Isoroku Yamamoto (4 April 1884 – 18 April 1943) was commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet from 30 August 1939 to 18 April 1943, succeeding Zengo Yoshida and preceding Mineichi Koga.
Biography[]
Isoroku Takano was born on 4 April 1884 in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture, Japan to a samurai of the Nagaoka Domain. In 1904, he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy and fought in the Russo-Japanese War, losing two fingers at the Battle of Tsushima. In 1916, by the time that he was a Lieutenant Commander in the IJN, he was adopted into the Yamamoto samurai family, also a Nagaoka Domain family. He attended Harvard University and was posted as a naval attache to the United States in Washington DC, learning fluent English. When World War II broke out in 1939, he was an opponent of the Tripartite Pact, leading to the Imperial Japanese Army guarding him at his house to keep an eye on him. Minister of the Navy Mitsumasa Yonai appointed him commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, fearing that he would be assassinated by the far-right patriots if he remained on the Japanese mainland.
World War II[]
Yamamoto in 1941
On 15 November 1940, Yamamoto was promoted to admiral, and he led the Combined Fleet. When war became unavoidable, Yamamoto decided that the only way to end the war would be to take over all of the United States and negotiate peace terms in the White House, and on 7 December 1941 he led the Attack on Pearl Harbor against the US Navy, starting the Pacific War. Yamamoto was a great leader of Japan in the war, perhaps the best commander that they could field. He succeeded in fighting the Americans to a draw at the Battle of the Coral Sea after winning the Battle of the Java Sea, but the Battle of Midway was a disaster for the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Yamamoto in 1942.
After the fall of Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to visit the Japanese forces in the South Pacific, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to kill Yamamoto and destroy the leadership of the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 18 April 1943, his plane was shot down over Bougainville in a targeted assassination and crashed in Buin, New Guinea, depriving Japan of their best naval commander.