Letters by Japanese officer who led Pearl Harbor attack to be exhibited

NHK

16-07-2025

Two letters that the Japanese naval officer who led the attack on Pearl Harbor wrote shortly after the incident will be made public for the first time.
The letters by Yamamoto Isoroku will be on display in an exhibition to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two. The show will open on Saturday at the prefectural Fukushima Museum. Yamamoto's descendants provided them for the exhibition.
Museum officials view them as valuable historical resources. They said the content of the letters suggests Yamamoto was calmly analyzing the initial stage of the war.
The naval officer sent the letters to his wife's parents in Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture.
One of the letters, dated January 13, 1942, about one month after the Pearl Harbor attack, was written when Yamamoto was onboard the battleship Nagato. He wrote that he engaged in a mission of heavy responsibility before retiring as a military officer.
At a time when Japan was overjoyed with the success of the Pearl Harbor attack, he wrote that it managed to achieve a minor victory thanks to the enemy country's inattention and negligence. He went on to write that the full-scale battle would start later.
The other letter was written in April in the same year onboard the battleship Yamato. He wrote about private matters such as his wish to visit his ancestors' graves after the war.
He died about one year after writing the letters. A plane carrying Yamamoto was downed by a US military aircraft over the Solomon Islands.
Yamamoto, who had studied at Harvard University, is said to have been well aware of differences of national strength between Japan and the US, and opposed starting a war with America.