On April 13, 1943, Nimitz of the U.S. Pacific Command received a telegram whose contents stunned everyone and could not believe it. The content of the telegram was as if it were an opportunity given by God, and it impressively wrote the itinerary and date of the Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, and the information such as time, place, and transportation was extremely detailed. After discussing with many of the generals around him, Nimitz came to the conclusion that he must seize this opportunity to assassinate Isoroku Yamamoto and avenge the bloodbath of Pearl Harbor.
Coincidentally, when the telegram came, it was also the time when Japan was gradually defeated, and a series of Japanese troops such as Coral Island, Midway Island, and Guadalcanal participated in the battle, all of which had been defeated miserably. Isoroku Yamamoto used his personal wisdom to plan the Pearl Harbor attack, and with his ingenuity, he had already predicted the current outcome. Isoroku Yamamoto had conceived that with Japan's current national strength, it would be absolutely a chicken and egg fight against the United States, but now that the war had begun, it was pointless to say that this was pointless, and it would be necessary to fight it hard no matter what. Become a hero or become a "bear". Since the strength to meet the battle is lacking, it can only start from the details, check the omissions and fill in the gaps, and try to be perfect, so as to avoid the complete collapse of the Pacific defense line.
At the same time, not only is the overall situation not optimistic, but the momentum of the Japanese soldiers is also very low, and even now, their hearts are like mirrors, knowing that this is a battle that will undoubtedly die. Yamamoto saw the problem of morale, in order to stabilize the morale of the army, cheered the soldiers, decided to take a plane to the front line, to comfort the soldiers, because only the presence of the battle commander can boost morale, especially in such a desperate situation, such behavior is very necessary.
Yamamoto cut the details, went to the front line, the U.S. army got a telegram, and plotted assassination. Everything went so smoothly, I don't know if Yamamoto, who has always been intelligent, thought that he would suffer such a disaster? According to the information obtained by Nimitz, Yamamoto Fifty-Six will depart from Rabaul, the Japanese Naval Headquarters, at 8:00 a.m. on April 18, aboard a land-based attack aircraft and escorted by six Zero fighters, to Bougainville and Shortland Islands. In the meantime, it will land at Bougainville Island airport at around 9:45 a.m. and then take a submarine hunting trip to other bases.
Such detailed intelligence, as if the Japanese military's plan was made in the company of the US army, all the deployments, events, and tools were very clear, and even attached routes, the US military really smiled and rejoiced. When Leiden, the director of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Intelligence Service, learned of such information, he immediately approached Nimitz to discuss the plan, he knew that the morale of the Japanese army was currently low, and if the Japanese heroes were killed at this time, then morale would inevitably be severely damaged, and it would be exciting to think.
To tell the truth, at that time, Nimitz still had a little hesitation, mainly because Yamamoto Fifty-Six was very capable, and if he died, the Japanese commander would be replaced and a role more powerful than Yamamoto would come out, and the U.S. military would not know how to deal with it. But Layton said that Yamamoto Fifty-Six was very powerful, but now no one among the Japanese generals could copy his wisdom, so there was no need to worry at all, and Nimitz agreed with this view after hearing it, so he asked Roosevelt for instructions to assassinate Yamamoto Fifty-Six.
Roosevelt, as the master of the whole situation, thought about more things, and he believed that acting rashly in this way would most likely directly expose the fact of their codebooks to the Japanese army, and it would become extremely difficult to decipher the codebooks after changing them. But there was pearl harbor before, and now Japan is in a slump, which is definitely a good time to hit Japan and boost the morale of the US military. Moreover, Yamamoto's trip can have a natural cover for the US military to prevent the disclosure of the fact that the codebook has been deciphered, that is, Yamamoto's destination is the front line, so that he can pretend that Yamamoto and the US military met on the front line, so that the attack occurred. After the decision, the assassination program called "Revenge" began. When Nimitz received the order, he immediately contacted his subordinate General Halsey to arrange the entire operation, the purpose of which was very simple and crude, that is, to kill Yamamoto and his entourage, and then destroy the telegram that revealed the whereabouts of the Japanese army.
Once the plan was in place, it was time to recruit those who attacked Yamamoto. Two pilots of the P38 fighter were recruited, one was Raffle and the other was Michelle, and both of them, as pilots of the Army, were suddenly transferred by the Navy, which was very strange, but their years of experience in the army also told them that they must have a very important mission.
Shortly thereafter, they learned that the operation was the assassination of Isoroku Yamamoto. The two people who heard the news were numb in their backs, and they clearly understood in their hearts that once this operation was successful, it would definitely be famous in history, and such an opportunity was really unattainable. However, at this time, the US military command was still faced with the problem of how to assassinate Yamamoto Isoroku, because Yamamoto would change vehicles once in the middle of the way, from aircraft to submarines. If Yamamoto is assassinated when he is on a plane, the problem is that it is very difficult to find an airplane in the vast sky, but it is much easier to find a submarine, but the submarine also has a submarine problem, one is that it is impossible to determine that Yamamoto must be dead, and the other is that there are many ships in the harbor, and it is impossible to determine the location of Yamamoto. Because the route was already in hand, as long as the route search was followed, Yamamoto could be found, and it was very certain whether Yamamoto was dead or not, and finally Michelle decided to carry out the assassination plan over bougainville Island.
18 P38 fighter jets went straight into the sky, of which 6 aircraft were the main attack, and 12 aircraft were responsible for diverting the tiger away from the mountain to divert Yamamoto's Zero fighter convoy. According to the recollections of the American officers who were fighting at that time, in order not to let the radar of the Japanese aircraft detect us, all the aircraft must use low-altitude flight, and the low degree is almost attached to the waves, which is a very big test for the technology of fighter pilots. So at the beginning, two U.S. planes had a flight failure on the way and had to quit the mission.
The top-secret nature of the mission required all pilots not to use radio, and they could only judge the position based on the existing intelligence and their own sense of direction, and look for the figure of Yamamoto's fifty-six planes on their own, and after two hours, the pilots finally found Yamamoto's plane. At this time, a voice came from Michelle's headphones, and the assassination plan began. Under the leadership of Michelle's plane, the aircraft responsible for moving the tiger away from the mountain climbed to an altitude of 6 kilometers, and the Japanese escort fighters saw this situation and immediately rose up to protect the Yamamoto landplane, 6 Zero fighters and multiple P38s entangled in the air, the seduction plan was very smooth, and the Japanese army was successfully hooked.
At this time, the main attack team's Lan Fei took the opportunity to approach Yamamoto Fifty-Six's plane, and after the Zero fighter found that he had been deceived, he immediately turned around and swooped down to protect the Yamamoto plane, but it was too late, and all the shells and bullets of the main attack aircraft were fired at the Sanben plane, and the pilots who protected Yamamoto could only watch as the plane on which their hero Yamamoto was riding fell into the forest, and a long trail of smoke was dragged out behind the plane. The assassination lasted only three minutes, and the ambush was perfect because of the complete information and battle plan.
Two days later, Japanese troops found Yamamoto's body in the mountain forest. Yamamoto's death was declared a month later, and Admiral Koga took over Yamamoto's fifty-six. We said before that Nimitz was worried about the appearance of a commander more powerful than Yamamoto, but it did not follow Nimitz's vision, and when Koga took office, the army was Yamamoto's cronies, he had no prestige in it, and the whole army was still not the same as when Yamamoto was still there. As expected by the U.S. military, this attack dealt a heavy blow to Japan. And Roosevelt's claim that the front line could cover up the deciphering of japanese codebooks was also as he wished. For a long time afterwards, the Japanese believed that the attack was just a coincidence, a chance encounter between the front line and the US army, and their codebook was not replaced, and all the whereabouts thereafter were firmly controlled by the US army.
More interestingly, within the victorious U.S. army, the main attacker Rumphell and his wingman Hawkes are arguing about who hit Yamamoto's landline, after all, this is a matter worthy of history, we must find out. Ruffel said it was himself, hawkes said he was himself, and the debate continued until 1997. Experts from all sides have studied and said that through the damage marks of Yamamoto's landline, it can be determined that the person who shot down Yamamoto was Hawkes. After the battle, all the combatants were repatriated and remained under the protection of the gendarmes until the end of the war. It can be said that the assassination of Isoroku Yamamoto was the most successful operation of the United States during World War II, and it was also a textbook operation for future generations. Such a battle is enough to go down in history and be studied and emulated by all countries. This is the story of the assassination of The Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, you know?