[World War II]: [Pearl Harbor]:

$3,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

SPECIAL ATTACK FLOTILLA. One of two editions of this very rare volume of Japanese propaganda, curiously published in English at the height of the war in the Pacific. Subtitled Bushido in the War of Greater East Asia on the front board and half title, it is a tribute to nine Japanese sailors who launched an undersea attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor in a "Special Attack Flotilla" of two-man ko-hyoteki class miniature submarines. The sailors were treated as martyrs and the text waxes panegyric of the "deified heroes." The book includes a laudatory and detailed account of the "Battle of Hawaii," in which "the great task of annihilating the United States Pacific Fleet was...accomplished," biographies of each of the crew members (illustrated with their portraits as well as images of their homes, families, and even schools), the text of their final letters to their families (proof that there was no expectation of survival from the start), and an interview with the Chief of the Naval Press Section of the Imperial Headquarters by Japanese novelist Eiji Yoshikawa. The description of the battle assures readers that "The spirit of self-sacrifice and loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor and the State, which animated Japan's fighting men, and the temperament of American and British men and officers, who regard the quest for a happier life as the aim and end of existence, are as different as chalk from cheese," and the volume closes by advising that "the end of the War of Gre

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