Well he was right about that, and Lt Colonel Jimmy Doolittle
(later promoted to General) made sure it started in April '42
And for the record, before someone posts it, Yamamoto never said invading America was impossible because there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.
The air ambush and killing of Yamamoto is my favorite WWII story. My Dad was on an LST in The Pacific and the long suppressed story of Yamamoto’s end always brings a smile to my face.
I’ll wait with baited breath for an article from the New York Times which discusses in glowing terms such American WWII military leaders as Gen. Douglas MacArthur or Adm. Chester Nimitz.
If there are bars in heaven, he’s probably sharing a sake with Robert E. Lee.
Good read and thanks for posting it.
An amazing generation and period of history with many valuable lessons we don’t recognize. History makes every arm-chair General look brilliant but we will never know the exact information these men made monumental decisions with.
In hindsight, Yamamoto’s real brilliance was his predictions prior the war. His failure was not finishing the job by taking Hawaii or finishing the fleet when he had the opportunity. Typical of Japanese leadership for his era, he saw the tremendous victory and did not want to risk defeat after achieving it. He was correct about the end result prior to the war but they might have dragged it out long enough to sue for peace with much of their gains intact.
We had our share of mistakes in WWII but we were truly blessed by bigger errors by our enemies.
If Japan had either listened to Yamamoto’s advice not to attack the U.S., or had carried out his actual plan in its entirety, world history would have been very different:
Yamamoto proposed not merely destroying the U.S. fleet, but landing Japanese marines in Hawaii in sufficient force to seize control. The U.S. would have been left with San Francisco as its nearest deep water port to the Japanese home islands, and Japan would have had a forward position in which to base aircraft to harass the U.S. fleet. Fortunately, Yamamoto was not regarded as sufficiently “bushido” and his plan was watered down by folks more in the favor of Tojo and the Emperor.
I’m one historian who does not believe Yamamoto’s raid could have knocked the US out of the war, even if the carriers HAD been in port.
1. Yamamoto could only expect 3 carriers to be in the Pacific anyway: Lexington (CV-2), USS Enterprise (CV-6) and Saratoga (CV-3). The Wasp, Hornet, and Yorktown were still with the Atlantic fleet. Furthermore if the Japanese intelligence network was anything near as accurate as it supposedly was, Yamamoto should have known that Saratoga had just finished her overhaul at Bremerton and wasn’t due to return to Pearl Harbor until Dec. 10th or later. So the Admiral could have only hoped for 2, possibly 3 if Saratoga was ahead of schedule, carriers to be at Pearl when he launched his attack.
2. Even after extensive damage at the Battle of the Coral Sea, Yorktown was repaired in less than a month and available for the Battle of Midway. Given that several capital ships, heavily damaged at Pearl, returned to action within the year, it is not inconceivable that at least 1 Pacific fleet carrier could have survived Pearl Harbor and returned to service by June 1942 (Battle of Midway)
3.American shipbuilders moved so quickly to rebuild the Pacific fleet that even had we lost Coral Sea and Midway, we still would have come roaring back. Replacements for the Lexington and Yorktown were already in shipyards at the time of their sinking.
What Yamamoto meant by the WH comment was actually super humble:
He meant that if Japan fought the USA at all, the notion that the USA would fight until some brokered political settlement was fanciful.
He was saying that Japan would have to win so utterly in order for the USA to stop fighting that Japan would have had to take CONTINENTAL US territory —his meaning was the exact opposite of what people made it out to be.
He studied at Harvard, and had driven his American convertible all over the USA, admiring the oil industry here.
THAT is why he was fixated on the question of oil & energy —as a navy man he knew the stuff was the lifeblood of combat ops.
In fact he was quite an AmericanoPhile.
I'm not sure the Pacific War was really a "war of attrition," at least on the American side.
That usually implies a conflict in which both sides are up against their manpower and resource limitations and victory goes to whoever can hold out the longest anyway.
In actual fact, of course, American strength did not degrade during the course of the war but instead increased steadily throughout. The Japanese were remarkably ineffective at even inflicting heavy casualties on US forces, after their initial six months of running wild.
Japan lost 3.5% to 4.5% of its population during the war, the US only .32%, and it was also fighting in Europe.
Not necessarily.
Having studied works on the Pacific War from both sides over the past twenty-odd years, I can say with some authority that the NY Times is once again failing to look at the bigger picture while making sweeping statements.
By the fall of 1941, Japan had already aroused the ire of the United States with the empire's invasion of French Indochina. And there is no doubt in my mind that even if Japan had not attacked us, her destruction of the British navy and subsequent conquests of Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies would have inevitably pulled us into war under the premise of defending our greatest allies. Pearl Harbor or not, America would have still become the only free nation in the world capable of stopping Japan.
The Empire, driven by the dream of Hakko Ichiu (bringing the eight corners of the world under one imperial roof) would not have simply stopped when they reached the resource rich regions of the Pacific. America, therefore, would eventually have no choice but to confront the Japanese- not only to aid her allies in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain, but also to protect our own interests. And we as a nation would have felt morally obligated to do so, in spite of the strident pleas of the staunchest isolationists.
The ultimate end would be the same. America would still have fought against Japan- but certainly not with the sense of righteous, ferocious, seething rage and thirst for swift and all-destructive vengeance that drove us to all but wipe Japan from the map only 44 months after the Kido Butai's masts broke the horizon north of Hawaii.
Yamamoto could do the the math.
California alone had more miles of railroad and paved road than all of Japan. US steel production, oil production, etc., all vastly outstripped that of Japan. The decision to go to war with the US was insane, an he knew it.
Japanese Admiral
Someone at the table asked a Japanese Admiral why, with the Pacific Fleet devastated at Pearl Harbor and the mainland US forces in what Japan had to know was a pathetic state of unreadiness, Japan had not simply invaded the West Coast.
Commander Menard would never forget the crafty look on the Japanese Commander’s face as he frankly answered the question.
"You are right", he told the Americans. "We did indeed know much about your preparedness. We knew that probably every second home in your country contained firearms. We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand."
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!" - Adolph Hitler
Pearl Harbor was a huge defeat for Japan, because they failed to get any of our aircraft carriers, which were out to sea on that day.....Japan lost the war then and there.