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Doug Olenick -> (7/30/2001 10:03:00 PM)
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Jo,
I really don't think even a Japanese commander, particularly the Western influenced, Yamamoto, would carry out an attack that he new to be compromised in order to "save face." A Japanese commander might be shamed by losing a battle and decide to end his life, but halting an attack that was doomed to failure because of a breach of security is not the same. Hell, if he were so worried about losing face he could have continued the battle with his surface fleet and tried to land troops on the island. There is a very good chance he would have succeeded since the US air groups were severely depleted and the US surface units terribly outnumbered.
Chiteng,
In your response to Gonzo's post:
Overall I must say your post's are very harsh and not in the spirit that one normally finds here. Don't take everything so personally.
On the main topic.
Yamamoto certainly could have had all the codes changed on a whim. He was commander of the Combined Fleet and had the juice to accomplish such a task. Since ommunications security is THE most important facet of warfare, he would have taken it seriously and fixed the problem. If there was any chance the codes were compromised they would have quickly been altered. (It's not as if JN-25 was the only code the Japanese had switching was simple as was proven by the switch made just before the battle commenced.)
As far as history being subjective I have no idea what you mean. -- History is not subjective. People's interpretations of events might be, such as the Japanese rewriting their history books to place that country in a better light, but the events themselves are pretty straightforward. Even more so when discussing recent historical events like WWII because the historical record is so complete. We know what happened and where and for the most part the why is also understood. Whether or not certain decisions were good or bad may be endlessly argued, but as far as the events themselves that is pretty black and white.
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