Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was shot down 75 years ago today

[Griff Murphey]

One of my last two WW-2 veteran patients sent me an email reminder of this event, he was a yeoman first class, the captain's yeoman on the AK USS BOWIE.

[bruce]

Yep. Long range Army pilots found him and flamed him. Poetic justice. Guess we all know what they say about pay back! JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[Griff Murphey]

Yep. Long range Army pilots found him and flamed him. Poetic justice. Guess we all know what they say about pay back! JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

Wikipedia has a very long and detailed article OPERATION VENGEANCE which is pretty interesting. The other Betty was splashed and the junior admiral Ugaki survived. There was a big controversy about who exactly shot down Yamamoto, Tom Lanphier was originally credited but that was withdrawn which knocked his kill total down to 4, costing him his ace status.

According to the Japanese search and recovery team, Yamamoto was found sitting upright in his seat ejected from the aircraft, allegedly still holding his Katana sword. He took two .50 calibers one which exited under his eye. News of his death was withheld from the Japanese public until May. Not wishing to let the Japanese know how well we were reading their code, it was announced that we had learned he had boarded the plane seen by a coast watcher.

Interestingly most of the wreckage is still there on private land although it's badly scavenged. Wiki says it can be visited by prior arrangement.