WWII in the Pacific: Admiral Yamamoto Starts the War

"DID YOU NOW? On August 15, 1914 the Panama Canal, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto believed Japan should avoid war with the United States at all costs. After studying at Harvard and working as a naval attaché in Washington, DC during the 1920s, he understood America's power and resolve. In the late 1930s, he wrote, "Japan lacks the national power for a naval race with America." Nevertheless, as a dedicated military man, Yamamoto had no choice but to prepare his forces for the inevitable conflict he knew they could never win. A master of both poker and shogi (Japanese chess), Yamamoto was both a gambler and a skilled strategist. By studying a 1940 British aircraft carrier-based attack on Italian warships, Yamamoto hatched Operation Z: a daring plan to cripple the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii before America was even at war with Japan. Launched from aircraft carriers, Japanese long-range torpedo bombers carried out their December 7, 1941 raid with stunning success--except for the fact that America's aircraft carriers were not in the harbor that day. The US fleet was badly damaged, but not destroyed. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto had told the Japanese prime minister, "If we are ordered to do it, I can run wild for six months, putting up a string of victories. But if hostilities continue for two or three years, then I have no confidence that victory will be ours." Yamamoto knew the situation well. His Imperial Navy did indeed enjoy an uninterrupted string of victories at the war's outset. But almost exactly six months after Pearl Harbor, the victories ended. The loyal warrior Yamamoto, however, would fight on.