Thunderbolt: The Attack on Pearl Harbor

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Japanese leadership in the Second World War enjoys noticeably lower name recognition than their German counterparts. Most people with a cursory knowledge of the war know the core German leadership group around Hitler - Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, Speer, and perhaps Heydrich and Bormann - and the all-star lineup of German generals like Rommel, Manstein, and Guderian. In contrast, the only particularly notorious member of Japan’s nebulous leadership group is General Hideki Tojo, who served as Prime Minister for most of the war and became the centerpiece defendant in the postwar trial. As far as Japanese commanders go, the list of name-brand personnel has but a single entry: Isoroku Yamamoto.Yamamoto’s life and career present a fascinating trajectory that shapes a particular, sympathetic view of the man. A veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, he spent much of his 30’s in the United States, studying at Harvard and serving as naval attache in Japan’s Washington embassy. He therefore had a first hand understanding of America’s industrial depth, and was famously pessimistic about Japan’s prospects in a a war against the United States. “Anyone who has seen the auto factories in Detroit and the oil fields in Texas”, he argued, “knows that Japan lacks the power for a naval race with America.” In one of his more famous and widely recited (though often badly translated) remarks about a war with the United States, he told Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe in September 1940:If I was told that I had to do it, then you will certainly observe the Navy going all out for half a year to a year. Howe…