In the Service of the Emperor

'Here in one coherent package is a series of articles that captures the assessment of a senior scholar of Japanese military history...Many of Drea's pieces cut to the heart of the Japanese military phenomenon of the twentieth century' - Carl Boyd, author of "Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and Magic Intelligence, 1941-1945". 'The experience and remarkable historical and linguistic knowledge that Drea brings to this book are unsurpassable...Every one of these essays contains material that contributes importantly to the advancement of general - not merely specialist - knowledge' - Roger J. Spiller, George C. Marshall Professor of Military History, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.Japan's war in Asia and the Pacific from 1937 to 1945 remains a subject of great interest, yet the wartime Japanese army remains little understood outside Japan. Most published accounts rely on English-language works written in the 1950s and 1960s. The Japanese-language sources have remained relatively inaccessible to western scholars in part due to the difficulty of the language, a difficulty the author, who reads Japanese fluently, surmounts.
In a series of searching examinations of the structure, ethos, and goals of the Japanese military establishment, Edward J. Drea offers new material on its tactics, operations, doctrine, and leadership.Based on original military documents, official histories, court diaries, and Emperor Hirohito's own words, these twelve essays introduce western readers to fifty years of Japanese scholarship about the war and Japan's military institutions. In addition, Drea uses recently declassified Allied intelligence documents related to Japan to challenge existing views and conventional wisdom about the war. Edward J. Drea works in the Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is the author of "MacArthur's ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War against Japan, 1942-1945".