ABSTRACT
The democracies’ response to Adolf Hitler’s demagoguery, violence and aggression was full of failures and catastrophes. After Pearl Harbor, the United States gave the democracies something to cheer about. Once the Americans got past the fiasco of Pearl Harbor they pursued a vigorous and extremely well-designed strategy for the defeat of their Japanese enemy. In the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese could project their power against the Americans only with the critical assistance of sea and air power. But within six months of the defeat at Pearl Harbor, the American navy, displaying bravado rarely evidenced by the democratic participants in the Second World War, inflicted a grievous defeat on Japan. The bulk of resources and manpower was clearly on the side of the Americans in 1941 and from then on. Britain was very much in debt to the United States, both literally and figuratively, at the time of Pearl Harbor.
