Admiral Irosuku Yamamoto, the leader of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was reputed to have once said that he personally would dictate the peace terms to the United States in the Oval Office. As the mastermind behind the the attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was seen as the evil genius behind the successes of the Japanese Navy up through the end of the Guadalcanal Campaign in early 1943.

Now, in a desperate attempt to shore up Japanese morale after the defeat on Guadalcanal, Yamamoto elected to make a tour of the front lines around Bougainville Island.

What he hadn’t figured out, even after the shattered sword of the the Battle of Midway, was that the United States had long ago cracked the Japanese codes they used to communicate. The US Military knew that the Admiral was coming to Bougainville.

At just after 0725 on the morning of April 18, 1943, eighteen of the 339th Squadron of US Army Air Corps P-38 Lightning’s began to lift off from Guadalcanal, carrying extra fuel tanks. Two planes immediately turned back.

Just over two hours later, two groups of airplanes met over the green island of Bougainville.