Editing Isoroku Yamamoto's sleeping giant quote

{{Short description|Famous quote regarding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor}}
'''Isoroku Yamamoto's sleeping giant quote''' is a film quote attributed to Japanese Admiral [[Isoroku Yamamoto]] regarding the 1941 [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] by forces of [[Empire of Japan|Imperial Japan]].
{{Infobox movie quote
| name        = "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve"
| image       = Portrait of Yamamoto Isoroku.jpg
| caption     = Yamamoto in 1940. Yamamoto is said to have written the quote in real life, but there is no evidence of this.
| character   = [[Ranks of the Imperial Japanese Navy|Admiral]] [[Isoroku Yamamoto]]
| actor       = [[So Yamamura|Sō Yamamura]]
| writer      = [[Hideo Oguni]]<br />[[Ryūzō Kikushima]]<br />[[Akira Kurosawa]]
| firstusedin = ''[[Tora! Tora! Tora!]]''
| alsousedin  = '''Abridged:'''
{{Plainlist|
* ''[[Pearl Harbor (film)|Pearl Harbor]]''
* ''[[Midway (2019 film)|Midway]]''
}}
}}

The quotation is portrayed at the very end of the 1970 film ''[[Tora! Tora! Tora!]]'' as:
{{Blockquote | style=font-size:100% | I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/story/id/ |title=December 7, 1941: The Sleeping Giant Wakes |access-date=2009-10-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721130221/http://www.pacaf.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123034638 |archive-date=2011-07-21 }} </ref>}}

[[Vermont C. Royster|Vermont Royster]] offers a possible origin to the phrase attributed to [[Napoleon]], "[[China is a sleeping giant|China is a sickly, sleeping giant. But when she awakes the world will tremble]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Safire |first=William |author-link=William Safire |title=Safire's Political Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0195343342 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c4UoX6-Sv1AC&pg=PA666 |page=666}}</ref>

An abridged version of the quotation is also featured in the 2001 film ''[[Pearl Harbor (film)|Pearl Harbor]]''. The 2019 film ''[[Midway_(2019_film)|Midway]]'' also features Yamamoto speaking aloud the sleeping giant quote.

==Overview==
The director of ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'', [[Richard Fleischer]], stated that while Yamamoto may never have said those words, the film's producer, [[Elmo Williams]], had found the line written in Yamamoto's diary. Williams, in turn, has stated that Larry Forrester, the screenwriter, found a 1943 letter from Yamamoto to the Admiralty in Tokyo containing the quotation. However, Forrester cannot produce the letter, nor can anyone else, American or Japanese, recall it or find it. [[Randall Wallace]], the screenwriter of the 2001 film ''Pearl Harbor'', readily admitted that he copied the line from ''Tora! Tora! Tora!''

Yamamoto did believe that Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States. Moreover, he seemed later to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had been a blunder strategically, morally, and politically, even though he was the person who originated the idea of a surprise attack on the military installation. It is recorded that while all his staff members were celebrating, "Yamamoto alone" spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression".<ref>''The Reluctant Admiral'', p. 259</ref> Yamamoto was upset by the [[Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Japanese_declaration_of_war|bungling]] of the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan)|Foreign Ministry]], which led to the attack happening while the countries were still at peace, thus, along with other factors, making the incident an unprovoked surprise attack that enraged American public opinion.<ref>Haruko Taya Cook, Theodore F. Cook, ''Japan at War: An Oral History'', New Press, New York, 1992, p. 83</ref>

==Similar sayings==
On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, an inspirational statement was made by [[Don McNeill (radio presenter)|Don McNeill]] during the [[NBC]] radio broadcast of [[Don McNeill's Breakfast Club|Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club]]. His statement ended: {{Blockquote|...&nbsp;and also don’t forget, sometimes you can strike a giant who is dozing momentarily, when the giant is awakened, look out.}} 
A portion of the broadcast was replayed on the Pearl Harbor attack-themed episode of the [[Smithsonian Channel]] documentary program, [[The Lost Tapes (TV series)|''The Lost Tapes'']] (S1:E1). 

In ''The Reluctant Admiral'', [[Hiroyuki Agawa]] gives a quotation from a reply by Yamamoto to [[Taketora Ogata|Ogata Taketora]] on January 9, 1942, which is similar to the famous version: "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack."<ref>''The Reluctant Admiral'', p. 285</ref>

[[File:Yamamoto what do you say america.jpg|thumb|A World War II poster depicting Isoroku Yamamoto with his quote "I am looking forward to dictating peace to the United States in the White House in Washington."]]
The other common quotation attributed to Yamamoto predicting the future outcome of a naval war against the United States is, "I can run wild for six months... after that, I have no expectation of success".<ref>Fumimaro Konoe, ''Konoye Ayamaro Ko Shuki (Memoirs of Prince Ayamaro Konoye)'', Asahi Shimbun-sha, 1946, p. 3.</ref> As it happened, the [[Battle of Midway]], the critical naval battle considered to be the turning point of the [[Pacific War|War in the Pacific]], concluded exactly 6 months after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Similar to the above quotation was another quotation: Yamamoto, when once asked his opinion on the war, pessimistically said that the only way for Japan to win the war was to dictate terms in the [[White House]].<ref>''The Reluctant Admiral'', p. 291.</ref> Yamamoto's meaning was that military victory, in a protracted war against an opponent with as much of a population and industrial advantage as the United States possessed, was completely impossible, a rebuff to the ''[[Kantai Kessen]]'' Decisive Battle Doctrine of those who thought that winning a single major battle against the [[United States Navy]] would end the war, just as the Japanese victory in the [[Battle of Tsushima]] had ended the [[Russo-Japanese War]] in 1905.

Yamamoto's quote about peace terms in the White House was abridged by Japanese propaganda to make it seem like an optimistic prediction; this version was promptly picked up by American propaganda to look even more boastful (see illustration).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.historynet.com/have-you-heard-yamamoto.htm|title=Have You Heard?: The Secret Mission to Kill Yamamoto|author=Joseph Connor|date=February 2017|accessdate=February 8, 2022|publisher=[[World History Group|HistoryNet]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220131103547/https://www.historynet.com/have-you-heard-yamamoto.htm|archive-date=January 31, 2022|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* {{Cite book |last=Prange |first=Gordon |author-link=Gordon Prange |author2=Donald M. Goldstein |author3=Katherine V. Dillon |title=At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor |year=1991 |publisher=Viking |location=New York City |isbn=0-07-050669-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/atdawnwesleptun00pran }}
* {{Cite book |last=Agawa |first=Hiroyuki |editor=John Bester |title=The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy |orig-year=1969 |edition=1st English |year=1979 |publisher=Kodansha International |location=New York |isbn=0-87011-355-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/reluctantadmiral00agaw }}
<!-- NOTE: This is the edition of Agawa used in the citations; please do not change it to the more recent edition unless you either i) verify that the page numbers in the citations are still correct in the new edition, or ii) update the page numbers in the citations. -->
* {{Cite journal |author=Suid, Lawrence H. |date=December 1964 |title=A Terrible Resolve |journal=[[Proceedings (magazine)|Proceedings of the Naval Institute]] |volume=543 |issue=94 (6412) }}

{{Pearl Harbor attack}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamamoto, Isoroku, Sleeping giant quote}}
[[Category:English phrases]]
[[Category:Historiography of World War II]]
[[Category:Attack on Pearl Harbor]]
[[Category:Isoroku Yamamoto|Sleeping giant quote]]
[[Category:Historiography of Japan]]