Tameichi Hara

Japanese naval commander (1900–1980)

Tameichi Hara (原 為一) was an Imperial Japanese naval commander during the Pacific War and the author of the IJN manual on torpedo attack techniques, notable for his skill in torpedo warfare and night fighting. Hara was the only IJN destroyer captain at the start of World War II to survive the entire war and his memoirs serve as an important source for historians.

Hara was born on October 16, 1900, in a suburb of Takamatsu City on the island of Shikoku. A native of Kagawa Prefecture and of samurai descent, Hara graduated with the 49th class from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima in 1921. In 1932 Hara was assigned as a surface warfare instructor and wrote a torpedo attack manual that was accepted as official doctrine. He began the war as the captain of destroyer Japanese destroyer Amatsukaze.

Postwar Hara commanded merchant ships which transported salt. Hara was the only IJN destroyer captain at the start of World War II who survived the war. This left him the sole surviving witness to several important meetings and conferences which he recounted in his memoirs. Hara's memoirs, Japanese Destroyer Captain: Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway the Great Naval Battles as Seen Through Japanese Eyes (1961), were translated into English and French and became an important reference for the Japanese perspective for historians writing about the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In his memoir, Hara objects to compulsory suicide as official doctrine, which he saw as a violation of bushido values. His personal doctrines demonstrate why he survived the war and the Japanese lost it they were inflexible, and he was not. His doctrines were "Never ever do the same thing twice" and "If he hits you high, then hit him low; if he hits you low, then hit him high," the latter was also a maxim of Douglas MacArthur's. Hara criticizes his superiors for using cavalry tactics to fight naval battles; never understanding the implications of air power; dividing their forces in the face of enemy forces of unknown strength; basing tactics on what they thought their enemy would do; failing to appreciate the speed with which the enemy could develop new weapons and accepting a war of attrition with a foe more capable of maintaining it. However, he does make some crucial mistakes in this memoir such as claiming that Kirishima sunk USS San Francisco at the Battle of Guadalcanal despite the fact that San Francisco was scrapped the same year his memoir was published.

Hara had three children with his wife Chizu: two daughters Keiko and Yoko, and a son, Mikito, who was born shortly before the start of hostilities.