Though World War II is part of the Caribbean's popular imaginary and cultural production, World War II scholars have relegated the region to a footnote. It should not be so. As José Bolívar Fresneda shows, “From January 1942 to July 1943, 20 percent of all the allied shipping was sunk as a result of the one-sided naval battles that occurred there” (p. 1). Nazi Germany's aggressiveness in the Caribbean was strategic. In 1942 Aruba, Curaçao, and the Venezuelan oil fields and refineries provided “roughly 95 percent of the oil required to sustain the East Coast of the United States—59 million gallons” a day (p. 7). The supply of bauxite from British Guiana and Surinam was crucial for the war effort. Moreover, control of the Caribbean meant control of the Panama Canal, which since 1914 had allowed the United States Navy to control the eastern Pacific and the western Atlantic.
Bolívar...
