I didn’t fully comprehend world affairs,” but he remembered distinctly having “the typical American reaction that we had better do something about this.

True combat power is arms multiplied by fighting spirit. If one of them is infinitely strong, you will succeed. – Asahi Shimbun newspaper, quoted in Japan at War: An Oral History.

Japan was taming her own Wild West as the Americans had theirs: by bringing the light of civilization through divine war against a barbaric enemy.

Japan was a closed book. Western ignorance of Japan was not the fault of the westerners but the design of the Japanese. For two hundred years, Japan had been shut tight. By national law, a Japanese could not leave Japan and no outsider was allowed in. Death sentences were meted out to any who gave foreigners information about the land of the gods. Almost no maps and no books existed in the English-speaking world describing the closed land.

The airmen were considered the most important passengers on the carriers.

Japan had held 132,134 western POWs and 35,756 of them died in detention, a death rate of 27 percent. In contrast, only 4 percent of the POWs held by the Germans and Italians died.

Like a moth, Rene was attracted to the flame of fame.

The four presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore had all supported the ethnic cleansing of the Indian.

Like a moth, Rene was attracted to the flame of fame

Late in his life, Rene complained of living a life of a celebrity one minute and a “John Doe” the next.