World War: BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: The Plunge

Armed forces of the U.S. went to the theater of war last week.

Naval and marine units occupied Iceland, which lies directly in the battlefield of the Atlantic. This act, which constituted the first U.S. plunge into cold action, was of tremendous strategic importance. It meant that a new visible weight, not just the clatter of it, was actually beginning to loom up in the west against the Germans. At the moment, it loomed not very large —but it loomed.

Behind the hull-down weight there were three specific strategic considerations, which President Roosevelt listed in his message to Congress explaining the...

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