Transcript America Moves Toward War - Boyd-GLHS

America Moves Toward
War
Neutrality?
In September of 1939, Roosevelt pushed Congress to
pass a cash-and-carry provision that allowed warring
nations to buy US arms as long as they paid cash and
transported them to their own ships
Providing the arms would help France and Britain
defeat Hitler and keep the US out of the war
Congress passed the new Neutrality Act of 1939, with
the cash-and-carry policy
The Axis
The US cash-and-carry policy began to fail really fast
By the summer of 1940, France had fallen and Britain
was under siege
In September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan had
signed a mutual defense treaty, the Tripartite Pact.
The three nations together became known as the Axis
Powers
The pact aimed at keeping the US out of war
Under the treaty each nation agreed to come to the
defense of the others in case of attack—If the US were
to declare war on any of the nations they would face a
two ocean war
Hoping to avoid this Roosevelt provided Britain with
“all aid short of war”. He sent 500,000 rifles and
80,000 machine guns
US Builds Defense
Roosevelt also asked Congress to increase spending for
national defense
Congress also passes the nation’s first peacetime
military draft—the Selective Training and Service Act
Under this 16 million men between 21 and 35 were
registered
1 million were drafted for one year but were allowed to
serve in the Western Hemisphere
Roosevelt picked the first draft number
Roosevelt also ran for a third presidential term and
won
Lend-Lease Act
By 1940, Britain had no more cash to spend in the
arsenal of democracy
Roosevelt tried to help by suggesting a new plan that he
called the lend-lease policy
The President would lend or lease arms and other
supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the
US”
Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941
Stalin
In June of 1941, Hitler broke the agreement that he
made with Stalin in 1939 not to go to war and Hitler
invaded the Soviet Union
Roosevelt then began sending lend-lease supplies to the
Soviet Union
Some Americans opposed providing aid to Stalin and
the Soviet Union
Roosevelt however said that if Hitler invaded hell then
we will be prepared to work with the devil himself
German Wolf Packs
Hitler deployed hundreds of German U-Boats to sink
any supply ships going across the Atlantic to Britain or
the Soviet Union
Individual surface attacks by individual U-Boats
became known as the wolf pack attack
Wolf Packs were successful at sinking as many as
350,000 tons of shipments in a single month
In June of 1941, Roosevelt gave the navy permission for
U.S. warships to attack German U-Boats in self-defense
FDR Plans for War
Roosevelt began to plan for the war that he knew
would eventually come
Congress voted to extend the draft
Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on a joint declaration
of war aims called the Atlantic Charter
Both countries pledged the following:
Collective security
Disarmament
Self-determination
Economic cooperation
Freedom of the seas
The Atlantic Charter became the basis of a new
document called “A Declaration of the United
Nations”
Expresses the common purpose of the Allies, those
nations that had fought the Axis powers.
Declaration signed by 26 nations
After a German sub fired on the US destroyer Greer in
the Atlantic on Sept 4, 1941, Roosevelt ordered navy
commanders to respond
He ordered the navy to shoot the German submarines
on sight
German U-Boats continued sinking US ships resulting
in lives lost
Japan
The US was now involved in an undeclared naval war
with Hitler
Germany’s European victories created new
opportunities for Japanese expansionists
In July 1937, Hideki Tojo, chief of staff of Japan’s
Kwantung Army, launched the invasion into China
By 1941, the British were too busy fighting Hitler to
block Japanese expansion.
In July 1941, the Japanese began their southward attack
by taking over French military bases in Indochina
(Vietnam)
The US reacted to this by cutting off their trade with
Japan
Oil was one of the good’s that the US embargoed,
which Japan could not live without
The Japanese leaders declared that they would either
have to persuade the US to end the oil embargo or
seize the oil fields in the Dutch East Indies. Either of
these meant war
Tojo promised emperor Hirohito that the Japanese
government would attempt to preserve peace with the US
However, on November 5, 1941, Tojo ordered the Japanese
navy to prepare for an attack on the United States
The US cracked the secret communication codes and
learned that Japan was preparing for an attack
Roosevelt then sent out a war warning to military
commanders in Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines
He said that if war could not be avoided then “the United
States desires that Japan commit the first overt act
On December 6, 1941, Roosevelt received a decoded
message that instructed Japan’s peace envoy to reject all
American peace proposals
Attack!!!
Early in the morning on December 7, 1941, more than
180 Japanese warplanes dive-bombed Pearl Harbor
In less than 2 hours the Japanese had killed 2,403
Americans and wounded 1,178 more
Sunk or damaged 21 ships, including 8 battleships,
which was almost the whole Pacific fleet
More than 300 planes were damaged or destroyed
The next morning FDR asked Congress to declare war
on Japan. Three days later Germany and Italy declared
war on the US
FDR’s War Speech
Speech