Admiral Isokoru Yamamoto was a Japanese naval commander during World War II. He believed in the importance of air power and oversaw the production of over 4,700 aircraft in 1940. He planned the attack on Pearl Harbor but was hesitant about it, knowing it would awaken a sleeping giant. He also planned to capture Midway Atoll but was defeated in the Battle of Midway. Yamamoto was assassinated by American forces in 1943.
Japanese Admiral Isokoru Yamamoto was one of the great sea commanders of the Japanese Navy and one of the important military leaders of World War II. He was admiral of the combined fleet of the Japanese Navy during the first years of the war.
Admiral Isokoru Yamamoto was born on April 4, 1884. He attended the Japanese Naval Academy and served on a cruiser during the Russo-Japanese War, and later attended Harvard University. It was here that Isokoru Yamamoto became interested in the possibilities of naval aviation. He returned to the United States in the 1920s as a naval attaché in Washington, DC
Isokoru Yamamoto learned to fly and became convinced that future military conflicts would be decided primarily through air power. No longer would the “battle chariots” of the old commercial guns fire in hopes of sinking each other. He could foresee a time when destroyers, cruisers and battleships would primarily serve as carrier escorts. To this end, as commander of the 1st Air Fleet, Isokoru Yamamoto pushed the Japanese military to produce more aircraft. They responded with over 4,700 units produced in 1940.
As Japanese Deputy Minister of the Navy, Isokoru Yamamoto also oversaw the construction of Japan’s first two modern aircraft carriers, sister ships Shokaku and Zuikaku. These ships were instrumental in the attack on Pearl Harbor. When relations between the United States and Japan deteriorated in 1940, Isokoru Yamamoto was ordered by the Japanese military government to begin planning an attack on America. He was not enthusiastic about this prospect. He knew the Americans better than the military cabinet chiefs, and he knew that attacking the country would not go unanswered for long.
The military cabinet had become convinced that the Americans had no “stomach” for fighting, but Yamamoto wasn’t so sure. He told the government he could “run away” for six months after attacking Pearl Harbor, but he couldn’t guarantee anything beyond that. Once America’s war machine was up and running, he said, it would be like “awakening the sleeping giant.” Japan’s only chance of a successful outcome was to hit Pearl Harbor and as many targets as possible hard, and hope that Washington would contact Tokyo to ask for peace.
Isokoru Yamamoto planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, and as history tells us, the attack on December 7, 1941 was enormously successful from the Japanese perspective. The Japanese navy continued to attack and occupy other American-held outposts. However, Yamamoto’s worst fears were realized, starting in May 1942 with the Battle of the Coral Sea. The aircraft carrier Shokaku, pride of the fleet, was badly damaged and her sister ship Zuikaku lost most of her air group. Thus, these two carriers were unable to take part in the Battle of Midway a month later.
The Battle of Midway is one of the legendary naval battles, not just of WWII, but of maritime history. Its prominence and glory dates back to the British defeat of the Spanish Armada.
US intelligence, under the command of Joseph Rochefort, had cracked naval code JN-25 and pieced together that something big was brewing in Hawaii. There was nothing between Hawaii and Japan except Midway Atoll. Isokoru Yamamoto had reasoned that if Japan could capture and hold Midway, it would be a good place to launch attacks against Hawaii and eventually the American continent. Rochefort felt the same way, and as communications came in it became clear that Midway was the target.
The most important factor in the American victory was that US aircraft captured three of the four Japanese carriers at their most vulnerable moments and burned all three within ten minutes of each other. The carriers were changing armament to their planes, and the planes were strewn across the flight deck, along with bombs, torpedoes, and fuel tanks.
Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, head of the carrier strike force, could not decide whether to pursue the US carriers with torpedoes or order a second attack on Midway with bombs, and the result was disaster. This was, in part, Isokoru Yamamoto’s fault. She had ordered strict radio silence and with him on her super battleship, the Yamato, several hundred kilometers off the main fleet, she was completely out of action. Nagumo couldn’t contact him for instructions, so he had to make the best possible decisions. The fourth Japanese carrier was bombed later that afternoon, sinking all carriers in the attacking force.
The Japanese navy returned to Tokyo in complete disgrace and did not go on the offensive again for the rest of the war. Although Yamamoto remained in command of him, he turned his attention to Guadalcanal and other Pacific islands, in a largely supportive role. His purpose was to assist the ground troops invading these islands.
Isokoru Yamamoto did not live to see the end of World War II. As a tactical force to be reckoned with and responsible for planning Pearl Harbor, he was a marked man. American intelligence discovered that he would be inspecting the Japanese-occupied island of Bougainville and an assassination order was issued.
On April 18, 1943, 18 American aircraft went in pursuit of the Admiral. His plane was spotted approaching an airfield in Bougainville and the squadron of P-38s swooped in. Yamamoto was killed in this attack. The Japanese didn’t want to lower the people’s morale, so his death wasn’t announced until May 1943. Isokoru Yamamoto was given a full state funeral and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum.
Isokoru Yamamoto was a great admiral and a great sea commander. Certainly, history has treated him as one of the best such examples of him. His death was a devastating loss to the Japanese Navy, and it never recovered.
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