Yamamoto, Isoroku, born 04-04-1884 in the village of Kushigun Sonshomura on Hokkaido. 
His father, Sadayoshi Takano, was an intermediate-rank samurai of the Nagaoka Domain. “Isoroku” is an old Japanese term meaning “56”; the name referred to his father’s age at Isoroku’s birth. In 1916, Isoroku was adopted into the Yamamoto family (another family of former Nagaoka samurai) and took the Yamamoto name. It was a common practice for samurai families lacking sons to adopt suitable young men in this fashion to carry on the family name, the rank and the income that went with it. Isoroku married.
His father, Sadayoshi Takano, was an intermediate-rank samurai of the Nagaoka Domain. “Isoroku” is an old Japanese term meaning “56”; the name referred to his father’s age at Isoroku’s birth. In 1916, Isoroku was adopted into the Yamamoto family (another family of former Nagaoka samurai) and took the Yamamoto name. It was a common practice for samurai families lacking sons to adopt suitable young men in this fashion to carry on the family name, the rank and the income that went with it. Isoroku married.Isoroku enrolled at the Naval Academy at Etajima, Hiroshima
in 1896, later target for the first atomic bomb, graduating in 1904. In 1905 during the war with Russia he saw action as an ensign on the cruiser Nisshin in at the Battle of Tsushima against the Russian Baltic Fleet and was slightly injured. After the war he went with various ships all over the Pacific. In 1913 he went to the Naval Staff College at Tsukiji, a sign that he was being groomed for the high command. Upon graduation in 1916, he was appointed to the staff of the Second Battle Squadron and was adopted by the Yamamoto family. On 31-08-1918, he married Mihashi Rreiko, 
the daughter of a dairy farmer from the island of Wakamatsu, groomed from birth by prevailing social norms to reflect the ideals of Japanese women of the time. Mihashi was to bear him four children. The eldest out of which being a boy was to carry on the Yamamoto name.From 1919-1921 Yamamoto studied at Harvard University. Promoted to Commander upon his return to Japan he taught at the staff college before being sent to the new air-training centre at Kasumigaura in 1924 to direct it and to learn to fly. From 1926 to 1928, he was naval attaché to the Japanese embassy in Washington. He was then appointed to the Naval Affairs bureau and made Rear Admiral, 
he attended the London Naval Conference in 1930. Back to Japan he joined the Naval Aviation bureau and from 1933 headed the bureau and directed the entire navy air program. In December 1936, Yamamoto was made vice minister of the Japanese navy, from which position he argued passionately for more naval air power and opposed the construction of new battleships. He also opposed the invasion of Manchuria and the army hopes for an alliance with Germany. When Japanese planes attacked a US gunboat on the Yangtze River in December 1937 he apologised personally to the American Ambassador. He became the target for right wing assassination attempts, the entire Naval ministry had to be placed under constant guard.
he attended the London Naval Conference in 1930. Back to Japan he joined the Naval Aviation bureau and from 1933 headed the bureau and directed the entire navy air program. In December 1936, Yamamoto was made vice minister of the Japanese navy, from which position he argued passionately for more naval air power and opposed the construction of new battleships. He also opposed the invasion of Manchuria and the army hopes for an alliance with Germany. When Japanese planes attacked a US gunboat on the Yangtze River in December 1937 he apologised personally to the American Ambassador. He became the target for right wing assassination attempts, the entire Naval ministry had to be placed under constant guard.
British Ambassador Robert Craigie and Yamamoto at a party hosted by Yamamoto, 1939However on 30-08-1939 Yamamoto was promoted to full Admiral and appointed commander-in-chief of the entire fleet. Yamamoto did not soften his logical anti-conflict stance, when the Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in September 1940, 
Yamamoto warned Premier Konoe Fumimaro, suicide age 54, on 16-12-1945,
Yamamoto warned Premier Konoe Fumimaro, suicide age 54, on 16-12-1945,
not to consider war with the United States: “If I am told to fight… I shall run wild for the first six months… but I have utterly no confidence for the second or third year.” He also accurately envisaged the “island-hopping” and air dominance tactics such a war would have. His foresight also led him to believe that a pre-emptive strike against US Navy 
forces would be vital if war did occur. Following the invasion of Indochina and the freezing of Japanese assets by the US in July 1941, Yamamoto won the argument over tactics and when in December war was declared the entire First Fleet air arm under Admiral Nagumo Chuichi, suicide age 57 on 06-07-1944, 
was directed against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, attacking on December 7-1941. 
With around 350 planes launched from six carriers, eighteen American warships were sunk or disabled. 
Nagumo’s failure to order a second search-and-strike against the American carriers and Yamamoto’s disinclination to press him turned a tactical victory into a strategic defeat. In the movies Tora! Tora! Tora! 
and Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto’s character says, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Considerable doubt exists, though, whether he actually ever said, or wrote, anything like that; it was probably invented for the movies. Yamamato directed operations for the Battle of Java Sea on February 27-28, 1942. Without airpower playing a significant role and fought almost entirely by cruisers the Japanese defeated a combined force of Dutch, British, and American ships, thereby enabling Japan to seize Java. Yamamoto then decided on an ambitious plan to defeat the American Pacific Fleet in a decisive battle. He chose the atoll of Midway Island 
as a strategic target that if the Japanese occupied it would draw out the American carriers. Yamamoto intended to drawn the Americans into a ambush to destroy the carriers. Yamamoto believed that if Japan did not soon win a decisive battle, defeat was simply a matter of time.Yamamoto 
had at his disposal a massive fleet of some 250 ships, including eight carriers. Yamamoto’s strategy was a very complex series of feints and diversionary attacks to trap the Americans. Unfortunately for the Japanese the Americans were well aware of the plan. Decoded intercepts of communications meant that by the end of May, the United States knew the date and place of the operation, as well as the composition of the Japanese forces. Compounding this there was poor communication on the Japanese side and the commanders were inadequately prepared. The Battle of Midway, from June 4 to 6, 1942, was another aircraft only clash and a disaster for the Japanese, losing four carriers to the American loss of one and 3,500 men to only around 300 American dead. Yamamoto never recovered from the defeat at Midway although he remained in command. He 
directed the Solomons campaign and realising the strategic importance of Battle of Guadalcanal, he initiated the efforts to remove the American troops who had landed on 07-08- 1942. Yamamoto’s forces suffered huge losses before he conceded that he could not could not dislodge the Americans. On 04-01-1943, he ordered the evacuation of the island. The actual evacuation was a tactical masterwork. To boost morale following Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to make a inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. In April 1943, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted reports of the tour. Eighteen American P-38 aircraft flew from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal to ambush Yamamoto in the air.
had at his disposal a massive fleet of some 250 ships, including eight carriers. Yamamoto’s strategy was a very complex series of feints and diversionary attacks to trap the Americans. Unfortunately for the Japanese the Americans were well aware of the plan. Decoded intercepts of communications meant that by the end of May, the United States knew the date and place of the operation, as well as the composition of the Japanese forces. Compounding this there was poor communication on the Japanese side and the commanders were inadequately prepared. The Battle of Midway, from June 4 to 6, 1942, was another aircraft only clash and a disaster for the Japanese, losing four carriers to the American loss of one and 3,500 men to only around 300 American dead. Yamamoto never recovered from the defeat at Midway although he remained in command. He directed the Solomons campaign and realising the strategic importance of Battle of Guadalcanal, he initiated the efforts to remove the American troops who had landed on 07-08- 1942. Yamamoto’s forces suffered huge losses before he conceded that he could not could not dislodge the Americans. On 04-01-1943, he ordered the evacuation of the island. The actual evacuation was a tactical masterwork. To boost morale following Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to make a inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. In April 1943, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted reports of the tour. Eighteen American P-38 aircraft flew from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal to ambush Yamamoto in the air.Death and burial ground of Yamamoto, Isoroku Takano.
On 18-04-1943, his transport aircraft was shot down near Kahili in Bougainville. First Lieutenant Rex Theodore Barber,
engaged the first of the two Japanese transports which turned out to be Yamamoto plane. He targeted the aircraft with gunfire until it began to spew smoke from its left engine. Barber turned away to attack the other transport as Yamamoto’s plane crashed into the jungle.
First Lieutenant Rex Theodore Barber among the medals awarded for his actions in World War II were the Navy Cross (top row, far left), two Silver Stars, the Purple Heart and the Air Medal. 
Yamamoto’s body, along with the crash site, was found the next day in the jungle of the island of Bougainville by a Japanese search-and-rescue party, led by army engineer Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Hamasuna. According to Hamasuna, Yamamoto had been thrown clear of the plane’s wreckage, his white-gloved hand grasping the hilt of his katana, still upright in his seat under a tree. Hamasuna said Yamamoto was instantly recognizable, head dipped down as if deep in thought. A post-mortem disclosed that Yamamoto had received two .50-caliber bullet wounds, one to the back of his left shoulder and another to the left side of his lower jaw that exited above his right eye. The Japanese navy doctor examining the body determined that the head wound had killed Yamamoto. The more violent details of Yamamoto’s death were hidden from the Japanese public. The medical report was changed “on orders from above”, according to biographer Hiroyuki Agawa. Yamamoto’s staff cremated his remains at Buin, Papua New Guinea, and his ashes were returned to Tokyo aboard the battleship Musashi, 
his last flagship. He was given a full state funeral on 05-06-1943, where he received, posthumously, the title of Marshal Admiral and was awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum (1st Class). He was also awarded Nazi Germany’s Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves 
and Swords. Some of his ashes were buried in the public Tama Cemetery, Tokyo and the remainder at his ancestral burial grounds at the temple of Chuko-ji in Nagaoka City. He was succeeded as commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet by Admiral Mineichi Koga. 
In the years following Admiral Yamamoto’s death, debate has arisen regarding whether he was assassinated rather than legally killed. Colonel Hays Parks, 
one of the U.S. government’s foremost legal experts, wrote in his “Memorandum of Law: Executive Order 12333 and Assassination” that Admiral Yamamoto was killed because of his status as an enemy combatant in compliance with the applicable laws of war. Parks wrote that “enemy combatants are legitimate targets at all times, regardless of their duties or activities at the time of their attack. Such attacks do not constitute assassination unless carried out in a ‘treacherous’ manner, as prohibited by article 23(b) of the Annex to the Hague Regulations (Hague Convention IV) of 1907.”
his last flagship. He was given a full state funeral on 05-06-1943, where he received, posthumously, the title of Marshal Admiral and was awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum (1st Class). He was also awarded Nazi Germany’s Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Some of his ashes were buried in the public Tama Cemetery, Tokyo and the remainder at his ancestral burial grounds at the temple of Chuko-ji in Nagaoka City. He was succeeded as commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet by Admiral Mineichi Koga. In the years following Admiral Yamamoto’s death, debate has arisen regarding whether he was assassinated rather than legally killed. Colonel Hays Parks, one of the U.S. government’s foremost legal experts, wrote in his “Memorandum of Law: Executive Order 12333 and Assassination” that Admiral Yamamoto was killed because of his status as an enemy combatant in compliance with the applicable laws of war. Parks wrote that “enemy combatants are legitimate targets at all times, regardless of their duties or activities at the time of their attack. Such attacks do not constitute assassination unless carried out in a ‘treacherous’ manner, as prohibited by article 23(b) of the Annex to the Hague Regulations (Hague Convention IV) of 1907.”On the Tama Reien Cemetery in Tokyo, also close by the graves of the Commander 2nd Guard Regiment General Korechika Anami, the Russian spy Richard Sorge, Commander of the IJA 10th Division, General Kazushige Ugaki, commander 4th Fleet, the Principal of Naval Academy in Eta-jima, General Shiigeyoshi Inoue, Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara, and “Tiger of Maleisië”, Conqueror of Nederlands Oost-Indië, General Tomayuki Yamashito.
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