[george76]

I thought that Yamamoto had spent extensive time in the west ( incl USA ). He apparently said that Japan would awaken the giant and then Japan would lose.

He was against the attack for strategic reasons even though he did the tactical planning.

I could be wrong ?

[rlmorel]

No, I think you are correct, george76.

[SunkenCiv]

I dunno offhand. :’) Yamamoto was considered the great mastermind behind Japanese naval successes, and was tracked and finally assassinated (his plane shot down). The Japanese spent years building one of the largest navies in the world (perhaps it was *the* largest?) then lost much of it in just a handful of large (but not quite large enough) engagements. The Midway defeat probably would not have happened had that ridiculous feint toward the Aleutians not taken place, even with the US having broken the Japanese codes. The US victory at Midway was a close-run thing, and regardless of fighting spirit, a bit more Japanese firepower could easily have made the difference. The Japanese people weren’t told the significance, details, and extent of the Midway defeat until the middle of the 1950s.

[Little Ray]

The prototype A6M Zero fighter was carried from the Mitsubishi aircraft factory to an airfield in an ox cart (as were subsequent production fighters). It was not carried in a truck because aircraft tended to get damaged on the truck as it traveled the rough, unpaved road. It didn’t go on a train, ‘cause there wasn’t one between the airfield and the factory.

In American this is called a “clue.” As in, “a clue that your nation is not ready to go to war with the United States much less the entire Western World.” Yamamoto got it; the Japanese Imperial General Staff, apparently missed it somehow.