Stephenson:Neal:Cryptonomicon:73:outbreak of war with Nippon(Alan Sinder)
From the Quicksilver Metaweb.
This is the Cryptonomicon page for Yamamoto Isoroku
Stephensonia
We like smart people. ... As of the actual outbreak of war with Nippon, Schoen is on disability, and taking lots of drugs. Waterhouse spends as much time with Schoen as he is allowed to, because he's pretty sure that whatever happened inside of Schoen's head, between when the lists of apparently random numbers were dumped into his lap and when he finished building his machine, is an example of a noncomputable process. Waterhouse's security clearance is upgraded about once a month, until it reaches the highest conceivable level (or so he thinks) which is Ultra/Magic. Ultra is what the Brits call the intelligence they get from having broken the German Enigma machine. Magic is what the Yanks call the intelligence they get from Indigo. In any case, Lawrence now gets to see the Ultra/Magic summaries, which are bound documents with dramatic, alternating red and black paragraphs printed on the front cover. Paragraph number three states: NO ACTION IS TO BE TAKEN ON INFORMATION HEREIN REPORTED, REGARDLESS OF TEMPORARY ADVANTAGE, IF SUCH ACTION MIGHT HAVE THE EFFECT OF REVEALING THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOURCE TO THE ENEMY. Seems clear enough, right? But Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse is not so damn sure. IF SUCH ACTION MIGHT HAVE THE EFFECT OF REVEALING... At about the same time, Waterhouse has made a realization about himself. He has found that he works best when he is not horny, which is to say in the day or so following ejaculation. So as a part of his duty to the United States he has begun to spend a lot of time in whorehouses. But he can't have that much actual sex on what is still a glockenspiel player's pay and so he limits himself to what are euphemistically called massages. ACTION... EFFECT... REVEALING... The words stay with him like the clap. He lies on his back during these massages, arms crossed over his eyes, mumbling the words to himself. Something bothers him. He has learned that when something bothers him in this particular way it usually leads to his writing a new paper. But first he has to do a lot of hard mental pick-and-shovel work. It all comes to him, explosively, during the Battle of Midway, while he and his comrades are spending twenty-four hours a day down among those ETC machines, decrypting Yamamoto's messages, telling Nimitz exactly where to find the Nip fleet. What are the chances of Nimitz finding that fleet by accident? That's what Yamamoto must be asking himself. It is all a question (oddly enough!) of information theory. ...ACTION... What is an action? It might be anything. It might be something obvious like bombing a Nipponese military installation. Everyone would agree that this would constitute an action. But it might also be something like changing the course of an aircraft carrier by five degrees--or notdoing so. Or having exactly the right package of forces off Midway to hammer the Nipponese invasion fleet. It could mean something much less dramatic, like canceling plans for an action. An action, in a certain sense, might even be the total absence of activity. Any of these might be rational responses, on the part of some commander, to INFORMATION HEREIN REPORTED. But any of them might be observable by the Nipponese--and hence any of them would impart information to the Nipponese. How good might those Nips be at abstracting information from a noisy channel? Do they have any Schoens? ...EFFECT... So what if the Nips did observe it? What would the effectbe exactly? And under what circumstances might the effect be REVEALING THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOURCE TO THE ENEMY? If the action is one that could never have happened unless the Americans were breaking Indigo, then it will constitute proof, to the Nipponese, that the Americans have broken it. The existence of the source--the machine that Commander Schoen built--will be revealed. Waterhouse trusts that no Americans will be that stupid. But what if it isn't that clear-cut? What if the action is one that would merely be really improbableunless the Americans were breaking the code? What if the Americans, in the long run, are just too damn lucky? And how closely can you play that game? A pair of loaded dice that comes up sevens every time is detected in a few throws. A pair that comes up sevens only one percent more frequently than a straight pair is harder to detect--you have to throw the dice many more times in order for your opponent to prove anything. There is a lot of Secret Admirers iconography: t-shirts bearing the number 56, which is a code for Yamamoto, or just pictures of Yamamoto himself, or big fat question marks. They are having an energetic and very happy conversation -- though it looks a bit forced -- because, to a man, they are carrying long weapons out in plain sight. One of them has a hunting rifle, and each of the others is slinging a rudimentary-looking gun with a banana clip sticking out of the side. Randy thinks, but is not sure, that these are HEAP guns.
Authored entries
Wikipedia: Admiral Yamamoto enhanced
Admiral Yamamoto
Click Link for bigger image
Yamamoto Isoroku (山本 五十六) (April 4 ,1884 -April 18 ,1943) was the outstanding Japanese naval commander of World War II.
Born Takano Isoroku (高野 五十六) in Nagaoka on Niigata. His father is Takano Sadayoshi (高野 貞吉) who was a lower caste samurai of Nagaoka- han. "Isoroku" is a old Japanese term meaning 56 which was his fathers age when at the time of his son Isoroku's birth.
Samurai values
Samurai (侍 or sometimes 士) is a common term for a warrior in pre-industrial Japan. A more appropriate term is bushi (武士), literally "war-man", that came into use during the Edo period. However, samurai now usually refers to warrior nobility, not, for example, ashigaru or foot soldiers. The samurai who has no attachment to a clan or daimyo to call his own was called a ronin - wave-man. Samurai were expected to be cultured and literate, and over time, samurai during the Tokugawa era gradually lost their military function, and by the end of the Tokugawa, samurai were essentially civilian bureaucrats for the daimyo with their swords serving only ceremonial purposes. With the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century, the samurai were abolished in favor of a western style national army.
The word samurai has its origins in the pre-Heian period Japan when it was pronounced saburai, meaning servant or attendant. It was not until the early modern period, namely the Azuchi-Momoyama period and early Edo period of the late 16th and early 17th centuries that the word saburai became substituted with samurai. However, by then, the meaning had already long before changed.
During the Heian period, samurai came to refer especially to the guards of the imperial palace and to those who carried swords. These forerunners of what we now know as samurai had ruler-sponsored equipment and were required to hone their martial skills in all times. By World War Two, samurai values were being lost.
Schooling
He enrolled at the Naval Academy at Etajima, Hiroshima in 1901, graduating in 1904. In 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, he saw action as an ensign on the cruiser Nisshin at the Battle of Tsushima against the Russian Baltic Fleet. At that engagement, he lost two fingers on his left hand (see picture on the right). After the war he went with various ships all over the Pacific.
In 1913, he went to the Naval Staff College at Tsukiji, a sign that he was being groomed for the high command. Upon graduation in 1916, he was appointed to the staff of the Second Battle Squadron and was adopted by the Yamamoto family. From 1919 -1921 he studied at Harvard University. Promoted to Commander upon his return to Japan, he taught at the staff college before being sent to the new air-training centre at Kasumigaura in 1924, to direct it and to learn to fly. From 1926 to 1928, he was naval attache to the Japanese embassy in Washington, and travelled widely in the United States, which gave him considerable insight into his opponent in the terrible war that was to come. He was then appointed to the Naval Affairs bureau and made Rear Admiral. He attended the London Naval Conference in 1930. Back in Japan, he joined the Naval Aviation Bureau and from 1933 headed the bureau and directed the entire navy air program.
Japanese Naval Sword
In December of 1936, Yamamoto was made vice minister of the Japanese navy, from which position he argued passionately for more naval air power and opposed the construction of new battleships. He also opposed the invasion of Manchuria and the army hopes for an alliance with Germany. When Japanese planes attacked a US gunboat on the Yangtze River in December 1937, he apologised personally to the American ambassador. He became the target for right-wing assassination attempts, the entire Naval ministry had to be placed under constant guard. However on August 30 ,1939 Yamamoto was promoted to full Admiral and appointed commander-in-chief of the entire fleet.
Yamamoto did not soften his logical anti-conflict stance when the Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in September 1940. Yamamoto warned Premier Konoe Fumimaro not to consider war with the United States: "If I am told to fight... I shall run wild for the first six months... but I have utterly no confidence for the second or third year." His foresight also led him to believe that a pre-emptive strike against US Navy forces would be vital if war did occur.
Island Hopper
He also accurately envisaged the "island-hopping" and air dominance tactics such a war would have, although his vision failed him when it came to battleships, which he (in common with most officers in the American navy, it must be conceded) still believed to be the key component of naval force - a failing which would be a key component of the causes for the disaster which was to befall Japanese naval forces at Midway.
Following the invasion of Indochina and the freezing of Japanese assets by the US in July 1941, Yamamoto won the argument over tactics and when in December war was declared the entire First Fleet air arm under Admiral Nagumo Chuichi was directed against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, attacking on December 7. With around 350 planes launched from six carriers, eighteen American warships were sunk or disabled. Nagumo's failure to order a second search-and-strike against the American carriers and Yamamoto's disinclination to press him turned a tactical victory into a strategic defeat.
Yamamato directed operations for the Battle of Java Sea on February 27-28, 1942. Without airpower playing a significant role and fought almost entirely by cruisers the Japanese defeated a combined force of Dutch, British, and American ships, thereby enabling Japan to seize Java.
Yamamoto then decided on an ambitious plan to defeat the American Pacific Fleet in a decisive battle. He chose the atoll of Midway Island as a strategic target that if the Japanese occupied it would draw out the American carriers. Yamamoto intended to drawn the Americans into a ambush to destroy the carriers. Yamamoto believed that if Japan did not soon win a decisive battle, defeat was simply a matter of time.
Yamamoto had at his disposal a massive fleet of some 250 ships, including eight carriers. Yamamoto's strategy was a very complex series of feints and diversionary attacks to trap the Americans. Unfortunately for the Japanese the Americans were well aware of the plan. Decoded intercepts of communications meant that by the end of May, the United States knew the date and place of the operation, as well as the composition of the Japanese forces.
Compounding this there was poor communication on the Japanese side, and the commanders were inadequately prepared; in addition, the Japanese tactical disposition, dictated by outmoded doctrine which still held battleships to be the key units, was flawed. Viewing the aircraft carriers in part as protection for the battleships, they were moved forward in advance of the battleship units, which were held well back, unlike later United States doctrine, which placed battleships around the aircraft carriers - the true key units - as protection for them.
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, from June 4 to 6, 1942, was thus a disaster for the Japanese, losing four carriers to the American loss of one and 3,500 men to only around 300 American dead in another aircraft only clash, although the luck of timing, catching the Japanese carriers just as they were about to launch their own strike, also played a role in the magnitude of the American victory.
Yamamoto never recovered from the defeat at Midway, although he remained in command. He directed the Solomons campaign and realising the strategic importance of Battle of Guadalcanal, he initiated the efforts to remove the American troops who had landed on August 7, 1942. Yamamoto, however, failed to properly grasp at an early enough stage both that this battle was key, and the magnitude of the effort that would be needed to win. The Japanese forces suffered huge losses before he conceded that he could not could not dislodge the Americans, whose strength had by then grown past the point where the Japanese could possibly prevail. On January 4, 1943, he ordered the evacuation of the island. The actual evacuation was a tactical masterwork.
TORA! TORA! TORA!
To boost morale following Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to make a inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. In April 1943, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted reports of the tour. Sixteen American P-38 aircraft flew from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal to ambush Yamamoto in the air. On April 18, his G4M "Betty" transport aircraft was shot down near Kahili in Bougainville ; Yamamoto was apparently killed in the air by a machine-gun bullet which struck his head, although there is still some controversy over whether he was killed immediately.
Movie portrayals
In the movies the late Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku's Tora! Tora! Tora! and the weaker Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto's character says, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Considerable doubt exists, though, whether he actually ever said (or wrote) anything like that; it was probably invented for the movies, although it may well have encapsulated some of his real feelings about it.
Isoroku Yamamoto's sleeping giant quote
The earliest citation for that theatrical comment, however, is the (reasonably accurate) movie, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). That quotation was accepted and repeated verbatim in the movie Pearl Harbor (2001). However, no one has been able to verify that Yamamoto ever actually said (or wrote) those words.
Neither At Dawn We Slep, written by the highly respected Gordon Prange, nor The Reluctant Admiral, the definitive biography of Yamamoto in English by Agawa Hiroyu, contains the line.
Randall Wallace, the screenwriter of Pearl Harbor, readily admitted that he copied the line from Tora! Tora! Tora!. (Pearl Harbor is not troubled by accuracy; among other examples of dramatic license, it shows Yamamoto saying those words while standing on a carrier in the attacking force despite the fact that he was on board his flagship anchored at a naval base in Japan throughout the attack.)
The director of the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, Richard Fleischer, stated that while Yamamoto may never have said those words, the film's producer, Elmo Williams, had found the line written in Yamamoto's diary. Yamamoto, however, never kept a diary. Williams, in turn, has stated that Larry Forrester, the screenwriter, found a 1943 letter from Yamamoto to the Admiralty in Tokyo containing the quote. However, Forrester cannot produce the letter, nor can anyone else, American or Japanese, recall or find it.
Yamamoto certainly believed that Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States, and, moreover, seems to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had become a blunder - even though he was the person who came up with the idea of a a surprise attack on it! The Reluctant Admiral relates that "Yamamoto alone" (while all his staff members were celebrating) spent the day after Pearl Harbour "sunk in apparent depression". He is also known to have been upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were technically at peace.
The line serves very well as a dramatic ending to the attack, and may well have encapsulated some of his real feelings about it. It does not seem, alas, to have been real.
Interestingly, the other common Yamamoto quote predicting the future outcome of an attack on the United States ("I can run wild for six months ... after that, I have no expectation of success.") is real, and is something he is recorded to have said to a number of different Cabinet members in Japan in the 1940 time period. It was probably part of his standard appraisal of the situation.
Further reading
ISBN 4770025394 Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral (Kodansha, 1979), the definitive biography of Yamamoto in English John Bester (Translator)
ISBN 158574428X Edwin P. Hoyt, Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned Pearl Harbor (McGraw-Hill, 1990)