I'm John Batchler, continuing with Peter Moe. His book is Tojo, the rise and fall of Japan's most

controversial World War II General. Tojo is now Prime Minister, no longer war minister,

prime minister for the emperor. It is 1941. What is to be done? Tojo and the Navy.

Tojo represents simultaneously the Army and the premiership.

It's a job which doesn't make any sense, but Tojo does it.

The Navy is in the room, and it wants priority from the emperor and from the resources that Japan has,

the steel and the resources, the oil, the scrap metal.

The army has its own needs because it's tied down in China.

The Navy has plans to take away from the colonial, the Dutch, the British, the French,

take away their possessions,

especially the oil fields and the raw materials,

and defend an enormous sphere, a national security sphere,

all the way short of Hawaii, doesn't reach Hawaii,

Reese's the Marshals in Guam, Australia's,

the Solomon Islands off of the coast of Australia.

Even in Northern Australia, you can imagine, they want Port Moresby and New Guinea.

They want to defend this as their territory and preach to those people they conquer

that this is a co-prosperity sphere, and we're freeing you from your colonial

masters, which is not untrue.

So, Peter, let us begin with Tojo as Prime Minister, venerating his emperor and extremely

impatient with the Navy.

What does the Navy want that he doesn't want to give?

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