For Americans, the shock attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, enraged the nation and roused an nearly genocidal determination to precise revenge on the "treacherous Japs." Playing upon racist feelings, propagandists depicted the Japanese as subhumans, cruel and mindless instruments of the emperor, "yellow monkeys" intent on world domination, and a rabid vermin that have to be exterminated if civilization was to survive. One soldier even despatched President Roosevelt a letter opener carv...