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Show Japan was readying a sneak attack at-tack of her own. On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japs attacked at-tacked the U. S. military and naval nav-al bases at Pearl Harbor and knocked us with one foul blow, into the world war. Thus 1941 drew to a close, with the Germans winning in the battle against Russia, and the confident Jap military machine moving steadily and remorselessly to its objective the complete subjugation subjuga-tion of the western Pacific and a Japanese domination of Asia, war, but it was in a defensive role and was not supposed to be able to do anything offensive before everything would be over in Europe Eu-rope and we would be alone against Germany, Italy and Japan. 1941 SAW AMERICA PLUNGED INTO WAR AS JAPAN STRUCK The year 1941 was a bleak one for the democratic nations of the world. England impatieutiy aswed the Unitied States when we were coming in and we went out of our way in the effort to stay out of the war and mind our own business. busi-ness. In the Spring of 1941, the Germans Ger-mans invaded Jugoslavia and drove the British out of Greece, after Mussolini's troops were run ragged by the poorly equipped Greeks. Things had reached such a pass that Rudolph Hess, the "deputy fuehrer" flew to England and parachuted par-achuted to safety with what is reliably re-liably reported to have been peace plans for a beaten England. German paratroopers took the strategic island of Crete and it looked as though nothing could stop the all-powerful sweep of Axis Ax-is arms. Hitler Turns on Russia . . . But Hitler, balked in the west by England's stubbornness, decided decid-ed to attack Russia. On June 22, 1941 again without with-out a previous declaration of war, Hitler sent his troops storming into Russia in the old familiar pattern pat-tern of the blitz. In the early days of that campaign cam-paign in the east, everything followed fol-lowed the neat pattern drawn for it by the cold military scientists of the German general staff the Prussians of ancient war lineage, and the ruthless Nazis who put into practice what they had learned learn-ed in Spain, Poland, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Russia was supposed to fall in three weeks, or at the most, in three months. It was popularly supposed to be an awkward giant, big but clumsy on its feet and unable un-able to stand up against the repeated re-peated body blows of the smaller but efficient German war machine. Japan Strikes U. S. : . . While the Germans swept into Russia and closed in on schedule, |