Organising the Caribbean Theatre 1941

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The fall of France and the subsequent siege of Britain created a situation that was in effect the one for which the newest of the American strategic plans had been designed. Based on the assumption of a complete German victory in Europe, which would burden the United States with most of the weight of defending the Western Hemisphere, this new plan--the RAINBOW 4 plan--provided for taking into protective custody the Old World possessions in the New World on the ground that Hitler would otherwise grab them up as spoils of war.1 The plan contemplated the organizing of a Caribbean theater of operations as a major measure of defense, one that would in fact serve the dual purpose of furthering the southerly orientation of RAINBOW 4 and of protecting the Atlantic approaches to the Panama Canal. While subsidiary RAINBOW 4 plans were being laid, the President and his advisers were arranging the details of the destroyer-base exchange with the British Government. As soon as the exchange took place a survey of the prospective base sites in the Caribbean area--British Guiana on the southern periphery, Trinidad, St. Lucia, Antigua, and Jamaica--was undertaken by an Army-Navy board and preparations for developing the bases were begun.

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