Yamamoto: The Man who Menaced America (1965)

As usual, I'll just point out some highlights of the book.

Yamamoto was very interested in developing a good plane that could fly off an aircraft carrier. The plane ended up becoming the Zero, which was the best fighter in the world for a while. Interestingly enough, it was designed by an Englishman named Smith.

FDR ordered the American fleet to Pearl Harbor from the West Coast in order to try and deter Japan from further aggression, but the Japanese saw it as a forerunner of a planned intervention against them.

It took about seventy meetings of the Japanese Cabinet before they agreed to join with Germany and Italy.

The book is one of many that notes that Yamamoto warned others that he “...can raise havoc with them for one year or at most eighteen months. After that I can give no one any guarantees.”

Apparently he also said ...”But I must also tell you that if the war be prolonged for two or three years I have no confidence in our ultimate victory.”

When Yamamoto was giving a speech to his old Middle School in Nagoka, he said “Do not forget American industry is much more developed that ours-and unlike us they have all the oil they want. Japan cannot beat America. Therefore she should not fight America.”

The Japanese naval fleet had enough oil to last for eighteen months if used very carefully. If the country could not take over other areas that had oil and keep them, then Japan was going to be in very serious trouble relatively quickly should she start a war.

The Americans had a plan called Rainbow Five in case of war with Japan. It called for abandoning the Philippines and other areas, and eventually have a decisive battle with the Japanese fleet near the Marshall or Carolines islands.There was a war games session in January of 1932 which was to test the defenses of Pearl Harbor. The Admiral in the “attacking” fleet attacked on a Sunday morning (like the Japanese did), launching planes in bad weather (like the Japanese did), and they went on with their highly successful “attack.”

It is possible that Yamamoto got hold of a copy of the report on the attack and used some of the ideas, since he did almost exactly the same thing that the US Admiral did during his “attack.”

Another American, a General Martin, was involved in drawing up plans against a possible Japanese action against Hawaii, and he also came up with what was pretty much the approach the Japanese actually used when they did attack. What this all goes to show is that the US had more than ample warning of a possible attack and how such an attack would be carried out, but did nothing to prevent the actual attack.

The book also addresses the issue of the men in charge at Pearl Harbor and what they were told beforehand. The book refers to the fact that the Japanese code had been broken, and that the “Purple” messages were of great importance, and the US did not want Japan to know we had cracked their code.

”It was this top-level secrecy that saved Yamamoto from disaster at Pearl Harbor. Only the smallest possible group of persons knew that the code was being read. If the secret had leaked out, the Japanese would at once have changed the cipher. Because of this, neither Admiral Kimmel nor any of the other senior officers in Pearl Harbor was given any of the information. They remained as unprepared as if the code had never been cracked.”

The book mentions the Japanese from a midget submarine that was captured. There was some kind of trouble on the sub that resulted in fumes being produced, and the ensign was overcome by fumes and beached the sub. He became the first Japanese prisoner-of-war.”

The book also questions whether Pearl Harbor was really a disaster or not. It says that the battleships that were sunk were old and too slow to be effective against Japan's newer ships. The attack led the US to adapt carrier warfare, and that proved crucial in the winning of the war.

In addition, the Japanese failed to attack the oil tanks near the harbor which had just slightly less than the entire Japanese stockpile of oil. It would have taken time to replace all of that if the tanks had been destroyed, and that is time the Japanese could have used to fortify their positions. (In addition, there was no Japanese plan in place to actually land troops on Hawaii and take it over; thus, any damage done to the base was going to be temporary right from the start.)

The book talks about nine Japanese submarines that were operating off the US West Coast around Christmas in 1941. They subs wanted to put anti-FDR messages on missiles and fire them at various cities, and they also wanted to broadcast a radio message. No one on the subs spoke good enough English to make a translation into English of the message, and the admirals in Tokyo called the attack off anyhow.

The book talks about Yamamoto's statement that he wanted to dictate surrender terms to the US from the White House. It was a broadcast meant for Japanese only, but it got picked up by US monitors and then created a firestorm when it was reported in the press.

The defeat at Midway was kept secret by the Japanese. Wounded men were taken to hospitals in the dark and kept in isolation.

The book speculates on what would have happened if the battle of Midway had gone the other way. It says that this would have allowed Japan to take Hawaii and then harass the US West Coast. This would have diverted US attention from the war in Europe to the war in the Pacific, and meant that the D-Day push at Normandy might not have taken place at all.

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