Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary

Shell employees at Balikapan in Borneo reacted to Pearl Harbor by executing their well-practiced plan. As the Japanese fleet closed in, the men stopped production, sabotaged wells, set wharves ablaze, and waited anxiously for the whole tank farm to implode in a hellish conflagration. The preemptive destruction of oil facilities was common in the East Indies, but did little more than inconvenience the Japanese. Within three months, the Japanese controlled the oil - their principal motivation for war. Tojo announced, prematurely, that the oil problem was solved, and "victory fever" gripped the country. By contrast, the Americans picked up the pieces and they faced the worst humiliation in their history. Fear and panic gripped the nation as the reality of war sunk in. Neither the Army nor the Navy was willing to commit its entire Pacific force to the other, so...