Killing Yamamoto: The American Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

By Daniel Haulman

One of the most heroic World War II air raids by US forces was the one that killed Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Combined Japanese Fleet and the man who planned the Pearl Harbor and Midway attacks in 1941 and 1942. The raid occurred on April 18, 1943, exactly one year after the famous Doolittle raid on Japan, but it accomplished more by eliminating Japan's most important admiral and leading strategist. This account stresses the crucial teamwork and planning, by codebreakers, strategic leaders, and pilots of the US Marine Corps, the US Navy, and the Army Air Corps, which achieved an almost miraculous interception. Those issues outweigh in significance the great controversy that emerged over the question of which of the pilots actually shot down the Yamamoto aircraft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781603063883

Daniel Haulman

DANIEL HAULMAN retired as head of the organizational histories branch at the United States Air Force Historical Research Agency, where he worked since 1982. He has authored many books and published dozens of articles on aviation history, including specifically about the Tuskegee Airmen. He is the author The Tuskegee Airmen, An Illustrated History (with primary authors Jerome Ennels and Joseph Caver) and Eleven Myths About the Tuskegee Airmen, both published by NewSouth Books. Haulman travels extensively to present on the subject of the Tuskegee Airmen. He is considered by many to be a foremost expert on the subject. As a member of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. for many years, he has attended eight of the organization’s conventions and counts many Airmen as personal friends. He was recently honored with the Air Force Historical Foundation's Major General I. B. Holley Award.

Book preview

Killing Yamamoto

The American Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

Daniel L. Haulman

NEWSOUTH BOOKS

Montgomery

Also by Daniel Haulman

Air Force Aerial Victory Credits: World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam (1988)

The United States and Air Force Humanitarian Airlift Operations, 1947–1994 (1998)

USAF Chronology of Significant Air and Space Events (2003)

The Tuskegee Airmen: An Illustrated History, 1939–1949 (with Joseph Caver and Jerome Ennels, 2011)

The Tuskegee Airmen and the Never Lost a Bomber Myth (2011)

Eleven Myths About the Tuskegee Airmen (2012)

What Hollywood Got Right and Wrong about the Tuskegee Airmen in the Great New Movie, Red Tails (2012)

Tuskegee Airmen Questions and Answers for Students and Teachers (2015)

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright © 2015 by Daniel L. Haulman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN: 978-1-60306-387-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-388-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930564

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

To my twin brother,

Colonel David Haulman,

a retired Air Force pilot

Contents

I. The Background of the Mission

II. The Planning

III. The Mission Begins

IV. The Attack

V. The Debriefing

VI. Results of Yamamoto’s Death

VII. The Yamamoto ‘Shoot-Down’ Credit Controversy

Sources of Information

About the Author

Isoroku Yamamoto

I. The Background of the Mission

Of all the enemies of the United States during World War II, one of the most hated was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Japanese Imperial Fleet. He had planned the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that had killed more than 2,400 Americans on December 7, 1941. He had also planned the attack on Midway in mid-1942, which, although a decisive American victory, resulted