What do you think?
Rate this book
War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945
Based on twenty years of research in formerly secret archives, this book reveals for the first time the full significance of War Plan Orange--the U.S. Navy's strategy to defeat Japan, formulated over the forty years prior to World War II.
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
55 people are currently reading
232 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 25, 2018
Miller’s “War Plan Orange” is an important read for someone interested in the roots of the Great Pacific War’s grand strategy. I particularly liked the insight it gave into the more than 35-years of fitful planning that the US Navy gave to their highest priority challenge. However, Miller’s focus is primarily one of ‘organizational behavior’. It goes into great detail over the personalities and when they contributed to the plan. It also documents the internal tension between Naval commands, the US Marines, the US Army, and at times the Congress and the Executive over the plan.
Miller’s prose is good. It is less technically dense than the militarily-authored works I’ve read. Occasionally I was sent to the dictionary over antique florid prose. Use of the word, “chary” comes immediately to mind.
Use of maps was very good. Although, his use of tables and photographs to illustrate points was weak.
If I have a problem with this book, is that (I’ve come to believe) modern war involves men and machines.
Miller's story is about men and organizations in contention. The Plan spanned almost three-generations of Naval leadership in a time of rapid technological and political change. The: initial American 'Empire' period, post-WWI Pacific “land grab”, The Washington Treaty of 1922, the demobilization of the Great Depression are covered, but not thoroughly. The Plan was fundamentally affected by the: change from coal to fuel oil propulsion, rapid development of aviation, and development of submarine warfare. Miller rarely specifically addresses how these technological nodal points affected The Plan, other than to point out that aviators and submariners begin to contribute to the plan or that certain categories of shipping became less available in a revision.
The book was a worthwhile read for someone interested in the grand strategy of The Great Pacific War. It aspires toward Weigley’s, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. However, the narrative does not adequately address the diplomatic history and changes in military technology and how they affected its subject.
Readers of this book may also be interested in: Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941.
Miller’s prose is good. It is less technically dense than the militarily-authored works I’ve read. Occasionally I was sent to the dictionary over antique florid prose. Use of the word, “chary” comes immediately to mind.
Use of maps was very good. Although, his use of tables and photographs to illustrate points was weak.
If I have a problem with this book, is that (I’ve come to believe) modern war involves men and machines.
Miller's story is about men and organizations in contention. The Plan spanned almost three-generations of Naval leadership in a time of rapid technological and political change. The: initial American 'Empire' period, post-WWI Pacific “land grab”, The Washington Treaty of 1922, the demobilization of the Great Depression are covered, but not thoroughly. The Plan was fundamentally affected by the: change from coal to fuel oil propulsion, rapid development of aviation, and development of submarine warfare. Miller rarely specifically addresses how these technological nodal points affected The Plan, other than to point out that aviators and submariners begin to contribute to the plan or that certain categories of shipping became less available in a revision.
The book was a worthwhile read for someone interested in the grand strategy of The Great Pacific War. It aspires toward Weigley’s, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. However, the narrative does not adequately address the diplomatic history and changes in military technology and how they affected its subject.
Readers of this book may also be interested in: Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941.
October 17, 2020
I hate to not give it five stars, for the research is top notch. The maps are plentiful and make the text lucid. That really is the issue. It is a tall order to make military planning compelling, but one can manage to be succinct and well organized. The book is not quite either, although with background knowledge it is not entirely opaque. The thesis, that the decades of planning paid off in the Pacific, where the war followed the broad outline of Plan Orange, is hard to argue against. It is a good book for the specialist, particularly if paired with Evans' Kaigun, a true classic.
March 5, 2022
Fascinating description of bureaucratic maneuvering. Less emphasis on military calculus per se and more on the administrative personalities, infighting and ideological militancy that led to the US strategy in the pacific.
It’s well-written and I have never read any account quite like it. It’s interesting to see a rational, coherent war plan emerge from such a fractious, self-contradictory stewing pot.
It’s well-written and I have never read any account quite like it. It’s interesting to see a rational, coherent war plan emerge from such a fractious, self-contradictory stewing pot.
May 20, 2018
A very thorough review of the evolution of US war plans for the Pacific in the half century leading up to World War II. Edward Miller does a nice job identifying trends in the plans (the aggressive thrusters, the cautionaries) as well as the different factors that shaped plans (e.g. Leonard Wood's influence on the role for the Philippines; the fascination with Guam). Miller also works to dispel a number of the myths and oversimplifications that have grown up around War Plan Orange. Miller also looks at the process of American planning such as the mechanics of the Army and Navy working together.
Trying to present this in a clear, interesting way is a real challenge - Miller does a good job with organization and chronology, and his writing is solid.
He works to line up the vision of the plan with the reality of US warfighting in the Pacific in WWII and finds a number of interesting connections, but there is an imbalance in his thorough knowledge of War Plan Orange and his broader knowledge of WWII.
A very well researched, thorough book on the topic.
Trying to present this in a clear, interesting way is a real challenge - Miller does a good job with organization and chronology, and his writing is solid.
He works to line up the vision of the plan with the reality of US warfighting in the Pacific in WWII and finds a number of interesting connections, but there is an imbalance in his thorough knowledge of War Plan Orange and his broader knowledge of WWII.
A very well researched, thorough book on the topic.
October 15, 2009
Looking at the future with perfect foresight is the goal of every planner. So it is with the perfect hindsight of the historian that Edward Miller chronicles the war planner's challenge in "War Plan Orange," detailing how the US Navy figured out its strategy for defeating Japan.
The necessity for war planning became apparent after the Spanish-American War, when the United States acquired Guam and the Phillipines in addition to Hawaii and Samoa. But plan for what? Hypothetical scenarios did not correspond to reality until Japan defeated Russia in 1904-5. Focusing on reality, the Navy began to plan with an eye on Japan as the likely enemy. In turn, naval planing had to grow up. The informal process of planing discussions among older admirals and war plans being drafted by the Naval War College was replaced by a formal office responsible for drafting strategic plans.
By the early 1920s, the outline of a Pacific War took shape. Such a conflict would have three phases. First, the US navy would concentrate is forces in the safety of its "Eastern Pacific Bastion" between Hawaii, Alaska, the West Coast and Panama. Phase II would require the acquisition of a naval base somewhere among the Japanese-held islands in the Central Pacific. Third phase would be the final push to the Phillipines and the smaller islands on the Japanese periphery, where the US Navy could then execute a blockade that would reduce Japan to extreme privation. The Japanese Army and its positions in mainland Asia would become irrelevant, defeated by US seapower.
Not all admirals favored this strategy. For a spell, there was some refocus on an "express relief" of the Phillipines, which previous naval planners had written off as being too difficult for a faraway US Navy to defend against a nearby Japan. The navy would have to bring a base with it, as no facilities existed to support a fleet once it got there. Planners also considered making Guam the equivalent of a Gibraltar in the Pacific. But the island lacked an adequate harbor for a fleet anchorage.
Like a self-righting boat, naval planners discarded these schemes over the 1930s, not wanting to tie a fleet designed for attack to defending fixed positions. As Miller points out, these strategic dead ends proved useful because it got naval planners to refocus on "the right approach"--incremental advances through the Central Pacific, using each newly acquired base to support the next push,all the while bringing a "fleet train" of support ships to make that base portable.
Perhaps the most beguiling chapters of "War Plan Orange" concerned the Pacific Fleet's operational plan to sortie from Pearl Harbor towards the Japanese-held Marshall Islands once the war started. The plan called for two passes through the eastern end of the island chain, the first a raid to provoke a Japanese fleet response, the second to defeat that fleet in the empty seas between the Marshalls and Wake Island. In effect, this would have paralleled the Battle of Midway, only with battleships performing a replay of Jutland. (The aircraft carrier's potential was not fully understood at this time.)
Miller had his work cut out for him when he chose to enliven a such a dull topic as naval planning. "War Plan Orange" reads like an alternate history of a war yet to come, as planners discussed and discarded various approaches to cross the Pacific, only to settle on something close to the path taken. For naval professionals, the book is a "must read", as it shows the planning process in action. But for the casual reader of WWII books, "War Plan Orange" is a worthy supplement that will deepen one's understanding of "The Pacific War." There are many books out there that explain each battle, detailing the "who, what, when, where" of action. Miller explains why the admirals planned and executed the war as they did.
The necessity for war planning became apparent after the Spanish-American War, when the United States acquired Guam and the Phillipines in addition to Hawaii and Samoa. But plan for what? Hypothetical scenarios did not correspond to reality until Japan defeated Russia in 1904-5. Focusing on reality, the Navy began to plan with an eye on Japan as the likely enemy. In turn, naval planing had to grow up. The informal process of planing discussions among older admirals and war plans being drafted by the Naval War College was replaced by a formal office responsible for drafting strategic plans.
By the early 1920s, the outline of a Pacific War took shape. Such a conflict would have three phases. First, the US navy would concentrate is forces in the safety of its "Eastern Pacific Bastion" between Hawaii, Alaska, the West Coast and Panama. Phase II would require the acquisition of a naval base somewhere among the Japanese-held islands in the Central Pacific. Third phase would be the final push to the Phillipines and the smaller islands on the Japanese periphery, where the US Navy could then execute a blockade that would reduce Japan to extreme privation. The Japanese Army and its positions in mainland Asia would become irrelevant, defeated by US seapower.
Not all admirals favored this strategy. For a spell, there was some refocus on an "express relief" of the Phillipines, which previous naval planners had written off as being too difficult for a faraway US Navy to defend against a nearby Japan. The navy would have to bring a base with it, as no facilities existed to support a fleet once it got there. Planners also considered making Guam the equivalent of a Gibraltar in the Pacific. But the island lacked an adequate harbor for a fleet anchorage.
Like a self-righting boat, naval planners discarded these schemes over the 1930s, not wanting to tie a fleet designed for attack to defending fixed positions. As Miller points out, these strategic dead ends proved useful because it got naval planners to refocus on "the right approach"--incremental advances through the Central Pacific, using each newly acquired base to support the next push,all the while bringing a "fleet train" of support ships to make that base portable.
Perhaps the most beguiling chapters of "War Plan Orange" concerned the Pacific Fleet's operational plan to sortie from Pearl Harbor towards the Japanese-held Marshall Islands once the war started. The plan called for two passes through the eastern end of the island chain, the first a raid to provoke a Japanese fleet response, the second to defeat that fleet in the empty seas between the Marshalls and Wake Island. In effect, this would have paralleled the Battle of Midway, only with battleships performing a replay of Jutland. (The aircraft carrier's potential was not fully understood at this time.)
Miller had his work cut out for him when he chose to enliven a such a dull topic as naval planning. "War Plan Orange" reads like an alternate history of a war yet to come, as planners discussed and discarded various approaches to cross the Pacific, only to settle on something close to the path taken. For naval professionals, the book is a "must read", as it shows the planning process in action. But for the casual reader of WWII books, "War Plan Orange" is a worthy supplement that will deepen one's understanding of "The Pacific War." There are many books out there that explain each battle, detailing the "who, what, when, where" of action. Miller explains why the admirals planned and executed the war as they did.
July 27, 2021
This work is perhaps the most comprehensive work to address US war planning against Japan. Yet, while the US did not engage in war with Japan until World War II, the US had plans against Japan going all the way back to the start of the 20th century. What ultimately transpired in the Pacific seems to bear out the planning and projections of that War Plan, even if it was not a one-for-one match and maneuver.
While I read this work to get a sense of what the US planned to do prior to Pearl Harbor/what is the Pearl Harbor attack had not succeeded, it was very informative to learn about how the US Navy and Army engaged in war planning in the 1st half of the 20th century. It is a political process, where various agendas and personalities came to dominate the creation of those plans. Also, it was quite a process of research by the author, as a lot of source material was classified for so long, and much is hidden in the history of the mind and non-written accounts.
A worthy military read. Maybe not for the casual reader, but for research, definitely worth the effort to find and study.
While I read this work to get a sense of what the US planned to do prior to Pearl Harbor/what is the Pearl Harbor attack had not succeeded, it was very informative to learn about how the US Navy and Army engaged in war planning in the 1st half of the 20th century. It is a political process, where various agendas and personalities came to dominate the creation of those plans. Also, it was quite a process of research by the author, as a lot of source material was classified for so long, and much is hidden in the history of the mind and non-written accounts.
A worthy military read. Maybe not for the casual reader, but for research, definitely worth the effort to find and study.
July 14, 2021
Definitely worth a read if you are into the planning of military operations. But if are looking for details on the various battles, then this is not for you. About 46% of the book is appendixes, footnotes, etc.
Read
July 19, 2022This book continues to bear fruit for me at work daily. Having the context of WPO over the years provides an excellent perspective on how/why we iterate on plans ... good look at suboptimizing plans because of NCR equities, roles of personalities, value of small planning teams...the list goes on.
February 16, 2018
Great overall synopsis. Compliment with "The War Beneath the Sea" by Peter Padfield.
December 2, 2019
Interesting topic. There is a good video on Youtube which summarizes the main points. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXal8...
January 25, 2020
Excellent book for understanding the evolution and implementation of the war strategy that won the Pacific campaign during WW2!
September 25, 2015
An interesting and fairly detailed look at the US Navy's planning for a war with Japan, and how their various Plans Orange evolved over the decades due to technology and shifts in the world situation. (The war contingency plans were color-coded, e.g., Plan Red for a war against Great Britain. Japan was Orange).
The book also briefly analyzes the actual 1941-1945 war in the perspective of the final plans, and the participation of many admirals who had helped write the plans. (Adm. Kimmel, the ill-fated commander at Pearl Harbor, had written a Plan Orange the Navy had accepted). While the Navy could not have fully anticipated the power that aviation would develop -- they could not have anticipated the B-29, for example -- they did, early on, learn to appreciate the value of long-range patrol aircraft like the Catalina, as well as the uses of carrier aviation.
The book also briefly analyzes the actual 1941-1945 war in the perspective of the final plans, and the participation of many admirals who had helped write the plans. (Adm. Kimmel, the ill-fated commander at Pearl Harbor, had written a Plan Orange the Navy had accepted). While the Navy could not have fully anticipated the power that aviation would develop -- they could not have anticipated the B-29, for example -- they did, early on, learn to appreciate the value of long-range patrol aircraft like the Catalina, as well as the uses of carrier aviation.
June 9, 2013
A meaty, detailed history of the various plans developed by the US military (sometimes by the Navy, sometimes jointly between the Army and Navy) to fight Japan in the Pacific. The history ranges from the early 1900s (just after the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War) through the end of World War II. At the end of the book Mr. Miller draws comparisons between the conduct of the US war in the Pacific and the various Plans Orange, and shows both how the actual war mimics and deviated from the pre-war plans. Recommended for serious history buffs.
October 23, 2007
This is a good view of the planning that went into the US response to Japanese agression in the Western Pacific. It's a good view of how institutions deal with prospective threats, and how personalities can have so much influence on such plans. It certainly is long, but doesn't get too bogged down in minutae.
A great source for understanding the Navy's outlook at the beginning of the Second World War.
A great source for understanding the Navy's outlook at the beginning of the Second World War.
September 15, 2010
Sometimes I like reading about peacetime military services almost as much as their wartime activity. This is one of them, as it looks at the continually revised or updated plans the US Navy made to fight the Japanese.
May 31, 2013
Unparalleled in detail and depth of source material. While not told as a rip-roaring yarn, it is nonetheless compelling. Look no further to come to grips with the why and where of US strategy in the Pacific.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews