Yamamoto Isoroku was born on April 4th, 1884. He graduated from the Japanese naval academy in 1904, and after that Yamamoto worked as a naval attache for the Japanese embassy in Washington D.C from 1926 to 1927. During the next 15 years, he saw numerous promotions, from vice minister of the Japanese navy to commander in chief of Japan's Combined Fleet in August of the year 1941. Despite worsening Japanese-American relations, Yamamoto initially opposed war with the U.S, out of fear that a extended conflict would result in the destruction of Japan. But once the Prime Minister Tojo Hideki decided on war, Yamamoto argued that only a surprise attack aimed at crippling the United States naval forces in the Pacific had any hope of victory. He also predicted that if war with America lasted more than one year, Japan would lose. Yamamoto brilliantly planned and carried out the Japanese air strike on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Waves of dive bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters descended on U.S. battleships, annihilating, destroying, or immobilizing several U.S. battleships within the first 30 minutes of the raid. The attack was a decided success, especially in catching their opposition off guard, and resulted in the destruction of 180 U.S. aircraft and more than 3,400 American casualties. U.S. forces finally caught up with Yamamoto, though, and they ambushed his plane and shot him down over Bougainville Island in 1943. Yamamoto died having been right about two things: the effectiveness of aircraft carriers in long-range naval attacks and that Japan would lose a prolonged struggle with the United States.