Module 7

World Power Wobbles, FDR and the American Response

  1. In the US, the political environment favored avoiding foreign entanglements and followed traditional isolationism. This held true despite warning signs since 1933 that Germany was restless and arming itself once again. By 1934, FDR and the US administration were well aware of the dangers presented by Nazism and their plans for European and eventually world domination but chose to restrict American involvement.
    1. Munich Pact (1938): Britain and France tried a policy of appeasement: essentially, “give them a little of what they want to keep them off our backs” which meant that they let Germany take back certain regions such as the Rhineland, eastern border between Germany and France. Why there and then? Some WWI brokers had doubts about whether the Treaty of Versailles had allowed Germany self-determination since many Germans inhabited these other regions.
    2. As Germany took their Aryan supremacy to new heights by overrunning Austria, Poland, and then Belgium on their way to France, the other European nations responded based on treaty alliances: World War II began in 1939 in Europe
    3. US watched dictators rise in Germany (Nazi Party “Brown Shirts” and Adolph Hitler), Italy (Benito Mussolini), and Japan (military hierarchy) without taking action or offering support to European nations
    4. Isolationism ruled US policy
      1. Passed Neutrality Acts in 1935, 1936, 1937.
      2. Why did FDR choose to stay neutral? Three main factors:
        1. Economic exigencies of the Depression made isolationists arguments plausible, essentially “We’re suffering here at home, why should we get involved if it doesn’t affect us directly?”
        2. The findings of the Nye Senate Committee—which said that bankers, financiers, and munitions manufacturers had goaded the US to enter WWI when it shouldn’t have—convinced most Americans that isolationism was the most virtuous course
        3. To ensure support from isolationists in Congress whom he needed to pass New Deal initiatives, FDR abandoned efforts to support the League of Nations push to control fascist aggression in Japan, Italy, Spain and Germany (the four nations who would create the Axis powers in WWII)
      3. FDR’s response through the 1930s was to support adequate homeland defenses, encourage naval expansion to protect American territories and coastlines, and talk readily with world leaders, but American public opinion swayed him to continue a policy of neutrality.
  2. US Preparedness & Involvement: What Changed?
    1. Attitudes in US early on:
      1. Broad feeling existed that Germany was less to blame for WWI, so initially felt Hitler not really more evil than the moral quality of WWI leaders in which millions were slaughtered with no clear reason
      2. Fears and expectation that a new war would lead to a repetition of trench warfare and deadlock with no winners so stay out to protect American servicemen from pointless warfare
      3. After France falls, many project a sense of fatalism over German victory; they had overrun France in mere days so what could America possibly do to stop it and why should they?
    2. Many students ask, what was America’s response and attitude once they learned about persecution of Jews? Some answers…
      1. In 1938, FDR called a conference of 32 nations at Evian-le-Bains, France, in response to Hitler’s burning of Munich’s Great Synagogue and subsequent deportation of 15,000 Jews to Buchenwald concentration camp. His purpose was to discuss what countries would accept Jews as émigrés.
      2. FDR maintained that the depression and immigration quotas prohibited the US from taking more than a token number. Of the 32 nations, only densely populated Holland agreed to take Jews in any large number. Unfortunately, the Nazis took this anti-Semitic feeling as a green light in late 1938 to launch Kristallnacht (a night of brutal attacks throughout Germany on Jews and their property) and devised the 1941 “final solution” to exterminate Jews.
      3. The Germans tried to hide reports of their plan but news stories leaked the information to the US by 1942; at which time, FDR’s administration confirmed over 2 million Jewish deaths. However, American newspapers buried the information about atrocities on the back pages and the US did little to bomb railways leading to concentration camps’ gas chambers much less allow greater immigration into the US.
      4. Why were Americans reluctant to act?
        1. Americans were hostile to any immigration into the US (by any group) during the depression for fear of job competition and further drains on the economic system
        2. Anti-Semitism fueled the debate to keep Jews out (example: remember how much the KKK had grown during the 1930s and one of their beliefs was exclusion of Jews)
        3. The stories of the Holocaust seemed too horrible to be true. Many Americans also felt the reports were exaggerated propaganda by yellow journalists hoping to spur America to join the war (i.e. similar to WWI and even the Spanish-American War of 1898)
        4. The Jewish community itself was divided; Zionists on one hand wanted a Jewish state in Palestine not immigration to other countries while others feared to alienate the already anti-Semitic US State Department for fear of deportation and further restrictions on the current quotas.
    3. Official change to US policy occurred in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and France, and England (who had protective alliances with both nations) declared war on Germany.
      1. FDR immediately began to persuade Congress to repeal the arms embargo but Congress abandoned neutrality only gradually; first granting selected belligerents the right to buy US weapons on a cash-and-carry basis and then lend lease programs first to Great Britain then the Soviet Union.
      2. Though the US was already on the brink of war in Europe, it went to war with Japan first; largely in response to Japanese military clique plans to launch massive attacks on US bases in the Pacific. Japan hoped to deter US opposition to their strategy to dominant Asia and the Pacific Rim by having the US sign a peace treaty with them. Despite an awareness of the looming threat, the US did not expect nor were they prepared for an attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
    4. After 1938, major military buildup as the US passed a defense budget of over 1 billion dollars: Naval Acts passed, aircraft upgraded, tanks advanced
      1. Selective Service Act (1940): first peacetime draft in US history, called 1.2 million men to army service by late 1940 (in all, over 15 million American men would serve by 1945)
      2. concern that with France defeated and Britain threatened that US must lend aid; no strict neutrality as with WWI
        1. Destroyers for Bases Deal (1940)–trade US destroyers in return for strategic bases in the Carribbean
        2. Lend-Lease Act (1941): loan equipment and ammunition with idea that Britain and Allies would “return” the materials after war was over (nice gloss, hmm, because who’d want a tank full of holes back and how do you return ammunition once it’s been used? Still, it maintained an official neutrality until the US was prepared to say otherwise)
        3. US abandons any pretense of neutrality by late 1940, and moves to non-belligerent status rather than neutral (will not fight unless have to defend itself)–staff consultations by mid-1941 for joint war plans in the event of attack
    5. Pearl Harbor-December 7, 1941: Japanese aerial fleet attack US base in Hawaiian Islands and catapult US into WWII (stupid for Japan to do in reality but benefited Allies as gave US final push into the conflict)
      1. wiped out many sailors, officers, and destroyers but luckily most of the US aircraft carriers were out on maneuvers so they were spared as well as most of the submarine fleet (this became the navy’s saving grace later on for US operations in the Pacific)
      2. US had been aware of an imminent attack but did not know where, assumed strike on Philippines as intelligence reports pointed to that area as most likely first strike area
      3. though warships destroyed, Japanese bombers left Hawaiian infrastructure intact, thus allowing the US to rebuild faster; ironically, the elimination of much of the old fleet proved that aircraft carriers were superior and sea worthy compared to simply destroyers alone
      4. Congress declared war on Japan the following day, December 8, and in response–due to their alliance with Japan under the Tripartite Treaty–Germany and Italy declared war on the US three days later. Thus, by December 11, 1941, the US was fully embroiled in the conflict in two theaters. Up to that point, it was considered a very dangerous and historically bad strategy to fight wars on two fronts at the same time. WWII would radically change ideas about warfare and strategic initiatives in an age of the industrial war machine.
    6. US military response to WWII would take a two pronged approach: (1) stem tide of Japanese aggression in the Pacific and (2) save Great Britain and the Soviet Union from Nazi defeat in Europe.
  3. Pacific theater: US was the primary nation at war with Japanese, with support from Australia and Britain
    1. The US turned its attention to Japan first because it had already captured Guam, Wake Island, Singapore, and the Philippines by summer 1942. These islands were the core outposts to protect American interests in the Pacific (remember the imperial grab back in the 1890s?) and thus symbolically and strategically important. By April 1942, the US struck back; first retribution for Pearl Harbor in Doolittle’s Raid on Tokyo and then a two-pronged attack to recapture the Philippines and lesser islands in the mid-Pacific.
    2. Submarine warfare in Pacific, with fierce sea, air, and land battles. American servicemen and leadership also learned that the nature of the Japanese military was different in that to surrender was shameful so few Japanese POWs were captured and American POWs were treated very badly (seen as cowards by Japanese servicemen).
    3. Some pivotal battles:
      1. Battle of Coral Sea: May 1942, precipitated by the Doolittle’s Raid over Japan where B-25s dropped many bombs where one almost kills Japanese Emperor (whom Japanese view as a god), thus to retaliate Japan seeks out the US to fight what Alfred Thayer Mahan described as a decisive naval battle—ends in a draw
      2. Midway (June 1942): Japan attacks the island of Midway which US holds, by sheer luck US planes find Japanese fleet of carriers first and in 5 minutes destroy 5 Japanese carriers—a major blow to Japan because they have little ability to rebuild and US industrial machine was stronger; greatest American naval success in Pacific
      3. Guadalcanal (August 1942): 1 of great WWII battles, only airfield strategic importance but moral victory over Japan, showed deficiencies in Japanese tactics, and that US troops equal to Japanese soldiers.
      4. Island hopping: idea/strategy that US takes over every other island in Pacific chain as depots and to ward off Japanese fleet, stretched US resources they didn’t have to hold every island in the massive Sea of Japan and SE Asia
      5. By late 1944 and 1945, US (under Curtis Lemay) has changed strategy toward attacking the Japanese homeland by launching night raids on Japanese islands using incendiary weapons (most effective because residences and manufacturing were generally wooden structures)
      6. Iwo Jima (first island attacked in that part of Japanese country): massive fighting, very bloody but US wanted for refuge of damaged planes and to knock out Japanese radar to anticipate the raids on the Japanese homeland
      7. Finally, decision to drop the Atomic bomb on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is much controversy over this decision. Why did Truman decide to drop the A-bomb?
        1. During the Potsdam conference to discuss the postwar structure of Europe, Truman learned that the A-bomb had been successfully detonated at Alamogordo Air Force Base in New Mexico.
        2. Truman’s secret Interim Committee of scientists and government officials had originally considered how using it could be used to control the Soviet Union. Furthermore, if the US bombed Japan, the US would not need Russian support in the Pacific to win the peace thus avoiding Russian incursion into Korea and Manchuria during the liberation process there.
        3. Truman also wanted to save lives. The planned invasion of Japan in fall 1945 was projected to be a bloodbath with massive US casualties thus Truman saw this move as preemptive to save American lives while forcing Japan’s surrender.
        4. Moral concerns were mostly allayed by memories of Pearl Harbor and atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during the Pacific war.
    4. Victory over Japan (VJ Day); Japan surrenders on September 2, 1945 (4 months after Germany had conceded)
  4. Atlantic theater
    1. Great Britain was all but starving to death by 1942 due to German blockades so the US began shipping massive amounts of supplies to aid the besieged country. However, there was a problem.
      1. German “wolf packs” with superior firepower and submarines controlled the Atantic, also had German-held France as launch zone against US navy
        1. German techniques split up the convoy system so does little to protect US ships; many US subs sank off the coast because their position was shown by reflected light, also problems of inexperienced sailors and shortages of subs and personnel
        2. Solutions: massive building program for escort vessels, develop aircraft support, radar, sonar, better ordinance
          1. Project ULTRA: technique for intercepting and decoding German orders, code broken by the British, to read German transcripts (one of the 1st uses of the computer, called the Enigma Machine helped break the code)
    2. By late Summer 1943, tide turned to Allies in Atlantic, 62 convoys then moved across safely; only 30% of the total German submarine personnel survived the war/massive casualties (70% died in service to the Nazi regime).
  5. Air Campaign in Europe: US had developed B-17 long range bomber, called the “Flying Fortress,” to deliver large amounts of bombs into enemy territory
    1. Significant difference in WWII: belief all around that civilian infrastructure must be destroyed before victory achieved because could not defeat enemy armed forces
    2. US performed day raids on German military and industrial targets, British thought they were nuts, massive losses but they got results
      1. attacked U-boat “pens” in France in surprise attack, not defended and no German air support so much of the German sub fleet was damaged or destroyed
      2. mainly took out industrial centers, chemical plants and munitions
      3. massive devastation but never really eliminates German capacity to continue war effort, large civilian casualties, example: Hamburg bombed so much that massive firestorms emerged, sucked out all the oxygen from the city so people suffocated and died where they stood (even where there were no fires at all)
    3. Problem arose with B-17, effective delivery system but needed protection so need to develop fighter escorts (little available in 1943)
      1. eventually develop fighter planes: P51 Mustang (1 of the finest propeller planes ever built) to escort but lucky that Hitler did not push for jet planes as his advisors wanted, strategic bombing campaign dropped over 70% of total bombs in war from June 1944-Spring 1945
      2. defeated German Luftwaffe with losses in air/on ground
  6. Land Campaign in Europe: US wanted to use Marines (remember Ellis had promoted and changed their service during the 1920s?) to storm across the English channel and into France to cut off the Germans, British rejected the plan initially as they were bogged down in the Mediterranean
    1. Early 1943, Kasserine Pass: US suffers bad defeat in first contact with Germany, other efforts in Italy are only part successful
    2. To liberate Italy, retake Rome by mid-1944 but stalemated by Alps to the North
    3. Massive attacks on French infrastructure to take out bridges, roads, canals to prep for cross-channel invasion, debate when/where to launch
    4. Normandy (June 6, 1944): extremely difficult and dangerous, but turning point in Europe, Allies advantage at Normandy was air control and intelligence
      1. 1 of largest material endeavors: 2.9 mil men, thousands of ships, 11,000 aircraft (Operation Overlord)
      2. Does not end war, fighting continues in Normandy, the Ardennes forest, Falaise-Pocket (E FR)–undecided, Market Garden–undecided, Battle of the Bulge–one of largest US involvements which was considered a victory
    5. Victory in Europe (VE Day) – May 1945

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