Britain's surrender to Germany and withdrawal from the war had brought enormous changes to the situation on the North American continent. The United States now had to face Germany alone. This forced the United States to concentrate most of its forces in the northeast to prepare for a possible large-scale German military offensive.
However, due to the weather, the German military did not immediately launch an attack into the United States. On one hand, the German military was massing large numbers of troops on the North American continent in preparation for the subsequent large-scale offensive. On the other, the German Air Force was massively expanding or constructing new airfields in places such as Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. Large numbers of German Air Force aircraft, including heavy bombers, began moving into these airfields to prepare for strategic bombing.
After February 1941 began, the main force of the German Strategic Air Force had already arrived in North America. Of its eight air groups, five had been deployed to Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. Another five tactical air groups of the German Air Force had also moved in. This gave the German Air Force a formidable presence in North America; even in a head-on confrontation with the US Army Air Corps, it would not be at any disadvantage.
What was more, the aircraft carriers of the three German Navy fleets were still operating in the Western Atlantic. The twenty-one aircraft carriers of the three fleets carried two thousand combat aircraft. This gave the German military overwhelming air power over the North American continent.
Although the US Army Air Corps was also extremely powerful and could receive reinforcements of more than a thousand combat aircraft of various types every month, it was still far from enough to contend against the German Air Force