What about American Morale? The assassination was a propaganda blockbuster.
That’s nice and all but if I were a military planner I would rather leave the person who was screwing things up for my enemy in place rather than killing him for some good press. The latter is nice. The former ends the war sooner and saves lives.
At the time, do you think there was anything close to a consensus that Yamamoto was “screwing things up”. I strongly doubt that. You know, the old Fog of War thing.
If you know he’s the guy screwing up. But during wartime it’s not always clear which guys on your enemies’ side are highly valuable and which are not.
If we’re going to play hindsight fantasies, if Yamamoto wasn’t killed in ‘43 then Toyoda wouldn’t have been in charge in ‘44 to order the fleet to it’s annihilation in the Philippines.
The problem with saying that Yamamoto was a screw-up and helping the Americans more than the Japanese is that it ignores how much he was forced into risky plays precisely because he understood the strategic situation. Midway was absolutely his Hail-Mary play, but Yamamoto had to do it. He very well understood that the U.S. was about to start turning the tide and it was act now or act never.
Tokyo might well see the risk in his plan as it stood, but it’s also not as if the plan failed remotely as badly as nearly every Japanese battle plan thereafter - and they clearly couldn’t come up with any better ideas. To a degree, Yamamoto’s luck finally ran out, the Americans were just a hair quicker to react this time, and that was Midway. If nothing else, I’m sure our Navy appreciated the fact that so many of the Japanese commanders intended their future battle plans as literal suicide missions, because Yamamoto sure wouldn’t have done that.
This all circles back to whether Japan should have started the war in the first place. The easy answer is no but this circles back to the politics in Japan at the time and they got themselves on this path that they simply could not get themselves out of. Leading up to WWII assassinations of government officials were somewhat common (and have been mentioned up-thread). They simply could not get themselves away from this.
Given that they simply had to declare war on the US. As has been noted their oil situation was very bad due to the embargoes the US imposed.
So, if you are Japan and have to declare war on the US and, as Yamamoto well knew, the US could massively out-produce you what is the best chance you have? That had to be the “decisive battle” doctrine. The US was reluctant to get into a war so hit them so hard they decide they want no part of this and back away.
It didn’t work but I am not sure what a better strategy would have been for the Japanese (apart form not staring the war in the first place).
Are you referring to the Battle of the Philippine Sea, or the Battle of Leyte Gulf? Battle of the Philippine Sea was an attempt to force a decisive battle, whereas Leyte attempted to decoy Halsey into trying for a decisive victory. Leyte was complicated, involved scheme by the IJN–and it worked. Just couldn’t seal the deal.
I think the Japanese had Tsushima derangement syndrome. Tsushima was the textbook example of a modern decisive naval battle. But Japanese memories of Tsushima obscured the reality that it was an almost unique occurrence and modern naval combat in general was far different than the Mahan model.
If anyone here doesn’t know about Tsushima, here is a long but utterly hilarious, in a downer-comedy way, history of it as delivered by a British man whose wit is so dry it would probably lower sea levels if he stepped into the ocean.
Saying that they couldn’t do anything else is, to my point of view, a very strange statement. I understand why you say it, but I do not agree it’s correct. To state that implies that the Japanese people were somehow forced by Fate, or something like it called Circumstance. The reality is that individual actions, and the people themselves created those circumstances and could have changed them had they chosen to do so. Remember that Japan was a functional democracy for some time, albeit with a quirky government structure.
Maybe, just maybe the High Command could have gotten away with just taking out the DEI and British Colonies.
However, I disagree strongly with this:t*heir oil situation was very bad due to the embargoes the US imposed.*Their oil situation was very bad due to their imperialist war. It aint the USAs fault, it is their fault.
I doubt the Japanese saw it that way.
It’s a false meme the Japanese have been pushing- that the uSA forced them into war. That way, they can think the War wasnt their fault. It was. 100%.
I think this glosses over a lot of complexity.
Could the Japanese have chosen to be nice and sit on their island and be content with that? Sure.
But you forget that Japan tried to insulate itself from the world and it was the US that kinda forced them back into the world at gunpoint when the Great White Fleet sailed into a Japanese harbor.
The Japanese, to their credit, realized that this was a bad situation for them to be in and embarked on the Meiji Restoration which bootstrapped Japan into the modern era. The leaders knew they’d never be more than a vassal to the US (or whoever) if they didn’t climb the tech ladder and do it fast. So that’s what they did.
But it remained that Japan was hugely dependent on the US for raw materials. The numbers are kind of staggering (we’re not talking about 10-20% of raw materials but more like 50-90% depending on what it was). Much of their industry was beholden to the goodwill of the US for raw materials. Of course, the US loved this arrangement. It was very profitable for the US.
It is not hard to see that the Japanese found this intolerable and wanted control of their own situation. They saw how Germany was slowly strangled in WWI by embargoes.
So, they needed to find their own sources of materials and control those. China, ever a bugbear for Japan since forever, was in an unusually weak position at that time so Japan took advantage of that. Most of the rest of the SE Asia had no chance against them except those places already claimed by other empires. Japan figures this was their sphere of influence so those far away empires had no legitimate claim…or at least their claim was “better”.
Was it nice? No. Of course not. But the world was just barely getting into the mindset that wars of aggression to increase your empire were bad. Of course, they told Japan that to which Japan felt the rules of the game were changing only after everyone else had done what Japan wanted to do. Naturally they thought that was unfair and were not inclined to listen.
I am not saying Japan was nice. I am not saying Japan was “owed” anything. I am not rooting for Japan. But I can see their position at the time. It was a very difficult position to be in unless you expect them to accept vassal status forever.
Couple that with a kind of dysfunctional government run by the military (if behind the scenes) and you get what happened.
Wrong fleet and off by 50 years. On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world.
Doh! I know better. 
Easy to conflate them. The Great White Fleet was commanded by Admiral Sperry.
Sounds a lot like the current discussions between the rich and the poor world over climate change vs. deforestation and development.
At an international climate event a few years ago a European complained to the Brazilian minister that “You’ve deforested an area in the Amazon the size of Belgium!”. To which the Brazilian is said to have replied. “Then you should reforest Belgium like it was 400 years ago.”
“Neener neener we got here first!” isn’t convincing argument on a playground. It really doesn’t play well in matters of state.
Yeah…it really does.
Yamamoto should have been skeptical that his codes were still secure. Not only did 2 US CV’s show up at the Coral Sea battle, the IJN had ample evidence (from radio traffic and such) that Midway was a bustling center of activity in a way that it hadn’t been 2 months earlier.
One of our sayings in USAF: Once is bad luck. Twice is a coincidence. 3 times is enemy action.