“What can the Combined Fleet do going out for battle now? The 60,000 tons of oil is more important.”32 The speech brought the entire room, including Sato, to the brink of tears. He had put Japan’s predicament into stark relief. The honor of the once-mighty Imperial Japanese Navy now mattered less than six tankers and the oil they carried. Even a general could see that the fleet’s diminished status was a portent of doom. “This was the saddest feeling I had ever experienced,” Sato wrote.
