Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

166 • LONDON NAVAL CONFERENCE
Nobumasa Suetsugu, registered their unalterable opposition to the
treaty. They received inestimable support from Admiral Heihachirō
Tōgō, who remained a national hero for his exploits in the Russo–
Japanese War of 1904–1905. Over the ensuing months, a bitter
quarrel broke out in which the Navy General Staff repeatedly accused
the government of having infringed the right of the supreme command
(constitutionally, the cabinet had no power over the command
and operations of the armed forces, these being the concern of the
chiefs of staff in their role as adviser to the emperor).
LONDON NAVAL CONFERENCE (1935–1936). The London Naval
Conference of 1935–1936 represented the final naval arms limitation
conference of the pre–World War II period. Held because the naval
limitation treaties signed at the Washington Conference and London
Naval Conference would both terminate at the end of 1936, the conference’s
outcome was assured even before it convened: the Japanese
government in 1934 demanded naval parity with the United States
and Great Britain.
Several factors underlay the Japanese navy’s determination to end
the era of naval limitation. First was Japan’s international isolation,
brought about by the army’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The second—and
perhaps more important—factor was the makeup of the upper
echelons of the Japanese navy in the mid-1930s. In the aftermath
of the London Naval Conference of 1930, navy hawks saw to it that
those officers who had supported the naval limitations agreements
were either retired or placed on the reserve list. In the estimation of
one authority, there remained in 1934–1935 few voices of caution
and restraint in the navy’s upper echelons.
Whatever the case, the Japanese delegation withdrew from the conference
on 16 January 1936, after the American and British delegations
refused to concede parity. The earlier naval limitations agreements subsequently
came to an end in December 1936. Thereafter there was no
limit on the number of naval vessels to be built by any nation. Although
between 1935 and 1940, the United States government undertook no
significant new naval construction programs, in June–July 1940, Congress
provided funds for an enormous 1,325,000 tons of naval construction.
The construction program envisioned a two-ocean navy with
seven new battleships, six battle cruisers, 19 carriers, more than 60