NEVER LEAVE UNFINISHED!!!

Second World War.

Japan was winning in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.

Their ultimate goals were the whole of China, India, South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. In the U.S., they planned to capture California and advance upto the Rocky Mountains and finally control the whole of the Western Sea Board of the United States along with Alaska.  With this in hand, they would talk their terms with the US.

It all started on a grand scale on 7th Dec., 1941. Before that, Japan had already captured much of  Eastern China, Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, and IndoChina.  From IndoChina they attacked HongKong, Guam, Guadalcanal, Midway, Phillipines and Malaya. 

On the same day, they made a sudden surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawai and destroyed the U.S. Pacific Fleet.  They architect of this these brilliant campaigns were Admiral Yamamoto. The leader of the task force was Admiral Nagumo.  The task force consisted of 6 carriers, many other support ships and 360 air craft.

The surprise was total.

But the Japanese made three attacks only.  They did not make a fourth attack.  Many US ships were not totally destroyed.  The Japs did not destroy the dry docks and other repairing facilities.  And they did not send a mini task force to Panama Canal and destroy it. This would have prevented any reinforcements from reaching the Pacific.  Colonel Fuchida who personally led the air-borne attacks was struck by the fact that there were no American air-craft carriers.  The fact was they were away from Hawai.  Fuchida wanted to search and destroy the carrier force.  But Nagumo did not agree.  He said his mission was to destroy the fleet at Hawai.  That mission was accomplished. Searching for the carriers would delay them. The element of surprise would be lost. The Americans would launch a counter offensive with whatever they had.  He had to take the force safely to Japan.  There were many more battles in future.  And so they sailed back.

On another occassion, he was chasing Allied ships in the Indian Ocean. He chased them upto Triconmalee -Thirikonamalai. But the Allied ships sailed into the Indian Ocean, towards Africa.  Nagumo found himself short of supplies. So he did not follow them. Instead, he let them escape.  These were very costly mistakes.

All the ships and troops and carriers and planes which he did not destroyed, collected more support and attacked Nagumo's navy in the Battle of Midway.  Four important carriers and many other ships went down. All the air-craft were also destroyed. Several thousand sea-men and pilots were lost.  And the leader of the mission, Rear Admiral Yamaguchi stayed on his carrier as it sank. Thus Japan lost its best carrier force admiral. 

Japan could not re-emerge from this debacle and finally lost the war.

VaLLuvar says,

vinai pagai enRu iraNdin echcham winaiyungaal
thiiyechcham pOlath theRum.

If you leave remainders of jobs to be done, and enmity which should be destroyed, they will assume dangerous proportions and destroy like a fire which was also left out.

He also says that enmity is like a thorny tree which, if not chopped when young will be iron-like and difficult to cut off, in future.

Achaara KOvai says, "Never leave remainders of fire, enmity, and debt; if they left like that they will assume huge dimensions which can never be controlled".

Akagi

Hiryu

Hiryu Burning