More on Captain Kameto Kuroshima

(excerpted from Walter Lord's "Midway: Incredible Victory")

"On the Yamato Senior Operation Officer Captain Kameto Kuroshima went into one of his trance-like periods of contemplation. It was his function to hammer together the operation, and all agreed he was born for the job. He ate, slept, lived only for operations. While working on an idea he'd disappear into his cabin for days. Sometimes he'd burn incense and ponder in the dark; other times he'd sit at his desk, buried in paper, as the cigarette butts piled up (He put them in a glass half filled with water because the crew wouldn't trust him with an ashtray). Lost in thought, he even slept in his shoes. The orderlies rather irreverently called him Boke-Sambo --- "foggy staff officer" --- but Yamamoto knew better. The Admiral put up with any amount of outlandish behavior because the brilliant Kuroshima was, the whole staff agreed, "the God of Operations".


"I'm not reckless . . . I'm skillful!"