The man who conceived and planned the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, had few illusions about the ultimate success of a war against the United States. He had studied at Harvard and served as a naval attaché in Washington and knew America’s strength. But if war had to come he meant “to give a fatal blow to the enemy fleet” when it was least expected, at the outset. By that act he hoped he could win his country six months to a year during which it might establish its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and dig in.
