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America Moves Towards
War
The United States Musters Its
Forces
• Moving Cautiously Away from
Neutrality
– Sept. 1939, FDR persuaded Congress to
pass a “Cash & Carry” provision
– Providing arms to other countries like
France & Britain
• Help them defeat Hitler w/o having to
actually enter the war
– Congress passed the Neutrality Act of
1939
• The Axis Threat
– By summer of 1940, France & Britain
were under siege
– FDR started sending supplies to Britain
to help with the war effort
– He called his aid:
– “All Aid Short of War”
– The Tripartite Pact is signed by
Germany, Italy & Japan – the countries
become known as the Axis Powers
– The Axis Powers goal was to keep the
United States out of the war
– The Axis Powers made a pact saying if
the United States attacked any of them,
the other countries would come to their
defense creating a Two-Front/Ocean
war for the United States
• Building U.S. Defenses
– FDR asked Congress to increase
spending for national defense
– Congress also passed the Selective
Training & Service Act
• 1940: 1st peace time Draft in history!
• FDR Runs for a Third Term
– FDR was the first president to run for a
3rd Term
– His Republican opponent was Wendell
Willkie
– Both men promised to keep American
out of the war
– FDR was re-elected with nearly 55% of
the votes cast
“The Great Arsenal of
Democracy”
• The Lend-Lease Plan
– Britain had no money to spend on
defending their country
– FDR creates the Lend-Lease policy
– Isolationists did not support the policy
but most of the American people
supported the policy and Congress
passed the Lend-Lease Act in March of
1941
• Supporting Stalin
– June 1941 Hitler broke his agreement
with Stalin not to invade the Soviet
Union
– FDR started to send lend-lease supplies
to the Soviet Union
– FDR said the reason he was sending
supplies was because “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend”
• German Wolf Packs
– To prevent the lend-lease supplies from
reaching Britain & the Soviet Union,
Hitler used German submarines, UBoats, to attack ships
– The attacks became known as wolf pack
attacks
– In 1941, FDR granted the navy
permission to attack any U-Boats in
self-defense
FDR Plans for War
• The Atlantic Charter
– FDR and Churchill met secretly aboard
the battleship USS Augusta to discuss
plans
– Both countries signed a joint
declaration of war aims called the
Atlantic Charter
– The Atlantic Charter became the basis
of a “A Declaration of the United
Nations” later
– The Allied powers became nations that
fought the Axis powers
• Shoot on Sight
– After a U.S. destroyer was attacked by a
German sub FDR told the navy to shoot
the submarines on sight
– The attacks on American Navel &
Merchant ships continued, and the
Senate repealed the ban against arming
merchant ships
Japan Attack the United
States
• Japan’s Ambitions in the Pacific
– In July 1937, Hideki Tojo, chief of staff
of Japan’s Kwantung Army, launched
an invasion of China
– By 1941 only the U.S. and the Pacific
Islands remained not under Japanese
control in the Pacific Ocean
– The United States cut off trade with
Japan including the goods Japan most
needed (fuel)
• Peace Talks are Questioned
– Tojo became the prime minister of
Japan and told Emperor Hirohito he
would attempt to preserve peace with
the U.S.
– November 5, 1941, Tojo told the
Japanese navy to prepare for an attack
on the United States
– US broke Japan’s codes and knew a
strike was coming, but didn’t know
where
– FDR sent out a ‘war warning’ to military
commanders in Hawaii, Guam, and the
Philippines
– The peace talks between Japan and the
US lasted for a month
– December 6, 1941, FDR received a
decoded message telling the Japanese
to reject all American peace proposals
• The Attack on Pearl Harbor
– Early on Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was
attacked by the Japanese
– Pearl Harbor was the largest US navel
base in the Pacific
– The attack was over by 9:30 that
morning
– In less than two hours 2,403 people had
died and 1,178 were wounded and the
raid had sunk or destroyed 21 ships
• Reaction to Pearl
Harbor
– The next day FDR
addressed Congress
and they quickly
approved the
request for a
declaration of war
against Japan
– Three days later
Germany and Italy
declared war on the
U.S.