Tamon Yamaguchi
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Rear-Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi (山口 多聞 Yamaguchi Tamon, January 1, 1892-June 4, 1942) was an Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Serving during the Second World War, he died during the Battle of Midway, choosing to go down with his flagship the Hiryū.
Born in the Japanese Shimane prefecture, Tamon Yamaguchi graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1912. By 1918, he had become a senior Lieutenant later assigned to a navigation unit with the naval squadron escorting German submarines received by the Japanese government as part of repatriation payments from Germany at the end of World War I. He later traveled to the United States attending Princeton University from 1921-1923 and, returning to Japan the following year, graduating from Japanese Naval War College in 1924.
A member of the Navy General Staff in 1927, Yamaguchi was promoted commander the next year and later assigned to the Japanese delegation at the London Naval Conference in 1929-1930. Made a Captain in 1932, Yamaguchi was the naval attaché in Washington, DC from 1934-1937 and later Chief of Staff for the Japanese 5th Fleet from 1938-1940 until his eventual appointment as commander of the 2nd Air Division, consisting of the IJN Sōryū and Hiryū.
Becoming a rear admiral in 1940, shortly before Japan's entry into World War II, Yamaguchi later took part in directing naval operations on the surprise attack on United States naval base of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and in operations driving the remaining British naval forces from the Indian Ocean on April 9-12, 1942 before he was killed in action on June 4 at the Battle of Midway after his flagship the Hiryū was sunk by USS Enterprise's aircraft.
[edit] Further reading
- Fuchida, Mitsuo (with C.H. Kawakami and Roger Pineau), Midway - The Battle that Doomed Japan: The Japanese Navy's Story, Annapolis, 1955.
