Terror

Terror. America Enters the War Against Facism. Rearmed during the 1930s under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler. Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and, by June 1940, had conquered western Europe. Hitler's fascist regime, celebrating "Aryan racial superiority had already begun the systematic slaughter of Jews and other minorities. Britain, fighting alone after France surrendered, gained relief when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Axis powers - Germany, Italy. and Japan- declared war against the United States., The challenge for America was to form a global alliance and destroy the Axis regimes. Previously an isolationist nation, the US was now forced to fight and defend freedom on an unprecedented global scale while also supporting Soviet armies fighting Hitler. For America, the first phase of the European war occurred in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Navy, which now included the US Coast Guard, fought to protect US Merchant Marine and British supply convoys from German submarines. Naval air patrol forces trained at Millington, long-range B-24 crews trained at Smyrna Army Air Field. and the Tennessee National Guard's 105th Observation Squadron helped break the U-boat blockade by mid-1943., By the fall of 1942. the Allies, strengthened by US war production and military expansion. Invaded North Africa and began to seize the strategic Mediterranean Sea. Although veteran German forces defeated inexperienced US troops at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, the Allies gained control of North Africa by the spring of 1943 and prepared for an invasion of Italy.