There’s a cool bit in the Cryptonomicon where, right as his plane was being shot at, he realized that the Americans had cracked their encryption.
I was shocked that part was real. The book freely mixes historical events with made-up nonsense, and I fully assumed that was in the nonsense column.
Incidentally - wow did the premise of that novel not work out. Digital currency sounded really progressive, once upon a time. So did fighting genocide with video sharing. Turns out that’s two flavors of Please Build The Torment Nexus. At least Google Earth turned out less spooky than the gargoyle aleph from Snow Crash.
Yankee magic wins again, someone please nerf 😭
Disappearing from the face of the Earth was the smartest career move he ever made.
Iirc, it is mentioned in Wikipedia that the Americans made the attack look less suspiciously precise by expanding their patrol routes near Yamamoto’s flight path or something like that. I am too tired right now to look it up again to confirm 😅
Yamamoto getting that FAFO experience first hand.
iirc the Japanese Navy was pretty skeptical about war with the US, it was the Army who thought it was a good idea.
(also, the intel didn’t direct the US straight to the carriers, there was a fair amount of skill in estimating where they were and timing the air attack, courage in continuing the search when the pilots should have returned instead, and of course a measure of luck.)
If my impression is correct, the Japanese Navy was more “noble”. Perhaps because their officers were Western educated, including Yamamoto himself. The Japanese navy men also rescue their opponents from the sea. They gave burials at sea to Americans who died on board their ships. Meanwile, the Japanese army, of course, is the complete opposite.
That makes sense. The navy understood who had to do most of that fighting
