Yamamoto, Isoroku
Yamamoto, Isoroku (1884–1943), Japanese admiral and champion of naval aviation; as Combined Fleet commander in chief (1941), carried out the air attack on Pearl Harbor.No Imperial Japanese Navy officer of his age knew more about the United States than Yamamoto. He had served as a language officer and special student at Harvard (1919–21) and as naval attaché in Washington (1926–28). When navy vice minister (1936–39), Yamamoto opposed Japan's alignment with Germany and Italy, warning that the United States was not the weak‐willed nation pictured by Tokyo's hard‐liners. He also warned fellow officers that the industrial might of America posed a great threat. But when he was ordered to fight the United States, he took bold action.
The orthodox strategy of the Japanese naval General Staff was to wait for the U.S. Fleet to steam into the western Pacific and destroy it there in a battleship...
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