Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, intended to press ahead with his morale-boosting visits to forward units in the South Pacific in April 1943, despite dire warnings from subordinates of possible enemy ambushes. He had no idea that the Americans had plotted through a military operation codenamed Operation Vengeance to intercept and shoot down his transport bomber aircraft.
The 60-year-old mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack in Decem- ber 1941 knew his forces needed a psychological boost in the face of a string of defeats at the hands of the U.S. Navy in 1942 and early 1943. By the spring of 1943, the Americans had firmly established themselves on Guadalcanal in the Soloman Islands, having defeated multiple attempts by the Japanese over a six-month period from August 1942 to February 1943 to recapture the island.
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