World War II

Stay Out of Europe’s Wars

The American First Committee opposed any American intervention or aid to the Allies. President FDR ran for a 3rd term in 1940, saying that he would keep the USA neutral, but would aid the Allies.

The Nye Committee: (1934)report gives the impression that businesses convinced the USA to join WWI because arms factories made huge profits from WWI.

Neutrality Act of 1935: made it illegal for the USA to sell arms to any country at war.

The 1936 Neutrality Act imposed a general embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war and forbade all loans or credits to belligerents. However, this act did not cover "civil wars" or materials such as trucks and oil. During the Spanish Civil War some U.S. companies such as Texaco,Standard Oil, Ford Motor Company and General Motors sold such items to General Francisco Franco on credit.

Neutrality Act, 1937: same conditions as previous neutrality acts, adding that U.S. ships were prohibited from transporting any passengers or articles to belligerents, and U.S. citizens were forbidden from traveling on ships of belligerent nations.

warning

Neutrality Act, Nov. 4, 1939: warring nations could buy arms from the USA ONLY if they paid cash and carried them on their own ships

Two Months after the invasion of Poland…

Roosevelt introduced a "billion-dollar defense program" to boost American military capability. Supplementary expenditures were announced in the following months (May 1940)

War is good for the economy

Surplus stocks of American rifles and artillery weapons were shipped to the UK in response to prior requests made by Churchill to Roosevelt during the Battle of France, 1940. The Neutrality Act was circumvented by first selling the arms to a steel company which then resold them to the British government(June 1940)

FDR supports Great Britain

Export Control Act: (July 1940) USA limited sale of supplies Japan needed to fight the war(strategic materials: iron, steel, oil)

Japan is member of Axis Powers

Destroyers-for-Bases Deal: FDR exchanged 50 old American destroyers for the right to build U.S. military bases on British controlled lands of Newfoundland, Bermuda, and on Caribbean islands (Sept. 3, 1940).

No sale, no$$, no violation of the Neutrality Act

Lend-Lease Act: allowed USA to lend or lease arms “vital to the defense of the United States.”

(Britain, Russia) (Dec. 1940) No sale,no $$, no violation of the Neutrality Act.

No sale,no $$, no violation of the Neutrality

Act

Hemispheric Defense Zone: FDR declared the western half of the Atlantic was part of the western hemisphere, making it neutral.

This allowed the U.S. Navy to patrol the western Atlantic and advise Britain of the location of German subs, helping to get American arms and supplies to Britain(1941)

Selective Service and Training Act became law: required all males , 21-35, to register and be inducted into armed forces during peacetime (Sept. 1940)

US took 65 German, Italian, Dutch ships into “protective custody”. Ships were anchored in U.S, waters to pick up survivors of sunken freighter. (March 1941).

British warships given permission to be repaired and refueled in the U.S.(April 1941)

US warships ordered to report movement of German warships west of Iceland(April 1941)

German and Italian assets frozen in USA (June 1941)

FDR announced plans to send aid to USSR following German

invasion (June 1941).

4000 US marines secretly sent to Iceland; secret talks of replacing British troops with American troops(June 1941)

Japanese assets in U.S. frozen in response to Japan’s invasion of French Indochina(July 1941)

The U.S. attorney general ruled the Neutrality Act did not prevent U.S. ships

from carrying war materials to British possessions held in Asia or the Western Hemisphere (Sept. 1941)

British and French Interests in South Asia

Skirmishes with German subs: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the navy to shoot any Axis battleships they encounter; U.S. Congress authorizes American merchant ships to carry arms,

(Fall, 1941); US is still neutral)

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, stunned virtually everyone in the United States military. Japan’s carrier-launched bombers found Pearl Harbor totally unprepared. President Roosevelt quickly addressed Congress to ask for a declaration of war. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK8gYGg0dkE

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Now that you know how the USA supported the war effort while it remained neutral, we will study how the USA really participated in the war after Pearl Harbor was bombed. (ch. 25).