PHG Blog

Greetings PHG fans! Today, 4 April is the 142nd anniversary of the birth of Takano Isoroku, who, as commander of the Imperial Japan's Combined Fleet under the name Yamamoto Isoroku, oversaw the Navy's entry into the wider Pacific War. The last known photograph of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, on Rabaul 18 April 1943 Yamamoto is one of the more famous Japanese figures of the Second World War and probably the most recognizable among Imperial Japan's many Admirals. Perhaps best know

Hello PHG fans, today we're headed back to Japan, and on a special occasion as well. It happens that this week we marked 158 years since the first Japanese fleet review took place near Mount Tempo in Osaka . The Meiji Emperor, in whose name the Meiji Restoration took place and Boshin War was fought, was on hand to witness six Japanese ships and one french vessel sail together on 26 March 1868. This was the first of 18 fleet reviews, the last of which was in 1940 in Yokohama.

On this day in 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean roughly 80 miles east of Miyagi, Japan. The earthquake, the strongest in recorded Japanese history, set off a series of tsunamis that killed 18,000 throughout the northeast coast of the country. Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures had all but a hundred or so of the casualties. The tsunami that struck Fukushima knocked the power out in the Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which led to a partial meltdow

Enomoto Takeaki 榎本 武揚 is one of the founding fathers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and a pivotal figure in the history of Japan. Enomoto was born in Edo, near what is now Taito-ku, Tokyo, in 1836. Among the many in Japan motivated by the arrival of Perry's Black Ships in 1854, he began learning Dutch, and studied at the Tokugawa Shogunate's Naval Training Center in Nagasaki as well as the Tsukiji Warship Training Center in Edo. At the age of 26 he was sent to the Netherland

On this day, December 7th 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy and its Air Service attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Using dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters launched from six aircraft carriers, the Japanese damaged or destroyed all eight American battleships in the harbor. 2,403 people were killed, the majority of whom were Sailors, and most of them were in the USS Arizona. We talk a lot about Pearl Harbor, and most Americans know at least a littl

Greetings PHG fans! One of the things I enjoyed about living in Japan was the abundance of local culture. From the shrines and religious festivals to monuments to legends and folktales, Japan has no small amount of important cultural sites alongside their historical ones. One of the more famous Japanese legends is that of Momotaro, the Peach Boy . The last thing I'd want to do here on PHG is oversimplify a complex topic, but it feels like the right time to discuss it as a sta

As many of you know, getting folks connected with local and regional history is the primary focus of Pacific History Guide. This effort is effectively a list of locations in the form of clickable links that point toward official websites, and another part is the official PHG Google Maps . The links have been added to the site in no particular order, and while some of you may have found a pattern to the way they've been added, it may not make sense to everybody. To solve this

Hello PHG fans, we're back today with another Japan post. I recently watched a YouTube video from the fantastic NaruMasa Travel youtube channel . One of the many reasons I watch their travel videos (aside from the beautfiul photography) is that they typically look for historic sites that are easily accessible but not necessarily well-known. In a recent video , they explore Tsumago-Juko, the 42nd of 69 stops on the Nakasendo Road. This town, and neighboring Magome-Juko, have b

Aichi Prefecture 愛知県 in the Chubu Region of Japan is home to a wide variety of things to see and do. From iconic Mt. Fuji to snowy Nagano and the rice fields of Niigata, there's incredible food, outdoor activities, and charming villages to see and visit. The cornerstone of this prefecture is Nagoya, the fourth-largest city in Japan by population and one of the more diverse of Japan's many urban sprawls. I've been to Nagoya a few times; it's one of my favorite large cities fo

This week we mark the anniversary of the very first seaborne airstrikes in history, which took place near Tsingtao, China, during the...

On the 15th August 1945, the people of Japan dutifully turned to their radios. It had been announced the day before via all NHK stations...

The second and last use of atomic weapons in combat took place on this day, August 9 1945. A B-29 named 'Bockscar' took off from Tinian...

Hiratsuka suffered greatly as a result of all this. On July 16, 1945, 138 B-29's dropped 1,173 tons of incendiary bombs (447,716 in total). Only 5% of the bombs targeted the naval arsenal or aircraft plant, the rest were dropped on the civilian populatio

On this day July 12 1918, the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Kawachi 河内 exploded and sank in Tokuyama Bay with the loss of more than...

The Goryokaku Fortress in Hakodate, Hokkaido was built by Takeda Ayasaburo 武田 斐三郎 between 1855 and 1866. The fortress is famous for being...

Greetings all, I'm back with another blog post on historic Japan, another step in my mission to connect you with history, where you are....

Good evening everybody, I'm back today with a short post on an auspicious event in Second World War history: the fall of Corregidor....

Greetings all, today we're going to look at a brief history of the history of Japanese expansion and wrap it up with a book...

Greetings all! Last week I took part in a discussion regarding ethical decision-making in my squadron's wardroom. My submission to the...

Historic Museum Ship Mikasa and Statue of Togo Heihachiro - Yokosuka, Japan Yokosuka 横須賀市is my favorite navy town. The city itself...