The End of the Beginning

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
-- Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942
Spring 1942. Throughout the world, the Allies retreat before the inexorable march of Fascism: Singapore falls to Japan; the Wehrmacht lays siege to Leningrad, captures the Crimea, and advances on Stalingrad; Greece and Yugoslavia fall to the Nazis; the American Pacific Fleet lies in ruins; and in Libya, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps faces off a...