Customer Reviews

The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy

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This was a wonderful book which went into alot of detail about the life of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He was a much more complex person than most people think. He was no ranting imperialistic flunky. In fact, he held most of those types in contempt. So much so, that he had to maintain constant vigilance because of death threats. However, he did his duty, as he was ordered to do, even though he knew the futility of it. He was also totally against the building of the Yamato and Musashi battleships. Utter "folly" he called them and a waste of time and money. He truly believed that the future of war would be aviation. He was proved right. Its really too bad that he was killed, he would have been of great benefit to the restructuring of the new Japanese government. Anyone interested in a more "personal" look of one of the greatest Admirals in the world, will love this book, like I did.

This is an excellent study of a complex and contradictory man. Understandably vilified in the heat of war, a more interesting image has appeared over time. One cannot help but admire the daring and gambler quality of a man ordered to start a war he did not agree with and risked his life to prevent. Yamamoto certainly deserves to be remembered as a grand naval commander. It's unlikely any more authoritatve work will ever emerge as the author when directly to people who knew Yamamoto in life

Admiral Yamamoto did not want to go to war with the United States; a naval war he felt could be sustained for at most 18 months. But go to war he did and it cost him his life. This is an easy to read history of Yamamoto's life, rich in personal details. He turns out to have been an avid womanizer, with one and perhaps two mistresses throughout most of his career. A man who lost interest in his marriage fairly early and was merely a financial contributor for most of his married life. Most of the personal correspondence quoted and many of his poems were written to his number one mistress, with nothing of substance regarding his wife and children.

Yamamoto seems to have come up with the strategy for the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the detailed tactical planning was the work of his staff. Somehow the debacle of Midway, which occurred under his command and which was planned by his staff, did not result in his immediate replacement. This apparently was due to the Imperial Japanese Forces being in full denial mode and not wanting to high light the disaster by removing the hero of Pearl Harbor.

Yamamoto seems to have been something of a figurehead for most of his career after Pearl harbor and until his death. This could be misleading since the author focuses so much of his attention on Yamamoto's personal life and not so much on his naval leadership.

It is particularly interesting to learn that with the many signs pointing to the fact that the Japanese codes had been broken, they denied this possibility and continued to send the "coded" messages which resulted in Yamamoto's plane being shot down by United States P-38s. There is an excellent book on that subject, "Get Yamamoto" but it seems to be out of print ...

Agawa gives great insight into the private life of Yamamoto. We see that he was an intellectual, romamtic, a gambling addict, a patriot, and most importantly, a military man who was agaist the junta that was running Japan prior to and during the war.

The deatails of the military command can get a little slow at times, but this is only testimony to the author's command of the subject. This is a must read for any armchair historian, as well as anyone interested in a facsinating biography. I could not put it down, and I'm no WWII or military buff.

Yamamoto was regarded as one of Japan's most able pre-WW2 naval officers who rose to become Naval Vice Minister prior to returning to those sea-going duties which saw him in command of Japan's fleets when that war commenced.

Widely regarded as the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbour, from this exceedingly well researched book, we learn that the very idea of such an attack originated many years earlier. During 1927-8 Lieutenant Commander Ryunosuke Kusaka worked simultaneously as an instructor at the naval staff college and the aviation corps. His expertise was aerial tactics and he devised a training scenario which included an attack on Hawaii. He then went on to inject this "theory" into successive students - pilots and future staff officers, over that time. By 1940, therefore, the very idea of such an attack was firmly entrenched in to the minds of all those officers.

Defensive and attack scenarios are a basic part of the teachings of all armed forces. Japan's senior naval staff had devised a training plan whereby Japan would attack the Philippines in the full expectation that the US Fleet would come the aid of that country whereupon the Japanese Fleet would then destroy the US Fleet at sea. When one officer attending such a training session asked "what do we do if the US fails to respond as expected?", the official reply revealed an expectation of all Japanese officers to conform to the accepted thinking of their seniors!

This book reveals Japan's pre-war tactical training as mostly wishful thinking and based on enemy forces doing exactly as was pre-determined by those in charge of strategic planning. In reality, all military plans are changed just as soon as the first shot is fired.

Doubtless, had he survived the war, Yamamoto would have faced a war crimes tribunal. Instead, he lost his life during a conflict which, albeit not of his making, was one in which he went on to play a major role. This book is about this senior Japanese officer from WW2. It is written by a Japanese who clearly understands his subject better than most - perhaps in a way that only a Japanese could. Consequently, we have as complete a biography as one might hope to find.

NM

This excellent book is possible the best glimpse of the man behind the plan to attack Pearl Harbor and the plan to trap the U.S. Fleet at Midway. Admiral Yamamoto was experienced in the United States, having been schooled (at Yale, I believe) and knew the American psyche. He knew that the only way to defeat the United States was to strike early and hard, to discourage us before we could even get started. Yamamato was a habitual gambler which goes even further to explain the PH attack because it was an all out gamble. Discovery of the force could have led to disaster spoiling all of Japan's early war aims. Midway was a gamble as well, but this time, Yamamoto lost. This is an excellent study of a man who knew his warrior duties could have but one outcome: defeat for his nation. But he did his duty to the best of his ability, which was not inconsiderable.

If you don't know Japanese Culture, History, and specifically Social Practice at the time, I suggest refraining from using and imposing YOUR OWN PERSONAL VALUES to judge a Foreigner in his own Culture and Situation. That is just your own personal opinion, and should be so stated as such. Actually, all it does is prove just how ignorant you are of the subject matter, and is quite frankly, laughable (and you know who you are).

This book is a very rare example of an excellent "fly-on-the-wall" eyewitness account of Admiral Yamamoto's life, one that is very seldom shared with outsiders (non-Japanese), so I suggest you get a copy and read it while you still can (it's kind of old, but still available).

In it, you will learn what a unhappy private life he had, from the time he was given away by his parents and adopted into the Yamamoto Family, to his "Arranged Marriage" (this was a very common practice in Japan at the time, and neither party either met or had any contact with each other prior to their wedding... resulting in many unhappy marriages... and divorce not being an option, men usually found other women they did like to replace the one they did NOT... but still provided financial support for them anyway "for the sake of the children". Under the circumstance, I don't see anything wrong with that. Calling it "womanizing" is insulting (and just proves the person's ignorance), as Admiral Yamamoto kept the same one for many years, providing her a place to live and money to pay the bills... she was more like his 2nd (and REAL) wife, who he actually enjoyed the company of... unlike his 1st wife, who hated him.

Anyway, enough of that.

The book is a great way to learn Admiral Yamamoto's life story, from his early years, to how his brilliance in the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) was recognized early on, and he was sent to the US, eventually becoming a HARVARD Graduate... a very unusual and accomplished fact for anyone at that time, let alone a Foreigner from Japan. As a result, Admiral Yamamoto was completely literate and fluent in American English, AND understood American Culture, History, and the US People like few outsiders ever did. He even used his own money to tour the US to see for himself the INDUSTRIAL MIGHT of America, and knew the US Capabilities in so many ways better than most Americans did.

I like the selected times extreme detail is provided for events in his life, from what was on the Ship's Menu while at Sea, to the actual shoot-down of his Betty Bomber by the P-38's, and the recovery of his body by the IJA (Imperial Japanese Army) afterwards.

Highly recommended Read.
Be prepared to do so non-stop, as it becomes that riveting (took me about 6 hours).

This is a biography of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet from 1939-1943. It is written by Hiroyuki Agawa, an author of biographies and historical fiction centered upon the Japanese experience in WW2. Agawa's biography of Yamamoto was originally published in Japan in 1969, and entitled "Yamamoto Isoroku." It is the English translation and abridgement of this earlier work that was first published in 1979, under the title, "The Reluctant Admiral."

My attention was first drawn to The Reluctant Admiral by numerous bibliographical references in recent works, such as those by Spector, Lundstrom, Parshall and Tully, and Willmott. When multiple respected authors all cite a source this way, I take that as a tacit recommendation and place the item on my reading list. The Reluctant Admiral may not be the only biography available on Yamamoto, but it is certainly the one most commonly referenced by other authors.

In the front matter, there is a chronology of Yamamoto's life listing all major events and the year they occurred. There is no table of contents, as the chapters have no titles, only numbers. There are no footnotes, nor even a bibliography. Agawa often, but not always, states the source of a passage in the text itself. To most English readers this is probably sufficient, given that almost all Agawa's sources would be Japanese language. There are no maps.

There is scant coverage of Yamamoto's early life, but extensive coverage, of course, of his naval career. Highlights touched upon include: the Battle of Tsushima (where Yamamoto was wounded), his two stints in the United States, participation in the treaty talks in London, and time as second in command of the Kasumigaura Aviation Corps, where he learned to appreciate the growing importance of aviation and the corresponding diminution of the importance of battleships. In his last assignment before being made Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, he served as Navy Vice-minister, where his life was in danger from ultra-nationalist radicals. Once promoted to C. in C., the slide toward war with the U.S. was precipitous, and Agawa demonstrates that although Yamamoto fully understood the peril and likely result of such a war, the admiral nevertheless resolved to give Japan their best chance in a near impossible situation.

Agawa offers no incisive look at Yamamoto's admiralship or strategic acumen. The resulting biography is mostly a human portrait, with emphasis on relationships and personality. The important historical events chronicled in the book seem simply to be the context for showcasing Yamamoto the man. This is a sharp contrast to many military biographies, where analysis of operations and strategy are emphasized, to the detriment of gaining a good understanding of the man himself.

The original Japanese title of this book was simply Yamamoto Isoroku. I suppose renaming it The Reluctant Admiral with the implication that Isoroku was indecisive is comforting to american psychology. But otherwise it's the same book, and one of the few books I know about WW II Japan that isn't clichéd propaganda of either a rightist or leftist american persuasion.

Samurai! The biography of Saburo Sakai is also recommended although the ibook edition has an opinioned, and inaccurate forward by the new editor not Martin Caidin.