US Response to German Aggression

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US Response to German Aggression

• Neutrality a heated issue in US
• Britain France in desperate need of US
  airplanes other material
• Neutrality Acts set restrictions
• 1935 1936 outlawed arms sales or loans to
  nations _at_ war
• 1937 passed in response to Spanish Civil War
• Banned arms sales loans to nations undergoing
  civil wars

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US Response to German Aggression

• FDR calls Congress into a special session wants
  them to lift the arms embargo
• After 6 weeks ? Neutrality Act of 1939
• Ability for belligerents to purchase war
  materials ONLY cash and carry
• FDR authorized to declare danger zones
• Hurts China Helps Britain France

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American Preparedness and Aid to the Allies
(1939-1941)

• Changes in Public Opinion
• FDR awakens Americans to national security threat
• The Fall of France - Britain alone
• Congress ? all measures short of war

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American Preparedness and Aid to the Allies
(1939-1941)

• Military Preparedness Congress (1940) ?
• (1) two-ocean navy and a huge air force
• (2) Selective Service Act
• Destroyer-Naval Base Deal of 1940
• 50 over age destroyers gt bases in W.
  Hemisphere
• Lend Lease Act of 1941
• UK cash nearly exhausted FDR new leg. US gt
  arsenal of democracy Lend-Lease Act (aid to
  England)
• Merchants convoyed part way by US Navy

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American Preparedness and Aid to the Allies
(1939-1941)

• Embargo on Strategic Materials ? Japan
• US - Open Door Policy
• protests against occupation of French Indochina
  (1940-1941)
• Embargo gasoline, scrap iron, etc. assets in US
  frozen

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Battle of the Atlantic
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U-Boats Wolfpacks
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The Bismarck
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The Pacific Theater
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US Japanese Relations 1937-1941

• 1937 Japan Invades China (Peking, Shanghai, and
  other cities seized)
• The Rape of Nanking
• FDR forgoes the neutrality acts hopes to aid
  China (helps Japan more it had more merchant
  ships)
• Dec. 12, 1937 Japanese bombers sink the US
  gunboat Panay (Yangtze River) ? 2 killed
• US takes no action accepts Japans apology and
  2 million for damages (Isolationist sentiment
  very high)

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Invasion of China 1937
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An article on the "Contest to kill 100 people
using a sword" published in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi
Shimbun. The headline reads, Incredible
Record' (in the Contest to Cut Down 100 People)
Mukai 106 105 NodaBoth 2nd Lieutenants Go Into
Extra Innings.
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US Japanese Relations 1937-1941 Embargo Against
Japan

• Spring 1940 France and the Netherlands fall to
  Germany (colonies in Asia vulnerable)
• US Sec. of State Cordell Hull warns US will not
  tolerate Japanese military presence in European
  colonies in Asia
• Before the month ended, Vichy France agrees to
  cede control of French Indochina
• US responds w/ an embargo (scrap metal, oil, and
  aviation fuel)

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US Japanese Relations 1937-1941 (contd)

• Japan dependent on US for
• 90 of its scrap metal
• 60 of its oil
• The following day Japan announced it formed a
  military alliance with Germany and Italy
• July 1941, Japan occupied French Indochina
• US Response ? froze all Japanese accounts in
  American banks
• prevents Japan from buying any goods from the US
• Later US-Japanese negotiations fail

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Pearl Harbor

• 755 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941
• Japan attacks while Japanese diplomats were
  meeting with Hull
• US military had been warned of an attack but
  expected it in SE Asia
• Most of the fleet caught at anchor only the
  carriers were not docked
• A catastrophe for the US
• 19 ships destroyed (6 battleships)
• 180 aircraft destroyed
• 2,300 killed 2,000 wounded

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Pearl Harbor on October 30, 1941
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Photograph from a Japanese plane of Battleship
Row at the beginning of the attack. The explosion
in the center is a torpedo strike on the USS
Oklahoma. Two attacking Japanese planes can be
seen one over the USS Neosho and one over the
Naval Yard.
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• President Roosevelt, wearing a black armband,
  signs the Declaration of War against Japan on
  December 8, 1941
• Three days later, Germany and Italy declare war
  on the US US responds in kind