Letters to the editor March 15

Ghosts of 1941

In 1941, Japan faced an existential crisis. Cut off from southeast Asian oil fields by the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands, a resource-starved empire made a fateful calculation: use its dominant Pacific naval force to seize control of oil-producing regions — but first neutralize the American fleet standing in the way. The result was Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, and the war that followed.