956.
The next ten years saw work devoted primarily to the collection/retrieval of documents & records, and is a fantastic tale of teamwork and very intense labor. (Too detailed for inclusion here, however.) Many primary source records had been taken by the U.S. and getting those back to Japan also took time. Some aspects of that story & more are in Paul Dull's Battle History of the Imperial Navy (1978).
It is worth knowing that ~240,000 pages of 'original drafts' were then written by the Japanese teams...
In November 1965 the Defense Agency's Under Secretary announced that the history would comprise 91 volumes over the next decade (beginning in 1966).
The actual publication office was not established until April 1966, and the first volume came out in August of that year: "Malaya Invasion Operation" (AKA "Advance into Malaya").
Some additional volumes were later published, bringing the total to 96 by August of 1973, and then 102 by January 1980. As many as 134 different editors/writers were involved over the massive 24-year project.
These volumes are digitized and have been available--at least previously--on the NIDS site for a few years.
Of course U.S. researchers have been able to get original IJN records on microfilm for many years now here, or acquire copies of individual vols of BKS from libraries or from Japan.
Hope this is of interest.
S. E. Morison's history was only ~15 volumes, as I recall. We might more accurately compare BKS/SS with the Army's extensive Green Book series...which was over 70 volumes IIRC.
BKS/SS was written by numerous different authors, Rikugun & Kaigun--it was not a JMSDF project--some of whom were veterans of the campaigns covered. Also Research Dept. personnel & JSDF, but I suspect most of these, too, were vets of the Pacific War. (As an example, the author of Vols. 26 and 54 was a former crewmember of the heavy cruiser CHIKUMA...)
It began (in fits & starts) with the immediate postwar accumulation of Japanese Daitoa Senso records that were not destroyed--134 for Imperial Army, 79 for Imperial Navy--and which eventually formed the basis for the so-called Reports of General MacArthur. I believe this was just scratching the surface...
Work in earnest on what became "Senshi Sosho" did not start until June 1954 (initial preparations), followed by the creation of the War History office in Oct. 1955 which was then incorporated into the Institute of Defense Studies in May 1956. First offices were in Kodaira, then Shibaura, and finally Ichigaya in Tokyo. They had a Ten Year Plan & began serious work in FY 1956.
The next ten years saw work devoted primarily to the collection/retrieval of documents & records, and is a fantastic tale of teamwork and very intense labor. (Too detailed for inclusion here, however.) Many primary source records had been taken by the U.S. and getting those back to Japan also took time. Some aspects of that story & more are in Paul Dull's Battle History of the Imperial Navy (1978).
It is worth knowing that ~240,000 pages of 'original drafts' were then written by the Japanese teams...
In November 1965 the Defense Agency's Under Secretary announced that the history would comprise 91 volumes over the next decade (beginning in 1966).
The actual publication office was not established until April 1966, and the first volume came out in August of that year: "Malaya Invasion Operation" (AKA "Advance into Malaya").
Some additional volumes were later published, bringing the total to 96 by August of 1973, and then 102 by January 1980. As many as 134 different editors/writers were involved over the massive 24-year project.
These volumes are digitized and have been available--at least previously--on the NIDS site for a few years.
Of course U.S. researchers have been able to get original IJN records on microfilm for many years now here, or acquire copies of individual vols of BKS from libraries or from Japan.
Hope this is of interest.
statistics: Posted by CAThirty — 5:21 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 0 — Views 92