 This was the Europe of 1941. The Nazi Blitzkrieg had overwhelmed France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Luxembourg. Russian armies were in desperate retreat. The German Air Force was raining death and destruction on England. Combined Italian and German forces were menacing Egypt. Their objective? To defeat an opposing British army and dominate all North Africa. In Asia, Japanese air and ground forces were driving forward in their bloody conquest of China. Only one of the world's major powers was still not at war. The United States. It was a Sunday afternoon in December 1941, and the Statue of Liberty towered serenely over New York Harbor, as if she were the last symbol of freedom left to the crumbling free world. Afternoon in New York? Early morning in Hawaii. And another great harbor where American warships were at dockside or rode at anchor. Planes with cold engines stood idle at nearby Hickam Field, and suddenly, without warning, the immediate Japanese military objective was to knock out United States naval and air power in the Pacific at a single stroke. They reasoned that we were committed to eventual entrance in the war in Europe, convinced that we were incapable of fighting a two front war. The Japanese were right in their calculations to the extent that Roosevelt and Churchill were to agree that the defeat of Hitler, the most powerful of our enemies, must have priority over an offensive against Japan. They followed sound principles of warfare to concentrate the greatest mass of power against the major objective. But it would be nearly a year before we could muster, train, and move an army overseas to attack the strongest of the aggressors. The first American troops to go into action and engage the enemy were those already in the Philippines under General Douglas MacArthur, whose forces would fight not only that first battle, but after more than three long years of combat, the final land battle against the last of the aggressors. Three days after Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops landed on Luzon's north coast. The following day, still another Japanese landing was made on Luzon's east coast. On the 21st of December, the main Japanese invasion force hit the eastern shore of the Lengayan Gulf. Troops came pouring ashore from 80 transports. The Japanese onslaught gave General MacArthur only one choice, fight a delaying action, try to regroup his forces. It was a monumental task. The Japanese had struck swiftly, suddenly, devastatingly. They pressed forward, unchecked. To save Manila from war's destruction, General MacArthur declared it an open city. Ignoring such humanitarian consideration, the Japanese bombed Manila. On the last day of 1941, MacArthur withdrew to the mountainous terrain of the Batan Peninsula, for Batan and Corregidor commanded Manila Bay. The objective was to delay the enemy's entrance to the bay. MacArthur and his battling bastards of Batan, as the troops in grim humor call themselves, knew they were fighting a losing battle. But they fought on, gaining precious time for us to recover from the disaster at Pearl Harbor and build up our forces. There were other prime targets marked by the Japanese. In December 1941, they took Hong Kong and invaded Malaya. They bombed British Singapore and its great naval base. The British fought back, but it was the same losing fight that our troops were waging in Batan. On New Year's Day, 1942, the siege of Batan began. Superior Japanese forces pounded our beleaguered troops for three long and agonizing months. On February 22, 1942, President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to leave the Philippines and proceed to Australia as Supreme Allied Commander in the Southwest Pacific. MacArthur turned over his command to General Jonathan Wainwright. MacArthur made the first leg of his journey to Australia by P. Tebow through enemy-infested waters and then by plane from Mendenau. Batan fell on the 9th of April, 1942. Thousands of captured American and Filipino prisoners of war began their infamous death march. Hundreds were to die, felled by exhaustion and by the bayonets of their captors. To those self-designated, battling bastards of Batan who starved and fought on, the nation owes a debt it can never repay. Theirs was a heroism seldom matched. Corregidor remained our last foothold. What once had seemed an impregnable rock fortress now awaited its inevitable doom. The fortunes of the United States and its allies were at their lowest ebb. But the Japanese were soon to learn that their homeland was vulnerable to surprise attack. April 18, 1942, 16 B-25 bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle prepared to take off from the deck of the aircraft carrier Hornet. Their target, Tokyo, and four other major Japanese cities with carefully selected military targets. It was only nine days after the fall of Batan. Never before had such a carrier-based operation been attempted. The psychological effects of the raid on Tokyo were even greater than the material damage inflicted. It raised the morale of all Americans. It shocked the enemy into realization that we had the will and the wherewithal to carry the war to the heart of his own homeland. Three weeks later, United States Navy planes of a carrier task force struck the Japanese fleet a damaging blow in the coral sea. The first naval battle in history to be fought entirely with carrier-based aircraft. While the Navy was starting to make a comeback, General Wainwright surrendered Corregidor. A proud old soldier who had fought in World War I and who now at the age of 59 was surrendering his sword without cause for shame. For he and his men had fought in the finest tradition of the American fighting man. Our stubborn defense of Corregidor had put the Japanese conquest four months behind schedule and sent General Hama back to Japan relieved of his command. In January of 1942, President Roosevelt had addressed Congress and the nation to set new and immediate production goals. First, to increase our production rate of our planes, so rapidly that in this year, 1942, we shall produce 60,000 planes. 10,000. 10,000, by the way, more than the goal that we set a year and a half ago. This includes 45,000 combat planes, bombers, dive bombers, pursuit planes. The rate of increase will be maintained, continued, so that next year, 1943, we shall produce 125,000 airplanes, including 100,000 combat planes. Second, to increase our production rate of tanks, so rapidly that in this year, 1942, we shall produce 45,000 tanks. And to continue that increase, so that next year, 1943, we shall produce 75,000 tanks. Third, to increase our production rate of anti-aircraft guns, so rapidly that in this year, 1942, we shall produce 20,000 of them. And to continue that increase, so that next year, 1943, we shall produce 35,000 anti-aircraft guns. And fourth, to increase our production rate of merchant ships, so rapidly that in this year, 1942, we shall build 8 million deadweight tons, as compared with a 1941 completed production of 1,100,000. Immense forces were mobilizing. Millions of Americans were in training. The infantry, airborne infantry, field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, armored cavalry, Army Air Corps pilots by the thousands. Woman power as well as manpower. The vitality of all America was surging up to full tide. American labor and management performed miracles. Planes, tanks, ammunition. Thousands of items rolled off the lines to supply not only ourselves, but our fighting allies. On the home front, 1942 was a momentous year. Great plans and stratagems were being laid and coordinated. Supplies by the millions of tons poured overseas. Nazi submarines took a heavy toll. But enough ships got through to help sustain our beleaguered allies. In the air, the tables were starting to turn. 1,000 Royal Air Force planes in a single massive saturation raid smashed Cologne, Germany. In the Pacific, our naval aircraft inflicted the first decisive defeat on a large Japanese fleet, winning the Battle of Midland. It was an hour of triumph. There would be others, but they would be slow in coming. Our top military leaders were now taking the high places reserved for them by destiny. General Douglas MacArthur, commander in the Southwest Pacific and Admiral Chester Nemitz. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was coordinating momentous plans with the Allied combined staff in the European Theater of Operations. General Leslie McNair, commanding general of all American ground forces. General Omar Bradley, commandant of the infantry school, soon to be given a top-field command. General Henry Hap Arnold, commanding Army Air Forces. General Brian Somerville moved up to Chief of the Services of Supply with the stupendous task of logistical support for what would finally be an army of many millions deployed throughout the world. The first of our troops began arriving at overseas staging areas in North Ireland, England, Australia. On bloody Guadalcanal, Army troops relieved battle-scarred and weary Marines to continue the fight for the Solomon Islands. The United States was demonstrating not only a will to fight, but the capability of fighting a two-front war against great odds on far-flung battle fronts half a world apart. On the 8th of November 1942, American amphibious forces struck the shores of North Africa. We were to use an appropriate American phrase in business. The business of an all-out fight against powerful aggressors who had reached out to conquer the world. We had come thousands of miles, but not for conquest. In 1942, the commander of our ground forces, General Leslie McNair, said it best. The United States is stretching out its arms to encircle the globe, not in conquest, but in protection. Even with our powerful allies, the task is vast and calls for our utmost all-out effort. We were encircling the Earth in a mighty crusade for freedom. Nothing like it has happened in all the history of man. It was the dynamic outpouring of a great nation's energy, blood, and resources to protect not only itself, but to liberate freedom-loving people everywhere. We had come a long way, but the end of the road was far from within sight. We had only just begun to fight.