Isoroku Yamamoto

• 1. Introduction

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  Isoroku Yamamoto, the admiral who commanded Japan's Combined Fleet through the opening years of World War II, once gave his prime minister a forecast that sounded like a boast and read like a warning. In mid-1941, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe asked him how a war with the United States would unfold. Yamamoto answered: "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years."

  The man who said this went on to plan the surprise blow that opened the Pacific War. That is the puzzle at the center of his life. Why did an officer so doubtful about the war end up as its most famous naval strategist? Where did his doubts come from, and who in Tokyo wanted him silenced? How did his own designs and decisions shape the road ahead of him? And what remains of him now, in letters, in rumor, and on film?

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• 2. Two Educations

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  Isoroku means "56" in Japanese, and the name recorded the age of Sadayoshi Takano when his son was born in Nagaoka, in Niigata. The boy was born Isoroku Takano. His father was an intermediate-rank samurai of the Nagaoka Domain. Isoroku was the sixth son and seventh child, and his mother was Sadayoshi's third wife. All three wives were sisters, and the first two died young. At the time, a widower commonly married the younger sister of a late wife.

  In 1916, the Yamamoto family, also made up of former Nagaoka samurai, adopted him. Samurai households without sons often took in promising young men this way, so the family name, rank, and income would continue. In 1918 he married Reiko Mihashi, and they raised two sons and two daughters.

  His first education was war. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1904, ranked 11th in his class. He then served as a signalman aboard the armored cruiser Nisshin in the Russo-Japanese War. At the Battle of Tsushima, an explosion in the ship's forward turret left a thigh wound "the size of a baby's head" and took the index and middle fingers of his left hand. The blast seems to have come from the gun itself rather than from Russian fire. He went on to the Naval Staff College in 1914 and became a lieutenant commander in 1916.

  The second education was America. From 1919 to 1921 he studied at Harvard University. He later held two postings as naval attaché in Washington, D.C., where he learned to speak fluent English. He traveled widely across the country and studied American customs and business practices. What he saw convinced him that naval power rested on oil and industrial capacity, and that Japan had little hope of defeating the United States.

  He became a captain in 1923. On the 13th of February 1924, he joined a Japanese delegation visiting the United States Naval War College. Later that year he switched his specialty from gunnery to naval aviation. His first command was the cruiser Isuzu in 1928, and the aircraft carrier Akagi followed. At the London Naval Conference of 1930 he attended as a rear admiral, and in 1935 as a vice admiral. Military influence over the government had grown so strong that a career officer now had to sit beside the diplomats. After leading the Aeronautics Department, he took command of the First Carrier Division.

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• 3. Hate Mail and Escorts

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  In December 1937, Deputy Navy Minister Yamamoto apologized to the American ambassador, Joseph C. Grew, for the bombing of the gunboat USS Panay. Few Japanese officials of his rank would have offered such an apology. It fit a pattern. The Navy and the Army were rivals, and the Kwantung Army in particular pushed a more aggressive course. Yamamoto wanted a strong fleet that could project force through gunboat diplomacy, not a navy mainly hauling invasion troops for the Army's land campaigns.

  That view led him to oppose the 1931 invasion of northeast China, the full-scale land war with China in 1937, and the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940. Pro-war militarists began threatening his life.

  By 1938, young army and naval officers were speaking out publicly against him and against admirals such as Mitsumasa Yonai and Shigeyoshi Inoue. Yamamoto received a steady stream of hate mail and death threats from nationalists. His written response to the prospect of assassination was calm. He wrote: "To die for Emperor and Nation is the highest hope of a military man. After a brave hard fight the blossoms are scattered on the fighting field. But if a person wants to take a life instead, still the fighting man will go to eternity for Emperor and country. One man's life or death is a matter of no importance. All that matters is the Empire. As Confucius said, 'They may crush cinnabar, yet they do not take away its color; one may burn a fragrant herb, yet it will not destroy the scent.' They may destroy my body, yet they will not take away my will."

  The Army sent military police to "guard" him, which was really a way to keep watch on him. On the 30th of August 1939, he was moved from the navy ministry to sea as commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet. Yonai arranged it as one of his last acts as acting Navy Minister, partly to make Yamamoto a harder target. Yonai was certain that if Yamamoto stayed ashore, he would be dead before 1939 ended.

  Yamamoto was promoted to admiral on the 15th of November 1940. Then, on the 18th of October 1941, Hideki Tojo became prime minister, and many political observers assumed Yamamoto was finished. Tojo had been his opponent since Yamamoto served as deputy naval minister and Tojo drove the takeover of Manchuria. The expected fate was command of the Yokosuka Naval Base, described as "a nice safe demotion with a big house and no power at all." After a brief stint there, a new cabinet was announced and he returned to power.

  Two things protected him. He was immensely popular in the fleet, and he had close relations with the imperial family. Fellow admirals had also come to accept his argument that Japan's hope of victory was limited by time and oil.

  To an ultranationalist he wrote: "Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices." Militarists circulated the passage without its final sentence. In America it was read as a boast of conquering the whole continent.

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• 4. Wings and Gambles

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  Two huge battleships, Yamato and Musashi, were built over Yamamoto's objections, since he considered them an unwise use of resources. His real interest lay in the air, though not only in carriers. He did more to shape land-based naval aviation, especially the Mitsubishi G3M and G4M medium bombers. He demanded long range and the ability to carry a torpedo, because Japanese doctrine called for bleeding the American fleet as it crossed the Pacific.

  The range arrived, but long-range fighter escorts did not. The bombers were lightly built and vulnerable when fully fueled, which earned the G4M the sardonic nickname "flying cigarette lighter." Yamamoto would die in one. Their range also fed the demand for a long-ranged fighter, which helped define the A6M Zero. It was noted for range and maneuverability, but those gains came from light construction and flammability that later drove up its casualty rates.

  In 1940, he turned from tactical to strategic innovation. Prompted by talented young officers such as Lieutenant Commander Minoru Genda, he approved the First Air Fleet, which gathered Japan's six largest carriers into one striking force. It brought great punching power but also packed vulnerable carriers into one compact target. He also oversaw a large land-based counterpart, the 11th Air Fleet, built around the G3M and G4M.

  In January 1941, Yamamoto proposed rewriting Japanese naval strategy. For two decades, following the doctrine of Captain Alfred T. Mahan, the Naval General Staff had planned for light surface forces, submarines, and land-based aircraft to wear down the American fleet as it advanced. The Japanese Navy would then fight a climactic Kantai Kessen, or "decisive battle," in the northern Philippine Sea between the Ryukyu Islands and the Marianas, with battleships in traditional lines.

  Yamamoto pointed out that this plan had never worked even in Japanese war games. He was also painfully aware of American production capacity. He proposed instead a preventive strike to reduce American strength, followed by a decisive battle fought offensively. He hoped, but probably did not believe, that heavy early blows might bring the Americans to negotiate.

  The Naval General Staff resisted, so Yamamoto used his popularity in the fleet and threatened to resign. Admiral Osami Nagano and the staff gave way, but only to the extent of approving the attack on Pearl Harbor.

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• 5. Pearl Harbor

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  On the 5th of November 1941, Yamamoto issued "Top Secret Operation Order no. 1" to the Combined Fleet. It declared that the Empire must drive Britain and America out of Greater East Asia and hasten the settlement of China. Two days later, he fixed the date of the surprise attack: the 7th of December, because it was a Sunday, when American military personnel would be least alert.

  The First Air Fleet had technical puzzles to solve first. One was how to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. Another was how to make armor-piercing bombs, which the planners achieved by machining down battleship gun projectiles.

  The two nations were officially at peace when six carriers sent 353 aircraft against Pearl Harbor and other sites around Honolulu, in two waves. The mission aimed to sink at least four American battleships and keep the United States from interfering with Japan's southward advance for at least six months. Three American carriers made choice targets, but they were at sea.

  Four American battleships were sunk and four damaged. Eleven other cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliary ships were sunk or seriously damaged. The Americans lost 188 aircraft, with 159 more damaged, and 2,403 people were killed and 1,178 wounded. Japan lost 64 servicemen and 29 aircraft, and ground fire damaged another 74. Those damaged planes were disproportionately dive and torpedo bombers, which cut Japan's ability to exploit the first two waves.

  The commander of the First Air Fleet, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, withdrew. Yamamoto later regretted that Nagumo had not hunted for the American carriers or struck more facilities on Oahu, such as the oil tanks at Pearl Harbor. Nagumo had little to go on. He did not know where the carriers were, and searching for them risked being found first while his aircraft were away. Not enough daylight remained to launch and recover a third wave, and his escorting destroyers lacked the fuel to linger.

  On the strategic, moral, and political level, the attack was a disaster for Japan. It came without a declaration of war, in an unexpected place, with devastating results. Americans called it a "sneak attack," and the public resolved to avenge it. In keeping with Japanese military tradition against criticizing the commander on the spot, Yamamoto did not punish Nagumo. Nagumo would command the carrier force again at Midway.

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• 6. Midway

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  On the 27th of February 1942, the Battle of the Java Sea capped a sweep through the Dutch East Indies. Under subordinates Vice Admirals Jisaburo Ozawa, Nobutake Kondo, and Ibo Takahashi, Japan cleared the area of weak American, British, Dutch, and Australian naval forces. The First Air Fleet raided targets from Wake Island to Australia to Ceylon. Hours after Pearl Harbor, the 11th Air Fleet caught the United States Fifth Air Force on the ground in the Philippines. It then sank the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse at sea.

  Singapore fell on the 15th of February. The American-Filipino positions on the Bataan peninsula fell on the 9th of April, and Corregidor Island fell on the 6th of May. Japan now held its oil- and rubber-rich "southern resources area." In late March, Yamamoto and a few others paused and hoped for an armistice, but neither Britain nor America showed interest.

  Debate followed over where to strike next. Ideas included invading India or Australia, or seizing Hawaii. Invading India or Australia would have required at least 250,000 men, which the Army could not spare from China, and shipping was jealously guarded by each service. Yamamoto argued for a decisive strike in the east to finish the American fleet, but the more conservative Naval General Staff refused the risk. Then, on the 18th of April, the Doolittle Raid struck Tokyo, and the staff approved his Midway operation, paired with an invasion of the Aleutian Islands.

  In early May came the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Port Moresby invasion fleet turned back after clashing with an American carrier task force. Japan sank the carrier USS Lexington and damaged USS Yorktown, but lost the light carrier Shoho. The carrier Shokaku was damaged badly enough to need dockyard repairs, and the air groups of Shokaku and Zuikaku were devastated. Zuikaku was sidelined waiting for new aircraft and crews. Both ships were sorely missed a month later.

  The Midway plan sent the Fifth Fleet toward the Aleutians, raiding Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. The First Mobile Force, with four carriers, would destroy Midway's air force, and the Second Fleet would land 5,000 troops. The American carriers were expected to rush west into a trap. Two safeguards were meant to protect it: a reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor called Operation K, and a picket line of submarines. The flight was aborted and the submarines were delayed until the American carriers had already sailed.

  The plan was hastily prepared, apparently to launch in time for the anniversary of the Battle of Tsushima. Japan expected to face only three American carriers, eight cruisers, and 15 destroyers. Yamamoto seemed to hold all the cards. Unknown to him, American code breakers had read the Japanese naval code that the United States called JN-25. Admiral Chester Nimitz positioned his outnumbered forces for an ambush. He also sent a minesweeper to guard the refueling point for Operation K near French Frigate Shoals, which helped scrap the reconnaissance flight. On the 4th of June 1942, American carrier aircraft destroyed all four carriers of the Kido Butai, catching them at especially vulnerable moments.

  Yamamoto tried to trap the Americans with his remaining ships, but his surface forces were stationed too far from Midway. Admiral Raymond Spruance, acting on a mistaken submarine report that an invasion was still coming, withdrew east. He did not know Yamato was among the Japanese ships, and the move east spared him a night surface battle that would have favored Japan. Yamamoto concluded he had lost and withdrew.

  Historians have criticized the plan as overly complex and a violation of the principle of concentration of force. Others note that comparable Allied operations, such as Operation MB8, succeeded. They also argue that the American intelligence coup derailed the plan before it began. Had Nagumo not been denied adequate reconnaissance assets, both the code breaking and the sudden appearance of the American carriers might have mattered far less.

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• 7. Attrition and Ambush

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  The Japanese public was never told of the defeat at Midway, and Yamamoto remained commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet. Inside the Navy, though, his credibility had suffered. The Naval General Staff, once persuaded by his gambles, now preferred caution. Japan still planned Operation FS, aimed at Fiji and Samoa to cut the American lifeline to Australia. Yamamoto ended up in exactly the battle of attrition he had tried to avoid.

  He committed Combined Fleet units to a string of small actions across the south and central Pacific. Three efforts to beat the Americans around Guadalcanal produced two carrier battles that he commanded personally, the Eastern Solomons in September and Santa Cruz Islands in October. Two wild surface engagements in November followed. His forces won a few victories at Savo Island, Cape Esperance, and Tassafaronga, and inflicted heavy damage. Yet he could not fully supply the Japanese army on the island, and trained aviators were not being replaced.

  To lift morale after Guadalcanal, Yamamoto planned an inspection tour of the South Pacific. On the 14th of April 1943, American naval intelligence, under the codename "Magic," intercepted and decrypted a message detailing it. It gave arrival and departure times, locations, and the numbers and types of his aircraft. He would fly from Rabaul to Balalae Airfield, on an island near Bougainville, on the morning of the 18th of April.

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt may have told Navy Secretary Frank Knox to "get Yamamoto," but no official record of such an order exists, and sources disagree. Knox left the decision to Nimitz. Nimitz consulted Admiral William Halsey Jr. and authorized the mission on the 17th of April. Only the Lockheed P-38 Lightning had the range to do it. Pilots from three units were told only that they would intercept an "important high officer."

  Local commanders urged him to cancel for fear of ambush, but on the morning of the 18th, two Mitsubishi G4M bombers, flying as unarmed transports, left Rabaul on schedule for the 315 mi trip. Sixteen P-38s intercepted them over Bougainville, and a dogfight broke out with the six escorting Zeroes. First Lieutenant Rex T. Barber engaged the first transport, T1-323, which carried Yamamoto. He fired until smoke poured from its left engine, then turned to the second transport. Yamamoto's aircraft crashed into the jungle.

  A Japanese search party led by army engineer Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Hamasuna found the wreck the next day. According to Hamasuna, Yamamoto had been thrown clear of the plane, still upright in his seat under a tree. His white-gloved hand gripped the hilt of his katana, and his head was dipped as if in thought. Two .50-caliber bullets had hit him, one in the back of the left shoulder and one in the lower left jaw. A Japanese navy doctor concluded the head wound killed him. The medical report was altered "on orders from above," according to biographer Hiroyuki Agawa.

  His death was a major blow to Japanese morale. His staff cremated his remains at Buin, and the ashes returned to Tokyo aboard the battleship Musashi, his last flagship. At a state funeral on the 5th of June 1943, he was posthumously named Marshal Admiral and awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum, 1st Class. Nazi Germany also awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Some ashes went to Tama Cemetery in Tokyo and the rest to Chuko-ji temple in Nagaoka City. Admiral Mineichi Koga succeeded him.

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• 8. Private Man, Public Myth

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  Go, shogi, billiards, bridge, mahjong, and poker were the games Yamamoto loved, because they tested his wits. He often joked about moving to Monaco to run his own casino. He also practiced calligraphy. His private life drew attention only after his death. In 1954, his wife Reiko told the Japanese public that he had been closer to his favorite geisha, Kawai Chiyoko, than to her. This stirred controversy. His funeral procession had passed Kawai's quarters on the way to the cemetery.

  His closest friend was Teikichi Hori, a classmate from the Naval Academy who was purged from the Navy for supporting the Washington Naval Treaty. Before and during the war, the two corresponded often. Those letters became the subject of the NHK documentary The Truth of Yamamoto. Some people have claimed he was Catholic. That likely comes from confusion with retired Admiral Shinjiro Stefano Yamamoto, who was a decade older and died in 1942.

  On screen, his image has swung widely. In the 1953 Toho film Eagle of the Pacific, Denjiro Okochi played him. The 1960 film The Gallant Hours stages a duel between Halsey and Yamamoto, but wrongly places his death in November 1942. Toshiro Mifune, star of The Seven Samurai, played him three times: in Admiral Yamamoto in 1968, in a 1970 film about the militarists, and in Midway in 1976.

  In the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, actor So Yamamura delivers a line after the attack on Pearl Harbor: "I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." The 2001 film Pearl Harbor, with Mako Iwamatsu in the role, repeats it. Professional wrestler Harold Watanabe took the villainous gimmick of Tojo Yamamoto, a nod to both Yamamoto and Hideki Tojo.

  Fiction has also rewritten him. The 1993 animated series Konpeki no Kantai sends him back in time to 1905, where he leads Japan to a decisive victory. Critics outside Japan called it a whitewash of Imperial Japan's intentions. Neal Stephenson's 1999 novel Cryptonomicon shows him realizing in his last moments that Japan's codes have been broken. In an episode of The West Wing, "We Killed Yamamoto," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs cites his death to argue for a peacetime assassination. Kōji Yakusho played him in the 2011 film The Admiral, which follows him from Pearl Harbor to his death. In the 2019 film Midway, Etsushi Toyokawa speaks the sleeping giant line once more.

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