"Just before Christmas, two Allied countries had sustained naval losses of shocking dimensions: Britain had lost two great ships—Prince of Wales and Repulse—in a single bombing attack, and America, at Pearl Harbor, had suffered a crippling blow that robbed her of half her effective fleet at one stroke. ("Proper uproar, it must have been," Lockhart overheard someone in the mess-decks say; and another anonymous voice answered: "Biggest surprise since Ma caught 'er tits in the mangle....") The attack brought America into the war, an ally coming to the rescue at a most crucial moment: but her principal war was never the Atlantic—that lifeline remained, from beginning to end, the ward of the British and the Canadian navies. America turned her eyes to the Pacific, where she had much to do to stem the furious tide of the Japanese advance: in the Atlantic, the battle of escort against U-boat still saw the same contestants in the ring, now coming up for the fourth round, the bloodiest so far."