Mission: Intercept and kill Yamamoto on his journey (April 1943)

10 April 1943

Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet

diary entry at 2330.

What an accomplishment our intel boys have pulled off, we’ve managed to decode a report transmitted on Japanese radio frequencies of that bastard’s Yamamoto decision to tour Japanese outposts in the Pacific. He will leave Rabaul on the 18th for the airfield in Kahili, Bougainville. What luck! His flight plan is just barely within range of our aircraft. Though it will require the maximum possible range of our Lightnings, with additional fuel tanks attached to their planes we can intercept and shoot the bastard down before reinforcements from Kahili can reach him. Though it will cost us more pilots and planes, the losses sustained to get him will suffice to avenge our brave air and ship crews lost in that “cheap shot” of an attack against Pearl. While we mourn, his plan has been herald as a master- class of deployment to take out your enemy unaware by surprise. Well, it time to pay him back with the same tactics, we CANNOT let him get away!