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On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declaration of war against the Japanese Empire, Nazi Germany declared war against the United States. Later that day, the United States declared war on Germany. 
The war was already raging in Europe. German invasion of France in 1940 ended Chamberlain’s premiership. On 10 May 1940, Winston Churchill becomes PM. He tells the Parliament in his first speech: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invades Soviet Union. The goal of “Operation Barbarossa” was extermination. Nazis wanted to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, use Slavs as a slave labour for the Axis war effort and annihilate the rest.
Germany and US are officially at war from December 1941. Whilst America trained its manpower and mobilised its factory, Soviet Union confronted 90% of German army. Soviet victory in Battle of Stalingrad marked the turning of the tide of war in favour of the Allies.
America supplied its allies with the material to fight. A flood of food and arms arrived in Russia to support the Red Army.
The Russians pressed for its Western allies to cross the Channel in force to confront the Nazis. By 1943, over 10 mm Soviet people were killed by the Nazis. The Life magazine published this haunting photograph showing the savaginess of Nazi occupiers.
The Western Allies had won the battles of the Atlantic and North Africa. Allied airforces pounded Europe day and night with vast bombing raids. But the greatest challenge remained to cross the channel.
The English Channel is a phenomenal obstacle. Amphibious landings are the most dangerous of military operations. The allied assault on the occupied French coast at Dieppe in 1942 was a catastrophe. The Canadians and British suffered 60% casualties and failed to get off the beach.
