Japanese admiral Isoruku Yamamoto was educated at his nation's naval academy. He fought and was wounded in the Japanese naval battle with the Russians at Tsushima.
Yamamoto attended Harvard from 1917 to 1919, and served as the Japanese Naval Attaché in Washington from 1926 to 1928. Yamamoto became the Assistant Naval Minister in 1936.
In 1939 he became Commander of the Navy. Though he opposed Japanese entry into World War II, fearing that the Japanese could not defeat the US, he planned and commanded the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Yamamoto led the Japanese forces at Midway, which were decisively defeated by the US Navy. In April 1943, in a planned ambush, his plane was shot down by US fighters.