PROJECT Z: TAKING THE BATTLE TO AMERICA

In March 1942, the readership of Life magazine was treated to a digest of ways in which the Axis powers might launch an invasion of the United States. It was only a few months since the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese had already made excellent progress in the Pacific theatre, so American paranoia was running high. In one scenario, Life explained, the Germans would storm across the Atlantic while the Japanese fleet would take a northerly route via Alaska and down the Canadian coast before striking at cities including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was predicted that obliging fifth-columnists inside the USA would rally to the Axis cause and carnage would ensue. Other theories suggested that the Japanese might opt for a route via Hawaii and then make a beeline for San Francisco or, yet more daringly, head to Ecuador and Panama from where they would work their way up the Pacific Coast.

As things turned out, such