1. America Moves Toward War
ML Chap 16: Section 4

2. Moving Away from Neutrality
In Sept ‘39 FDR persuaded Congress to pass the “cash-and-carry” provision that would allow nations to buy US arms so long as they paid cash and transported them in their own ships
Isolationists attacked FDR for this but he argued this would help Brits & Fr defeat Hitler and keep the US out of war

3. US Increasingly Less Neutral
US began to supply rifles and machine guns
US traded 50 old destroyers for leases on Brit military bases in the Caribbean
Churchill commented that this was a “decidedly unneutral act.”

4. Tripartite Pact
Pact was announced between Germany, Japan and Italy in Sept 1940
3 countries became known as Axis Powers
It was aimed at keeping US out of war
Each Axis power was commited to come to the defense of the other
So if US declared one on one it would find itself involved in a much dreaded 2-front war

5. Increased US Defense Spending
Nazi victories changed US thinking
Congress passed the Selective Training & Service Act
FDR decides to run for 3rd term but his challenger, Wendall Willkie, supported FDRs policy of aiding Brit which disappointed isolationists

6. Great Arsenal of Democracy
FDR said during fireside chat that it would be impossible to negotiate peace with Hitler.
FDR proposed lend-lease policy which would lend/lease arms to “any country whose defense was vital to the US.”
Passed in 1941 & FDR compared it to lending a neighbor a hose to put out a fire.

7. Lend-lease to Stalin
Hitler violated his agreement with Stalin and attacked the USSR in June 1941
FDR supplied Soviets with arms as well

8. Response to Wolf Pack Attacks
FDR granted the navy permission to attack German U-boats in self-defense
By late ‘43 the submarine menace was contained by electronic detection techniques such as: radar and airborne antisubmarine patrols operating from aircraft carriers.

9. Atlantic Charter
FDR & Churchill met secretly on the battleship USS Augusta
They issued joint declaration known as the Atlantic Charter which pledged:
Collective security
Economic cooperation
Disarmament
Self-Determination
Became the basis for a new doc called “A Declaration of the United Nations”
Name UN was chosen to express common purpose of Allies, signed by 26 nations

10. Japan Attacks the US
As Europeans were preoccupied with Hitler their colonies were invaded in Asia
Hideki Tojo, launched an invasion of China in 1937
When Japan took over Fr Indochina the US protested this event with a trade embargo (e.g. oil)
Japan needed oil to continue its war of aggression

11. Peace Talks Are Questioned
Tojo promised the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, that he would try and preserve the peace with the US but later ordered the Japanese navy to prepare an attack.
US had broken Japan’s secret communication codes & learned that Japan was planning an attack.
US just didn’t know when and where
FDR sent out “war warning”

12. Pearl Harbor
180 Japanese planes attacked the largest US naval base in the Pacific
2403 killed
Losses constituted more than was lost in all WWI
3 aircraft carriers just happened to be away that day.
Their survival will prove crucial to the war’s outcome

13. Reaction to Pearl Harbor
Congress quickly approved FDR’s request for dec of war
3 days later Germany & Italy declared war on US
Many who had been isolationists clearly changed their positions such as Senator Burton Wheeler who proclaimed “The only thing now to do is to lick the hell out of them.”