(See Cover) A humble wireless set trembled last week with quasi-divine vibrations as the Son of Heaven himself sent Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Combined Imperial Fleets, congratulations for the daring execution of a brilliant treachery.
Congratulations from Emperor Hirohito fix upon their recipient an incredible joy; but also a certain uneasiness. This is because they not only bestow praise; they also adjure the congratulatee to continue the good work—or else.
Isoroku Yamamoto had made a wonderful beginning. The four syllables of his name may in future be pronounced twice as reverently as the two of Togo. Japan's greatest previous naval hero, victor of Tsushima, humiliator of the Russians. But if they are, it will be because Yamamoto, like Togo, follows through and makes his wonderful beginning just a beginning.
That will not be easy. Though he has depleted the forces arrayed against him, Admiral Yamamoto knows that his enemies are still great, that their regenerative powers may soon seem (compared to Japan's) as formidable as those of the mythical dragon which, when his tail was cut off, grew not only a new tail on his body but a new body on his tail.*
But Isoroku Yamamoto is not fighting U.S. production. It is his job to consume the product. If he can consume it fast enough, he will have accomplished his mission.
His First Step. In order to drive the white man from Greater East Asia, Admiral Yamamoto must drive away, or preferably destroy, the white man's bridge to Asia: his fleets.
Surveying his assignment, Isoroku Yamamoto saw that his greatest permanent necessity would be to keep British power and U.S. power from effecting a junction. If, with the help of the Army, he could break off the rungs by which the U.S. Navy has to climb over the shoulder of the Pacific to Singapore, his job would be much easier. Therefore the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Wake, Midway and Guam were important; but the penultimate rung, the Philippine Islands, was most vital to his cause.
Perhaps even more vital was the attempt, in which Admiral Yamamoto could be only an abettor, to neutralize, by a land attack down Malaya, the spot at which the great Navies would join—Singapore.
In these great projects, air power was the key and Admiral Yamamoto has a Navy which can turn that key for a short time. By this week his air power had either done or helped to do the following things:
> Sunk one U.S. battleship, capsized another, sunk three destroyers, perhaps one submarine; sunk two British battleships.
> Partly knocked out U.S. and British air power in Hawaii, the Philippines and Malaya by surprise bombardments.
> Established landings in northern Malaya and northern Luzon which promised to provide air bases (especially good in Malaya).
> Captured Guam.
On its own, his sea power had:
> Captured a claimed 200 U.S. and British merchant ships, including the 10,509-ton S.S. President Harrison.
> Cut the U.S. undersea cable somewhere west of Midway Island.
He had, in these initial projects, paid a not-too-exorbitant price:
> One battleship (a second damaged and perhaps sunk), one cruiser, one destroyer, perhaps 75 planes.