Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) – Brief Profile & History

Isoroku Yamamoto Japanese Admiral commanded the combined fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy that expanded the Japanese Empire in the early days of World War II. His masterful use of air-sea warfare pro-duced a great victory over the Americans at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and earned him the honor as one of the most influential devel¬opers of aircraft-carrier-based operations.

April 4, 1884, in Niigata as Isoruku Takano, Yamamoto would later legally take the surname of his adopted father. Shordy after his graduation from the Japanese Naval Academy in 1904, Yamamoto participated in the pivotal Batde of Tsushima as a member of the fleet commanded by Adm. HEIHACHIRO TOGO [68] that defeated the Russians. During the batde, Yamamoto suffered severe wounds, in-cluding the loss of two fingers on his left hand—a disability that al¬most caused his dismissal from the service.

Following the Russian war, Yamamoto was given several ship-board assignments, which were interspersed with advanced military and civilian schooling. By 1915, Yamamoto was already an advocate of the development of ships capable of launching and recovering aircraft. From 1919 to 1921, Yamamoto attended Harvard Univer¬sity, where he began his first association with the Americans. After various command assignments back in Japan and tours as an ob¬server of European naval operations, Yamamoto returned to the United States in 1925 for three years of attache duty in Washing¬ton, D.C.

Back in Japan in 1929, Yamamoto assumed command of the aircraft carrier Akagi and was promoted to rear admiral. Except for brief visits to various international naval conferences over the next few years, Yama-moto dedicated the remainder of his career to naval aviation and carrier operations. Because of his innovations and determination in acquiring funding priorities from his gov¬ernment, Yamamoto had launched one of the world’s most mod¬ern and strongest naval fleets by the end of the 1930s—and the aircraft carrier served as the heart and strength of his force.

By 1939 most of the military and civilian leaders of Japan were convinced that the United States offered the only possible re¬sistance to their conquering all of eastern Asia. These leaders felt that an attack to destroy or cripple the U.S. Pacific fleet would cause the isolationist Americans to sue for peace and leave the Japanese unopposed to accomplish their objectives. Familiar with American ideas and resources from his lengthy stays in the United States, Yamamoto expressed opposition to the attack, fearing that the massive industrial base and the vast natural wealth of the United States would eventually overwhelm his small island nation.

Yamamoto, in command of six aircraft carriers and a fleet of support and supply ships, sailed from Japan on November 26, 1941, along the seldom-used northern route to the Hawaiian Is¬lands. On the morning of December 7 the aircraft from Ya- mamoto’s carriers completely surprised the American forces at and around Pearl Harbor, destroying most of the island’s air fleet on the ground and sinking four batdeships while heavily damaging four others. In less than two hours Yamamoto inflicted the worst defeat on the U.S. Navy in its history.

The first two waves of attacking aircraft were so successful that Yamamoto canceled the last planned sorties against Pearl Harbor’s dry docks and petroleum storage facilides. This proved a minor error compared to the significance of missing the American car¬rier fleet that was on maneuvers and away from the port. Despite these omissions, the Japanese leadership was extremely happy with Yamamoto’s almost flawless assault on Pearl Harbor.

Yamamoto followed his victory with continued successes in the East Indies during January-March 1942 and in the Indian Ocean in April 1942. In June 1942, Yamamoto deployed a diver¬sionary attack toward the Alaskan Aleutian Islands while personally leading his main attack against Midway Island. With the capture of Midway, Yamamoto planned to renew his attack against the Hawai¬ian Islands.

On June 4, Yamamoto approached Midway, only to be met by a U.S. carrier force alerted by the breaking of Japanese radio codes. Yamamoto’s own intelligence service had incorrecdy esti¬mated the number of U.S. carriers that had survived the recent batde in the Coral Sea. The Japanese fleet suffered further prob¬lems when the American aircraft caught most of their airplanes on the flight decks changing armaments and refueling. By the end of the batde, four of Japan’s nine carriers were at the bottom of the ocean, along with three hundred of their planes and their best pilots.

Superior enemy intelligence and more than a litde bad luck had doomed Yamamoto to the first Japanese naval defeat in 350 years. Still, he continued to direct naval operations, attempting to maintain the initiative despite dwindling resources and a rapidly growing enemy force.

Americans’, Yamamoto continued to be the most feared enemy commander in the Pacific. When U.S. communications, the same that decoded the information about the Midway offensive, inter¬cepted data about Yamamoto’s planned visit to Japanese defenses on Bougainville, the U.S. command took the rare action of direcdy planning the assassination of an enemy leader. On April 18, 1943, U.S. fighter planes from Guadalcanal shot down the two planes carrying Yamamoto, fifty-nine, and his staff.

On the day of his death the Japanese military command pro¬moted Yamamoto to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. Although the outcome of the war would not likely have differed had Ya¬mamoto survived, his loss was no less severe to Japan’s ability to continue the war and to the morale of its sailors and citizens. His replacement, Adm. Mineichi Koga best summed up the feelings, stating, There was only one Yamamoto, and no one can replace him.”

Yamamoto influenced the development and advancement of carrier operations and proved their ability to project power over long distances. Since Pearl Harbor, no country has maintained any level of world dominance without a carrier force to represent its power around the globe. Yamamoto, in the spirit of the samurai, always displayed a high level of honor, loyalty, and dedication. His personal leadership abilities and innovative aircraft-carrier-based strategies place him behind only Togo as Japan’s greatest admiral.

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