On December 12, 1941, the government announced that the war against the United States and Great Britain, as well as the Sino-Japanese conflict, would be called the Great East Asia War, a title imbued with a sense of holy mission. Regardless of nomenclature, Japan had been at war for one agonizing decade. Those Amerika-gaeri returnees who had once lived in the States were pessimistic about Japan’s prospects. “Japan shouldn’t fight the United States,” said Masako’s father, who had labored in Hawaii for three years when he was younger. Even in that sleepy island outpost, he had seen industrial
...more
