fleet would give Japan a fighting chance. But if Tokyo was bent on conflict, he maintained, only a massive pre-emptive strike on the U.S. He had long recognized that a confrontation with the United States would be un-winnable. Yet despite his persistence, Yamamoto was against war with America. He’d personally presented the idea to Japan’s war council and even threatened to resign if the country’s nationalist regime refused to green-light it. The 57-year-old marshal admiral had overseen its creation. Isoroku Yamamoto (Image source: WikiCommons) Victory seemed certain to nearly everyone monitoring the flurry of incoming communiques – everyone that is except the commander-in-chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, Isoruku Yamamoto.
The mood aboard the Nagato was charged as more messages streamed in reporting on the progress of the operation: The battleship Oklahoma hit, Nevada damaged, the Utah sinking, the Arizona destroyed. The attack that was about to unfold was intended to cripple American sea power in the Pacific, giving Japan a free hand in East Asia to secure the oil and strategic resources it needed to survive as a global power.
7, 1941.įor years leading up to this fateful morning, Tokyo and Washington had been on a collision course. Within moments, the air armada would begin its attack. The three-word signal meant only one thing: More than 4,000 miles to the east, 353 bomb and torpedo-laden warplanes from the Imperial Japanese Navy had arrived in the skies above the U.S. It read simply: “ Tora! Tora! Tora!” - Japanese for “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!” on Hashira Island, Japan when a naval officer dashed into the crowded operations centre of the flagship Nagato clutching a coded message. It was only his popularity with the navy and the admiration of the emperor that likely saved him.” (Image source: WikiCommons) “Undeterred by death threats, Yamamoto continued to defy the regime. Admiral Yamamoto shortly before his death in 1943.
0 kommentar(er)
