the Americans, who exploited fully their interception of
Japanese naval codes.”
Isoroku Yamamoto is remembered chiefly for his
successful attack plan against Pearl Harbor and his fail-
ure to defeat the United States at Midway. In summing
up his impact, historian Edwin Hoyt writes:
Admiral Yamamoto left a great military legacy
to Japan. His strategic concept of the war was
followed after his death until the sea battle of
the Marianas [June 1944], after which the Com-
bined Fleet was so diminished that its name
was dropped and the fleet was called the Mo-
bile Force. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf [October
1944] it was almost completely destroyed....
[T]actically and technologically, most of Yama-
moto’s contributions have been surpassed by
weapons development and time. But some of
them persist. Yamamoto believed in strict disci-
pline at sea and maximum effort in making the
best use of the weapons and facilities at hand.
His Combined Fleet had the best discipline ofany naval fighting force in the world, and was
particularly competent in night fighting at every
level, not just destroyers. Those legacies have
been retained.References: Agawa, Hiroyuki, The Reluctant Admiral,
translated by John Bester (Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha Inter-
national, 1979); Potter, John Deane, Yamamoto: The Man
Who Menaced America (New York: Viking, 1965); Hoyt,
Edwin P., Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned Pearl Harbor
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990); Hoyt, Edwin P., Three
Military Leaders: Heihachiro Togo, Isoroku Yamamoto, To-
moyuki Yamashita (Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha International,
1994); Hall, R. Cargill, ed., Lightning over Bougainville
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1991); Bruce, Anthony, and William Cogar, “Yamamoto,
Isoroku,” in An Encyclopedia of Naval History (New York:
Checkmark Books, 1999), 408–409.Yaroslavich, Aleksandr See neVsky,
alexander, saint.yARoSlAvich, AlekSAnDR