Yamamoto killed by radical naval officers.

Ok so I've taken an interest in the life and death of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku and while reading about his opposition to the alliance with Germany and Japan and how many younger officers threatend to kill him the idea poped into my head, what if a young naval officer tried and succeded?

So what are the effects of Yamamoto being gunned down by a radical Japanese pro-war militarist in 1939?
 

CalBear

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Ok so I've taken an interest in the life and death of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku and while reading about his opposition to the alliance with Germany and Japan and how many younger officers threatend to kill him the idea poped into my head, what if a young naval officer tried and succeded?

So what are the effects of Yamamoto being gunned down by a radical Japanese pro-war militarist in 1939?


Most of those radical officers were IJA, along with some HQ types in the IJN. One reason Yamamoto was given Combined Fleet was to get him off-shore and aboard ship where he was far more secure.
 
Most of those radical officers were IJA, along with some HQ types in the IJN. One reason Yamamoto was given Combined Fleet was to get him off-shore and aboard ship where he was far more secure.

Well the idea was before he gets off shore he gets wacked by a radical and there was a small but vocal pro-war faction in the IJN.
 

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Probably means Nagano is in charge.
May mean to Pearl Harbor, but I'm not sure what else.


Nagumo would have been somewhere around 30th or so choice. Without the need to promote Yamamoto, the Combined Fleet would probably have remained under Admiral Zengo Yoshida (who was even MORE anti Tripartite Pact than the average senior IJN officer) since they kicked him upstairs as Naval Minister to get the slot cleared out for Yamamoto. If they decided to still move Yoshida, then either Admiral Koshiro Oikawa or (my personal favorite candidate, the Emperor's 2nd cousin) Prince Admiral Fushimi Hiroyasu who was a career Naval Officer and a fairly solid fan of the "Southern Strategy" and IJN Chief of Staff well into 1941.
 
Nagumo would have been somewhere around 30th or so choice. Without the need to promote Yamamoto, the Combined Fleet would probably have remained under Admiral Zengo Yoshida (who was even MORE anti Tripartite Pact than the average senior IJN officer) since they kicked him upstairs as Naval Minister to get the slot cleared out for Yamamoto. If they decided to still move Yoshida, then either Admiral Koshiro Oikawa or (my personal favorite candidate, the Emperor's 2nd cousin) Prince Admiral Fushimi Hiroyasu who was a career Naval Officer and a fairly solid fan of the "Southern Strategy" and IJN Chief of Staff well into 1941.

Yes and from what I've read the remaining choices for the position Yamamoto would have taken as Admiral of the Combined Fleet that you named where just as if not more against the Tripartite Pact. Oikawa was against the idea of war with the United States, but Prince Hiroyasu was also none to fond of the idea himself from what I understand.

But lets say that the Japanese still end up fighting the US (which I think they would anyway just maybe without Pearl Harbor) how is the pacific war changed without Yamamoto leading the way?
 

CalBear

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Yes and from what I've read the remaining choices for the position Yamamoto would have taken as Admiral of the Combined Fleet that you named where just as if not more against the Tripartite Pact. Oikawa was against the idea of war with the United States, but Prince Hiroyasu was also none to fond of the idea himself from what I understand.

But lets say that the Japanese still end up fighting the US (which I think they would anyway just maybe without Pearl Harbor) how is the pacific war changed without Yamamoto leading the way?


The end result? Absolutely no difference.

The specifics are a bit more difficult to decide. Midway is almost certainly either gone or radically altered as an operational plan. Even Pearl Harbor is something of an open question, but if the Japanese were going to try the Southern Strategy it was a given that the U.S. fleet had to be taken out as the first step so some sort of major attack would have occurred.

It is very possible that the IJN would have been both far less effective in the first six months of the war, since Yamamoto's overall battle planning through April was exactly the right one (very aggressive and unpredictable) but would also have survived as a serious threat longer (Midway was pure Yamamoto).

By early Spring of 1943 it really doesn't matter, the USN will gain superiority and will never look back.
 
The end result? Absolutely no difference.
I am not quite so certain! As noted above, without Yamamoto we have no Pearl Harbor. However, there are two other big issues.

The first is whether the Navy would have agreed the Tripartite Pact in 1940 as OTL after Yamamoto's 1939 assassination. It is possible that the assassination would lead to a purge of pro-German from the Navy during the period from September 1939 to May 1940 when Germany was not popular in Japan. That might leave Yoshida Zengo enough support to hold the line. Without the Tripartite Pact, the butterflies are rampant.

The second issue, assuming diplomacy as OTL, is how the Japanese prepare for the Southern Advance. Our problem is that we do not really know who proposed what OTL. There were voices who urged that war with America should be avoided. However, the Army was not going to accept American demands. The question is whether an attack on Malay and the Netherlands East Indies might have been tried without an attack on American territory. There was a discussion of that over on Axis History http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=154198&p=1344910#p1344910. Again many butterflies.
 
Also we shouldn't forget the US has the Phillipines sitting smack dab on top of the transport routes and if the USA put enough force in the Phillipines it could shut down those transport routs fast. As long as the US holds the Phillipines the Japanese are going to be wary of the US and see it as its largest threat to its power.

I can see the Japanese getting their butts handed to them much more early on in this case. War between the US and Japan could not be avoided because the US held areas vital to Japans empire plus they felt they could share the Pacific with another power.
 
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