Japan Must Fight Britain

Abstract

After the Anglo-Japanese Alliance came to an end in 1923, and especially in the 1930s, relations between Britain and Japan gradually worsened. This had been predicted privately by Lt.-Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton in Britain but publicly by Hector Bywater and publicly in Japan by Ishimaru Tōta, whose books were translated into English. Although the War Office made no linguistic preparations for war, GC&CS (the Government Code & Cypher School) had begun working on Japanese naval codes in the 1920s and for this purpose hired former members of the British consular service in Japan, who had a good knowledge of Japanese, along with Eric Nave, a brilliant Australian linguist and cryptographer working for the Royal Australian Navy. The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 created a need for linguists to work as censors, and this brought the famous translator Arthur Waley and a retired naval captain with a good knowledge of Japanese, Oswald Tuck, back to work.