Isoroku Yamamoto
The Pearl Harbor Attack: Anchorage of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
by Mike HaskewOn December 7, 1941, Japanese naval aircraft attacked the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, as well as other U.S. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
The Fall of Malaya: Japanese Blitzkrieg on Singapore
By David H. Lippman“The moon like a tray was sinking in the western sea and the deep red sun showed its face to the east. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Hideki Tojo vs Isoroku Yamamoto: Conflict in the Military Ranks
By Eric HammelThree generations of Americans wrongly believe that General Hideki Tojo and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto were equally culpable in starting the Pacific War. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Japan’s underwater Aircraft Carriers
By Steven D. LutzAs soon as Colonel James Doolittle’s B-25 raid struck Japan in April 1942, Japan sought to wreak revenge on the United States, but by 1944 devastating aerial bombings on Japan by the Americans had become all too regular. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Tragic Surrender
By Mark SimmonsOn Saturday, December 6, 1941, a Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed Hudson bomber on a reconnaissance mission from Khota Bahru on the west coast of Malaya was flying northwest over the China Sea toward the Gulf of Thailand. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
How Pearl Harbor Happened
By Richard G. HigginsCommander Mitsuo Fuchida, strike leader for Operation Hawaii and 20-year veteran of the Imperial Japanese Navy (Kaigun), strapped himself into the observer’s seat as his Nakajima B5N2 “Kate” torpedo bomber, piloted by Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuzaki, and lifted off from the carrier Akagi on the black morning of December 7, 1941. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Death of the Super Battleship Yamato and Musashi
By Herb KugelSpecial Sea Attack Force (SSAF) was an ordinary-sounding name for the pitifully tiny remnant of what was once the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Pearl Harbor: The Sleeping Giant Awoken
By Flint WhitlockIt was, as the phrase goes, another perfect day in paradise. As the sun rose above the Pacific in the clear, cloudless sky east of the Hawaiian Islands, on December 7, 1941, the giant U.S. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
The Airborne Defenders of Midway
By Colonel Dick Camp (ret.)Prologue: At the start of World War II, Midway Atoll was a key U.S. base in the central Pacific. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Target: America’s West Coast
By Steven D. LutzIt seemed like just another ordinary day at sea. Early on December 7, 1941, a U.S. Army-chartered cargo vessel, the 250-foot SS Cynthia Olson, under the command of a civilian skipper, Berthel Carlsen, was plying the Pacific waters about 1,200 miles northeast of Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii, and over 1,000 miles west of the Tacoma, Washington, port from which she had sailed on December 1. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
A P-38 Pilot Describes the Attack on Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
By Robert F. DorrWhen American air ace Major John Mitchell led 16 Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters on the longest combat mission yet flown (420 miles) on April 18, 1943, Mitchell’s target was Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral considered the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
First Battle of Savo Island: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Defeat
By Eric HammelA United States naval task force bearing the U.S. 1st Marine Division arrived off Guadalcanal, in the eastern Solomon Islands, on the morning of August 7, 1942, and launched the first American offensive operation of World War II. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers
By Phil ZimmerLieutenant Commander Stephen L. Johnson had a problem on his hands; a very large problem. His Balao-class submarine, the Segundo, had just picked up a large radar contact on the surface about 100 miles off Honshu, one of Japan’s home islands, heading south toward Tokyo. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
The Japanese Raid on Sydney Harbor: “One in a Thousand Chance”
By Christopher MiskimonThe year 1942 was one of crisis for the Allied cause in the Pacific. Until May, almost everything had gone in favor of Imperial Japan. Read more
Isoroku Yamamoto
Why the Japanese Lost the Battle of Midway (And How it Changed WWII)
by Mike HaskewSix months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, sought to extend Japan’s defensive perimeter in the central Pacific with the seizure of Midway atoll, about 1,300 miles west of Hawaii. Read more
