Isoroku Yamamoto - Yamamoto As A Commander

Yamamoto As A Commander

Yamamoto is generally regarded as one of the most prominent leaders in the IJN for making significant changes to its organization, although he was also responsible for several critical defeats. Yamamoto is considered to be an imaginative and brave leader for formulating a plan to launch a pre-emptive attack on US forces in the Pacific Fleet. Allied Naval leaders such as Nimitz and Halsey respected his abilities and considered him a highly capable and resourceful adversary. He is known as one of the very few military leaders who vocally opposed the occupation of China, the Tripartite Pact, and the war with the U.S., though in doing so he received death threats from nationalists.

Having studied at Harvard University, he was reluctant to enter into war with the United States. He was aware of their overwhelming industrial capacity compared to that of Japan, and felt that only a knockout blow would remove the US threat to Japan. He also did not trust Nazi Germany; somewhat ironically, he became the only non-German to be given the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, which was awarded posthumously. He correctly anticipated that the aircraft carrier would play a role in any decisive battle with the United States. Furthermore, he supported increasing the striking power of the air fleets by combining all six of Japan's large aircraft carriers into one carrier battle group. Additionally, he often assigned capable individuals such as Minoru Genda to form his battle plans.

His forces suffered severely in certain areas, with Allied submarines dealing major blows to the Imperial Japanese Navy shipping and causing the war economy of Japan to be starved of resources, although the full weight of the blow began to be truly felt only in 1943, when American codebreakers cracked the merchant marine code again, and 1944, after technical deficiencies in the Mark 14 torpedo were finally resolved. The Imperial Japanese Navy's codes were decrypted by the United States; this proved to be a fatal development, as it resulted in the biggest direct blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway. The battle proved to be Yamamoto's most prominent defeat, with the Japanese navy losing four of its six fleet carriers and 248 aircraft, with over 3000 men dead; losses which Japan could never replace.