ISBN 142512422-4
ix + 341 pages

Introduction; maps; ship silhouettes; flags; Bibliography; Index

Appendices: Table of Equivalent Ranks; Senior Commanders; Military Units in Selected Campaigns; The Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy

   We've never met Charles Pettibone, but we're willing to bet he's a bright, hard-working guy and probably a pleasant chap as well. He's obviously devoted a huge amount of time and energy to compiling this very dense book about Japanese units and leaders, as he has also done for the armed forces of other nations during World War II. Unfortunately, the structure of his data and the layout of his material make this book less than wholly successful.
   This kind of amateur or hobbyist project can sometimes pay off with a spectacular publication that comes out of nowhere from a previously unknown researcher and takes the market by storm. This book doesn't fall into that category. That's probably because Pettibone seems to have been working mostly on his own without a close collaborator or a strong editor. The final product makes it look very much like he has fallen into the same trap as many other one-man bands. That is, Pettibone seems to be so intimately familiar with his subject and his approach to presenting his material that he fails to recognize how just about everyone who picks up his book will find the organization nearly impenetrable and specific facts almost inaccessible.
   Which is not to say the book proves devoid of useful information. Quite the contrary. Pettibone's volume is absolutely packed to overflowing with OB and organization data and innumerable entries about the officers who commanded and staffed those units. The problem arises when readers try to extract and integrate specific information as opposed to simply perusing the pages.
   The book is titled The Organization and Order of Battle of Militaries, but in many ways it's just a list of units along with names of commanders and staff officers. For example, when looking at the entry for any individual army or division, there's no indication of the HQs under which that army or division served. Likewise, there is no information about the units that served under that army or division.
   Here's an example of a typical army listing:

Seventeenth Army (05/02/42, Central Pacific): LG Haruyoshi Hyakutake (paralysis left side/attached 8th Area Army) 04/01/45 LG Masatane Kanda.

1. Chief of Staff, Seventeenth Army (05/02/42): MG Akisaburo Futami (ill health/retired/Commandant, Rajin Fortress) 10/01 /42 MG Yadoru Arisue (Chief, Maneuvers Section, 8th Area Army) 11/09/42 MG Shuichi Miyazaki (Chief, Fourth Bureau, Army General Staff) 05/11/43 LG Tsutomi Akinaga (Commanding General, 6th Division) 02/43 unknown? 04/01/45 MG Isaoshi Makata. [NOTE: Also listed as Chief of Staff, Seventeenth Army: /42 MG Harao Konuma (Instructor, War College) /43]
2. Artillery Group, Seventeenth Army: /42 MG Tadashi Sumiyoshi (Commanding Officer, Artillery, Eastern District Army) 09/44
3. Ordnance Section, Seventeenth Army: /42 MG Hachiman Chiku (Commanding General, Northern Section, Elebante Area, Bougainville, Solomon Islands) /45

   And here's an example of a typical divisional listing:

33^rd Division (Central China; Burma): 09/39 LG Shigetaro Amakasu (Commander-in-Chief Mongolia Garrison Army) 04/41 LG Shozo Sakurai (Commanding General, Twenty-Eighth Army) 03/11 /43 LG Genzo Yanagida (retired/Commandant, Port Arthur Fortress) 06/44 LG Nobuo Tanaka

1. Infantry Group, 33rd Division: /39 MG Sadae Inoue (Chief, Administration Section, Formosa [Taiwan] District Army) /41 MG Masatsugu Araki (Commanding General, 17th Independent Garrison Unit) /43 MG Tsunoru Yamamoto (Commanding General, 72nd Independent Mixed Brigade) /44

   Clearly, these are not really complete organizational or OB listings. In fact, it appears that, despite the title of the book, Pettibone has put more effort into tracking down the names of commanders and staff officers. As can be seen from the sample army and divisional listings above, by far the bulk of the content relates to the names of officers. That seems to be good, solid data, but once again the author makes it difficult on the reader.
   Anyone who wants to know, for example, what other positions were held by one 17th Army chief of staff, Tsutomi Akinaga, would note that the entry shows his next assignment was commanding general, 6th Division. The reader would then need to look up 6th Division's entry to see what it says about Akinaga and what his subsequent post was. Of course, anyone who started looking at 17th Army and wanted to know where Akinaga served before he was that army's chief of staff would be out of luck. Fortunately, the officers appear in the index so readers can at least discover all the pages on which they are mentioned.
   For a book which contains more information about the assignments of officers than it does about units, this volume makes it far too difficult to track those men. The layout is confusing and hard to parse. Readers need to memorize various arcane usages such as "four different endings following a general officer's name," seven different date formats (each with its own special meaning), and codes like "+" and "?" so that entries sometimes look like hieroglyphics. (And Pettibone for no apparent reason prefers odd usages such as _[IJN] (a small font in subscript) to simply indicating IJN.) In terms of organizing and laying out information, much could have been learned from Tessin and Joslen and even Kursietis. Better yet, although it might not have been as personally satisfying as publishing all the information in a book, Pettibone could have provided a much, much superior organization of information by translating all the data into HTML and putting it on the Web with hyperlinks among lists of units and officers.
   Finally, it needs to be noted that Pettibone's bibliography seems a little thin. With the title "Books Used in This Series," the number of volumes covering Japan's war proves surprisingly few and almost entirely secondary, with little or nothing from Japanese sources.
   It would probably be a much happier holiday season for all concerned if this review could manage an upbeat conclusion, but that's not possible. If you only want a list of Japanese unit HQs and the names of officers who served at each, you'll be pleased with the book. Anyone interested in actual organization, OB, or TOE data, as well as any kind of continuity in regard to officer postings, will be disappointed.
   Available via the Internet.