Having lived
and studied previously in the United States, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of
the Imperial Japanese Navy was not eager to enter into war with that
county. Ordered into combat by his country, Yamamoto was the most
reluctant of warriors who seemed to know that it was his destiny to
fight and die for his Emperor in a lost cause.
One of the great advantages that the
United States enjoyed in its war with Japan was the cracking of the
Japanese code. This gave the U.S. advanced warning of impending Japanese
operations. One such operation was a visit by Admiral Yamamoto to the
Japanese base on Bougainville. Allied intelligence intercepted and
decoded a message describing the visit, and the 13th Air Force decided
to welcome him. Even the highest ranking American military commanders
felt that to give a direct order to assassinate an enemy commander was
above them, and the authorization for the mission eventually came all
the way down from the office of the American President. On April 18,
1943, one year to the day after the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, 18 American
P-38s from the 13th Air Force launched from Guadalcanal, flew to
Bougainvillea, found the Admiral's flight, and shot down his plane
killing him.
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