Isoroku Yamamoto (Japanese Marshal and Admiral of the Navy) dared to launch the "Pearl Harbor Sneak Attack" because of Japan's Pacific War and the adventurous gambler character with Yamamoto Isoroku.
Japanese Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto – Image from the Internet
In 1939, Yamamoto Isoroku (4 April 1884 – 18 April 1943), then commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, was a famous admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy with the rank of Grand Admiral, who served as commander of the Combined Fleet of the Japanese Navy during World War II and was the planner of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. He was a senior officer in Japan's old navy who began to oppose joining the Axis powers, mainly Germany, and did not agree with Japan's war of aggression against the forces of the United States. But then, under the tremendous pressure of the Japanese right-wing forces and the Japanese military's top brass, the Pacific War was finally launched.
Japan invaded China's three eastern provinces – the picture comes from the Internet
Japan had been at war with China since 1931 and occupied the three eastern provinces of China in 1932. Japan's wars in China and Southeast Asia have been met with oil embargoes and economic sanctions imposed on Japan by the United States, Britain, China, and the Netherlands. Japan was unable to occupy and destroy the United States, and Yamamoto wanted to make concessions from the United States through the local war victory of the "sneak attack on Pearl Harbor".
The purpose of Yamamoto's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was to (at least temporarily) eliminate the U.S. Navy, the main force in the Pacific, and to ensure the flank of the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia. At the same time, Yamamoto and the Japanese believe that the sneak attack can hit the morale of the American military and civilians. Isoroku Yamamoto himself believed that the successful planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor would give Japan a strategic advantage of about a year.
Gambler and adventurer Isoroku Yamamoto – Image Source Network
Isoroku Yamamoto was an adventurer who was particularly fascinated by gambling. He regarded gambling and the game of luck as more important than eating. Betting, poker, go, and bridge are all masters. He often gambled with his colleagues, subordinates, and geisha, all seriously. In 1910, Yamamoto was once fifty-six for a small matter, and his close friend Hori won or lost a bet of 3,000 yuan. The money was able to buy a good house at that time, and yamamoto lost fifty-six gambles. Although his close friend laughed and did not take it seriously, Yamamoto Fifty-Six has always insisted on repaying the debt, and he deducted it from his salary every month for more than ten years. The resulting battle plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor was closely related to Yamamoto's character traits. Someone in the West once said in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor that only gamblers dare to take that big risk.
Isoroku Yamamoto - The picture comes from the Internet
On January 7, 1941, Isoroku Yamamoto wrote to the Secretary of the Navy and Shiro Kawako, formally proposing to them the idea of a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in order to gain a strategic advantage. He then, along with several staff officers of the Navy, secretly developed the "Z" battle plan. In June of the same year, after they proposed the formal plan, it caused controversy in the upper echelons of Japan, and some people in the Japanese military did not believe in the huge fleet, and wanted to cross 3500 nautical miles to sneak attack without being discovered, and they doubted the feasibility of this plan. But Yamamoto was so stubborn that he even threatened to resign to implement the plan. In order to "march south", the Japanese base camp approved the plan in October. As a result, Yamamoto Commanded the Combined Fleet, Kagoshima Bay, similar to Pearl Harbor, for full preparation and rigorous simulated sneak attack training.
U.S. Army Pearl Harbor – Image from the Internet
Pearl Harbor is located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, located in the Hawaiian Islands between Japan and the United States, about 3500 nautical miles from Japan and about 2000 nautical miles from the U.S. mainland, and is the most important base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the first wave of 183 aircraft from six aircraft carriers of the Japanese Navy took off and pounced on the US military Pearl Harbor through the clouds. At 7:53, a secret telegram of "Tiger, Tiger, Tiger" was sent back, indicating that the sneak attack had been successful. Immediately after that, the 168 aircraft of the second wave of attacks roared and pounced on the US troops again to launch an attack, and the US troops rushed to the battle and suffered heavy losses. Eight battleships, 4 sunk, one stranded, the rest suffered heavy damage; 3 destroyers and 6 cruisers were damaged, 188 aircraft were destroyed, and thousands of American officers and men were killed or wounded. Japan lost only 29 aircraft and 55 pilots, as well as a few pocket submarines.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the US military suffered heavy casualties - the picture comes from the Internet
Yamamoto Isoroku was praised as the "God of War" by the Japanese military and civilians at that time for successfully planning a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in the US army. But as a result, he became the object of hatred in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. military and civilians. On April 18, 1943, Yamamoto personally flew to the northern part of the Solomon Islands for an inspection. The U.S. military intelligence department deciphered the Japanese Navy's secret telegram beforehand, so it grasped the whereabouts of Yamamoto Isoroku. On April 18, Yamamoto Fifty-Six's plane departed from Rabaul, and when it flew over Bouin, it was successfully intercepted by the U.S. Air Force, Major Mitchell of the 339th Squadron, who took off from Guadalcanal Airfield as planned, and 16 ambushed U.S. military aircraft, Yamamoto Fifty-Six's landplanes and the military planes he escorted were shot down by the U.S. Air Force, and Yamamoto was killed at the age of 59.
The wreckage of Isoroku Yamamoto's landplane – image from the Internet