Word: fleets
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...with a gray crew cut, Admiral Yamamoto commanded Japan's Combined Fleet, but he disliked the imperial navy's cautious strategy. In case of war, its plan was to fall back and try to lure the U.S. Pacific Fleet into the Inland Sea between the Japanese home islands of Honshu and Kyushu. But as early as spring 1940, Yamamoto remarked to one of his officers: "I wonder if ( an aerial attack can't be made on Pearl Harbor...
...embargoes.) At the same time, he announced that General Douglas MacArthur, the retired Chief of Staff now luxuriating in the Philippines, was being recalled to active military duty and financed in mobilizing 120,000 Filipino soldiers. (Roosevelt had made another significant move that spring, when he shifted the Pacific Fleet's headquarters from San Diego to Pearl Harbor...
...agreed to a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto was adamant: "Japan must deal the U.S. Navy a fatal blow at the outset of the war. It is the only way she can fight with any reasonable prospect of success." But war games suggested that an attacking fleet would be spotted and badly mauled. As late as October, Yamamoto learned that the staff admirals, determined to concentrate on the drive into Southeast Asia, wanted to take away two or three of his six carriers. The First Air Fleet's own commander, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, supported that decision. "The success...
...took Nagumo's fleet five days to reach the rendezvous point at Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles just north of Japan's main islands. Fog swirled over the desolate outpost, and snow fell intermittently as the fleet steamed eastward at dawn...
...armada boasted six carriers, led by Nagumo's flagship, the Akagi, 400 warplanes, two battleships, two cruisers, nine destroyers and a dozen other surface ships. At an average 13 knots, refueling daily, the attack fleet pursued a course 3,500 miles through the empty expanse of the North Pacific. Its orders provided that "in the event an agreement is reached in the negotiations with the United States, the task force will immediately return to Japan," but nobody expected that to happen...