The Commanders: Yamamoto

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit history.com/subscribe. [Music] A Japanese army engineer left tenon Siyoshi Hamasuna. Hacks his way through the steaming jungles of Googleville in the South Pacific.

His mission is an important one. He's searching for admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Commander of the combined fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and chief architect of

“Japan's Naval Strategy during World War II.”

As Lieutenant Hamasuna clears the foliage, he finds what he's been looking for. In front of him lies the still smoldering rains of Yamamoto's transport aircraft, shot down the day before by American fighter planes in an ambush the Americans codenamed Operation vengeance. Hamasuna immediately recognizes Yamamoto.

His body has been thrown clear of the wreckage, and is still strapped in his seat, and it rests in the shade of a nearby tree. His head is bowed as if in deep contemplation. His hands still gripping the hilt of his sword, his katana.

In the Pacific theatre of the Second World War, few names inspired more fear, and have

been more misunderstood than Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

“To the Japanese, he was a totemic figure, and his death was a terrible blow to national”

morale. To many Americans that time, he was the faceless villain of the Pacific, the man who orchestrated the humiliating sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, and brought the United States into a brutal new kind of war. And yet Yamamoto had been one of the loudest voices inside Japan warning against war

with the United States, a Harvard-educated angler phone who had seen American industrial might up close, and knew his nation stood little chance in a prolonged war.

Decades later, we're still trying to penetrate, to get to the truth, of the enigmatic

Admiral Yamamoto. You'll listen to Donson's history, and this episode four in our commander's series, where we dig in for lives and decisions of five legendary World War II commanders. We're going to cut through the myth and examine what shaped their styles of command. Some of them were daring gamblers, others meticulous planners.

We ask whether their victories were earned through brilliant ruthless calculation, or was it all locked? In fact, we're going to ask whether their reputations hold up to scrutiny at all. We've got two more episodes in this series to come, so make sure you hit follow in your podcast player.

In this episode, we're going to be joined by this story in Mark Still, who, after a nearly 40-year career in the intelligence community, has published numerous books on the Pacific Theatre. With the author of Pearl Harbour, Japan's greatest disaster cards on the table, we'll explore how Yamamoto, a reluctant strategist, became the planner of Pearl Harbour, how his vision

helped to reshape Japan's navy and how his death over Booganville turned him into both a martyr at home and a symbol of inevitable defeat abroad. It's a Roku to Kano, was born in Nagaka, Nagata, Japan, in 1884, to a middle-ranking samurai family. His name is Saroku, means 56, and it reflected his father's age when he was born. In 1916, he was adopted by the Yamamoto family, another samurai line from the same region

it was then that he took their name. The adoption was a tradition out to preserve heritage and rank when families lacked ideas. Yamamoto married Riko Mehashi to his later in 1918, and they raised four children, as he built a career that would make him one of Japan's most fascinating naval commanders. He dented the Imperial Japanese naval academy in 1901.

"Going into the military, be it the Imperial Army of the Imperial Navy, was a preferred

Yamamoto did. By all accounts, he was a very good and serious student. From one thing,

“he was a man who did not drink, so he had more time to study. He also was a guy who”

was known to read the Bible that we never became a Christian, but he graduated really

high in his class, or more than 200 in his class, and he was number seven when he got out in November 1904." After graduating from the naval academy in 1904, Yamamoto was almost immediately thrust into the furnace of battle. Japan and the Russian Empire were at war, one caused by their competing Imperial ambitions in Korea and Manchuria.

Japan's modernized army in navy won a series of crushing, decisive victories on land and its sea. Most notably, the destruction of the Russian Baltic fleet that sell all around

the world to get there. At Tsushima, where Yamamoto fought aboard the Armoured Cruiser

“Mission, it was the first time that a major European power had been defeated by an Asian”

state in the modern era. For Yamamoto, these early experiences of battle were seminal and shaped his strategic outlook in the years to come. But, as Mark explained, it came at a high physical cost. "When he gets out of the naval academy, he is assigned to a cruiser, a cruiser named Mission," and at this point, Japan is at war with Russia. So, it's good timing for Yamamoto,

I suppose, because he gets to go right into combat in May, 1905, there's the decisive battle of Tsushima, fought between the Russian Baltic fleet and the Japanese Imperial Navy, and the Imperial Navy is much better trained and they win the battle. But Yamamoto pays a high personal price for this victory. His cruiser is placed right in the line of battle. It's in the center of the action. And, after a prolonged period of firing, one of the ship's

gun barrels burst. And, it's sprayed shrapnel all over the ship. And, Yamamoto has a large wound in his thigh. He loses two fingers in his left hand. He had he lost one more finger, actually. He would have been menatorially discharged from the Navy. But, as it was, though, his bravery was noticed, he received commendations for his bravery, because he refused to have been in post after he was wounded. And, congratulations from the commendroth combined

fleet. So, right away, he's identified as a man with the future. He takes away several

“important lessons that he uses later in his naval career. First of all, that Russians and”

the Japanese were at war, and the war began when the Japanese Navy conducted a surprise attack in February 1904 against the Russian fleet of court author. So, this is a lesson that Yamamoto took away and he used the same attack, of course, 37 years later. And, then, of course, there's a whole idea of this decisive battle. And, that's exactly what Sushima was. After the battle of Sushima straight, the Japanese are able to negotiate a

settlement favorable for them. So, here's another lesson that Yamamoto learns, is that you can beat a larger opponent in a decisive battle, and that will lead to a favorable peace settlement. In the years following the Russo-Japanese war, Yamamoto continued to climb the ranks in the Imperial Japanese Navy. By 1914, he was left in a commander. And, in 1919, he went to the United States to study at Harvard University. He ends up in the U.S. In fact, he's there twice,

but the first one, after the war, he goes to Harvard, actually, in May 1919. And, he's

enrolled there as, quote, unquote, a special student in English. But, this is kind of overplayed, though, he withdraws from Harvard in the spring term in 1920. So, he's not in the U.S. very long, but he does, though, take the opportunity to tour the U.S. He goes down to Mexico as well to look at the oil field. So, he gets a feel for the industrial capacity of the U.S. Although he's visit to the U.S. may have been brief, it was certainly influential.

He'd seen at first hand the vast potentially United States. He'd visited place like Detroit and the Texas oil fields. He saw levels of mass production. The Japanese could only dream of. He realized very quickly that the U.S. would be able to outbuild an out supply to Japan. And so, to get into a prolonged war with them would be a grave error. His unique experience in America gave Yammo to a perspective that different from those he rubbed shoulders with in the

upper echelons of Japan's military. As a result, he became known as a reformer, and a figure of huge controversy. He's an early, air power advocate. He's recognized as an air power authority

Staff College. So, apparently, while in the U.S., and maybe even before he went to the U.S.,

“he became enamored with aviation. So, when he gets to the Naval Staff College in 1921,”

his focus areas were oil because of that time, of course, oil was a lifeblood of a modern Navy and aviation. So, at that point, he becomes an air power advocate. And a lot of his subsequent tours are associated with air power. He rises seemingly just pretty quick, and he's obviously got a remarkable ability. He's right about pretty much everything between the world. It seems like he doesn't want to fight the states. It seems like he doesn't want to invade northern China,

or the main body of China is the 1930s go on. He has a good head on his shoulders for strategy. He is not a radical. Let's put it that way. I mean, he's right about Naval aviation. He identifies that early on as the future. But even there, his reputation is perhaps a bit overblown.

He's never a radical air power advocate. Yes, he does argue against the construction of these

huge Yamato class battleships. But he never dismisses the battleship as being totally worthless on the overall structure of the Imperial Navy. So, he's not a radical and air power. He does identify the power of the U.S., and he does not want to go to war with the U.S., but then, of course, as I'm sure we're going to talk about in the run-up to Pearl Harbor, he goes out of his way to expand the war against the U.S. He's also a member of there were two

different factions during this time in the Imperial Navy. One's the treaty faction, and these the officers that wanted to adhere to the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, which set this 553 ratio, which meant that Japan can only build up to 60% of the power of rural Navy in the U.S. Navy. So, he's a member of the treaty faction, because he wants to constrain any potential U.S.

Naval growth, because he knows that Japan can never build a fleet as large as the U.S.,

but then there's the fleet faction who wants to build up to 70% of the strength of the U.S. and rural Navy, because they think that's enough to guarantee that defense of Japan have been a conflict of the rise. So, early on, the treaty faction is dominant. The 1930 London Naval Conference comes to an agreement on the 553 ratio, but in subsequent years, and in fact, Yamamoto is sent to London for the second London Naval Conference, and here the fleet faction has its way

and the inner war naval treaty system falls apart, because Yamamoto was unable to get the U.S. so they British to agree to naval parity for the Japanese. So, he's kind of on losing the end of that battle. He's also on losing the end of the battle to keep the Japanese out of the Tri-Parte pact when he is Vice-Navy Minister. So, Mark, help me understand, here's a guy who is

“on the losing end of every single important Japanese interwar decision, whether it's war in China,”

whether it's tearing up the naval treaty that will hopefully provide some stability and parity between various fleets, whether it's seeking war with the U.S., whether it's aligning itself with Italy and Germany, and yet, he's promoted. He's given top jobs. What's it say about the Japanese system? What's happening there? He's a man of many paradoxes, and this is one. So, here's an officer who does not spend a lot of his time at sea. He does not have a lot of command

towards, which would be the typical way that you rise to the position of ultimate authority in the Imperial Navy. He's seen as a political admiral. He does spend a lot of his time in political jobs, and, therefore, he does not have a lot of sea time. But, yet, when things come to a head and the Japanese cabinet falls in August of 1939, because of the shock of the German-Sanian non-aggression pact with Japan's enemy Russia, in the aftermath of that, the cabinet falls,

and Emojo loses his job. Now, he's seen as a brain officer, that's for sure, but he's an unlikely choice for the next job that he gets. And the next job that he gets is the commander of

“the entire combined fleet. And the combined fleet is the most important job in the Japanese Navy.”

It's all the ocean going elements of the Imperial Navy. So, it is the top job in the Imperial Navy. But, he's given that job. He got him out of Tokyo, because he's been arguing against going to war against the US. He's been arguing against the tri-partite pact. And, therefore, his life has been threatened in Tokyo by the radicals on the army, and even in the Imperial Navy. There are some radicals there as well. So, to get him out of Tokyo, he has given this job as

commander of the combined fleet. One extraordinary thing. And, is he then ordered to strike at the US?

operational. How he's going to go about doing it? Has he lost the political battle in it?

“And, ironically, he's the full guy. The guy who advised against it is the guy that has to push it through.”

Yeah. And, here is the ultimate paradox in the Yamamoto saga. Now, people have portrayed him in the run-up to Pearl Harbor as a man of peace, because he did, it is true to say that he warned against the US, because he knew it was a war that Japan can not win. But, it wasn't as if he was against Japan going to war, and Japan going to war to conduct wars of aggression. He was a traditional Japanese nationalist. He supported the imperial system. And, by all

accounts and the sources that we have, he didn't really oppose the war in China. He certainly

didn't oppose the march to war against the US and the aftermath of the US economic embargo.

He just opposed a war that the Japanese couldn't win. And, he thought that was the war against the US. But, then, he goes out of his way to plan and spend the war against the US. So, he was not told

“to plan this war. The imperial navy had planned for 20 years how they were going to fight the”

US navy. They had the US navy as their most likely opponent. And, they had this elaborate scenario that they trained their navy for. They built their navy for. They were going to fight the US navy as it approached Japan somewhere in the Central Pacific. And, this is what they were prepared to do. But, this was much too passive for Yamamoto. And, in the run-up to war, instead of executing that plan, he had a much more aggressive idea. And, this was the Pearl Harbor attack. He was

a central figure in the Pearl Harbor saga. It is fair to say, without him, there would have been no Pearl Harbor attack. And, he was trying to get the attack approved against almost universal opposition. But, he stuck to his guns, and, eventually, he got the attack approved. I've done enough work on the Japanese decision making, well, we'll too, to know that it's a sort of sometimes, as you say, paradoxical and impenetrable decision making process. But,

the decision was taken by the government to go to war against the US. They just didn't

“like Yamamoto's super aggressive surprise attack plan on Hawaii. Is that what we're saying?”

That government was bent on going to war. It clearly did not want to meet the US demands of giving up its gains in China and then into China. So, that was a non-starter. So, the alternative is going to war, which Yamamoto was supportive of. The question was, how to go to war. And, they had to seize the resource areas in Southeast Asia to circumvent the American economic embargo. So, that's a given. That's the primary Japanese strategic objective at the start of the war.

But, then, the Navy, it was up to the Navy, really, how they were going to fight that war. And, the Naval General's staff, not the combined fleet. The Naval General's staff was the body that was supposedly in charge of formulating Japanese naval strategy. But, that's not how Yamamoto saw things as working. So, he literally, on his own, decided to take a different course. He had it in his mind as early as December 1940. It's a year before the attack that he was

going to attack Pearl Harbor. And, he admitted this after the attack to an Admiral buddy of his. For two main reasons, one was to cripple the US Pacific fleet. So, the Japanese could carry out their conquest of Southeast Asia. So, one objective of the attack at Pearl Harbor was to cripple the US fleet for six months. I will allow the Japanese to complete the conquest of Southeast Asia. The other reason was driven by Yamamoto. And, this was a psychological aspect to the attack

that is really kind of underplayed. And, this comes from Yamamoto's mind. His objective, psychologically, is to cripple American morale the start of the war. And, he thinks he can do that by sinking as number of battleships, because at the time, of course, battleships were seen as the measure of naval power. So, in his mind, he thinks that he can sink four U.S. battleships and that will cripple American morale at the start of the war. And, since he's been in the

US, he lived in the US twice, actually, as we mentioned, he's been getting credit for this insight into America and Americans. And, here he has this notion, which is totally ill-founded, that he can cripple American morale by sinking four battleships. So, the Pearl Harbor attack comes from the the fertile brain of Yamamoto and nobody else. On the morning of the 7th of December 1941, Yamamoto's plan to attack Pearl Harbor was launched. At 7.55 a.m. local time,

the first Japanese aircraft appeared over the naval base. Two waves of Japanese torpedo bombers,

dive bombers, and fighters filled the skies over a Wahoo Hawaii, and proceed to pummel the anchored

what was known as battleship row. In the frenzy of fire, a bomb detonated deep inside the battleship

“USS Arizona, causing a massive catastrophic explosion on the mighty ship sunk soon after.”

The loss of this one ship caused nearly half of all the American deaths in the attack. Other battleships, including Oklahoma, California, Nevada and West Virginia, were sunk or heavily damaged. Many smaller vessels were also struck. On airfields, the American aircraft have actually been part closer together to help guard against possible sabotage. In practice though, this made them easy targets for Japanese bombers and

low-flying strafing aircraft, hundreds of planes were destroyed on the ground, or is there a

attempt to take off? It was catastrophic. In just under 90 minutes, nearly two and a half thousand

U.S. service personnel and civilians were killed. Dozens of ships were sunk or damaged, and hundreds of aircraft destroyed. Then you saving grace for the Americans,

“was that the three U.S. Pacific fleet aircraft carriers were out at sea, and they avoided the”

fate of the battleships import. It was these carriers that would now go on to become the backbone of American naval power in the Pacific. Knowing that Japan could not prevail against United States in a long war, Yamamoto believed that he could cripple the U.S. Pacific fleet, so that it wouldn't be able to interfere with Japan's planned expansion to Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies. By destroying the U.S. vessels at Pearl Harbor, especially battleships, which everyone

at the time saw as the ultimate symbol of naval power, he hoped that he would shatter U.S. morale. So the attack he believed would give Japan 12 to six months to run wild across Asia, seizing territory securing vital resources and consolidating a defensible perimeter. And he hoped those rapid gains together with the initial shock would encourage the United States to come to the negotiating table rather than fight a long war. It was one of the greatest

gambles in history. The attacks certainly stunned the United States. Japan's declaration of war came ours after Pearl Harbor, something that further enraged the American public, present Roosevelt called it a date which will live in infamy. Yamamoto's plan achieved tactical surprise and did some damage to the American Pacific fleet, but it was far from defeated. And the American nation was nowhere near, throwing in the towel. As Mark explains,

Yamamoto's terrible gamble, the attack on Pearl Harbor, rather than delivering victory for Japan, had instead sewn the seeds of its own defeat. You know, Mark, I struggle with the twisted logic of this situation. Japan could not win a war against the U.S. right? So Yamamoto was right about that. Therefore, was Pearl Harbor was this hyper-aggressive surprise attack on their main naval base.

Irrespective of the fact that it didn't have the impact they thought it might have to do with

“the carriers, the oil, the fuel dumps, but was this hyper-aggressive attack on but was it the best option?”

Given the twisted logic of them assuming war was inevitable? Or was it a terrible idea anyway? The answer in my view is that it's a terrible idea. It's an utterly self-defeating idea.

And the bottom line is that the attack did not achieve its state of the objectives.

So, first of all, it was unnecessary from the strategic point of view. The U.S. Navy didn't have the ability to interfere with Japanese aims to conquer Southeast Asia, for the fiscal reasons and other reasons. But the U.S. Navy was simply unable to interfere with the Southern offensive. Therefore, the Pearl Harbor attack is unnecessary. It was also unlikely to achieve in my motto's aims. It didn't cripple the fleet.

We will see, within months, the U.S. Navy recovers from the attack. The attack was not that damaging. First of all, there were a number of ships sunk or damaged. There were 18 in total out of 100 there. But these were mainly old battleships, which were not the future face and naval warfare. If the war that comes going to be a battleship war, yes, Pearl Harbor would have been crippling. But it wasn't a battleship war. Japanese just show there was going to be a war

dominated by air power. So, the attack did not cripple the U.S. Navy physically and it had a strategic backfire aspect to it. In fact, it guaranteed, if you would, in my view, at least Japan's defeat. Japan goes to war with this vague notion how to achieve victory. And the vague notion revolves around the prospects of gaining a favorable negotiated settlement. So, what could they do that would be

surprise attack at the start of war on American sovereign territory where they kill thousands of

“Americans? That undermines Japan's strategic objectives of the negotiated settlement. So,”

it's a first-class strategic blender by the Japanese. So, not a great strategist in Mauk's book. Why not choking him up as one of the greats? No, he's not one of the greats. And he showed that a Pearl Harbor, even though the Japanese victory, quote-unquote, and it was a tactical victory to be sure. I'm not just making Pearl Harbor as a non-avent that didn't affect a lot of damage. It did, but it was merely a tactical victory. But the basis of Yamamoto as a great strategist myth,

this is Japanese victory a Pearl Harbor. And it wasn't a victory, except an a tactical sense.

It's interesting to me. I mean, I always think Pearl Harbor's almost the worst of both

wells. It's a sort of raid-in force that does all the things you've mentioned. It drives the Americans totally bananas, brings them into the war, guarantees Japan's defeat, terrible loss of life,

“but it's a nuisance attack strategically. If they're going to do this crazy surprise sneak attack,”

they should have followed through and kept going back to the place, destroy the, the through the wars that dot the shore facilities, the intelligence units, the huts, the fuel dumps, actually trying to get the job done, but it does neither thing effectively. That is true, but there are a lot of mess about Pearl Harbor. One is that it was this great Japanese victory when it had limited effect if any. Now, the notion though that they could have done a much better

job of Pearl Harbor, aside from sinking naval targets, they could have neutralized the naval facilities there by bombing the Navy yard and taking out the oil storage facilities is totally erroneous, because they just didn't have the capability of doing so. They didn't have the time to do it on sudden December. There wasn't actually, if you do a timeline of what they could have done

“after the first two weeks or wasn't enough time for a third wave. And the losses were actually”

much heavier than is normally portrayed there, a lot of aircraft were damaged, aircraft forced for the next attack against the naval base would have been much less. But most importantly though, had they had this epiphany and they had they decided to do a

second attack, they wouldn't have targeted the naval base that just wasn't in Japanese naval DNA.

They were Mahani and trained naval strategists, this meta-tacking enemy fleet, meta-tacking the naval base, so it wouldn't have happened. So the Pearl Harbor attack was a raid, and a raid is not going to cripple a fleet in one event. Nor is it going to knock out a major area target like the naval base and all the fuel facilities there. It was unable to accomplish its objectives. Now, the Japanese notion, this decisive battle, motion comes back in a

play or again. So the notion that you can be a major industrial power and a major navy-like U.S. navy in one battle is not how modern wars are fought. It's impossible to do that. So you can wear down the U.S. navy or modern large navy through a series of actions, but it's not going to happen in one raid or one decisive battle. The Japanese just weren't good at contemplating and planning for modern war. And that's a problem that Yamamoto showed throughout the war until he was killed

in its U-43. Listen, don't snows history yet, more Yamamoto coming up. What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America? I'm Don Wildman and on American history it, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years through uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors for the nation was formed, meet the

characters who have altered it with their touch and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American history at twice a week every week wherever you get your podcasts. American history here, a podcast from history here. Pearl Harbor may not have been the knockout blow that Yamamoto had hoped for, but it had undoubtedly stunned the U.S. Navy, government, and people. It's also true that in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor,

the Japanese Navy and Army did go on a tear across Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Japanese forces use place like Hong Kong, very much into Malaysia. There are series of rapid successful campaigns. The Japanese over and Guam and Wei Kailand, they eliminated these small

were pushed back onto the Batan Peninsula in Corrigador, where they held out under siege before

“eventually surrendering in early 1942. Britain would suffer a humiliating defeat, as Singapore fell”

in February 1942. The large garrison capitulating to the smaller Japanese force without much of a fight. Winston Churchill described the full of Singapore as the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history. Japan also drove south through the Dutch East Indies to secure desperately needed oil supplies. Apparently, strengthening its strategic position. At sea, the allies were adapting to carrier warfare. In April 1942, U.S. carriers launched bombers to strike Tokyo the heart of

the Japanese Empire in the so-called "duelittle raid" as revenge for Pearl Harbor. It was a daring and profoundly shocking operation, even if it did very little real damage to the Japanese capital. It did however, so seeds of doubt in the minds of the Japanese people and it demonstrated the threat

“posed by American aircraft carriers. Yamoto traded on this threat to lobby for a further decisive”

strike on the American fleet. While Yamoto went to battle in the corridors of power, far away off the coast of Papua New Guinea in the Coral Sea, a battle took place in May 1942. It was fought nearly entirely by carrier-based aircraft, and the Americans successfully halted a Japanese attempt to sell around the coast of Papua New Guinea, capture Port Morrisby and threaten Australia. It was a strategic setback for the Japanese, even though both sides lost a carrier in the battle.

Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, U.S. code breakers were steadily cracking Japanese naval codes, gaining insight into future operations, something unknown to Yamoto that would soon come to play a major part in unraveling all his carefully laid plans. By late spring 1942, Japan reached the high water mark of its expansion. They controlled a vast area across the Pacific and Southeast Asia, but its resources were stretched thin. Yamoto and the

Japanese high command wanted to hold on to the games they had made. To achieve this, they decided that they would precipitate a big decisive battle, one that had so far eluded them. This set the stage for the Battle of Midway in early June 1942. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese

do quite well, they take other, what they call their first phase objectives, but then after that,

there's friction between the Naval Jones staff and the command fleet. Naval General staff once do head south, it's the South Pacific to cut off the sea lines between the U.S. and Australia. But Yamamoto has different ideas here. Once again, he wants to achieve this decisive victory against the U.S. Pacific fleet, and he thinks that that can only be done in the central Pacific. So you pick somewhere that the U.S. has to defend and the U.S. Navy shows up and then you annihilate it.

So they couldn't attack Pearl Harbor and Hawaii. I didn't have the means to do that,

“but they did have the means to attack Midway. So that's how we get to this battle in June”

1942 at Midway. It's Yamamoto's idea to bring the U.S. Navy to battle where he can defeat it decisively. But the plan that he comes up with is fatally flawed in every way possible, and it provides the foundation for the Japanese defeat. Yamamoto's Midway plan aim to seize the American base on Midway at all in the North Pacific, but he wasn't just interested in that scrap of coral. By attacking Midway, he wants to draw out an annihilate the U.S. Pacific

fleet's carriers, the ones that escaped at Pearl Harbor. He wants to precipitate one massive

decisive battle that might bring the war to a successful conclusion. Always the gamble of the

underdog risk all on a decisive battle. Yamamoto was planning to conceal the true size and disposition and intentions of his force. His main carrier strike group, under Vice Admiral Nagumo, would launch a strike to take out Midway's airfields and land-based defenses. Then they would be ready to deal with any American ships that appeared to respond to their attack on Midway. Once the defense on Midway had been destroyed, the battle would be captured by an amphibious

invasion force. Yamamoto kept his big powerful battleships, including his own flagship.

would steam in and finish off any surviving U.S. forces after his carrier-based aircraft had

“done the initial damage. Confusingly he also arranged a large, simultaneous, diversionary attack”

on the Illusion Islands. Now, interestingly, the Illusions were part of the U.S. territory of Alaska. It was the only military campaign of World War II fought on North American soil. And it was hoped that that campaign would draw American attention and hopefully American forces away from this great big battle around Midway. The Japanese were riding high on the successes the previous months. They seemed have a numerical advantage. It looked like the deck was stacked

in Yamamoto's favor, but confidence in the plan. The expectation that would deliver victory was misplaced. It's astonishingly complicated and that's just how the Japanese did things. They love these intricate plans. A lot of deception wasn't involved here. That's the Japanese way of war.

“But obviously, that can backfire. So, for example, here at Midway, they had a much larger force than”

the Americans in June, 1942, much larger force. However, this intricate plan they put together and this is, again, it's Yamamoto's plan. Now, he is not the planner. He does not sit down and plan this out of detail. It's done by his staff that best to Japanese way. The commander is fully not involved in the actual plane. But, of course, Yamamoto, it's his overall arching guidance to his staff and he approves the plan. So, in essence, it is Yamamoto's plan. But this plan

that he approves, it arranges for a huge Japanese force and it's broken down into 12 different forces, displayed out over a huge chunk of the northern Pacific Ocean. So, these forces are

too far apart from mutual support. And the bottom line to this was, and this shows how bad the

plan was, even though the Japanese had this huge numerical advantage. At the point of contact, off of Midway, where the Japanese carrier force comes in the contact and fights the entire battle unsupported against the American carrier force and aircraft from Midway, the Japanese carrier forces outnumbered both in terms of ships and much more so in aircraft. So, that's just a small taste of how bad this plan was. The battle of Midway was a disaster for Yamamoto, an Imperial

Japanese navy. From the beginning, it had been too hasty in planning. It was fantastically over-alaborate. It was a multi-layered operation across a vast swath of ocean. Yamamoto's forces were dispersed over hundreds of miles, coordination, was impossible. Rather than ambushing the American forces, Yamamoto was, instead, led into a deadly US ambush. The American crypto analysis had broken the Japanese naval code. Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the US Pacific Fleet,

had learned both the likely date of the Japanese attack, the strength of forces involved,

“and the all-important location. Like I said, Yamamoto's forces were spread out, they were able”

to support each other. He sent his carriers to attack Midway. And after they'd returned from one raid and the ships' decks were filled with aircraft that were rearming and refueling the American carrier-based aircraft struck. The American aircraft carrier that had been lying in weight had achieved almost total surprise. Bombs from those US carrier-based aircraft penetrated the Japanese flight decks and caused utter devastation as aviation fuel ignited stacked up

bombs and ammunition detonated in a chain of appalling explosions. In the space of just a few hours, Japan lost four front-line fleet aircraft carriers. Perhaps even more damaging was the loss of over 300 aircraft and around 3,000 veteran sailors and aircraft. These experienced aviators and deck crews were utterly irreplaceable. Their loss hollowed out the Imperial Navy's carrier arm.

Never again would Japan's carrier forces reach the same level of skill or potency.

The US did suffer losses. The carrier york town absorbed so much punishment, but eventually went to the bottom alongside a destroyer and a few hundred US personnel were killed. But the Americans were able to make up these losses. Following Midway, Japan's naval strength was shattered. It's capacity to wage an offensive war in the Pacific largely at an end. In a roundabout way, Yamamoto

Instead, he had handed the strategic initiative to the United States. How had things gone so wrong? Mark explained. He is miles away. He's on a big old battleship, kind of grinding through the North Pacific. At that moment, does he know it's over for him? It's over for the Japanese Navy. It's over for the Japanese Empire. That's a good question. I'm not privy to the thoughts

“running through his mind at the time, but I think we can surmise that he knew the future of the”

Imperial Navy and the Japan at this point was cloudy. He fully realized the strength of the US. So he's not involved in the action at Midway. He's on his flagship Yamamoto, this huge fellowship because of a series of bad assumptions. So one assumption being that the Japanese would gain strategic and tactical surprise at Midway. After that, then the Americans would wake up all of a sudden. They would sort you their feet from Pearl Harbor and they would sail the Midway where they

would be annihilated by the mass strength of the Imperial fleet. But these assumptions were wrong.

In Japanese planning, they disregarded intelligence almost always. So they disregarded enemy

capabilities. They never lost an opportunity to denigrate their opponents. And all these things were in play at Midway. And it resulted in a very major defeat. But it's fair to say, though, that Midway was not the decisive battle of the Pacific War. It was a major Japanese defeat to be sure. But what it did though, we've blunted Japanese offensive power. It didn't mean the end of the Imperial Navy. In fact, the Imperial Navy's carrier force was able to rebuild and

it beat the US Navy in a major carrier better just a few months later. So Midway was not the

“decisive battle of the war. But I think Yamamoto knew at this point where these were headed.”

After Midway, does he have any agency anymore? Say for example, did he adjust his strategic thinking and does his strategic thinking matter anymore? So what could the Japanese do at this point as the flow of American production arrived in the Pacific? Now, it's true, though, that after Midway, the Imperial Navy still outnumbered the US Navy in all major categories. So it's not like they didn't have options. But after Midway, the Japanese were kind of stunned. They didn't know

what to do. They had plans to resume the offensive in the South Pacific. They didn't do this. In the meantime, the US Navy was very aggressive and they seized the initiative. And they launched this counter-offensive at a unknown island in the Southern Solomon's called Guadalcanale. So this happens in August 1942, and this starts a six-month grinding battle of attrition led by

Yamamoto. And the Japanese were never able to adjust their thinking here and recognize that

here is the decisive battle that they had been seeking. This is a six-month battle of attrition and the US Navy commits literally everything it has. And Yamamoto is like a spectator here. He's on his flagship, the battleship Yamato. And he's anchored in truck Lagoon, not uncomfortably, apparently by all the sources here, he lives a pretty comfortable life on the flagship. And he's never able to marshal the strength of the Imperial Navy to throw the Americans off with Guadalcanale.

Is that because of this idea of a kind of imperial perimeter that could be defended by each of

“its constituent parts? But when Guadalcanale, that's sort of an important just section of that”

Imperial perimeter comes under attack. It seems perhaps odd to Yamamoto to choose that as the decisive battle and throw the entire strength of the Japanese fleet at it. Well, he didn't get to choose this battle. The Americans chose it for him, but he's slow to react.

And he does not recognize the battle as a potentially decisive one. So here is the first test

of this Japanese motion for victory. They are going to seize all these things that they have to have to set up a viable war economy. And then they're going to hold on to these as the Americans beat their heads against this Japanese defense of perimeter. And the first time this is tested is a Guadalcanale. And this is why Guadalcanale, I would argue, is the most decisive battle of the Pacific War. So this six-month battle of a tradition takes place. The Japanese navy is

barely bloodied. Surface heavy losses, sort of the Americans actually Americans take more losses, but the Americans can replace their loss if the Japanese can't. And at the end of it all, the Japanese have to evacuate Guadalcanale. So here's a period when the Japanese have the numerical advantage over the Americans. And it doesn't matter if they are unable to stop the American offensive. And from that point, I think it's clear where things were headed. And even

Hinesites want to think, but we now know that Japan's only option is, I guess, to throw in all of their strength to put all that chips in. At that point, if you've been a great strategist, or even a decent one might you've done that? Well, certainly, if this is the Japanese

“notion for victory, you have to hold this defensive perimeter. And you have to attribute the”

American navy. You can't defeat it in one battle as we talked about. You have to give us some serious blows when you're able to do so. But there comes a point in November during this campaign from Guadalcanale. And both sides have been at this for months now. And both sides are kind of at their end as far as strength goes. But the Americans throw in everything they have. For example, in these November battles, they throw in two modern battleships into torpedo and fester waters

at night off of Guadalcanale. That's a very risky operation. But the Americans do it to turn back this last Japanese attempt to run a big convoy through the Guadalcanale. And the meantime, Yamamoto is up there on his prize puppy battleship and truck. And he's not off Guadalcanale. So

he never does throw in the entirety of his strength to turn the title of battle off of Guadalcanale.

“There are a lot of reasons for this. But I think that Japanese thinking of this was, it wasn't the”

traditional decisive battle that they had thought of and prepared for for so long. Guadalcanale cannot be that. So we're not going to throw in our battle fleet here off of Guadalcanale. It is a dance nice history. More utterly misguided use of airpower coming up after this. What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?

I'm Don Wildman. And on American history it, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors for the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American history at twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

American history here, a podcast from history here. The Guadalcanale campaign didn't just break Japan's grip on the Southern Solomon's, it broke the back of many things. Yamamoto's grand strategy included. In the months long struggle for the island, he had committed the combined fleet to a series of costly, inconclusive battles that had

bled the Japanese navy white. And he never precipitated the decisive showdown that he'd spent

his career chasing. By early 1943 with Guadalcanale lost and the initiative having passed permanently the Allies, Yamamoto was a commander trying to stay off defeat on the front line of an ever shrinking empire. In April 1943, Yamamoto set off touring forward-base in the Solomon's to shore up morale after the Guadalcanale disaster. It was a fateful decision. Yamamoto's inspection itinerary had been red and advanced by American codebreakers who had penetrated Japan's

“naval Cypher as you remember. On the morning of April 1943, long-range P38 fighters took off from”

Hendersonfield on Guadalcanale, an air-strip Yamamoto fought so desperately to destroy a new few months before. The mission was given the start code name Operation Vengeance, and the American pilots only knew their quarry was an important high office. In the skies over Booganville, the P38 sprang

their trap, jooling with the escorting zero fighters. First Lieutenant Rex T. Barber got on the

tale of all of the Mitsubishi G4M bombers acting as Yamamoto's transport aircraft and fired into it until it poured smoke. Yamamoto's aircraft crashed into the jungle and he was killed. It kind of gets back to the Yamamoto myth. So why does he had this aura about him as a great naval strategy? It's because of his great victory at Pearl Harbor. Well, in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the Americans were dissecting whether or not their battleship were going to be valuable in the

near term. I mean, they knew they got their clock cleaned up Pearl Harbor. And it's much easier to process this if you make it the actions of a bringer commander who inflicted this defeat on you. So his aura was at its height at this point. He was riding high in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Yamamoto or anybody else who could turn the tide of the war after Guadalcanat after the

“rest of the Solomon's campaign. So going into the 1944, there was nobody you could have”

turned the tide of battle against the Americans. The death of Admiral Icaroku Yamamoto was a terrible blow to Japan's wartime spirit. His staff cremated his remains in Papinugini before returning his ashes to Tokyo bought his final flagship the mighty battleship Musashi. On June 5, 1943 Yamamoto was given a state funeral. He was posthumously promoted to Marshal Admiral and awarded Japan's highest decoration the order of the Chrysanthemum along with Nazi Germany's night cross

of the Iron Cross with Oakley's and swords. His ashes were divided between Tokyo's Tamasemetry and his family's temple in Nagawa. How should we evaluate Yamamoto both as a man and a strategist? It pays mark again. He's a man of character and importance to be sure but a man of paradoxes also. It's true he was highly intelligent. He possessed moral courage. He was capable of bold decisions. We saw that at Pearl Harbor and he was occasionally insightful. For example,

his early recognition that aviation would be an important, perhaps the most important aspect of

naval warfare. He was also very sentimental. He would cry openly weep when one of his staff officers was killed in action during the war. He was also a man of undead of charisma. He was adored by his staff. Every account you read about him, his staff adored him and apparently his concern for his men got through to all ranks. So he was a highly valued commander throughout the Imperial fleet. But at the same time though, he had a lot of not desirable qualities as well. He was an intellectual

bully and we saw that how he got his Pearl Harbor attack plan approved and also his midway plan approved both time he threatened to resign. So he was a bully to get his way. He was stubborn.

“He was self-confident to the extreme. And that's why he felt he knew better than the entire”

naval general staff. He was increasingly autocratic as the war goes on. And people are quite familiar probably with his affinity for games of chance. He was a gambler in his private life. And he was also a gambler when he came to his naval career and planning out naval operations. And on a personal level, it's fair to point out he was a womanizer in a very neglectful husband and father. And as a strategist, he has a very mixed record at best. And I would submit, but every

major operation he touched turned out daily for Japanese. Mark, I'm not putting you down as a fan

here. I'm not putting that as a fan. And I guess ultimately his legacy, which if we're going to

talk about great structures, his legacy was the utter and complete annihilation of the Japanese navy. And eventually the invasion and conquest of his homeland as well.

“Well, that's what happened. But fortunately for Yamamoto, if you want to call it fortunately,”

he's killed in April 1943. So this is a period of the war when both sides are relatively in balance still. So there's still this perhaps this vague possibility Japanese may yet achieve some for a victory. Now after that point in the war, it's a string of major Japanese defeats. There's the battle for, that's the battle of Philippine Sea, ballet take off, and America's get closer and closer to the homeland. But this doesn't happen during Yamamoto's tenure as commander.

So he kind of is not tainted by the specter of certain defeat. But as a strategist, though, he was just not effective. Pearl Harbor was, I would characterize it as his unhealthy obsession. But again, as we talked about, it's the basis for the Yamamoto's great strategist myth. But we talked about how it had little impact on the American Pacific Fleet, both in the near term and the long term. And then after Pearl Harbor, he squanders the Japanese advantage. He conducts this

ill-concited operation in the coral sea as a preface to the midway operation. But in so doing, he commits only a portion of his fleet. He allows the Americans to defeat a portion of his fleet peace meal. And he jeopardizes his main operation of midway, his intended decisive battle of midway by the success of this secondary operation at Coral Sea, which ends badly. And then midway, how this plan was just on every level, there are several principles of war that both the

that Yamamoto comes up with violates every principle of war. And like I said, it's the foundation

“of the Japanese defeat. And then he presides over the Japanese debacle at Guadalcinao. And he's”

like a spectator. He never does seize control of the situation. So everything he touches,

pretty much ends up in disaster. And just one more thing to mention, his last major operation is conducted in April, just days before he's killed by this American Interception. So here's another example of him not really being able to process and contemplate naval war, modern naval war. So he has just conducted a six-month campaign trying to neutralize the American air feel the Guadalcinao. He's unable to do that. And then in April, he tries just four pin-pric

raids and American positions under Guinea and also in Guadalcinao to neutralize American offensive power in the region. And he stops the operation after four raids thinking it's a great success. Well, it's not a great success. And in fact, the air feel the Guadalcinao that you feel the neutralize is the air feel that the aircraft come from the shoot them down. So his last major operation is the debacle as well. In fact, everything he touches was the debacle for the Japanese.

“I think a wise man, I'm paraphrasing one said, Gave your strength, find the enemy center of”

mass and kill it and Yamato does the opposite of every opportunity. Yeah, he's unsuccessful when doing that. He tried in Pearl Harbor on successful, tried again in midway, obviously on successful, and a Guadalcinao he botched that opportunity as well. There's such a fascinating intention that legacy of Admiral, it's a Roku Yamato. It was here who pushed through those bold plans that enabled Japan's apparent success

in the first few months of the Pacific War. But Yamato put those plans in place, believing privately,

this was a war Japan could never win. And thus did more than most to doom Japan to a ruinous

defeat. During his career, champion naval aviation. He pushed through the carrier-centered strike power that changed naval warfare and stunned the United States in Britain. The oversaw

“lightning advance that a few brief months made gains that took the Allies more than three years to”

reverse. Yet, the failure to destroy the US carriers at Pearl Harbor and do greater damage to the dockyard facilities, his terribly flawed planning is overconfidence at midway. While all of that meant that the very tools he'd perfected were turned back against Japan with devastating effect. In Japan he was venerated, during his life he was mourned with a state funeral in death. And perhaps his reputation benefited from that untimely death. He was killed before the consequences

of his actions could be fully recognised and his reputation tarnished. A broad, he was the

mastermind of Pearl Harbor, fired the starting gun on that savage war in the Pacific and ultimately

faced the righteous vengeance of his enemies. Perhaps it's best to think about him as a loyal servant of a faulty strategy. He was a man who saw the folly of war with the United States, but once he was committed to it, he prosecuted it with total commitment in a way that he thought just might bring them success. Even then his operational plans were fatally flawed. Ultimately though, if you're going to go to war with the United States then another 20th century

with the resources that both sides were able to command, you're going to lose. And what Yamato feared most came to pass, total defeat, occupation, and upheaval. I want to thank my guests, Mark Still, so brilliantly incites this episode. Thank you very much. If you would like to read more about some of the battles we've covered in the episode, please check out his books, Pearl Harbor, Japan's greater defeat, and midway, the Pacific war's most famous

battle at both available now. Join me next Monday for the next episode in this command as series, we'll be returning the European theatre to discuss the man who oversaw really the most massive military operations in the history of the world. His armies on the eastern front crushed the vermarked in titanic clashes, and he ultimately oversaw the capture of the enemy capital, the capital of Third Reich in 1945. That's right, we're going with Marshall of the Soviet Union,

Giorgi Zhukov. But was Zhukov a brutal operator who overwhelmed his enemies with little care for the lives of his own men? Or was he a master tactician who first fought Nazi Germany to a standstill and then led the red army to a glorious turn around the victory? Tuning to find out.

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