Word: dakar
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This speech is in intent a declaration of war, and no defensive war at that. If the American people were determined that the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, Dakar, etc., are vital to the defense of our shores, the President would not have needed to stress the point so strongly. The fact is that at least a large minority of Americans do not agree, and will keep on saying so with all the force they command. They do not doubt our ability to survive; they have felt all along that aid to England is a sensible policy dictated...
Like Senator Pepper, Military Pundit George Fielding Eliot declared: "We have ample forces available for [the seizure of Dakar] . . . and the scale of resistance to be expected now is far less than it will be if we wait until the Germans are there in force. . . . But we must act now, while there is time. Tomorrow is certainly going to be too late. . . ." If the President even thought of taking Dakar with the weak U.S. Atlantic Fleet (see p. 22) he gave no sign of it. At his first press conference in two weeks, showing no signs of his illness except...
...seemed beyond question last week that a considerable force of Nazis was already in Dakar on the West African coast, closest port in either Europe or Africa to the Americas...
...Battle of the Atlantic first made Freetown improtant-as an assembly point and stopover for north and southbound supply ships. With the necessity of concentrating on convoys in the North Atlantic, the Royal Navy was unable to give heavy protection to ships very far south of Dakar. Convoys gathered at Freetown, 500 miles to the southeast...
...last week the Freetown base suddenly became more important than ever. With Dakar and Casablanca reportedly about to be turned over to the Nazis, it was Britain's-and might be the Americas'-most strategic base on the east shore of the South Atlantic. If raiding action were to come from Dakar and Casablanca, counteraction would have to come from Freetown...