America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (11 page)

Throughout 1938 and 1939, war broke out throughout Europe.  The social and economic disorder brought about by World War I helped the Nazis rise in Germany.  In 1937, Adolf Hitler declared the Treaty of Versailles void and began aggressively annexing parts of the European continent. Europe’s attempts to appease him failed, as Nazi Germany swallowed up Austria and Czechoslovakia by 1939. Italy was on the march as well, invading Albania in April of 1939.

During the months and years immediately before the outbreak of war, FDR reiterated America’s neutral stance.  In May of 1937, another Neutrality Act was passed, now requiring belligerents to pay for non-military U.S. goods in cash and carry them in their own ships.  Congress also prohibited the government from loaning money to foreign governments at war.

The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was Germany's invasion of Poland in September of 1939.  Two days later, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany and World War II began. This event, and those that followed soonafter, changed Roosevelt's mind.  As Assistant Secretary of the Navy in World War I, Roosevelt had wanted the U.S. to involve itself earlier.  He didn't feel any differently this time around.  Roosevelt thus got to work convincing Americans of the need to support Great Britain in war.

Roosevelt's argument was fueled by Germany's rapid conquest of Poland, Denmark and Norway, and the Battle of Britain, which took place on July 10
^th
, 1940.  With these events, Great Britain was essentially on its own fighting Nazi Germany in Europe.  The Soviet Union was still abiding by its Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, so the USSR was uninvolved.  British diplomats began begging the US government for some sort of aid.

Roosevelt initially took small steps.  On September 16
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, 1940, he signed the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peace-time military draft in US history.  All men between the ages of 21 and 35 were required to sign up for the draft.

After winning an unprecedented third term in 1940 – by a significantly smaller, but certainly not narrow, margin than he had previously – Roosevelt began speaking to the American people on the possibility of war in Europe.  He framed his arguments in Wilsonian ways, calling the U.S. the last remaining “Arsenal of Democracy.”  FDR argued that “we are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.”  He convinced Congress to send aid to Great Britain, on the basis that the US would be defending four essential freedoms.  Neutrality was officially over, though war was not yet on.

Chapter 5: World War II, 1941 – 1945

Heading for War

On January 20
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, 1941, Roosevelt became the first President to be inaugurated for a third term, and much like his first swearing-in, his third inauguration came amidst a major crisis.  War was ravaging Europe, with Nazi Germany conquering much of the continent.  In response, the US gradually shifted from its neutral stance.  In March, Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act, which authorized the President to give arms to any nation if it was in US national interest.  With this Act, the US was able to support Great Britain without declaring war on Nazi Germany or Italy.

By the summer of 1941, U.S. entry into the war seemed just on the horizon.  Germany violated the Nazi-Soviet Pact and invaded the Soviet Union, spreading war to virtually every piece of the European continent.  President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (another powerful distant relative) met secretly off the coast of Canada in August.  The two issued the Atlantic Charter, a statement of Allied goals in the war.  It largely reiterated Wilsonian rights, but also specified that a US/UK victory would not lead to territorial expansion or punitive punishment.

However, a substantial segment of the American public did not appreciate the more bellicose direction President Roosevelt seemed to be heading toward. Before the “Greatest Generation” saved Western Europe, many of them were part of the largest anti-war organization in the country’s history. In 1940, the United States was still mired in the Great Depression, with nearly 8,000,000 Americans still unemployed, but World War II was the most controversial issue in politics. As the Nazis raced across Western Europe in the first year of the war, young students formed the “America First Committee” in Chicago, an isolationist group supported by future presidents Gerald Ford and John F. Kennedy. The isolationist group aimed to keep the country out of European wars and focus on building America’s defenses.

The group expanded to include hundreds of thousands of members by 1941, staunchly opposing President Roosevelt’s “Lend-Lease” act, which helped arm the Allies. The America First Committee remained popular and powerful until the morning of December 7, 1941.

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor in October 1941

Once the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, the Japanese no longer needed to worry about their border with Russia, allowing them to focus exclusively on expanding across the Far East and various islands in the Pacific.  Though the Japanese steadily expanded across the Pacific theater during 1941, they were running low on vital resources, including metal and oil.  In response to Japanese aggression in China and other places, the United States had imposed a crippling embargo on Japan, exacerbating their problem.  Moreover, by winter of 1941, the most obvious target for Japanese expansion was the Phillipines, held by American forces.

Ironically, because both sides anticipated the potential for war in 1941, they each made key decisions that brought about the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Watching Japan’s expansion, the United States moved to protect the Phillipines, leading President Roosevelt to station a majority of the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.  Japan, assuming that aggression toward British targets and the Dutch East Indies would bring the United States into the war, decided they had to inflict a blow to the United States that would set back its war effort long enough to ensure Japanese access to resources.  

Japan plotted and trained for an attack on Pearl Harbor for several months leading up to December 7.  Believing that a successful attack on the Pacific fleet would buy Japan enough time to win the war, the Japanese decided to focus their attack exclusively on battleships, ignoring infrastructure on the Hawaiian islands.  The Japanese also knew American aircraft carriers would not be at Pearl Harbor but decided to proceed anyway.

All Americans are now familiar with the “day that will live in infamy.” On December 7, 1941, the Japanese conducted a surprise attack against the naval base at Pearl Harbor (called Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters). The attack was intended to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with Japan’s military actions in Southeast Asia.

The attacks took American forces completely by surprise, inflicting massive damage to the Pacific fleet and nearly 3,000 American casualties.  Several battleships were sunk in the attack.  Shortly after the attacks ended, the Japanese formally delivered a letter to the United States ending negotiations.  Hours later, the Japanese invaded the Phillipines, where American military leaders had anticipated a surprise attack before Pearl Harbor.  Even still, the Japanese quickly overran the Phillipines. 

Roosevelt giving his famous speech on December 8, 1941

Roosevelt addressed Congress and the nation the following day, giving a stirring speech seeking a declaration of war against Japan. The beginning lines of the speech are instantly familiar, with Roosevelt forever marking Pearl Harbor in the national conscience as “a date which will live in infamy.” Of course, the America First Committee instantly became a thing of the past, and the United States began fully mobilizing almost overnight, thanks to the peacetime draft Roosevelt had implemented. The bill helped the country’s armed forces swell by two million within months of Pearl Harbor. In 1942 alone, six million men headed off to North Africa, Great Britain and the Pacific Ocean, carrying weapons in one hand and pictures of pin-up models like Betty Grable in the other. Japanese Admiral Hara Tadaichi would later comment, “We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war."

Roosevelt signs the declaration of war against Japan

Internment and the Pacific Theater

Within a month of war, Roosevelt ordered all foreigners in the United States of German, Italian or Japanese origin to register with the U.S. government, a controversially preemptive step that clearly suspected these ethnic Americans of disloyalty. In February, FDR took it a step further by forcing all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast be moved into internment camps throughout the West.  This devastated the Japanese-American community, as well as Asian-Americans of other nationalities who were mistaken for being Japanese. Many Chinese and Koreans were interned alongside Japanese-Americans in the West.

The United States began 1942 determined to avenge Pearl Harbor, but the Allies, now including the Soviet Union by necessity, did not agree on the war strategy.  In 1941, both the Germans and British moved armies into North Africa, where Italy had already tried and failed to reach the Suez Canal.  The British sought American help in North Africa, where British General Montgomery was fighting the legendary “Desert Fox,” General Erwin Rommel.  At the same time, Stalin was desperate for Allied action on the European continent that could free up the pressure on the besieged Soviets.  President Roosevelt had a consequential decision to make. 

Roosevelt eventually decided to land American forces on North Africa to assist the British against Rommel, much to Stalin’s chagrin.  While the Americans and British could merely harass the Germans with air power and naval forces in the Atlantic, Stalin’s Red Army had to take Hitler’s best shots in Russia throughout 1942.  But the Red Army’s tenuous hold continued to cripple the Nazi war machine while buying the other Allies precious time.

Despite fighting in North Africa and the Atlantic, the United States still had the resources and manpower to fight the Japanese in the Pacific.  Though the Japanese had crippled the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, its distance from Japan made an invasion of Pearl Harbor impossible, and Japan had not severely damaged important infrastructure.  Thus, the United States was able to quickly rebuild a fleet, still stationed at Pearl Harbor right in the heart of the Pacific.  This forward location allowed the United States to immediately push deeply into the Pacific theater.

In fact, the turning point in the Pacific theater took place in 1942 near Midway Island.  The Japanese had moved a sizable fleet intending to occupy Midway Island and draw the American navy near.  Instead, American aircraft flying from three aircraft carriers that had been away from Pearl Harbor in December 1941 got a bearing on the Japanese fleet and sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers, permanently crippling Japan’s navy.  The Battle of Midway was the first naval battle in history where the enemy fleets never saw or came into contact with each other. Thus, 1942 ended with the United States turning the tide in the Pacific and North Africa, giving the Allies momentum entering 1943.