Editing Winston Churchill (section)

====Pearl Harbor and United States entry into the war====
In December 1941, the Japanese [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] was followed by their [[invasion of Malaya]] and, on the 8th, Churchill declared war on Japan. With the hope of using Irish ports for counter-submarine operations, Churchill sent a telegram to Irish Prime Minister [[Éamon de Valera]] in which he obliquely offers Irish unity: "Now is your chance. Now or never! A nation once again! I will meet you wherever you wish." No meeting took place and there is no record of a response.<ref>Bromage, pg 162</ref> Churchill went to Washington to meet Roosevelt for the [[Arcadia Conference]]. This was important for "[[Europe first]]", the decision to prioritise victory in Europe over victory in the Pacific, taken by Roosevelt while Churchill was still in the mid-Atlantic. The Americans agreed with Churchill that Hitler was the main enemy and defeat of Germany was key to Allied success.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=670}} It was also agreed that the first joint Anglo-American strike would be [[Operation Torch]], the invasion of [[French North Africa]]. Originally planned for the spring 1942, it was launched in November 1942 when the crucial Second Battle of El Alamein was underway.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|pp=677–678}}

On 26 December, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the [[United States Congress]]. Later that night, he suffered a heart attack, which was diagnosed by his physician, [[Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran|Sir Charles Wilson]], as a [[Coronary circulation|coronary deficiency]], requiring several weeks' bed rest. Churchill insisted he did not need bed rest and journeyed to [[Ottawa]] by train, where he gave a speech to the [[Canadian Parliament]] that included the "some chicken, some neck" line in which he recalled French predictions in 1940 that "Britain alone would have her neck wrung like a chicken".{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=674}} He arrived home mid-January, having flown from Bermuda to [[Plymouth]] in the first transatlantic air crossing by a head of government, to find there was a crisis of confidence in his government and him;{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=679}} he decided to face a vote of confidence in the Commons, which he won easily.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=682}}

While he was away, the [[Eighth Army (United Kingdom)|Eighth Army]], having relieved the [[Siege of Tobruk]], had pursued [[Operation Crusader]] against Rommel's forces in Libya, successfully driving them back to a defensive position at [[El Agheila]] in [[Cyrenaica]]. On 21 January 1942, however, Rommel launched a surprise counter-attack which drove the Allies back to [[Gazala]]. Elsewhere, British success in the [[Battle of the Atlantic]] was compromised by the [[Kriegsmarine]]'s introduction of its [[Cryptanalysis of the Enigma#M4 (German Navy 4-rotor Enigma)|M4 4-rotor Enigma]], whose signals could not be deciphered by Bletchley Park for nearly a year.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=680}} At a press conference in Washington, Churchill had to play down his increasing doubts about the security of Singapore, given Japanese advances.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|pp=675, 678}}