Isoroku Yamamoto's post war fate if he survived WW2?

[Torvald Von Mansee]

I don't know off the top of my head if he was responsible for any actual war crimes, but is it safe to say even if he wasn't guilty he would have been executed via "victor's justice" for just being too damn good a leader?

Discuss.

[CCIP]

Just for the record, real historians hate "what ifs", for good reasons

I suspect his fate would've been similar to Doenitz's. I don't see anything wrong with that. You can be as good a leader as you want to be, but if you're on the wrong side of the conflict, you have to take responsibility and pay the price, no excuses. It's part of the job, and Yamamoto knew as well as anyone - afaik he even acknowledged that.

[Catfish]

Why did they kill Keitel, then ?

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Why did they kill Keitel, then ?

Well, I know that Jodl posthumously had his guilty verdict reversed.

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

Well, I know that Jodl posthumously had his guilty verdict reversed.

Keitel too.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

Well, I know that Jodl posthumously had his guilty verdict reversed.

That'd be just great. "When I die, make me innocent again."



Why did they do this?

[Wolferz]

Were any Japanese commanders tried for war crimes?

I guess old 56 was fortunate to have died in '43.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Just for the record, real historians hate "what ifs", for good reasons

I suspect his fate would've been similar to Doenitz's. I don't see anything wrong with that. You can be as good a leader as you want to be, but if you're on the wrong side of the conflict, you have to take responsibility and pay the price, no excuses. It's part of the job, and Yamamoto knew as well as anyone - afaik he even acknowledged that.

Agreed

[Admiral Halsey]

This just gave me an idea for my Alternate history thread.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

I don't know off the top of my head if he was responsible for any actual war crimes, but is it safe to say even if he wasn't guilty he would have been executed via "victor's justice" for just being too damn good a leader?

Discuss.

Yamamoto was sort of a bipolar strategist. Sometimes he was brilliant, other times he was reckless. His operational plans often broke such basic military principles as concentration of force and maintenance of the objective. In retrospect, the Midway operation seems to have been dreamed up by a desire to just grimly keep pushing the initiative Japan held and give his carriers something to do. He was so obsessed with luring the US carriers out to fight that he never devoted much thought to what to do if they're already there. He could probably could have cut off the Marines at Guadalcanal if he had been willing to commit the full might of Combined Fleet, but he failed to do so, and Guadalcanal eventually became the decisive campaign of the Pacific War.

His later survival in the war could have saved the IJN from some fairly embarrassing subsequent underestimates of USN strike capability, as in the case of the Truk raids, and he might have had enough political clout to prevent the Yamato's final suicide sortie. However, if the Yamato would have survived she likely would have ended up expended in an atomic bomb test like the Nagato and Prinz Eugen were. He may have even been able to stifle the whole kamikaze corps concept as stupid and pointless.

As the architect of the strike on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto did manage to avoid the cardinal sin and capital crime of making Douglas MacArthur look bad in the field, so it's possible he might have survived any subsequent trials. But indications are that he expected to join his men who had already died in combat, and, like his chief of staff, Admiral Matome Ugaki, he seemed to have been waiting for the right time and place for his own death.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

But indications are that he expected to join his men who had already died in combat, and, like his chief of staff, Admiral Matome Ugaki, he seemed to have been waiting for the right time and place for his own death.

Strange as what i've heard he was one of those few that hated the idea of ritual suicide.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

Strange as what i've heard he was one of those few that hated the idea of ritual suicide.

Really?

Who told you?

[CCIP]

Expectation of death in combat isn't the same as ritual suicide

Yamamoto himself drew a lot of ire from Japanese nationalists for his own stance on things, even assassination threats prior to the war, and took them in his stride. I don't think he had any fantasies about "going out in a blaze of glory", unlike even many of his subordinates - he just had a sober and realistic attitude about his prospects. And was proven right, mind you.

[Dread Knot]

Previous to his shoot-down over Bougainville, Yamamoto had certainly received many dire warnings. Admiral Ozawa begged him not to go on the front line inspection, unless it was in "a cloud of carrier planes." General Imamura recounted to him how his own bomber had been bounced by US fighters in the same area a few weeks earlier and had barely escaped in a cloud bank. Rear Admiral Takatsugu noted that the itinerary of his visit had gone out over an unsecure aviation code and confided his fears to Yamamoto.

However, if he harbored a death wish or was simply motivated by bravura we'll never know,