In November, 1941, not one American in a thousand had ever heard of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. A month later his name was on every lip. For no other enemy, not even for Hitler, did Americans hold such a bitter hatred. Yamamoto was the man who had planned the treacherous blow at Pearl Harbor. And as if this were not enough, he had added insult to injury by boasting that he planned to dictate peace in the White House. To all America he was the embodiment of the aggressor. To all Americans he was a peculiarly personal foe.
Postwar investigation and the recovery of some of Yamamoto’s letters have considerably changed the picture. Appearance and reality were very different. In large measure the hatred was undeserved. Behind the screen of Japanese politics and of wartime secrecy there lay tragedy—the tragedy of a man who had to fight a war he did not want, a war he knew he could not win.
Yet the popular view was hardly surprising. The shock of Pearl Harbor was immense, coming as it did to a nation that had long been safely sheltered behind the oceans of the world and also, perhaps more important, sheltered behind the oceans of the mind. The shock was immense, but shock was not all that caused the hatred. There was also ignorance.
The American public had never known much about Japan, and even less about individual Japanese. With the outbreak of the war, journalists hastened to fill this gap and to enlighten the people regarding the nature of the Japanese enemy. But so scanty was the information available in this country that even the best efforts were not wholly successful. Inevitably the results were oversimplified, telling more about the emotions of Americans than the character of the Japanese. Such was the case with the picture of Yamamoto that was presented to American readers.
Yamamoto, the story went, had grown up among the fisher folk of northwestern Japan where the choice of a career was restricted to either becoming a fisherman or joining the Navy. That he made the latter choice was attributed to the burning hatred of the United States instilled in him by his family. As a child, so it was reported, he had heard from his father tales of the barbarians “who had come in their black ships, broken down the doors of Japan, threatened the Son of Heaven, trampled upon the ancient customs, demanded indemnities, blown their long noses on cloths which they then put in their pockets instead of throwing away.” From his earliest years, it was said, the main motivation of Yamamoto’s life was this hatred of America, and it was the desire “to return the visit of Commodore Perry” that drove him forward in his naval career.
The physical appearance of this vengeful being as described for the American public was not flattering, even after allowance for differences between western and oriental standards. He had “hair cropped as short as the bristles on a beaver-tail cactus, lips thick, jowl heavy, chin prominent.” His character matched his looks: he was “surly and abrupt ... a man of tremendous conceit.” Tribute was indeed paid to his abilities: his appreciation of naval aviation, his arguments for increased carrier strength, his emphasis on the value of the aircraft torpedo were all recognized. But above all else emphasis was placed on the motivating hatred. Yamamoto was a man “of murderous stripe . . . intense nationalism and hatred of foreigners”; he had conceived the blow at the U. S. Pacific Fleet “and its officers and men, whom he hated”; he was “the most rabid advocate of war against us.” This standard accepted view of the Japanese naval commander is well summarized in a quotation from an article written after the war by the American Army pilot who shot him down:
Yamamoto had been, from childhood, a hater of all things American. He had lived every hour of his vengeful life, even as attaché in Washington, in anticipation of the moment when he would lay down in that city the Emperor’s dictates for American bondage.
A conceited and arrogant man, Yamamoto, with a face like a frog but with a calculating mind that functioned precisely. An evil man with a personal calendar for the conquest of Asia and America.
The treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor was his opening gun in that campaign. An easy man to hate, Yamamoto, and one that it would be an honor to destroy.
Wartime information is, of course, always to be taken with some salt. This is particularly true of information originating in the feverish days of a beginning war, and the portrait of Yamamoto that took shape in early 1942 is no exception to this rule. So little real information was known that the result was an abstraction, a picture drawn to fit the times and based on two things: the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor and the famous boast about dictating peace in the White House.
The story of the boast begins with a Domei broadcast intended for Japanese consumption which, intercepted by American monitors, reached the press ten days after Pearl Harbor. The text of the broadcast was as follows:
The strategy of surprise which was carried out by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, with such success, was planned by him earlier, according to the Yomiuri [a Tokyo newspaper].
The Yomiuri published a letter which Yamamoto sent to a close friend, dated January 24 this year [1941.] Therein Yamamoto made this statement:
“Any time war breaks out between Japan and the United States I shall not be content merely to capture Guam and the Philippines and to occupy Hawaii and San Francisco.
“I am looking forward to dictating peace to the United States at the White House in Washington.”
This broadcast was a hoax. It was believed implicitly, it still is believed in this country. More important,, it was believed by the Japanese. But it was a hoax perpetrated with the single purpose of stimulating the spirit and the confidence of a Japanese public shaken by the stunning news of the outbreak of war with America.
Yamamoto had indeed written a letter, but it was a letter with quite a different meaning. He had written it not “to a close friend” but to an acquaintance, Ryoichi Sasakawa, leader of the ultra-nationalist All-Japan Labor Class Federation. By or with the connivance of the recipient, the Admiral’s words were twisted from their original meaning and then given to his countrymen by the state-controlled press. His reaction to this betrayal of trust is not recorded. It may perhaps be imagined from a comparison of the broadcast with the correct text of the letter.
24 January [1941]
Dear Sir,
I trust that you are in the best of health. I deeply appreciate the trip of inspection you made to the South Seas on the Uranami. In this age when armchair arguments are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, your sober attitude in going to so much trouble to be loyal to your own opinion is to be most highly commended. But it embarrasses me not a little to hear you say that you “feel at ease in the knowledge that Yamamoto is out at sea with his fleet.” All that I am doing is to devote my utmost, both day and night, toward building up our strength, ever bearing in mind the Imperial admonition:
“Despise not an enemy because he is weak;
“Fear him not because he is strong.”
I am counting only on the loyalty of the one hundred thousand officers and men who are going about their duties in silence and without boasting.
Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices?
With best wishes for your good health,
Respectfully yours,
Isoroku Yamamoto.
There is no boasting here. In no sense expressing belief in his ability to dictate peace in the White House, Admiral Yamamoto was addressing a warning to the sword rattlers. He was pointing out that war with America was not as simple a matter as Sasakawa and his colleagues might think, that it is easier to start a war than to finish one, that it is necessary to see one’s way through to the end before entering on a major conflict. In its essence the letter was an anti-war plea, for Yamamoto was well aware that there would be little chance for his country in a prolonged conflict with the immeasurably more powerful United States. The letter shows the Admiral as the realist attempting to save his country from encompassing its own destruction.
Far from being sanguine of victory, far from expecting to lay down terms in the White House, Admiral Yamamoto entered the war with a feeling of tragedy and the anticipation of defeat. These premonitions he naturally kept largely to himself, but whispers did get around. After the war Admiral Soemu Tovoda, the last Commander in Chief, stated that he had heard his distinguished predecessor quoted during the early days of the conflict as feeling that “we can carry through for one year some way, but after that I do not know.”
II
Isoroku Yamamoto had had a distinguished naval career. He had entered the Naval Academy at Eta Jima in 1901, at the age of seventeen. In May, 1905, while still a midshipman, he was slightly wounded while serving aboard the Mikasa, Admiral Togo’s flagship, at the battle of Tsushima where the Japanese annihilated the Russian fleet. Commissioned in August of that year, he began his advance through the various grades and for a number of years followed the conventional career of a junior officer, his duties alternating between service afloat and staff and instructional posts ashore. In 1919 he was stationed briefly in America, and from 1925 to 1927 he served as naval attaché in Washington, an assignment which afforded him opportunity to inform himself regarding the nature, power, and policies of the United States.
Throughout most of the world the twenties were a period of profound peace. Military problems were forgotten and armies and navies stagnated for lack of funds. But in Japan, where powerful groups looked covetously across the narrow seas towards China, the services did not atrophy. Yamamoto was early marked out for high command, and his great abilities were not restricted by lack of opportunity. Promotion came with unusual rapidity and in 1923, at the age of 39, he became a captain.
From this time on Yamamoto’s duties centered principally in the expanding aviation branch of the Navy and in the General Staff. His first command came in 1928 when he was given the light cruiser Isuzu for four months, subsequently being transferred to the Akagi, one of the earliest and largest of Japanese aircraft carriers, later to be lost at the Battle of Midway.
Important matters of policy were early confided to his attention. The staffs to which he was assigned were always major ones and his duties always demanding. At no time was he left to cool his heels in second-rate jobs. Promoted to Rear Admiral in 1929, he accompanied the Japanese delegation to the London Naval Conference of that year. Returning from London, he was assigned to duty at Naval Aviation Headquarters. This was followed by eight months at sea as Commander Carrier Division 1, working out the practical problems involved in the developing theories of air warfare. On the completion of this assignment, Yamamoto returned to the General Staff for briefing prior to his departure as Japanese delegate to the London Naval Conference of 1934. While attending this conference he was promoted to Vice Admiral, and upon his return to Japan became Chief of Naval Aviation and Vice Minister of the Navy as well. Here he remained until August 30, 1939, when, the Nazi-Soviet Pact having ensured the Second World War, he was shifted to chief command at sea.
Despite his previous service in Washington, the occasion of the 1934 conference was the first time that Admiral Yamamoto appeared at all prominently in the American public eye. He had chosen to proceed to London by way of Vancouver and New York, and his progress across the North American continent was daily reported in the press.
Not only was he the conference delegate of the third greatest naval power. His presence in the United States took on added interest as a result of testimony then being given a congressional committee by another aviation specialist, General William Mitchell. Mitchell, agitating for greater air strength, was filling headlines with dramatic statements of inevitable war with Japan, and urging that our aviation establishment be designed specifically for such a conflict.
Although he had succeeded in dodging reporters during his transcontinental journey, Yamamoto was finally cornered for an interview in his hotel in New York. Asked to comment on the Mitchell testimony, the Admiral mildly remarked: “I do not look upon the relations between the United States and Japan from the same angle as General Mitchell, and I have never looked upon the United States as a potential enemy. The naval plans of Japan have never included the possibility of an American- Japanese war.” And having thus delivered himself, he boarded the Berengaria and sailed for England.
The London Conference of 1934, the last attempt to limit naval forces by treaty, was a failure. Attempts at agreement broke down largely because of Yamamoto, who firmly rejected, on behalf of Japan, any extension of the 5:5:3 ratio principle and demanded national self-determination of armaments as a sovereign right. This stand he defended by a dinner-party witticism which gained some attention, pointing out to his hosts that although he was smaller than they, he was not asked to eat only three-fifths as much.
Such a defense was not good enough. Both America and Britain attacked the Japanese proposal as one for equality of armaments rather than equality of security. It had no chance of acceptance but it did prevent agreement, and although the talks dragged on for another two months nothing was accomplished. Yamamoto at one point stole the headlines with a spectacular proposal for the abolition of all capital ships and aircraft carriers. When asked how, if this were done, the United States and Great Britain could defend their possessions in the Far East, he pleasantly replied, “The only defense they need is justice and international friendship.”
It is not hard to see some signs here that the Admiral had his tongue in his cheek. But without going deeply into the motives and policies of Yamamoto and of the Japanese Government, one can at least say that if the Admiral burned with hatred for the western powers he kept it well under control. He had taken pains to smooth over General Mitchell’s belligerent testimony. While his remark that Japan’s plans had never contemplated war with America seems somewhat naive, the trouble may be in the translation. Addition of the qualifying adjective “offensive,” or the use of the verb “desired” would bring the statement well within the realm of military common sense. Finally it is noteworthy that in conversations with newspapermen following his return to Japan, Yamamoto was careful not to blame any particular country for the failure at London —this although the Americans in particular and the British only to a lesser extent were vigorously blaming the Japanese.
After the London Conference Yamamoto disappeared from the American press for a period of three years. His next appearance was a result of the bombing of the gunboat Panay by Japanese aircraft, and once again he was busy pouring oil on troubled waters. In December, 1937, he issued a statement, as Vice Minister of the Navy, thanking the United States government for its acceptance of Japanese apologies and pledging his service to more careful conduct in the future. “That the incident has been solved despite distorted reports and propaganda,” he said, “is due mainly to the fair judgement of the American government and people.”
Here again, on the surface at least, there is no evidence that he was governed by a hatred of the United States or of the western world. He was, of course, a Japanese, and his first loyalty was to Japan. Undeniably, Japan was embarked on a program of military conquest in Asia, and Yamamoto was one of her senior naval officers. He was not, we may presume, a pacifist. But for anyone who aspired to return Perry’s visit, the first consideration was clearly the military problem, and to anyone who could see it all plainly, the problem was insoluble. Japan just did not have the necessary strength.
Furthermore, naval officers do not usually obtain rapid promotion because of their emotional attitudes toward foreign countries. They gain it, generally speaking, because of professional competence, and Yamamoto, far from being an exception, is a particularly good example of this rule. Already Japan was advancing in China and the Japanese Navy was building in secret the most powerful battleships in the world. But for the ultimate success of the expansionist program one thing above all was essential: to avoid, or at the very least to delay, war with the United States.
All the evidence goes to show that Yamamoto realized this, that he adopted this view, and that he attempted to further it as a policy. In common with other senior naval officers, and in opposition to the Kwantung Army clique, he steadfastly opposed linking Japan to the fortunes of the European Axis. Among his subordinates the belief was general that he had fought vigorously against the 1940 signing of the Tripartite Pact, the diplomatic step which, in the last analysis, sealed the fate of Japan.
III
Through the years Yamamoto’s reputation within his own country grew steadily, both within and without the military services, until by 1941 he was regarded almost with veneration. Whatever he said was apparently accepted without question by his colleagues. His word was law. Many things were attributed to him with which he had manifestly no connection: for example, after the war certain admirals credited him with the development of the Kamikaze Corps despite the fact that by the time of its inception Yamamoto was long dead. A sufficient indication of the value placed on his name by groups outside the Navy is seen in the perversion of the “Peace in the White House” letter. But this extreme respect does nothing to make an accurate judgement easier. Almost as much as the hatred entertained in America, it complicates the problem of cutting through the myths to the man himself, his character and his military contributions.
Even at a cautious estimate, however, his military contributions seem very considerable. In the years of peace Yamamoto’s emphasis on aircraft and on aircraft carriers, both in the Japanese building program and in his proposal—possibly serious—at London for their abolition, showed real foresight regarding the future of naval warfare. His emphasis on the aircraft torpedo was to prove wholly justified. In tactics, Yamamoto’s development of the massed use of carriers, the carrier task force with which he began the war and with which the United States ended it, showed a remarkable power of analysis and constructive imagination. Within the limits set by Japan’s industrial strength, the Japanese Navy was well prepared for the kind of war it was to fight. The rapid advance of the Japanese forces throughout the Western Pacific on the outbreak of war was certainly a feat of planning and execution of the very first class, notwithstanding the weakness of the opposition. What Yamamoto seized in four months took the United Nations more than three years to recapture. With these accomplishments, it would seem that his place in naval history is secure.
Nevertheless he made mistakes. Presumably no military leader ever avoids them. And it is only fair to note that the mistakes of the weaker and losing side always stand out more sharply than errors which are merely incidents on a march to victory. But of Yamamoto’s errors, two of which are worthy of mention, one was decisive. This was the attack on Pearl Harbor for which he himself was largely responsible.
The Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet was not in a position to decide fundamental policy. He did not rule on the question of how much risk should be taken of collision with the United States. His job was merely that of preparing to fight any war that might come. The decision to drive southward to seize the oil-rich Indies was not his decision, but by his narrow strategic approach to the problem of its execution he made inevitable the war that he had wished to avoid. Wiser than his Army opposite numbers in the political sphere, he was not wise enough. He had opposed the Tripartite Pact. He thought it necessary to strike the United States Fleet at Pearl.
One of his subordinates, with whom he worked closely and who survived the war, has quoted the Admiral as saying, early in 1941, that “if we have war with the United States, we will have no hope of winning unless the United States fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed.” To Yamamoto it seemed a foregone conclusion that a Japanese attempt to seize the Indies would inevitably mean war with America. Should such a drive be decided on it would therefore be necessary, as a precautionary measure, to secure the flank by the destruction of American naval power in the Pacific. The attempt to satisfy Japan’s hunger for oil demanded in the name of strategy an attack on the strongest power in the world. Thus Yamamoto reasoned, and on this basis he laid his plans.
But from a broader view of the situation there was of course every reason for not bringing in America, more -especially an America angry, bitter, and determined on revenge. The United States held no territory necessary to the completion of Japan’s plans for southern expansion. The Philippines held no appreciable store of the strategically vital materials. They might easily have been contained while the tide of advance flowed past them. Even had America intervened, as Yamamoto expected, following attacks on British and Dutch possessions, it would have been a divided and disunited America, reluctantly entering a war which would certainly have been described in many quarters in most unflattering terms.
Seen from the planners’ desks in Tokyo, however, the largest single factor in the Pacific situation was the American fleet. It cast an even longer shadow than we thought. And it was fear of the fleet, coupled with an inadequate appreciation of the American domestic political situation, that led the Japanese to begin their war with this purely strategic stroke. The result was a brilliant raid, a notable military feat and an even more notable political error. Pearl Harbor was the decisive battle of the war, the battle that inevitably doomed the Axis powers.
In the long run Pearl Harbor was decisive. In the short run, in the sense that the Japanese had planned it, it was not. The U. S. carriers were at sea on that fatal morning, and the all-important base facilities survived the attack with little damage. For the United States it was a severe but not a mortal blow; for the Japanese it led directly to catastrophe. For now America was really in the war, and to Yamamoto, haunted by the disparity of industrial strengths, an early and complete naval victory was essential. This need led to the attempt to occupy Midway Island.
To have held and supported Midway for any length of time after seizure was a logistic impossibility. This fact was recognized, but it was hoped that the threat of its loss would be such as to bring the weakened American fleet to decisive action. The effort was disastrous. The failure of the Japanese Striking Force to scout to the eastward before committing its air strength to the attack on Midway resulted in the loss of four first-line carriers to American carrier-based dive bombers. This loss ended all Japanese hope of success. The basic plan had failed. Decisive action was no longer possible.
Two months later, when the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Yamamoto fumbled again. He should have reacted vigorously and at once. Instead, he accepted the mistaken estimate of his landing force officer, Captain Yasuji Watanabe, who believed that only a few troops had been put ashore, that it was not a major American effort but merely a raid. Rather than striking with all his force, still at that time superior to what the United States could bring to bear, Yamamoto frittered it away in a series of bitter but indecisive night actions. This false estimate and the actions based upon it led to the long drawn out Solomons campaign in which Japanese sea power was crippled by heavy losses in destroyer and air strength. The fleet was forced to withdraw to the Western Pacific, not to reappear until the American invasion of Saipan.
Yamamoto’s handling of the Guadalcanal campaign was wrong, but the error was perhaps unimportant. Granting American determination, Japan could assume defeat. Already Yamamoto could see it staring him in the face. All chance of the decisive blow from which alone he might gain victory had been lost with the Japanese carriers at Midway. His forces were diminishing while those of his enemy were increasing daily. And time had now run out. The year which he had earlier estimated as the limit of successful action was now drawing to a close. He no longer had alternatives, the initiative had been lost, the situation was out of his control. All that remained, and he knew it, was a long losing fight.
IV
On May 21, 1943, a year and a half after Pearl Harbor, a Japanese broadcast reported that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, “while directing general strategy on the front line in April of this year, engaged in combat with the enemy and met gallant death in a war plane.” FCC monitors who heard the broadcast reported that the Tokyo announcer seemed overcome with the weight of his news, and that toward the end of the communique his voice became choked, as if through tears.
In death, as in life, Yamamoto was used by the controlling Japanese Army clique to further its own ends. The same groups that had twisted his letter on the prospects of success against the United States now proceeded to exploit his memory. All the resources of propaganda were employed in the creation of a patriotic myth. He was awarded a state funeral, the second in Japanese history to have been given a naval officer, only Admiral Togo having previously been so honored. The arrival of his ashes in Tokyo was made the occasion of patriotic ceremonies for the rededication of the populace to the Greater East Asia War. On June 5, the ninth anniversary of the burial of Admiral Togo in the village cemetery at Tama, Yamamoto was interred beside his illustrious predecessor. Five days later announcement was made that a funeral march, written in his memory, was to be published throughout Japan to remind the people of his deeds and to inspire them with his determination against the Anglo-Americans.
In the United States the report of his death resulted in considerable speculation as to how it had come about. April had been a quiet month in the Pacific, with no major combat activity in which such a death might logically have occurred. It was suggested in some quarters that he might have been killed in an airplane crash. Others thought that in view of increasing Allied successes, hara-kiri might prove to be the answer. Only with the end of the war did the truth become known: Yamamoto had been shot down by American aircraft while he was on an inspection trip to the northern Solomons. Radio intelligence had forewarned our forces of his schedule and an ambush had been laid for his plane, which was surprised and destroyed while approaching the Kahili airstrip.
But whatever the cause of Yamamoto’s death, the fact was at once recognized as of the greatest benefit to the Allies. Shortly after the news became known an editorial in the Nation observed,
The death of Admiral Yamamoto removes America’s most implacable foe among the small coterie of Japanese militarists responsible for the war. His boast that he would dictate the terms of peace at the White House was not that of an empty braggart. Yamamoto possessed great abilities. . . .
The dominant force in Yamamoto’s life, according to those who knew him, was hatred of the white race, particularly of the United States and Britain.
And with the end of the war and publication of the facts on how he met his death, the New York Times remarked,
Yamamoto would surely have ranked high on General MacArthur’s list of war criminals. Pearl Harbor was his special and particular crime. . . .
Three years dead, he is well worth our study today. Admiral Yamamoto was a link between the old Japan of the Shoguns and the new Japan which set out to conquer the world. He was the embodiment and symbol of that virulent and burning hatred of all things American that led his country to catastrophe.
In the light of these typical comments, the following letter is of interest. It was written by Yamamoto to his friend and classmate, the retired Vice Admiral Teikichi Hori. The date is November 11, 1941, four weeks before Pearl Harbor, one week after the decision to go to war with the United States had been taken and communicated to the armed forces, four days after the Pearl Harbor task force had been ordered to its assembly point in Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles.
Friend Hori,
Many thanks for all you did for me at the time of my departure. Your letter sent from Ofuna has been received.
1. My family I leave to your guidance while I am away.
2. I recognize that the general situation has already come to the worst.
How miserable it is to have to say, as did Admiral Yamanashi, that this is fate. But then further arguments pro and con will avail nothing.
Now that we have reached the stage where “the Emperor alone must grieve over the state of affairs in the land,” the only thing that can save the situation is the final Imperial decision. But how difficult that will be, in view of the present situation in the country!
3. What a strange position I find myself in now —having to make a decision diametrically opposed to my own personal opinion, with no choice but to push full speed in pursuance of that decision. Is that, too, fate?
4. And what a bad start we’ve made, with one serious accident after another resulting from blunders from the very beginning of the year!
With cordial regards,
Yours,
Isoroku.
V
There would seem to be a moral to this tale. That the Pacific war would be a naval war was well known in advance, and nothing in the progress of the conflict modified this view. Naval capabilities governed the course of the combat; on both sides the navies gained the important successes, suffered the determining defeats. But the remarkable fact is that neither navy desired war to come at this time. Both Admiral Stark in the United States and Admiral Yamamoto in Japan felt unprepared for war; both endeavored to avoid the conflict.
Yamamoto’s feelings were shared by most of his colleagues, men who took the larger view of matters, who were competent to draw the military conclusions from comparisons of industrial strength, who knew that oceans, as well as being formidable barriers, are also highroads of invasion. These people did not want the war.
Insofar .as responsibility for the conflict can be placed on a single group, it must be placed, as the Tokyo trials have shown, on the Japanese Army clique and on its allies in civilian life. Not content with the subordinate role of an armed service, the Japanese Army had created and fostered a revolutionary political movement similar in many ways to the Nazi movement in Germany. Profiting by the internal strains in Japanese society, the Army gang rose in the years between the wars to gain effective control of the government, the police, and the propagation of information. Narrow-minded, ignorant of the world, ignorant of naval affairs, believing only what they wanted to believe, and insulated from criticism, these people looked out upon the globe as upon a succession of Chinas ready for domination. Germany’s successes seemed to strike their hour: the weakness of Britain, the American preoccupation with Europe, the apparently imminent collapse of Russia, combined to lure them on.
As a result of the 1936 cabinet change in Japan, the armed services had gained an irrevocable veto power over the actions of the government. Abstinence by either service from the formation of a cabinet, or withdrawal from a cabinet once formed, meant the fall of the ministry. This veto was not exploited by the Navy, which continued more or less faithfully to observe the rescript of the Emperor Meiji enjoining loyalty to the civil power. The Army, however, conspicuously avoided such self-restraint with the result that by 1941 the Navy had been maneuvered into a position where it could not help itself and where, despite feeble gestures of resistance, it felt forced to go along.
Those who lose their freedom pay a heavy price. It was the fate of millions in our time to have found themselves swept up in a storm not of their own making, sent forth to conquer and die by governments over which they had no measure of control. Such was the fate of Yamamoto, and this is what makes his story a tragic one despite the fact that in the conventional view he was a “militarist,” a type close cousin to the Prince of Darkness.
For Japan’s war with the United States was not brought about by militarists qua militarists. Though important, their military attributes were secondary. The crucial fact was that a group had gained the power to commit the government subject to no restraint from outside, that it proposed to use this power, and that its wisdom was not equal to the task. Provincial, limited, and doctrinaire in their outlook, the Japanese Army radicals were also irresponsible in the final sense of the word—they were responsible only to themselves.
Intent upon their own twisted vision of Japan’s future and upon their own personal fortunes, they tied their country to the Axis. Having so tied it, they engaged in diplomatic dispute with the United States, involving themselves so deeply that they had either to back down or to fight. With such a choice, such a group of adventurers could come to but one decision, the decision to take the gamble. The key to the situation was the absolute nature of their power, the fact that no other group had either check or influence upon them. It is neither the first nor the last example in history of the corruption worked by power. A similar condition is in large measure responsible for the dangers that confront the world today.
Educated at Harvard University and Trinity College, Cambridge University, James A. Field, Jr., saw active duty in the U. S. Naval Reserve from February, 1942, through August, 1946. Attaining the rank of lieutenant commander, he served as gunnery officer of CarDiv 26 and subsequently as a member of the Naval Analysis Division of the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey. Now a member of the Department of History at Swarthmore College, Mr. Field is best known to Service personnel as the author of The Japanese at Leyte Gulf.