MajGen Paul J. Mueller, USA
Major General Paul J. Mueller, USA, the commander of the 81st Division, was a graduate of the famous West Point Class of 1915. He commanded an infantry battalion in France in World War I, and during the interwar period he had a succession of assignments to infantry commands, staff billets, and schools. In August 1941 he assumed command of the 81st Infantry Division at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and moved his division during its training period successively from Florida to Tennessee to California before its commitment to the battle for Angaur and Peleliu. General Mueller served on active duty until 1954, when he retired. He died in 1964.
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The Changing Nature of Japanese Tactics
Japan launched its December 1941 surprise attacks in the expectation that its forces could quickly seize a forward line of Pacific and Asian empire. Thereafter, it expected to defend these territories stubbornly enough to tire and bleed the Allies and then to negotiate a recognition of Japanese hegemony.
This strategic concept was synchronized with the fanatic Japanese spirit of bushido. Faith in their army’s moral superiority over lesser races led the Japanese to expect 19th-century banzai tactics to lead invariably to success. Expectations and experience meshed until their 1942 encounters with the Allies, particularly with Americans in the Solomons. Thereafter, it took several campaigns to internalize the lessons of defeat by modern infantry weapons in the hands of the determined Allies.
To Americans, these Japanese misconceptions were alarming, but cost-effective: It was easier, and less costly, to mow down banzai attacks than to dig stubborn defenders out of fortified positions.
By spring of 1944, the lessons had permeated to the highest levels of Japan’s army command. When General Hideki Tojo instructed General Inoue to defend the Palaus deliberately and conservatively, he was bringing Japanese tactics into support of Japanese strategy. Henceforth, Japanese soldiers would dig in and hunker down, to make their final defenses as costly as possible to the attacking Americans.
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