page_title: Operation Vengeance
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Vengeance / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: The ashes of Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto are carried from the battleship Musashi at Kisarazu, Japan on May 23, 1943.
context_page_description: Operation Vengeance was the American military operation to assassinate Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy on April 18, 1943, during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed on Bougainville Island when his transport bomber aircraft was shot down by United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft operating from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal.
  The mission of the U.S. aircraft was specifically to kill Yamamoto and was based on United States Navy intelligence on Yamamoto's itinerary in the Solomon Islands area. The death of Yamamoto reportedly damaged the morale of Japanese naval personnel, raised the morale of the Allied forces, and was intended as revenge by U.S. leaders, who blamed Yamamoto for the attack on Pearl Harbor that initiated the war between Imperial Japan and the United States.
  The U.S. pilots claimed to have shot down three twin-engined bombers and two fighters during the mission, but Japanese sources show only two bombers were shot down.
context_section_description: The crash site and body of Yamamoto were found on April 19, the day after the attack, by a Japanese search-and-rescue party. The crash site was located in the jungle north of the coastal site of the former Australian patrol post and Catholic mission of Buin (which was re-established after the war several kilometers inland).
  The retrieval party noted Yamamoto had been thrown clear of the plane's wreckage, his white-gloved hand grasping the hilt of his katana sword, his body still upright in his seat under a tree. Hamasuna said Yamamoto was instantly recognizable, his head tilted down as if deep in thought. A post-mortem of Yamamoto indicated two bullet wounds, one to the back of his left shoulder, and a separate wound to his left lower jaw that appeared to exit above his right eye. The Japanese navy doctor examining Yamamoto's body determined the head wound killed Yamamoto. These more violent details of Yamamoto's death were hidden from the Japanese public, and the medical report whitewashed, this secrecy "on orders from above" according to biographer Hiroyuki Agawa.
  In Japan, Yamamoto's killing became known as the "Navy kō incident" (ja:海軍甲事件). It raised morale in the United States and shocked the Japanese, who were officially told about the incident only on May 21, 1943. In the United States, in order to cover up the fact that the Allies were reading Japanese codes, American news agencies were given the same cover story used to brief the 339th Fighter Squadron—that civilian coastwatchers in the Solomons observed Yamamoto boarding a bomber and relayed the information by radio to American naval forces in the immediate area. This conveyed to the Japanese military that it was only through a stroke of luck that the Americans carried out the successful attack.
caption: Yamamoto's ashes return to Japan at Kisarazu aboard battleship Musashi on May 23, 1943
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