- 74 - Pacific War - Operation Vengeance, April 18-25, 1943

Last time we spoke about the situation in the north pacific and the grand conclusion of the Chindits Operation Longcloth. The battle of the Komandorski islands had basically put a nail in the coffin that was the Aleutian islands campaign for japan. They could not hope to resupply Attu and Kiska properly, therefore America had a free hand to build up to invade them. Also the crazed Onion man Wingate had taken his boys in the fray of Burma and they paid heavily for it. Yes despite all the glory and fame that the propaganda perpetuated the operation had done, in reality, Wingate had sacrifice many lives for little gain. His erratic behavior led to dangerous decision making which took a toll on the men. In the end what can be said of the operation was it atleast provided something positive to boost morale for the British in the far east. But today we are going to speak about the falling of a major giant of the pacific war.

This episode is Operation Vengeance 

Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. 

Now two weeks ago I covered Operation I-Go and you may have noticed I sprinkled a bit of foreshadowing information here and there. But to catch you back up to speed so to say let me just summarize those events and the dire circumstances what person would find himself in. 

It can easily be deduced by early 1943, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto knew Japan was staggering towards a catastrophic defeat. Rather ironically, he was one of those figures in Japan that tossed as much as his political influence could against the decision to go to war with america. He warned his high ranking colleagues of the great industrial might America held and that it would inevitably overwhelm Japan. His obsession over a decisive naval victory was driven mostly because he knew the only possible way for Japan to come out of WW2 positively was to bring America to the negotiating table as early as possible. But how does one do that exactly? Well Japan held a significant advantage over America in 1941, their Pacific Fleet was by far larger, vastly better trained and held considerable technological advantages. Thus like a game of Axis & Allies, a game I have been playing since I was a teenager and hope to livestream now and then for audiences like yourself, well like a good old game of Axis & Allies if you are the Axis you typically toss the kitchen sink at the offset of the war hoping to break the allies before their productive advantage gradually wins them the board. Yamamoto engineered the raid on Pearl Harbor to smash the US Pacific fleet enough to thwart them of any offensives for 6 months at minimum, though he definitely hoped for a year. After that his plan had always been to force america into a naval surface battle in the hopes of taking out their fleet and forcing them to negotiate. If they did not negotiate after that, well he hoped to buy Japan enough time to build a complex defensive perimeter which perhaps could be used to bleed Americans dry and thus gradually get them to come to terms. Well his obsession for the grand naval battle led him into a trap.

Yes, a critical thing the Japanese overlooked during most of the Pacific War was code breaking. The Cryptanalysts at Station Hypo did miracles breaking the JN-25 code, leading them to deduce Admiral Yamamoto’s operation MI was directed at Midway atoll. They had knowledge of the locations, the units and the timetables and they used this intelligence to set up a major trap for the combined fleet. The June 1942 disaster at Midway had been a major gambit aimed at forcing the war to an early conclusion, a gambit which fell apart. The losses at Midway meant the war was not to be a prolonged one, though it might surprise many of you to know, the chance of another decisive naval battle was not all but lost, it would just be harder to configure. Regardless the overall viewpoint after the failure at Midway now meant Japan had to fight a war of attrition, something Japan could not hope to win. 

Yamamoto had obsessed himself and countless other high ranking figures that Midway was to be the decisive battle, but in reality it fell upon Guadalcanal. Yes the battle for Guadalcanal emerged the decisive battle they had all sought, but the Japanese high command were late to this conclusion. The Americans basically snuck onto the island in an extremely bold manner, forcing what became a horrifying bloody war. In the end the Americans won the battle for Guadalcanal and because of Japan’s lackluster planning, this simultaneously led to the major loss of the Buna-Gona-Sanananda front as well. New Guinea and the Solomons were intertwined and Japan kept fumbling back and forth between them which inevitably was leading to them losing both.

After the loss at Guadalcanal, Japan had lost the initiative for the Pacific War, now America was in the drivers seat. The battle of the Bismarck Sea proved to the Japanese high command, their sealanes were no longer safe. America was dominating Japan’s ability to move men and supplies across the ocean through a war of attrition using airpower and submarines. The Japanese planners understood the allies were going to advance in two prongs; one through New Guinea and the other up the central and northern solomons. For the allies to advance, they required the construction of airfields along the way to provide air superiority to cover their surface fleets and transports of men and supplies. Japan had been massively depleted of ships, aircraft, trained men, resources in general, but one thing they still had an advantage over the allies was their airfields scattered about the Pacific. 

On March 15th Japanese high command in Tokyo demanded plans be made to build a new defensive strategy in the central Pacific. The main idea was to build a stronger defensive perimeter emanating from Rabaul. Thus on the morning of April 3rd of 1943, Admirals Yamamoto and Ugaki, accompanied by more than a dozen officers of the combined Fleet staff boarded two Kawanishi flying boats and headed for Rabaul. Yamamoto and the high ranking figures scoured their maps and came up with what was needed to be done to meet this new demand. They needed to hinder the American airpowers advance up the Solomons and New Guinea, this meant hitting allied forward airfields. Four locations were chosen: Guadalcanal, Oro Bay, Port Moresby and Milne Bay. It was to be called Operation I-GO Sakusen and would be the responsibility of the IJN.

Admirals Yamamoto and Jinichi Kusaka established temporary headquarters on Rabaul and began planning. The planning led to an incredible concentration of Japanese airpower. The 11th airfleet and 4 aircraft carriers of the 3rd fleet: Zuikaku, Zuiho, Junyo and Hiyo would amass a force of 224 aircraft. The airpower was going to be used to smash the 4 targets and then they would be dispersed to several airfields to mount a new defensive perimeter. They would be sent to places like Buka and Kahili on Bougainville and Ballale in the Shortland Islands.

Admiral Yamamoto would personally supervise Operation I-GO as he took up quarters on a cottage high on a hill behind the town of Rabaul. He spent weeks inspecting airfields and other military installations, meeting with local army and navy commanders at various headquarters scattered about New Britain. As was his typical behavior, he bid farewell to departing air squadrons waving his hat to them. For 10 consecutive days, Japanese bombers and fighters hit their designated targets. More than 200 aircraft attacked Guadalcanal on April 7th, a raid larger than any attempted during the 5 month battle over the island. The Japanese pilots came back with extremely exaggerated claims of success. They claimed to have destroyed dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft. In reality operation I-Go amounted to the destruction of 25 aircraft, 1 destroyer, 1 corvette, 1 oil tanker and 2 transports. The Japanese had lost around 40 aircraft for this. 

The Japanese high command including Yamamoto and even Emperor Hirohito bought the success stories. Hirohito send word stating “Please convey my satisfaction to the Commander in Chief, Combined Fleet, and tell him to enlarge the war result more than ever.” On the other side of the conflict, General Kenney had a more damning critique of the way Yamamoto used his air forces during Operation I-Go, “… the way he [Yamamoto] had failed to take advantage of his superiority in numbers and position since the first couple of months of the war was a disgrace to the airman’s profession.” The reality was, the aircrews were not the same types that raided Pearl Harbor in 1941, no these men in 1943 were forgive me to say, kind of the bottom of the barrel types. Sure there remained some veterans and experiences men, but far and too few to trained what should have been a brand new generation of Japanese airpower. Japan had squandered their veterans and now she was paying a heavy price for it. On October 25th of 1942, Rear-Admiral Ugaki had written this in his diary “every time it rained heavily, about ten planes were damaged due to skidding.” The Japanese airfields were no match for the American Seabees who were performing miracles across the pacific building superior fields for their airpower. By contrast the Japanese could not hope to match this, they lacked resources and trained personnel. Operation I-GO in the end costed the allies advance 10 days.

Yamamoto had his spirits lifted somewhat by Operation I-GO believing it to be a triumph. He announced he would conduct a one-day tour of forward bases at Buin, Ballale and Shortland Island set for April the 18th and this is where our story truly begins. Yamamoto’s tour was sent over the radio waves using the JN-25D naval cypher to the 11th air flotilla and the 26th air flotilla. Admiral Yamamoto’s operations officer Commander Yasuji Watanabe would go on the record complaining that the information about Yamamoto’s visit to the Ballalae Airfield should had been done by courier and not by radio, but the communications officer replied “this code only went into effect on april 1st and cannot be broken”. The message was picked up by three stations of the “Magic” apparatus, the United States cryptanalysis project.

One of the three stations ironically was the same team responsible for breaking the codes that led to Midway, station Hypo at Pearl Harbor. Major Alva B. Lasswell, a duty officer at Joseph Rochefort's Combat Intelligence Unit Station HYPO deciphered it and pronounced it to be a "jackpot". The message contained highly detailed information and it was easy to deduce the message was about Yamamoto. It contained his departure time: April 18, 06:00 Japanese Standard Time, 08:00 Guadalcanal Time set for Ballale, 08:00 Japanese Standard Time, 10:00 Guadalcanal Time.; his aircraft which was a G4M Betty and the number of his escorts, 6 Zeros; as well as the entire itinerary for his tour. Admiral Yamamoto’s plane was going to be heading over the southern end of Bougainville on the morning of the 18th, a location that happened to be just within the fighter range of Henderson Field. Alva Bryan Lasswell and intelligence officer Jasper Holmes took the decrypted message to CINCPAC headquarters and handed it to the fleet intelligence officer Ed Layton who tossed it upon Admiral Nimitz desk a few minutes after 8 on April 14. 

Nimitz scrutinized the chart on his wall and confirmed himself that Yamamoto’s plane would enter airspace that could be reached by american fighters from Henderson. “He asked Layton “Do we try to get him?”. The question honestly was a tough one. Was it wrong to target the combined fleet chief based on some sort of convention upon military chivalry? Like most naval officers, Nimitz had interacted socially with Japanese officers during the interwar years. Nimitz was not a particularly vengeful nor bloody-minded man. In era’s past, an American flag or general officer would certainly refuse to have his rival commander assassinated. For you American listeners, can you conceive George Washington ordering a hit on William Howe? How about Robert E Lee ordering a hit on Ulysses Grant? However war in the 20th century was not like the previous centuries. Hell even by the standards of the war in europe, the Pacific War was unbelievably more brutal. Honestly if you wanted a good book on the subject of how brutal the Pacific war was, try John D Dowers “War without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War”. 

Now during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, cough cough if you want to hear about that one check out my Youtube channel, the IJA and IJN had strictly adhered to the rules of war. Russian prisoners were housed well, fed well, provided good medical care, given cigarettes and alcohol, the 2nd one very important to russians as we know haha. Those who died within captivity were even buried with military honors. During WW1 the Japanese took German prisoners after the siege of Tsingtau and treated them extremely well in Japan, let them parade the country with a band and such. In fact the treatment of the German POW’s had a small hand to play in how Japan got into bed with Germany later, and honestly to this very day Japan and Germany have this special relationship. However, Japan certainly did not bring this type of chivalrous etiquette into the Pacific War. 

Nimitz may have hesitated to give the order, but he knew full well of the Japanese actions in China, the Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong, the East Indies, the Solomons. I guess you can say barbarity dishes out barbarity. Yet aside from the morality question, was it wise to kill Yamamoto? This was after all the man who planned and executed the disastrous Midway offensive losing 4 aircraft carriers with nearly all their aircraft. Yamamoto had also mismanaged the guadalcanal campaign by deploying air and troop reinforcements in piecemeals. He arguably was doing a good job losing the war.

Layton knew Yamamoto personally and argued that he was the best-respected military leader in Japan and that his death “He’s unique among their people… Aside from the Emperor, probably no man in Japan is so important to civilian morale. [His absence] would demoralize the fighting navy. You know Japanese psychology; it would stun the nation.”. Layton said to Nimitz “You know, Admiral Nimitz, it would be just as if they shot you down. There isn’t anybody to replace you”. To this Nimitz smiled amusingly and replied “it’s down in Halsey’s bailiwick, if there’s a way, he’ll find it. All right, we’ll try it”. Thus sealed the fate of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

Thus Admiral Nimitz sent a “your eyes only” message to Admiral Halsey, alerting him to the situation and ordering a fighter interception with the concluding remarks “best of luck and good hunting”. Codenamed Operation Vengeance approved on the 14th, the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto was done under utmost secrecy to protect the cryptanalysis teams. It just so happened Halsey had already been informed of the operation in a chance encounter in Melbourne Australia. He was inspecting naval facilities in the city and dropped by the communications intelligence office where a yeoman named Kenneth Boulier was working on one of the draft decrypts. Halsey came to his desk and asked “what are you working on son?”. And when Boulier explained, Halsey raised his voice and addressed the entire unit “Goddamit, you people knock off this Yamamoto business! I’m going to get that sonofabitch myself!”. I guess one can say he was enthusiastic about the job.

Halsey informed his subordinate air commanders, Admirals Aubrey Fitch and Marc Mitscher about the details of Operation vengeance. Southern Bougainville was roughly 400 miles away from Henderson field and the aircraft would need to take a roundabout route to evade detection. Thus the mission would require 1000 miles or so of flying, a range that would test the capabilities of even the longest legged American fighters. AirSols commander Mitscher called for a secret meeting of his staff on April 16th to figure out the logistics of the operation. It was determined that to intercept Yamamoto’s flight, they should use Lockheed P-38 Lightnings which held a comparable range to that of the Zero fighter, though it would not alone be enough. They would need to use a lean fuel mixture and drop tanks to barely make the long flight. It was going to be quite tight, thus the timing had to be precise, or else the aircraft would burn their fuel while waiting for the enemy to make their appearance. Major John Mitchell of the 339th fighter squadron was assigned the commander of 18 P-38’s piloted by handpicked airmen. 4 P-38’s would be designated as “killers”, ie: the guys who would target Yamamoto’s G4M Betty, while the other pilots would cover them against the Zero escorts. The killers were to be Captain Thomas Lanphier, Lieutenants Rex Barber, Joseph Moore and James McLanahan. They were going to intercept Yamamoto in the air just south of Empress August Bay. 

Now the direct flight to Bougainville meant crossing over or very close to Japanese held islands which held observers. This meant they would need to veer far out to sea to avoid any visual contact made by Japanese coastwatchers. Likewise they would skim the ocean at wave-top height to avoid detection by Japanese radar. Mitchell plotted their missions course to remain at least 50 miles offshore. This also meant they would have no landmarks to use as checkpoints: it would have to be dead reckoning the entire way, flying by airspeed, clock and compass under strict radio silence for over 2 hours, until they saw the Bougainville coast. The strike force would depart guadalcanl at 7:20. Even after all the precision and planning, the lightning force would only have around 15 minutes to shoot down Yamamoto, this was a extremely tight one. Mitchell gave the odds of the operation succeeded about a thousand to one.

Back over in Rabaul commanders like Admirals Ozawa and Jojima were trying to change Yamamotos mind about making the tour to the forward airbases thinking he was taking a large risk. Adamiral Ozawa argued with Captain Kameto Kuroshima, a senior member of Yamamoto’s staff “If he insists on going, six fighters are nothing like enough. Tell the chief of staff that he can have as many of my planes as he likes.” Admiral Ugaki who was sick in the hospital with dengue ever tried to send a message to Yamamoto to not go on the tour. That message though it did not make it to Yamamoto directly was interceived by Admiral Jojima. Admiral Jojima argued “what a damn fool thing to do, to send such a long and detailed message about the activities of the Commander of the combined fleet so near the front. This kind of thing must stop” Jojima had actually flown over to Rabaul to stop Yamamoto, but Yamamoto did not back down. Yamamoto was a stickler for punctuality, he alongside his party arrived to Rabaul’s Lakuni field a few minutes before 6am Japan time, thus around 8am rabaul time. The party wore their field green khai uniforms and airmens boots, aside from Yamamoto who wore his customary white dress uniform, with his usual white gloves carrying his ceremonial sword. Yamamoto climbed into one of the two G4M Betty medium bmbers and Ugaki climbed into the other. Yamamoto’s Betty had the number 323 painted on its vertical stablizer. The planes roared down the runway and climbed. The weather was clear, with excellent visibility above and below the high ceiling. The aircraft leveled out at 6500 with the bombers holding a close formation, enough for Ugaki to clearly see Yamamoto through the windshield of the other plane. The fighters hung out at 8200 feet above them and around a mile around them. The formation headed southeast making its first landfall on the southern tip of new ireland, then south along the coast of Bougainville, past the Japanese bases at Buka and Kieta, then on to Ballale. Ugaki began to nod off as the group began its descent towards Ballale. 

 

Major Mitchells strike group launched at 7:10 guadalcanal time, seeing 2 lightnings fail as a result of a blown tire for one and a fuel transfer problem for the other. Both aircraft were part of the killers team, thus Lieutenants Besby Holmes and Raymond Hine, were replaced with Joseph Moore and James McLanahan. Not a great way to start such a precise mission by any means. As they made the first leg of their route, the P-38’s descended to 50 feet to avoid radar detection while the pilots had to endure extremely hot temperatures due to the sea level. The temperature was above 90 degrees as the sun blazed through their Perspex canopies causing the pilots to sweat like pigs. The P-38 was a high altitude fighter and its canopy could not open in flight to regulate the cockpit temperature. Thus instead it kind of acted like a convection oven, building up heat as the sun beat down on it. With nothing but hte sight of rolling waves for over 2 hours, the pilots could have very well dozed off. After 55 minutes of hte first leg, Mitchell turned right to 290 degrees then after another 27 minutes, 305 degrees. 38 minutes after this another 20 degree turn to make the 40 mile leg to the south edge of Empress Bay, all using clocks & compass. 

As they crossed the bay they turned 90 degrees and were around 4 minutes from their calculated interception point. The lightnings began to close in and made sight of the southwest corner of Bougainville. In an act of extraordinary navigation they hit the precise location intended at 9:34am, a single minute ahead of schedule. Right on top of them, passing serenly overhead was the Yamamoto and unfortuntately for him, security was quite lax. You see the Japanese held air superiority at Buin, thus they did not anticipate any enemy action. Alongside this the escort zero’s had their radiots stripped out to reduce their weight. This meant they would not be able to communicate with the Betty’s. Ugaki’s Betty was carrying its regular armament of 3 13mm guns and 1 20mm gun, but because of the weight of the munition boxes, only a single belt was filled up for each. As for Yamamoto’s Betty, there does not seem to be evidence it was armed at all.

Mitchell was shocked to see the two Betty bombers, the intelligence had told them one. This somewhat disrupted his plan not knowing where the escorts were hiding, futhermore 2 lightnings piloted by Lieutenants Besby Holmes and Raymond Hine had to pull out when their belly tanks were released and it caused a technical problem. Thus Mitchell had only half the fighters as planned and now faced double the Betty’s. He did not know which Betty was Yamamoto’s, but with icy resolve he did not improvise the plan and ordered Captain Lamphier to attack as planned stating “he’s your meat, tom”. The rest of the lightnings climbed to perform CAP actions as Mitchell expected the Japanese air base at Kahili to toss some zeros over to greet Yamamoto. None would come, another toss of the dice of fate as it were.

As Ugaki recounts the event, at 9:43 he was awoken when his plane suddenly began a steep diving turn. The pilot was unsure what was happening, but all of a sudden evasive maneuvers of the Zero escorts alerted him something was wrong. The dark green canopy of the jungle hills were closing in on them as the gunnery opened up the gun ports to prepare firing. Between the rushing wind from the openings and the guns things were incredibly noisy. Ugaki told the pilot to try and remain with Yamamoto’s plane, but it was too late. As Ugaki’s plane banked south he caught a glimpse of Yamamoto’s plane “staggering southward, just brushing the jungle top with reduced speed, emitting black smoke and flames.” Ugaki lost visual contact for some time then only saw a column of smoke rising rom the jungle. Ugaki’s pilot flew over Cape Moira and out to sea, descending steadily to gain speed. Two lightnings were on their ass and some .50 caliber rounds slammed into their wings and fuselage. The pilot frantically trid pulling up, but his propellers dug into the sea causing the Betty to roll hard to the left. Ugaki was tossed from his seat and slammed agianst an interior bulkhead. As water flooded the aircraft he thought “this is the end of Ugaki”. But luckily for him, and 3 other passengers they managed to get free and swim to the beach as they were helped ashore by Japanese soldiers and transported to Buin. Despite his miraculous survival, Ugaki’s injuries were severe, including a severed radial artery and compound fracture of the right arm, which would leave him out of action until 1944

From the American point of few, they came upon the Japanese formation catching them by complete surprise. The escorting Zeros were flying above the bombers, scanning hte horizon ahead of them to the south and now suspected American fighters would be approaching them from behind at a lower altitude. There are quite a few accounts of how this went down, but by all of them Lamphier climbed to the left, going nose to nose with 3 escorting Zeros, while Lt Rex Barber banked to the right. In response all 6 of the Zeros made a straight dive from their higer altitude position to get between the bombers and the lightnings. Rather than firing directly at the American fighters, they kept their firing infront of the lightnings trying to prevent their line of sight meeting up with the bombers. With the eruption of the choas, both Betty’s accelerated into their dives, distancing themselves. One plane banked right going southwest towards the shoreline while the other banked left going east. Now what follows next has actually been a fight going on for decades with all participants going to their grave swearing their perspective was the legitimate account of the event.

Lamphier’s story, which is by far the most well known, states he quickly engaged the 3 diving Zeros to the left, managing to shoot down one before twisting away to attack the Betty’s. He found the lead Betty skimming the jungle, heading for Kahili and dived in pursuit of it. With the other 2 zeros chasing to cut him off, Lamphier held course and fired a long steady burst across the Betty’s course of flight. He watched the Betty’s right engine and right wing catch on fire and in his words “the bomber’s wing tore off. The bomber plunged into the jungle. It exploded. That was the end of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.” While racing out over the open sea towards Moila Point, Ugaki himself was horrified to see the funeral pyre of Yamamoto’s crashed bomber. But at the same time, Rex Barber tells a different story. 

Rex claims Lamphier’s initial maneuver going to the left was smart, as it allowed Barber the opportunity to attack the bombers without the Zeroes being on his tail. Thus Rex banked sharply to the right to fall in behind one of the Betty’s. At around 1000 feet above the jungle canopy, Rex opened fire, aiming over the fuselage at the right engine. Rex could see chunks of the Betty’s engine and fires emerge as he continued to ranke the Bettey with his guns, until the Betty suddenly stopped in mid-air, nearly colliding with him before crashing into the jungle below. Rex also claimed the Betty did not fire back at all. The zero escorts however did catch up to him, but the sudden appearance of Lt’s Besby Holmes and Raymond Hine saved him as they shot down the 3 zeros. 

Heading to the coasts, Holmes and Hine pursued the remaining Betty and fired upon it scoring some hits. Rex also dropped in behind what is assumed to be Ugaki’s Betty firing a burst over it before it hit the water. Holmes claimed to have shot down Ugaki’s Betty by himself. Rex states that “Holmes rounds must have hit the tanks and filled the bomber swings with gas fumes, because the ship exploded in his face”.

As Rex flew through the black smoke and debris a large chunk of the Betty hit his right wing cutting out his turbo supercharger intercooler. Meanwhile Holmes and Hine were dog fighting two more Zeros. Holmes would claim to have shot one of the zeros down, making his total around 3 Zeros and one betty; Hine’s lightning was damaged in the fight forcing him to head east out to sea with smoke trailing his engine. Hine would be last seen around 9:40am, he was to be the only allied casualty of operation Vengeance. With both Betty’s down, the mission was done and Mitchell ordered a withdrawal. The lightning’s each headed home individually, operating at the limit of their range and suffering the hot weather. The controversy over who shot down Yamamoto’s aircraft would begin the moment the pilots got back to base. In the words of Lt Julius Jacobson “there were 15 of us who survived, and as far as who did the effective shooting, who cares?”

Yamamoto’s plane had gone down about 4 miles inland, in a remote part of the jungle. Search parties took over a day to find the wreck. On April 20th they found the wrecked aircraft, there were no survivors. According to eyewitness testimony, Yamamoto was found sitting upright, still strapped to his seat, with one white gloved hand resting upon his katana. Yamamoto’s watch had stopped at 0745hrs. A bullet had entered his lower jaw and went out from his temple; another pierced his shoulder blade. Yamamoto’s body was wrapped in banyan leaves and carried down a trail to the mouth of the Wamai River, where it was taken to Buin by sea. His body would be cremated alongside the 11 other men aboard that Betty,  in a pit filled with brushwood and gasoline and his ashes were flown back to Truk and deposited on a Buddhist altar in the Musashi’s war operations room. 

New’s of Yamamoto’s death was at first restricted to a small circle of ranking officers, and passageways around the operations room and the commander in chiefs cabin were placed off limits. But the truth eventually leaked out to the crew of Musashi. Admiral Ugaki was seen in bandages holding a white box containing Yamamoto’s ashes as he came aboard and the smell of incense wafted from his cabin. Admiral Mineichi Koga was named the new commander in chief. For over a month the news was kept under wraps.

On May 22nd, Yamamoto’s death was heard on the NHK news. The announcer broke into tears as he read the announcement. A special train carried the slain admiral’s ashes from Yokosuka to Tokyo. An imperial party, including members of the royal household and family greeted its arrival at Ueno Station. As diarist Kiyoshi Kiyosawa noted “There is widespread sentiment of dark foreboding about the future course of the war”. Admiral Yamamoto was awarded posthumously the Grand Order of the Chrysanthemum, first class and the rank of Fleet admiral. His funeral was held on June 5th, the first anniversary of the battle of Midway, which also coincided with the funeral of the legendary Admiral Togo Heihachiro, 9 years previously. It was held in Hibiya park with hundreds of thousands coming to pay their respects. Pallbearers were selected from among the petty officers of the Musashi, carrying his casket draped in white cloth past the Diet and Imperial Palace. The Navy band played Chopin’s funeral march as the casket was driven to Tama Cemetery where it was placed in a grave alongside that of Admiral Togo. Some sought to make a Yamamoto shrine, but his close friend Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai said “Yamamoto hated that kind of thing. If you deified him, he’d be more embarrassed than anybody else”. 

The new commander in chief of the combined fleet, Admiral Koga Mineichi would later say “There was only one Yamamoto and no one is able to replace him. His loss is an unsupportable blow to us.” 

I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.

Operation Vengeance was a success, leading to the death of the legendary, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Would his death help or worsen the allied war effort? For that question to be answered only time could tell.