Aceptable Risk. . .

(Acceptable Risks. . .)

Aoril 18th, 1942 and April 18th, 1943 are two important dates in the history of the Pacific War. In 1942, Lt Colonel James Doolittle launched sixteen B-25 Mitchel's from the deck of the aircraft carrier. USS Hornet for that infamous raid on Tokyo. The reason Doolittle and his crews would need to bomb the Japanese Capitol had been set in motion almost a year and a half earlier. Newly appointed Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, began to conceptualize a plan that would ultimately lead to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Yamamoto as a senior naval officer was well adhered to the Mahanic doctrine of a "naval battle of annihilation." The Battle of Tsushima between Russian and Japanese fleets fought off the coast of Korea in May, 1905, where the former was all but wiped out, Japan emerged as a world naval power in its own right but its ambitions had been thwarted by the larger powers, the U.K. and the U.S. and at the Washington Conference of 1922. limited Japan to the ratio of 5:5:3.

Anglo-Nippon relations deteriorated from there. At the London Naval Conference, Tokyo all but renounced Washington and Japan's leadership became more militaristic, following the Samuri code of bushido. Japan then invaded China and American diplomatic efforts to curb that aggression generally failed.

Enter Admiral Yamamoto, that in keeping with the decisive battle tradition, began to think that the destruction of the American Pacific Fleet and its anchorage on O'ahu. As history revealed, Yamamoto's plan came to fruition in December, 1941. Which returns things to the Doolittle Raid.

In April. 1942, things had been going badly for the Allies. The British lost Hong Kong and Singapore and British Malaya. The Dutch were losing the Indies and the Americans were losing the Philippines. So, to boost morale, President Franklin Roosvelt ordered the pin-prick attack on Tokyo. That being said, Doolittle's raid had strategic consequences well beyond what was accomplished on that April day. What followed was the disaster at Midway. The Americans invasion of Guadalcanal and the advance the Solomon Island chain.

For Yamamoto, things finished where he started them. On April 18th, 1943, while on an inspection tour of Japanese positions on Bougainville, he plane was intercepted and shot down. In the end, the greatest risk Isoroku Yamamoto took, proved to be his own.