FDR

by Jean Edward Smith

By November 29, 1941, each of the Japanese task forces had put to sea. Each was instructed that “in the event an agreement is reached with the United States, the task force will immediately return to Japan.” The First Air Fleet was also instructed to turn back if sighted by the enemy before X-Day minus one.110 Yamamoto’s decision to attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor not only was breathtakingly bold but involved a revolutionary, hitherto untried use of naval airpower—an experimental concept untested in the crucible of battle. Taranto had involved twelve planes from a single carrier 170 miles away. The First Air Fleet would assault what was considered the strongest naval base in the world, halfway across the Pacific, with the largest air armada ever assembled at sea. “What a strange position I find myself in,” Yamamoto wrote to his friend Rear Admiral Teikichi Hori on the eve of the fleet’s departure, “—having