Interestingly enough, the one person most against the Pearl Harbor attack, and Japan's motion into war, especially against war with the USA, was a man named Isoroku Takano. He was born into a samurai family, and adopted into another samurai family named Yamamoto. He was a smart young man, very well mannered and well-educated, and became quite experienced and respected as a navy officer. Not only was he very much against the action, he was infuriated to find out that his country's leadership and diplomats had failed to properly inform the USA of it's war declaration until AFTER the attack.
Unfortunately, so much like the generals of the German Wermacht, the radical political machines took control, leaving wise and professional officers no choice but to follow very bad high-level orders. In particular, Yamamoto was basically marked-for-death by Tojo and his henchmen... if he refused to serve, Tojo would have his family killed, and then kill Yamamoto... surprisingly similar to how Hitler dealt with his best generals ( Von Rundstedt, Guderian, Manstein, Model and Kesselring) [and he made an example of Rommel to do it]
Yamamoto's letters prove it pretty clearly, and it's a shame how it all turned out, not just for the lives lost at Pearl, but for ALL of the pacific theatre. For reasons of either propoganda or drama, there are many quotes that have been attributed to him that are most likely NOT his... but fortunately his letters have yielded some indelible insight into his dispositions:
"Britain and America may have understimated Japan somewhat, but from their point of view, it's like having one's hand bitten rather badly by a dog one was feeding. It seems that Americal in particular is determiend beflore long to embark on afull-scale operations against Japan. The mindless rejoicing at home [referring to the Tojo leadership's propaganda of 'great victories'] is really deplorable; it makes me fear that the first blow at Tokyo will make them [those swayed by Tojo's propoganda] wilt on the spot"
[And Yamamoto was correct here- the Doolittle Raids initially, and after island-hopping brought heavy bombers into firebombing position, brought a genuine reality check to the bigger islands.]
"A lot of people are feeling relieved, or saying they're 'grateful to Admiral Yamamoto' because there hasn't been a single air raid. They're very wrong: the fact that the enemy hasn't come is no thanks to Admiral Yamamoto, but to the enemy himself. So if they want to express gratitude to somebody, I wish they'd express it to America. If the latter [America] really made up it's mind to wade in on us, there'd by no way of defending a city like Tokyo."
Again, his words were not so much an opinion, as identifying the inevitable future.
It is unfortunate how it turned out, but after lots of reading, I'm satisfied that if Yamamoto would have been in Tojo's place, there would not have been an attack, nor a pacific theatre conflict, and most likely, the alliance between Japan and Germany would have broken apart. There were many circumstances which made Japan into a political hotbox... having an extremely young (and consequently weak) emperor (Hirohito) being under the control of someone like Tojo was PART of it. The circumstance of the London Naval Treaty, having contested territory with Russia, having strange and covert army actions (and in the case of the agent provocateur) in China (, whilst China was amidst a civil war, made for a very flammable social situation.
... Had Tojo been ousted, and Yamamoto put in his place, the course of history would entirely changed in every facet, in ways we could not even begin to imagine.
In September 1941, he noted
"For a while, we'll have everything our own way- stretching out in every direction like an octopus spreading it's tentacles, but it will last for a year and a half at the most"
On December 7th, the attack occurred, and a significant amount of the Pacific Fleet (save for the aircraft carriers) were damaged or destroyed. In the following May... just five months later, the Battle of Coral Sea, and another month later, June of 1942, the Battle of Midway stripped Japan of four fleet carriers and a heavy cruiser, after that point, the Imperial Japanese Navy was permanently in a defensive action state. Yamamoto's prediction was clearly on the optimistic side.
There were propoganda posters that misquoted (out-of-context) him... here's what his statement really was:
"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Phillipines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome, and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices"
So clearly, he was no dummy... and for good reason- he studied at Harvard from 1919 to 1921. He knew America better than anyone else in the Imperial command structure... he was put in a bad position, tried to make the best of it. Had he been able to do things HIS way, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and probably none of the Pacific Theatre, would have occurred, and the world would have been much better off.
Edited by DaveKamp - 11 Dec 2022 at 11:46pm
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