Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku - From Tsushima to Pearl Harbor
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
- Today we take a look at the life story of one of Japan's most famous Admiral's, from humble beginnings through to the attack that would define the his legacy..
Sources:
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Hiromi Tanaka, - Biographical Series Yamamoto Isoroku
Naval History books, use code 'DRACH' for 25% off - www.usni.org/p...
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'Legionnaire' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Throughout much of the time period the channel covers, smoking was a rather common habit. Were there any rules or restrictions about smoking on warships, and were there any notable cases of ships being damaged in smoking accidents?
What other influential (for better or worse) admirals came perilously close to being discharged from the navy before they would have made much of an impact?
If the Navy was able to overthrow the Army and be in charge, do you think Japan would have ever gone to war against us, or do you think they would remain neutral or something else altogether?
Drach, have you or anyone else here ever seen the Japanese film, Isoroku (2011?) I've seen bits and pieces, but I was wondering how you felt about the battle scenes in that movie.
I have enjoyed what I have seen, but I have never been able to find the entire film with subtitles.
Did the Royal navy ever consider creating a naval version of the 17 pounder or the Quick Fire 3.7 inch gun the British Army was using? You’ve previously mentioned that the Royal Navy was really hurting for duel-purpose guns in this caliber and the British army was mounting a 17 pounder to just about anything that could fit one (and some that couldn’t) and even though (to my knowledge) the UK didn’t try and turn the 17 pounder skywards it in theory should be more then capable for AA duties.
Young Isoroku - (happily eating writing implements)
The USMC - "...why do I suddenly feel a curious sense of brotherhood with this man? Almost as if he's one of us? I feel bad that those P38s killed him now."
yeah does seem top brass (Japan) were already trying to get him killed
@@jonathanwhite5132 that's why the Navy Ministry "kindly suggested" he "spend some time at sea" and he left his post, they hated him. Every time the Navy kept on opposing the tri partite pact. The press would blame any military failure in China to make them look untrustworthy (in the public eye). The media finally cracked down on any kind of dissent, liberals or socialists, branded them all communists and that played directly in the hands of the army who had been unoffically elected "the protectors of Manchurian protectorate (and Korea)". These social ills lead to for one the (Kantoo massacre incident).
The Emperor ordered a group of young officers who tried to solicit his direct help in alleviating a food crisis to be court martialled and shot after he publicly stating his support for their cause.
(Feb 26 showa restoration incident)
I lived in Yokohama with a veteran of ww2 and at times I feel like I should say something on his behalf.
Sorry if I sound like preaching , 🙏🙏🌲🌲🌲
Yeah, well when I think about the kids that were aboard the Arizona I have no doubt that those P38's did America a great service. Because the Japanese moral was being lifted by his visits it was best to take him out asap. Who knows some of the Japs that ended up surrendering and then survived the war as POW's may have instead been inspired to do a suicide bonzi charge & killed themselves along with a few Americans as well. No telling how many survived the war because of those P38's. And furthermore once he was gone the Japanese were at a loss of what to do next. Which was a good thing. And the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki as terrible as it was, at least it brought about the end of the war instead of the the US having to invade Japan itself & the countless numbers of lives that would have been lost on both sides in that struggle.
Although I will say that he was a great man & did his best for his country. But his greatest plan was also his country's biggest downfall & biggest mistake. He miscalculated the determination of the American people. When the US sees thousands of their sons killed they are not going to shy away & be scared. They are going to rise up & make you regret it. And that is why the US would accept nothing short of an unconditional surrender. That way we were able to find & prosecute war criminals. And get to the business of feeding the people of Japan that was being starved by the war as well. The Japanese was lucky that the Americans weren't interested in conquering the world. We basically just want people to be free to do as they please as long as it doesn't do harm to others. Which is why the US doesn't like Communism.
I would have liked to see him interviewed after the War and read his biography. He might have been against the kamikaze tactics.
@@marckyle5895 Based on his personality, I can definitely see it. It's a bit of a shame. He's a good man but the circumstances was not good in Japan at the time.
**Aerial shot of IJN Nagato**
**zoom to bridge interior**
Adm. Y: "Climb Mount Nataka."
**pause and record scratch**
"Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. Well, it's actually a pretty interesting story..."
**excellent 40min documentary video commences**
"HI,, I'm Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto,, you may remember me from such badazz naval engagements as "The Pearl Harbour First Strike: The Empire Struck Back" and,, "The Battle of Midway,, or,, Damn I Sure Miss Those Carriers"....
@@micnorton9487 Plus the classic Mothballing Your Battleship...Before It's Even Built
I would absolutely watch an isekai anime of this, especially if it turned into an alt-history version of true events. =^x^=
It’s Mt Niitaka though.
Ironically, it’s actually a mountain in Taiwan.
@@Wolfeson28 Well yeah I was coming to that... I meant that kind of ironically because although they were badass plans they didn't go quite as expected and so kind of reminded me of the Troy McClure character on the Simpsons.......
Of the several videos on Yamamoto, this contained a good deal of detail about his career and how his trips to the US shaped his thinking
Drach is obsessively thorough,, and I think he editorializes it from the raw accounts to fit his narrative and his legendary dry humor that when discussing Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea in 1905 breaks into some controlled hilarity for which Drach is not just legendary but iconic........
Thank goodness that The Great Japanese Capybara War never came to pass
I guess they saw Australia's Great Emu War and decided to avoid their fate.
@@hawkeye5955
Wait, implying you guys weren't taught Emu-wrestling at officer academy in the army? Then what are you going to do if the little f*ckers decide to start a rebellion in your country?
I have the original IJN biography hard copy of Yamo released by their records dept in 1943. Very rare official document. If you want I can send you a scanned digital file of the whole book. Hope you can read old literary Japanese.
I can certainly give it a shot!
@@Drachinifel / I also have the world’s largest collection of the Japanese art/news journal REKISHI SHASHIN from 1920-1944. Shyt loads of military pics. It’s also all digitized.. hobby for a while.
@@conservativemike3768wow, my email is in the channel 'About' section!
"For todays sponsored Squarespace segment, we're going to be adding a page for untranslated archive reference material and I'll show you how to add a Google Translate widget."
@@Halinspark / Ah.. if only translating old Chinese text in a Japanese literary format were that easy.
I highly recommend 2013's "Isoroku," more commonly known in the West as "The Admiral," starring Koji Yakusho. It was well done with very good visuals. Yes, it's in Japanese with English subtitles, but don't let that discourage you from giving it a watch. (Personally, I can't stand dubbed movies.) Besides, if you miss a subtitle or two, that's what the rewind button is for. 😁
There's a Toho film from 1968 named 'Admiral Yamamoto'. Toshiro Mifune plays him and he plays the role again in 1975 for 'Midway'.
@marckyle5895 I've seen and enjoyed both.
Its quite funny how South Korea also had its own "The Admiral" film where Yi Sun-shin absolutely pummeled the Shogunate fleets, now the two of them are Asia's premiere navies in the region.
Drach should do a follow-up video...from Pearl Harbor to Bougainville [where he died]
I'm sure he will.
I'm looking forward to that! and maybe a 'what if' he wasn't intercepted. Someone has to pee, storms, mechanical failure. I know Adm Y was a sticker for being punctual, but life happens.
I think Drach covers this in his video on the Kantai Kessen doctrine. The Japanese always knew they couldn’t keep up with the American industrial capacity, so they decided to wipe out the American fleet as fast as possible to give time for their fleet to support the conquests in the Pacific. At first it was thought to do this through attrition, but when the Americans moved their main Pacific base from San Diego to Pearl Harbor it very conveniently put them a lot closer to the Japanese for a first strike. There were other reasons for this shift in strategy too, I just can’t remember them all. But, technically speaking, it did work. The first six months of war saw the IJN largely unopposed and successfully conquered all of the resource rich areas in South East Asia and the Pacific that they needed to be able to keep waging war with the boycotts that had been placed on them. Just before Midway, they were even like “Uh, what do we do now?” and there was a whole debate over which new strategy to pursue.
The downsides of the pre-emptive strike were just as obvious though, stoking the Americans into a fury and allowing the ships to be salvaged and repaired.
Ultimately, the Japanese had no good option for the war. They were probably going to lose either way, and the different leaders were not only trying to give their country the best chance, but push their own glory and political power as well. So many different plans were pushed, and no one single one was the best. They all had different trade offs. Positives and negatives.
The issue is that the USN was PLANNING to fall back and retreat anyways (to get their war industry time to build up for a much more massive counteroffensive), and what Japan needed was to have the US be on the OFFENSIVE at the START of the war-and Yamamoto ensured that that offensive would only happen after the USN had built up and become the juggernaut we’re familiar with.
@@bkjeong4302Well, the Japanese didn’t know that. Also the Japanese needed the fuel resources of the Dutch East Indies, and they couldn’t conquer them if part of their navy is playing attrition against the Americans. Again, there were a lot of bad options.
A “pre-emotive” strike causing fury is an excellent typo…
@@henrikoldcornOh lol. Nice catch
It is always believed that the US will fight, but would they? There are a number of indicators that they might not. They only entered WWI after the Zimmerman Telegram, China had been going on for years despite the US expressing concern, they’re not war against the Nazis had also been on for several years. There was also a strong Fascist sentiment in sections of the US. Their army was also one of the smallest in the world. Yes, it seems obvious to us that they would fight but that is with the benefits of hindsight & Hollywood.
I can well remember a phrase from the Cold War ’60s/’70s, would the US swap Chicago for London (Pick any two appropriate cities)?
Even if it sounds a bit soppy: Yamamotos death means he did not have to witness the death of his Navy.
I wonder how he would have reacted to hear about the Yamato's destruction.
@@Calvin_Coolage He wouldn't have said anything. Just given the surviving battleship admirals the most I Told You So look ever.
Both of his cruisers outlived him. Isuzu survived until April '45, while Kitakami was one of the very few to survive outright.
That's true, sounds like Yamamoto expected to go down with one flagship or another... So the ambush of his transport plane was a really ignoble way to go out...
@@Calvin_CoolageI don't know about Yamamoto but when the losses at Midway came in I'd go out on the bridge wing and throw up... THEN I'd take my binoculars and throw them toward Midway while calling Spruance and that other American admiral every curse I could think of....
Many years ago I had the distinct honour of meeting Lieutenant Lawrence Graebner, near the end of his life. He was a pilot in the force that took on the escort Zero fighters in Operation Vengeance. He had a gorgeous painting of a P-38 over the ocean, sunlight glinting off its wings. The painting was signed by many of the men on Operation Vengeance, Graebner included. Aside from Operation Vengeance, Graebner was shot down twice at Iwo Jima. He was a humble man, and a joy to talk to.
The engineer in me really kind of wishes I was working in the period of 1880-1920, the pace of advancement had to be just mind bogglingly cool. Like, I get to go from a horse with a black powder gun to flying an airplane with a belt fed machine gun, and get to design it all.
Seriously, sign me up.
Yeah it is insane, isn't it? The amount of development between between 1918 & 1940 is mindboggling, when compared to 2000 to 2022. But then again, we are severely underestimating how much the world improved by NOT having to rely on 3 1/2 " floppy disks.
Start studying AI. That field is undergoing a similar revolution
@@Tuning3434 It's much longer than just the last 20 years, really. For an aviation example, look up the Handley Page Heyford, a really funky biplane bomber, and I'll assume people are familiar with the Avro Lancaster and Avro Vulcan. Take a good look at all three. Now let me put it this way: If the Vulcan's first flight was in 2024, then the Lancaster first flew in 2013, and the Heyford in 2002... a gap of 22 years. Meanwhile, the F-35 first flew 24 years ago.
Alternatively, the Cessna 172 first flew 69 years ago, 10 years after WWII. And in basic layout/concept (the part that's truly relevant here) nearly every modern airliner traces back to the Boeing 707 (as opposed to the variety of things you'd see back then). We see the same thing with lots of other "mechanical" tech, like firearms, cars, etc.
I agree I'd have loved too be an engineer apprenticed in 1890 and get to retire in 1935 or 1940
@@Tuning3434 queue in floppys still being used in the us nuclear triad
This is the best reasoning for the introduction of carriers I have ever heard.
And to think Pearl Harbor might not have happened had he lost just one more finger aboard Nisshin.
Pearl Harbor is inevitable given what their plan is. Regardless if Yamamoto is in that think tank or not, the IJN is very clear in its evaluation: the US is a threat to their Asia-Pacific ambitions since 1902...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131
War against the US was inevitable, but PH was Yamamoto’s brainchild, and a massive miscalculation on his part.
Not that big of a miscalculation. Had they located and attacked the carriers as well, it would have likely worked out.
@@GrubbyZebra
No, it was a huge miscalculation at the grand strategic level, because Yamamoto’s war strategy abandoned the defensive war the IJN had been built and trained for and FORCED the long attritional war he was ostensively trying to avoid.
What he should have done is to leave the US Pacific Fleet intact and try to force the USN to take the fight to him (and thus operate at the end of a strained logistical tether before their war industry had had enough time to deliver things like the Essex swarm). His offensive strategy instead ensured it would be the IJN that would be left overstretched and that the US would be made to retreat….which bought them enough time to get their massive late-war fleet ready.
Some other person would take place. Geography is a destiny. The position of japanese forces would be even less favorable.
Outstanding segment. Yamamoto was a man of honor and dignity. Thank you for learning more about his qualities and personal character and not selling him short as you have done in previous years. Don't get me wrong, but you have in the past ranked him rather poorly overall as an Admiral. I've always felt that he was a fine officer and gentlemen, doing the best that he could against overwhelming odds because he was his Emperor's servant, not because he wanted war with the U.S. Some historical accounts suggest that he actually enjoyed living in the United States. Besides, he was a damned good poker player, so he couldn't have been a bad guy on a social or personal level.
WHAT? Poker players are the most conniving kind of scoundrels,, like Han Solo and James Bond lol... But seriously Yamamoto had the same Achilles heel as Robert E. Lee,, they were both brilliant tacticians who started with the disadvantage and took long chances and made them work, but sometimes the long chances DON'T work like Midway or Gettysburg and the expected victory at a stroke turns into a defeat so monumental that the military unit's strength never recovers.......
@@micnorton9487 Hannibal Barca was similar--a brilliant general serving a nation with an inferior population base and economy, hoping for a swift end through early battlefield victories against a powerful enemy they want to bring to the negotiating table. Similar results in WW2 and The 2nd Punic War, too.
@@rikk319 Kind of a similar situation with Russia vs Japan 1905 EXCEPT the long shot worked for Japan,, sheerly through the horrible logistics of the fleet naval action involved and the relative incompetence of the Russian Navy at that time,, the small island nation of Japan brought the Russian Navy to its destruction and brought the Russian government to the negotiation table...
@@micnorton9487 True. Plus, Russia was near to collapse by that point, economically and socially, so Japan had the perfect moment to act.
@rikk319 don't compare hannibal with yamamoto. Hannibal lacked strategic point of view. He dragged the war for too long lasting 15 years. While yamamoto was trying to defeat us quickly in less than a year.
Finally, a good biography on Yamamoto! Thanks Drach
27:41 "However, before internal dissent in the Imperial Japanese Navy could escalate beyond yelling and threats of physical violence
the Imperial Japanese Army turned up to remind them all who the real enemy was."
Kendo?
That makes sense.
The sport is pure aggression.
And nothing is resolved faster than a kendo attack.
Don't worry, Admiral. Mogami will take care of them and blame it on the Americans.
Your description on Kendo... really makes be understand why I switched to Iaido 😂
I can watch your stuff all day long, I watch when I play warships, I watch when I go to sleep, I'm watching right now on my hour drive to work.
Watching while . . . driving? Haha. Yet another example of how admiral Yamamoto was wrong about the ability of people to multiple task.
Same
It is neurologicaly impossible for people to truly multitask - they either task stack or task switch with varying degrees of switch cost limiting the capacity and output.
Excellent introduction to the Meiji times and the turmoil Japan was embroiled in.
About Yamamoto's wounds, it's a curious exercise in thought for those philosophically inclined. The absence - or presence thereafter- of a single finger could have changed History as we know it today.
No wonder the height comparison between the 5'3" (1,61 meters) Yamamoto and Ozawa tends to be rather hilarious. The latter was 6'7", or two-meters tall and aptly nicknamed "The Gargoyle".
Ah, the old IJA/IJN shenanigans adding flavour to the whole thing.
It's a very interesting biography on a very complex man shaped by its time, upbringing and historical events.
Well done, Drach.
Six foot seven!? That's ridiculously tall even by modern and also Western standards, let alone Japan most of a century ago. :O
Very nicely done on Yamamoto. A very good Rum Ration
Amazing and admirable climb out of poverty and similar strength of character. Thank you very much for your time and effort producing this valuable and informative video. 👍🏻🏴
This is not only a fantastic video on Yamamoto, but a stellar introduction and explanation of the overall situation and context in Japan in the crucial decades from when it started to modernize, to WWII.
Dang, Yamamoto’s assessment of carriers vs yamato was spot on in the end.
Yeah but theoretical action against targets that shoot back is a lot different than trying out torpedoes on mock opponents or practicing dive bombing on ships that don't shoot back... The actual KNOWN strength of the Japanese pilots of the kido butai was from bombing shore installations and other areas in multiple different places at once,, the attack on Pearl harbor was meticulously planned to wipe out the American air potential before even starting on the battleships.... Only after the Pearl harbor attack commenced was the tactic of air power defeating naval power fully known.....
Not quite, because he ignored the little issue of Japan not having enough places to build that many extra carriers even if Japan didn’t build any of the Yamatos.
Carriers WERE the better option, but not because they were cheaper (they weren’t if you take infrastructure into account); they were better because a single carrier had far more offensive capability than a single battleship and couldn’t be sunk by a single battleship.
@@bkjeong4302 Navies win fight by range, and carriers offer the absolute maximum of range - thats probably how Yamamoto thought of carriers
Excellent stuff as usual! Having been more of a military aircraft buff for most of my life I have learned more about naval warfare after discovering this channel than I ever knew before, thanks!
Fun fact, there was a large oil field in Manchuria. One of the largest in China. Japan was sitting on it for years and didn’t realize it.
Was about to ask, at the time, where was the oil infrastructure? I mean, how far would the IJN need to push to get to a sustainable refinery?
@@jaysmith1408 nobody knew it existed yet. It was found sometime after 1949
@@boat5138441 well wasn’t part of the push east through the pacific to get further resources? I can’t recall much oil in the pacific, most is shipped in, no?
A few things came to me while listening. First, you mentioned Yamamoto served on the Aso. I had to look it up to be sure but the Aso was originally the Imperial Russian Navy armored cruiser Bayan, the lead ship of the Bayan class that was raised from the ships sunk at Port Arthur. Second, his visit to the U.S. in 1926 would have been about a year after the publication of Hector Bywater's The Great Pacific War, in which a naval war between Japan and the U.S. was explored. One thing that stuck in my mind about that narrative was the creation of a naval base at Truk Atoll. I've often wondered if Bywater's book had any impact on Japanese naval thinking. Third, you mention he became vice minister and managed the politics quite well. I immediately thought 'why not?' He was, as you mentioned, quite good at gambling which it, seems to me, would provide some useful skills when dealing with people politically. In all an excellent documentary. Thank you.
I have wondered what would have happened if Yamamoto had survived the war, and been part of a recovery of the country. Such a talented and wise man may have been very helpful.
If anyone gets the chance to go to Japan, go to the battleship Mikasa. In addition to it's historical significance, it has a hand written account of the battle of Tsushima by Admiral Yamamoto on display, as well as as a drawing of his ship with the damage indicated by him.
If you're curious, families/clans in Japan are about bloodlines than European ones, more about the family name and it's... brand image I suppose. Historically it was pretty common for a house lacking a male heir to adopt someone into them.
I watched many war college lectures. Your narrative style is as distinct and lively as Parshall or Tom Ricks. I really enjoyed the biography. Admiral Yamamoto is now less of a mystery. Thank you.
The Road to Pearl Harbor with no mention of Gumbi ni kansuru shiken?
"On January 7, 1941, Yamamoto committed his ideas to paper in his blandly titled memorandum Gumbi ni kansuru shiken (Views on military preparations) to the navy minister, Oikawa Koshiro. Its first major point was that the navy needed to greatly expand its air forces. Second, he noted that although fleet training had been based on the wait-and-react strategy leading up to the classic gun battle in past war games and maneuvers, the navy had never succeeded in winning such an encounter. Usually, the exercises were called off before umpires deemed the navy's strength exhausted. Moreover, Yamamoto argued, the power of aircraft and submarines made it unlikely that a decisive gun battle would ever take place. Hence, the navy needed to give its commanders better training in small-unit tactics for the numerous smaller engagements that would most likely occur.
Most of all, in Yamamoto's view, it was essential to change the navy's basic strategy. As a quantitatively inferior naval power, Japan's best hope lay in a qualitatively superior strategy: a violent and crippling first blow at America's main battle force in the first few hours of the war. Time, distance, and geography dictated that this could best be accomplished by an air attack by several carrier divisions on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor."
www.hoover.org/research/planning-pearl-harbor
From issuing his memo Gumbi ni kansuru shiken on 7 January 1941, Yamamoto had made a bid to suspend Kantai Kessen, which he succeded at by 26 November 1941 when Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles for their date with destiny.
David Evans (again) describes how close the plan came to being derailed:
"Then, in early October, the navy general staff was brought around to Yamamoto's idea. There were several reasons for this volte-face, some operational, some bureaucratic. To begin with, the compromise between the army and navy on nearly simultaneous attacks on the Philippines and Malaya eased navy planning considerably. The availability of the splendid new carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku in late September permitted two other carriers to be released for the southern operations and thus eliminated one of the general staff's key objections to the Yamamoto plan. Finally, Yamamoto had carefully and quietly passed the word to the high command that rejection of the Pearl Harbor plan would result in his resignation. Keenly aware of Yamamoto's popularity and prestige within both the navy and the government and faced with the prospect of disharmony, the general staff gave in.
Later in the month, however, a new storm of controversy broke when Yamamoto insisted that the Hawaii operation employ all Japan's fleet carriers then in commission. He based his views on the map exercises aboard the Nagato, which used six carriers; the results with six carriers were judged far more impressive than with only four carriers. Opposition from the general staff might have derailed the Pearl Harbor strike once and for all, had it not been for the success of tests in the Eleventh Air Fleet, which demonstrated that engine adjustments to the Zero fighters based on Taiwan made them operational for flights to and from the Philippines. Now that the task forces involved in the southern operations would be supplied with adequate air cover, the last barrier to the Yamamoto plan came down.
Excerpted and adapted from Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941, published by the Naval Institute Press."
Japanese Eleventh Air Fleet made Pearl Harbor possible, employing fuel mixture engine leaning techniques three years before Charles Lindberg advocated the same with the P-38, to turn Taiwan into the only aircraft carrier needed for assaulting the Philippines in 1941. Yamamoto's tendency to threaten to resign is invariably brought up in the story of the Road to Pearl Harbor, ignoring the technical contributions of the IJNAS that actually made Pearl Harbor possible, not least Admiral Takijiro Onishi, Admiral Ryūnosuke Kusakaand the architect of the attack, Captain Minoru Genda.
With the First Air Fleet forming up at Hitokappu Bay, Gumbi ni kansuru shiken had supplanted Kantai Kessen...at least until P-38s using extreme fuel mixture engine-leaning conducted Operation Vengeance...
Probably because this isn't so much a "Road to Pearl Harbor" video as it is an abbreviated biopic on Yamamoto Isoroku and getting a general idea of the man's character and experiences takes precedent.
@DiggingForFacts No, it is the beginning of a series similar to Drach's Nelson series, which included a pretty serious dive into the Battle of Trafalgar.
Yamamoto similarly to Nelson had an outsized impact on the unfolding of naval battles 140 years later, with the Commander in Chief of ghe Combined Fleet waging a bureaucratic battle for more than a decade to supplant Kantai Kessen with a much more aggressive, smaller-unit naval strategy. A key insight that led to this fight coming to a head throughout 1941 is recounted by David Evans in his description of how the IJN had never won the gun battle against the Americans during 1930s war games and maneuvers, the exercises being called off before the umpires could declare the defeat of the Japanese surface fleet.
Yamamoto laid it all out on 7 January 1941, 11 months to the day before a date that not only lives still in infamy but marked without question that Gumbi ni kansuru shiken had supplanted Kantai Kessen--a wholesale rejection of the traditional 'wait-and-react strategy' the IJN had employed from 1905 to 1941...until the loss of Hiei and Kirishima during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal led IGHQ to withdraw all Japanese heavy units from naval battles until 1944. Yamamoto made one last push for Gumbi ni kansuru shiken with Operation I-Go in April 1943, but Operation Vengeance put the bureaucratic battle to bed and Kantai Kessen reasserted itself with even greater force that before.
This may simply be yelling into the ether, but the reality that Yamamoto fundamentally changed Japanese strategy with Gumbi ni kansuru shiken (for 1.5 to 2 years) might make its way to Drach. He used to irritatingly claim that the U.S. Navy's attack squadrons remained by 1944-45 far less capable than their British counterparts, going so far as to claim TF 57 (the BPF's carrier force) could have much more easily taken down Yamato during Ten-Go. I reacted with an irritated comment how the USN's TBF force had turned the Mark 13 into a veritable 1940s antishipping missile with a 260-knot, 800-foot altitude attack profile in place of the TBD 100-knot, 100-foot suicide runs of 1942 and snidely pointed out that there was little evidence that TF 57's torpedo bombers could replicate the 260-knot/800-foot attack profile with their 18-inch torpedoes...and shortly thereafter Drach began mentioning how this attack profile had made the USN's Avengers so deadly.
It probably was just coincidence that this change followed my snide comment, but if not the story of how Gumbi ni kansuru shiken supplanted Kantai Kessen from 26 November 1941 to 18 April 1943 is a key insight to understanding Japanese early-to-midwar strategy, and was the driving force behind Yamamoto's personality and thinking.
This stood in stark contrast to the US Department of the Navy's Second World War strategy, which rather than focusing on high-ranking admiral's memos or memories of past glories such as Tsushima instead evolved constantly and wasn't beholden to non-existent past glories (the USN had precious little battle experience from 1865 to 1941 and the one outlier, 1898, showed American gunnery accuracy was sorely lacking) or writings from pillars such as Corbett or Mahan. If the Department of the Navy of the 1930s and 40s leaned towards either man it was Corbett because Mahan thought amphibious assault operations were impossible to sustain, but this was precisely why the Department of the Navy built up such a base of logistics over a period of decades--to make an amphibious-assault-centric strategy the heart and soul of the Pacific War.
For these reasons the Department of the Navy expanded their annual exercises in 1935 to include FLEX (Fleet Landing Exercises) alongside the established Fleet Problems which come mid-1942 enabled the Pacific Fleet using Fleet Marine Force as the tip of the spear to project power worldwide, creating an advancing series of airfields, Marine and naval bases that neither Gumbi ni kansuru shiken nor Kantai Kessen could hope to counter.
This amphibious assault strategy, which would have been approved of by Julian Corbett had he lived past 1922, is credited to one Earl Hancock "Pete" Ellis by the USMC...
Fascinating - as always. Yamamoto was a formidable foe and an essentially honorable man caught in a foolish war and a part of an immoral regime..
Rommel had the same problemm
Indeed.
the honorable thing would've
been for Yamamoto to do was
to quit working for an immoral regime...
he is one of America's greatest enemy's,
that's his story and nobody from 🇺🇲 needs to know more than that about him...
US not immoral? Gunboat diplomacy?
Dear Drachinifel, Thank once again for all your hard work on this interesting piece. Japan produced many fine warriors, and perhaps Yamamoto is the one that we in the West are most aware of , and feel the most affinity to. However in all my readings of his life, there has always been one area of his military career that I have found completely mystifying, why would he ever imagine that, even IF his attack at Pearl had been beyond his wildest dreams, and gutted the entire American Pacific Fleet, Oil storage, ruined the harbor, and destroyed all existing aircraft, that this would create a distraught need to a negotiated settlement to the war? An insightful and intelligent man by all accounts, and perhaps more aware of the nature of the American people than most, I find this assumption "odd"? There is scant information about why he made this assessment? Some accounts explain this was his conviction because it was the only possible plan to stave off the destruction of the Japanese home islands, and I am sure this was a substantial reason, that and his belief in the Japanese concept ( another misguided assumption ) of "Decisive Battle". My own thoughts have focused upon the nature of his time while in the America. US Politics during that time were ruled by a powerful and vocal "Isolationist Party", so perhaps this experience underscored his believe that the American people seek an end to the war after a powerful defeat.
Yamamoto did not want war with the United States. He recieved constant threats to his life from the IJA because he opposed the invasion of China, and opposed Japan signing the pacts with Germany and Italy. However, it was his job as the Commander of the Combined Fleet to follow through with the orders of the Japanese government. He devised Pearl Harbor as a hail mary, and it might seems delusional for Japan to think that it might win a war against a country far wealthier, with millions more people, and with near infinite resources in comparison. But the thing is, Japan had pulled it off before.
In 1904, Japan had launched a surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet, and trapped it at Port Arthur. It was eventually destroyed after a siege and land campaign that saw the Russian Army also defeated in battle. When the Russian Baltic Fleet eventually arrived in the Pacific, it was also destroyed at the Battle of Tsushima. Many senior Japanese leaders served in the Russo-Japanese War including Yamamoto. From his perspective, although he was forced to fight a war he did not want, perhaps he figured that a hail mary would be the only way Japan had a chance of winning.
It's really amazing that had Yamamoto lost just one more finger at Tsushima he'd have been disqualified for military service and WWII in the Pacific would have been very different.
Fascinating. I love these deep dives into the history of important naval figures. It really gives a great deal of context about who they were as men, their influences and upbringing. Can't wait for part two.
The right amount of background material to understand the man and his experiences ... this is why I subscribed! Look forward to the follow up video!
This was so good, and contained so much material that was new to me. Thank you!
Another master documentary
An excellent and might I say definitive overview of Yamamoto's life
Very good biographic presentation. I know quite a bit about Japanese history and this adds to my knowledge. Maybe the dates for the Imperial Japanese Navy might be contested but the man behind modernizing and the adoption of western knowledge during Bakumatsu was Sakamoto Ryoma once he understood just expelling foreigners wasn't the answer. It makes sense Yamamoto would have been deployed at Tsushima but until I watched this I never thought about it. Very well done, thank you.
This is by far the best run down of Yamamoto I have seen on TH-cam. Professional yet witty but also informative
Ive been looking forward to this
The mind boggles at the prospect of Yamamoto convincing the powers that be that the Yamoto-class battleships should be abandoned to build more Shokaku-class carriers! Had he gotten his way, imagine the attack on Pearl Harbour with at least two more Shokaku-class carriers. More than 100 additional planes would have been available for the attack, and most likely the repair facilities and fuel-storage sites would have been destroyed, forcing the U.S. navy to withdraw to their Pacific-coast bases in California. The war in the Pacific would most likely have lasted at least one, if not two, more years!
It would be *at most* two more Shokakus, not “at least two more”. There are physical infrastructure limitations that stop Japan from ever building that many more Shokakus, seeing as the Shokakus took just as long to build as the Yamatos and could only be built in a very limited number of slipways.
@@bkjeong4302 Granted that there would have been just two more Shokakus, but that makes me wonder if Japan had enough pilots to crew those two additional Shokakus. Would they have had to retire the Akagi and/or Kaga and transfer their pilots, as the IJN would have needed another 140+ pilots to fully crew those two additional carriers?
@@davidyoung5114
That’s the other thing. The two Shokakus that did get built were massively underestimated by the Japanese compared to older, less capable carriers (in spite of the fact the Shokakus had been explicitly designed along the same “superweapon” mindset as with the Yamatos and for the same reasons), because of perceived inferior pilot quality due to the fact the Japanese had to (by their standards) scrape the barrel to find enough pilots for them in time for the PH raid. Of course the reality was that Japanese pilot standards were way too strict and they eliminated a bunch of perfectly competent potential recruits (while the elites that did get recruited ended up largely being KIA or spent by 1943, with the pilots supposed to replace them being far less trained than the “bad” pilots they’d rejected just two years earlier) or otherwise denigrated them due to false assumptions of incompetence.
That mentality was something also found in the IJA (and lack of pilot rotation or a proper pilot training regimen was endemic to all three major Axis powers and the USSR), and it’s something I doubt would change just because two more carriers were around-after all the Japanese didn’t think this issue when they came up with plans to build another 5 Taihos (which was a nonstarter due to lack of infrastructure anyways) or the Unryu-class (which were designed to be smaller so they’d be faster to build and could be built in smaller slipways to get around the infrastructure limits). So I have my issues believing that the two extra Shokakus wouldn’t run into the same issue of being held back due to either a lack of pilots or a perceived lack of capable pilots.
@@davidyoung5114 the Shoukakus were about the same size as the Yamatos.
@@merafirewing6591 Yes, but they required much more steel to construct, and took longer to build than the Shokakus. For the time and effort put into the construction of the Yamato-class battleships, the advanced design of Shokaku-class carriers had a far greater return. They lasted the longest of the six Pearl Harbour carriers, and could have had a substantial effect on the course of the war in the Pacific. The Yamatos were a waste of time and resources.
I can't wait!
This was really interesting to see, more in depth to what i knew of Yamamoto life. Quite a enjoyable lesson, thank you drach, you never disappoint
Clearly a brilliant man. Just think what he could have accomplished if his life hadn’t been wasted in a war.
He got a bit done before his life was wasted in a war, like imagine and perfecting a brand new way of employing a navy, then perfecting the way to (briefly) build the best navy in the world
@@HaakSO I wonder what he would do if he lived long enough to see the end of the war, and then the post war period?
@@merafirewing6591 he most certainly would have been executed or volunteered himself to be executed in order to spare others the war crimes trials.
I wonder what his first thoughts were when he first found out that he lost four carriers at Midway.
*error 404*
"Huh. That happened sooner than expected."
Huh 6 months go figure
NAGUMO! WTF!
Nani?!
Yamamoto's overall strategic concept to win against the US was sound and would have worked if Japan had not conducted the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor before a formal declaration of war. The ambiguous message that was eventually delivered would not cut it even if it was delivered on time.
*Might.
No, it made things actively worse and CAUSED the very scenario of a protracted war he wanted to avoid.
Thank you Drach. This is an absolute wealth of information about a man who is extremely interesting.
This is a very cool video. I would deeply enjoy a similar video about the naval career of Miklos Horthy, as to help understand his fame and why people made him regent.
Great presentation Drach
Great video as always. One minor correction though. Yamamoto had not been planning a strike on Pearl Harbor for many years. The shift to Pearl Harbor came as a rather late change. The US Fleet had been anchored in a deep water anchorage (Kehoe if I remember correctly) until fairly late in the planning of the attack. Taranto did have the effect of showing the Japanese that an airborne torpedo attack was possible in a shallow harbor like Pearl Harbor.
I tend to look at this guy as a victim of circumstance. He was Brilliant. But he had no choice but to follow orders. He knew from DAY 1 that it was inevitable.
That was excellent! I’ve been a deep student of WWII for many years but I am amazed that no matter how many vids I watch or books I read I’m always learning something new!
Great History Lesson. I Knew Certain Parts Of Yamamoto. You Filled In Many Blanks. Thank You.
Man, I feel bad for him in that he's the only sane man in the midst of the batshit insanity of Imperial Japan, and he's telling them repeatedly not to stick the fork in the socket.
It is amazing how many high-ranking Japanese, both civilian and military, knew that war with America was going to be a disaster, but went ahead with it anyway. Moral courage was severely lacking in the Japanese government and military in the early 40's.
Read the book Japan 1941 and you have no idea how right you are. To sum it up, they were throwing around a very hot potato and wishing someone would grab hold of it tight.
@@andrewnlarsen I'll look into that, thanks. Simple fact is, most knew they couldn't win the war, but went into it anyway because none of them had the MORAL courage to do what was needed to avoid the war. All of them had physical courage in excess, but none could face the prospect of humiliation, which requires moral courage.
@@rpick7546 If just one of the higher ups in either the Army or Navy had the courage to stand up and in fact take responsibility then the others would have fallen into line. No one wanted to be the one to speak up and potentially lose face.
@rpick7546 weak men in positions of high power were directly the cause of WWII both in Europe and Asia. If the leadership of the Weimar Republic had have executed Hitler in the wake of the Beer Hall Putsch …. If various high officials up to and including Hirohito would have stood up to the young turks ( the hot headed young military officers doing the assassinations ) and also stood up to the foolish generals and admirals a great many lives of their own citizens could have been spared.
which author, there are several books with that title ? @@andrewnlarsen
It was most interesting and ironic, being that he was eventually assassinated by aircraft in an aircraft.
Thanks for the awesome content. Always enjoy these biographical long form videos. Keep up the great work.
You make the most well informed historical videos I've seen. Every video I learn something new and I am hooked.
Thanks Drach
Brilliant, as always. Thanks
A sensable man.
That was an excellent documentary
Excellent video of the pre-war years...
Yamamoto's strategic brilliance was matched by the abject incompetence of the horrendous FDR regime and its cast of fellow travelers...
Wow, first time I saw the great admiral's photo as a young man.
Very informative treatise Drach! Thanks as always.
Brilliant Video. Thank you. It is interesting that Yamamoto, who knew the US pretty well, did underestimate their resolve like this
Enjoyed this very much and I'm looking forward to the next installment. Is there any chance of doing a similar background for Admiral Nagumo? It is so hard to know where Nagumo falls in the pantheon of Imperial Japanese Navy officers. Was he completely hapless and only in command due to the seniority system? Was he too cautious or simply following decades of doctrinal training? All followers of WWII Pacific history are familiar with the "Nagumo Dilemma" at Midway, but did he have other options? Was he completely incompetent or merely a convenient scapegoat? Would love to know more about Nagumo the man and less about Nagumo the Hollywood stereotype. Thanks for your work.
Wow, a fascinating story as beautifully researched as told. I've been a hobby student of WW2 naval history since I was a boy, and this fills in so much of the human colour that's so often missing elsewhere. Awesome job! x
Great start of a biography Drach, looking forward to part 2.
Thank you for a very informative video! Well done Drach!
High quality and interesting, as usual. Thank you!
This is coherent, engaging and illuminating. Thank you.
Always learn something!
34:47 Would the neutral US have attacked the Japanese invasion force?
36:11 The North Vietnamese succeeded at this tactic 25 years later.
Yamamato outsmarted himself. First, the US population would never have supported going to war to protect Dutch imperialism. Second, there was no chance that wrecking the fleet at Pearl Harbor would cause the US public to give up. Yamamato should have spent more time studying the Civil War and US determination to win than touring production facilities.
Ah not really... us will join ww2 in one way or another.
Even if the IJN left the US alone, Japan's offensive into the Dutch East Indies would not be seen as Dutch Imperialism but Japanese Imperialism instead (which is what it was). The US has already embargoed Japan for its war against China, the US will absolutely go to was by that point as Roosevelt all but needed just one excuse to bring the US into the war by 1941.
The fault was that Pearl Harbor had not been as total victory as it was planned.
@@mosesracal6758 and the Japanese foreign ministry screwed up on its end.
Thanks!
Steve1989 posts 2 reviews yesterday and now Drac posting a bio on Yamamoto. TH-cam is awesome sometimes.
Nice.
Today Yamamoto comes across as a genious and a seer. I wonder how much of that is our 20/20 hindsight That knowing his understanding of the US makes us sympathetic to him as almost one of us?
Seems like you don't understand what hindsight means
As someone who grew up in the '80s and '90s. We have been going through quite a bit of change ourselves due to technology. Mind you, it's a lot of change for the worse in my opinion, but people just go with the flow and don't really take account of the changes from day to day only when you look back on the way things used to be do you notice the change?.
Why am I not surprised that Yamamoto was very sharp at poker? Certainly could explain why so many of his naval plans involved large amounts of bluff and misdirection.
You also have to wonder how different things would have been if he'd lost a third finger and been invalided out of the Navy. One little thing changing so much. I don't know how familiar you are with the American Civil War, but there was one other such random chance that changed everything. In September 1862, Union soldiers were moving through a campground recently vacated by Confederates, when one found some some cigars on the ground, wrapped in paper. At first thinking only about the free cigars, he quickly realized that the paper was a copy of Special Order 191, issued by General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. It provided detailed instructions to Lee's corps commanders for dividing his forces, which routes they should take, and which objectives they should concentrate on, for Lee's campaign into Maryland. Using this information, Union General George McClellan was able to move his troops to confront Lee's divided forces at the Battle of South Mountain and Battle of Antietam, halting the Confederate campaign in its tracks and giving the much-feared Lee his first major defeats of the war.
Superb presentation, of a fascinating person, many thanks.
Great video! As usual. Very informative information on Admiral Yamamoto. 👍
Thank you excellent documentary .
Billy Mitchell but instead of just embarrassing the navy, youre improving it
Excellent job 👍🏽.
Great details & info!!
I'm finally beginning to understand Yamamoto. I was always perplexed as to how he could fail to see that starting a war with the U.S. could result in anything but disaster for Japan. It seems that he didn't fail to see it, but was duty bound to fight to the best of his ability for the thin... damned near invisible chance that Japan could win.
The Navy was painfully aware it was a bad idea but once the US oil embargo started the clock was ticking until they were out of fuel.
And he almost did if not for the carriers just somehow in the wrong place in the right time
7:17 made me spit my drink all over the screen
He was an intelligent man, a great naval commander, and a worthy opponent.
I miss too much Drachinifel's old opening song...
Great biography to listen to while I am doing inventory at my new job
wonderful vid sir - what an amazing human
I hesitate to call him a master tactician or even the "mastermind behind Pearl Harbor" because while yes he poised the question "can it be done?" like most admirals it's widely known he left the "figuring out if it can be done" and tactical planning of "doing it" bit to others under him to submit, such as Kenda.
Same thing with Midway, all he was concerned with was a reasonable chance at the USN Carriers, the actual ploy, planning and all that was left to subordinates to figure out and submit to him.
Yes, he thought ahead of time, and knew a thing or two about strategy, but his greatest gift was his aptitude for shrewd and charismatic political maneuvers. He was able to champion for general air power, and air vs sea without getting Mitchell'ed.
Where it pertains to the naval bit, one example he was able to ensure IJN received more carriers than what originally allowed for.
But he also failed to properly recognize and mitigate the risk of a prolonged "picnic".
For an example, IJN pilot & ship crew training program was painstakingly geared towards quality which, though Midway was a tough "card", wouldn't have been all that decisive if they had had the pilots and crews to adequately use the great many carriers they had left (not to mention the ones they were pushing out).
IJN and IJA were famously at odds practically "forever sleeping" each other's functionaries and "figureheads", a great many "headsup's" and attempts were made at his continued "breathing air", add to that he was one of the more moderate among the Japanese top brass, or sort of as close as you could get to Western value of life, without getting kenpei'd.
When they "forever slept" him, IMHO, the US kinda "whammed" themselves in the foot, now there was nobody powerful enough to oppose "divine wind" and other "ways of waging picnic", which ended up costing both sides more than if he had been allowed to continue a regular "picnic".
Yes he and IJN stood and conducted "picnic" for some pretty "iffy things", and they did "some iffy things", and he was a "picnic'er", but from everything we know about him he wasn't a huge fan of "picnics" either, so there is also a legitimate case to be made he could have even championed for an earlier surrender & conclusion to the "picnic".
(I say "picnic's", "divine wind", "iffy and "forever sleep", etc, not because I'm underplaying anything, but because powers that be currently has me "shade not here'ed")
What a lot of yapping of course he left it to his subbordinates on the particulars - thats how the chain of command goes. Did you just conveniently forget that he climbed through the ranks? He was no big shot who just skipped the ranks, he had to work for the title of Commander-in-Chief.
He is the mastermind behind Pearl Harbor because it was only him who was working on a plan for Pearl Harbor using the Combined Force - nobody else thought the same way before him. Not even the British when they couldve done it in the Mediterranean.
Said to have been an excellent poker player during his time in the USA. No surprise, really! And their Naval Infantry are marines.
I have heard that. I would have enjoyed watching Yamamoto play a game of poker.
It's interesting how often the smallest of things can shape the world. If Arch Duke Ferdinand of Austria had been taken on a different route after the failed first assassination attempt there would have been no WW1. Similarly if Yamamoto had lost one more finger how much more different world history would have been.
It doesn't matter. The Pacific war will happen regardless. Japan's interest conflicted with that of US. There may not be a Pearl Harbor but another declaration of war would happen. Don't forget about the Spanish-American War over Philippines. America was just another greedy imperialist power.
22:21 gangsta pose, dope threads gripping his jimmy with 3 war hero fingers…😂
It's a testament to how frequently Japanese name ordering is not used in content about Yamamoto-san that it took me several moments to reconcile your title with reality and decide that you had done it correctly.
amazing as always
Well @Drachinifel, you certainly inspired a lively discussion...