In January 1943, on board the battleship "Yamato", the New Year's banquet of the Japanese Combined Fleet was underway. Commander of the Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, and his staff were drinking and chatting, and the banquet hall was filled with New Year's festivities. At this time, the expected main course whole fish came up. When Yamamoto saw the fish, his face changed drastically. It turned out that the direction of the head and tail placement of the fish was wrong, and Yamamoto, who was very taboo about such things, exclaimed unhappily: "Ho! The years have changed, and the direction of the fish has changed!
The years did change, and the Japanese army, which suffered heavy losses in Guadalcanal, had to switch from strategic offensive to strategic defense. This is also a coincidence, in April of the same year, Yamamoto Fifty-Six's landline plane was shot down by a US plane. As for why the landline was shot down. Here's how it happened:
On 18 April, Yamamoto Fifty-Six decided to visit the Balal Shortland and Bouin bases. The detailed travel plan was also released in the form of top-secret telegrams to various Japanese headquarters stationed in the Pacific. Yamamoto's reckless move was strongly opposed by his generals. For example, Major General Takajima of the Japanese army stationed on Shortland Island said angrily after receiving a top-secret telegram from Yamamoto's inspection on 13 April: "This is the front line, and it is really foolish to report the actions of the commander with such a lengthy and detailed cable!" On the 17th, Jojima deliberately rushed back to Rabaul and dissuaded Yamamoto in person with tears, but was also rejected by Yamamoto, who firmly believed that the five-digit garbled code just activated was absolutely impossible to decipher.
However, Yamamoto's conceit comes at a price. The most unbelievable thing has already happened, and the scene at Midway repeats itself. This telegram was deciphered by the US military as early as the 14th and delivered to the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, Nimitz. At the Washington luncheon, US President Roosevelt personally decided to shoot down Yamamoto's landline, take out this outstanding Japanese commander, and avenge Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto's fate was thus decided at the dinner table, and the attack plan had an apt and intriguing codename: revenge.
On April 18, there were no clouds. Not long after Yamamoto Fifty-Six's plane took off at Rabaul Airport, it was besieged by 16 US P-38 Lightning fighters, and Yamamoto's plane had no time to evade. It took less than 20 seconds from discovery to being shot down. On the 20th, the information that the mountain itself died was confirmed by a Japanese search team in the dense forest. With the death of a generation of tyrant Yamamoto Fifty-Six in the South Pacific, the United States finally avenged the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the death knell of the Japanese Empire's death began to sound.
