| Original caption: “Secretary of Navy Curtis D. Wilbur officially received Captain Isoroku Yamamoto (at left), the new Japanese naval attache in Washington, who succeeds Captain Kiyoshi Hasegawa, on right of Secretary Wilbur. On the extreme right is Admiral Eberle.” At extreme left, Imperial Japanese Navy Captain Isoroku Yamamoto (April 4, 1884 – April 18, 1943), newly appointed Naval Attache, presents himself to the Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur (May 10, 1867 – September 8, 1954). To Wilbur’s left, Captain Kiyoshi Hasegawa (May 7, 1883 – September 2, 1970), and United States Navy Chief of Operations Admiral Edward W. Eberle (August 17, 1864 – July 6, 1929). Hasegawa was the Naval Attache from March 20, 1919, to 1920 and from November 10, 1923, to February 1926. He returned to Japan on April 15, 1936. When Yamamoto reached the Japanese Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, he learned that his predecessor as naval attache, Captain Kiyoshi Hasegawa, had decided to top off his American experience with a trip to Havana, the most licentious city in the Western Hemisphere. When Yamamoto learned that Hasegawa was going, he dropped everything and went along too. Whatever Hasegawa’s reason, Yamamoto’s was the gambling table. He loved roulette, which was legal in Havana but not in America, and he returned from the voyage with enough fine Havana cigars to last the duration of his tenure as naval attaché. In the Spring of 1926, Yamamoto toured his new post in Washington, District of Columbia, having his photograph taken in front of the Capitol and at the Tidal Basin, where the Mayor of Tokyo had gifted 3,000 cherry trees in 1912. Yamamoto would challenge his subordinates to gambling in bridge and shogi, and then rip up the checks he won from them weeks or months later. He claimed that an American Naval Officer owed him a lot of money from their mutual gambling. Yamamoto recommended a biography of United States President Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) because he respected his commitment to ending slavery and his rise from poverty to the Presidency. He called Lincoln “the finest of all the American Presidents. He impressed his staff with his quiet but determined knowledge of naval aviation. Yamamoto was the Naval Attache when Charles A. Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) flew across the Atlantic in May 1927. A subordinate wrote a memorandum about instrument flying. Yamamoto surprised him by rewriting the memo with more details and direct language, as they both felt Japan was too concerned with visual flight rules. His term as Naval Attache ended in March 1928. Captain Yamamoto returned to Japan and took command of the cruiser Isuzu, to prepare him for the captaincy of the aircraft carrier Akagi in December. After less than a year as Captain of Akagi, he was posted to the Navy Ministry’s Naval Affairs Bureau. This led to his posting at the 1930 London Naval Treaty. As Naval Attache, Yamamoto studied the United States, especially the Navy, quite closely. He would draw on his experiences traveling in the United States, 1st to advocate avoiding war, and then to prosecute the Pacific War ruthlessly, attacking fiercely. This was his strategy when playing shogi. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1485.jpg |
| Image Size | 2.09 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 5022 x 3765 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | National Photo Company |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | February 17, 1926 |
| Location | |
| City | Washington |
| State or Province | District of Columbia |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | Library of Congress |
| Record Number | LC-DIG-NPCC-27504 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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