Promotion to vice admiral signaled that Nagumo's apprenticeship was complete and put him in charge of educating future senior officers. His papers and teaching expressed the General Staff's established approach to an attritional Pacific campaign. Reports discussing his papers describe them as well written and carefully argued, although their texts were not available for this assessment. Mitsumasa Yonai helped manage factional conflict by placing Yamamoto and other treaty-minded officers in the Combined Fleet, away from the intrigues of the capital, while Fleet Faction and big-gun influence remained strong on the General Staff. This arrangement protected rival officers and gave the factions room to debate, but it also separated the institutions responsible for designing doctrine and operating the fleet in war. Their different settings helped produce a widening schism over how a future conflict should be fought.
Chapter · 36:24-40:38
A doctrinal schism between staff and fleet
Nagumo's Naval War College command placed a leading attrition doctrinist between a traditional General Staff and a Combined Fleet developing a different vision of war.