Wouldn't it be great if the Yanks signed Yamamoto on Pearl Harbor Day?

 

What, too soon?

I kid, I kid. When I was growing up, people still called December 7th "Pearl Harbor Day," like it was a holiday. 

A better name today might be, "Last Time We Declared War According to the Process Mandated in the Constitution Day"—which I think everyone here, all along the political spectrum, would agree with me was a good thing. Ah, well.

Isoroku Yamamoto was actually born "Isoroku Takano," to a minor samurai family ("Isoroku" means "Fifty-six," which was his father's age at the time. Joe DiMaggio had a 56-game hitting streak. MORE than coincidence??)

His family had little money, but as was common at the time, he was officially adopted as a young man by a more prominent samurai family, who wanted the Yamamoto name to continue. He went into the Japanese navy, and was at the Battle of Tsushima Straits, in which Japan crushed Russia's Combined Fleet, and emerged as a world power. Young Isoroku was knocked unconscious by a shell, and lost two fingers off his left hand—which he carefully preserved, and sent to his mother, as a tribute.

Hey, different times, different cultures!

After World War I, Yamamoto went to America—as Yoshinobu Yamamoto should—to serve as a naval liaison, and attended the Naval War College. He was one of those few young men, like Billy Mitchell, who understood, early, how air power was going to transform naval warfare. 

He liked America, learning bridge—he loved to gamble at cards—and hitchhiking all over the place. He came to understand, as almost no one else in the Japanese military did, that the U.S. was an economic powerhouse, that would be impossible to defeat in a war. 

When he went back to Japan, Yamamoto expressed these views early and often, especially after he came to head the navy. He opposed the Axis Pact with Germany and Italy, and kept saying his country would be nuts to go to war with America. 

The army, which was mostly in the saddle in Japan's nutsy government of the time—just to say, it made Brian Cashman's administration look like a model of reason and efficiency—didn't like this. And not liking this meant that various army officers openly threatened and schemed to assassinate Isoroku. 

Yamamoto didn't care—he wrote a poem about the joy of dying for country and emperor. (A complex guy, he also loved calligraphy, his cards, and his geisha mistress.) The navy finally had to make him go out to sea, to avoid being killed by the army (You can see how this put Japan at a distinct disadvantage, matching up with America. Nobody in the US Navy was plotting to kill MacArthur, much was they probably wanted to.)

Again, he warned: "In the first six months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I can run wild and win victory after victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.)

(This is eerily close to how Cashman's Yankees have "run wild" for the six months of a season, only to crash in the playoffs. MORE than contrivance?)

The army thought one big blow would be enough to push the U.S. out of the Pacific. Yamamoto knew better, telling them:

"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam or the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate terms in the White House. I wonder if our politicians have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."

(American propagandists cleverly turned this into him saying, "I look forward to marching into Washington and dictating terms of surrender in the White House.")

Any-hoo, the army insisted on war, and Yamamoto put together a daring, brilliant plan to strike Pearl Harbor. But in the end, the most valuable ships stationed there—our carriers—were out delivering planes to other island bases, and the admiral on site, Nagumo, failed to knock out the vast oil tanks we had there.

Yamamoto knew this was a mistake. He wrote himself another poem, saying something about how "it was a great victory but not/ A grand slam."

(He meant bridge, but we would also expect Yamamoto the pitcher to give up very few grand slams.)

He also wrote, most famously: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve."

(Much as the sleeping Yankee giant has been awakened?)

Six months later, at Midway, the tide of war did indeed turn against Japan, and in April of 1943, we shot down his plane in the Solomons, killing a great military man.  

And now, it seems only right that we make it up by giving...oh, never mind! Let's just sign Yoshinobu—and let's remember Pearl Harbor!