ABSTRACT
By the end of 1941, bloody confl icts had engulfed Europe for more than two years and East Asia for a decade. The Axis powers-Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Militarist Japanexpanded to dominate vast swaths of territory on three continents. It looked like they would continue to achieve victory after victory. Against them stood a hobbled British Empire, a devastated Soviet Union, and a divided China. Since the outbreak of war in 1939, the United States of America gradually provided food, vehicles, weapons, and fi nancial support to these nations fi ghting the Axis powers, but most Americans remained unwilling to enter the confl ict. Isolationist tendencies still held sway over public opinion even in late 1941.
