US and Planning for War2 Factions in the United States…

1)The isolationists (those wanting to avoid war) 2)The internationalists or interventionists (America must get involved in the war against fascist aggression) Before we get to them, let’s see what was happening?

REVIEW OF ARTICLE – MAIN CAUSES OF WORLD WAR IITreaty of Versailles and Punishment of Germany

Rise of Adolf Hitler (appeal to the masses)

Hitler reclaiming land lost-Austria-Sudetenland region in Czechoslovakia

Chamberlain and Policy of Appeasement – Will Hitler stop his aggression? NO-Munich Agreement

Hitler turns to Poland…-Made a pact with Soviet Union (Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact)

-Operation Himmler – stage a Polish attack on German Radio Station – gave them an excuse to invade

-Blitzkrieg (Lightening war) – sudden immense attackHitler turns to France…

-Conquered in 6 weeks

Hitler turns to Britain….-Air Raid Attacks

Failure of League of Nations (set up 1919) GOAL – help keep world safe

BUT Not all countries joinedLeague had no powerLeague had no armyUnable to act quickly – only met 4 x’s a year

Let’s first look towards the AtlanticIn September 1939– FDR calls special session of

Congress

•Why? New Policy of “cash-and-carry” military supplies from U.S.

- Permit nations to buy arms as long as they paid CASH and CARRIED the goods home in their own ships

Providing arms would help France and Britain defeat Hitler

**– best way to keep America out of war

Question you may ask…

Why is this a big deal?

•Well… In the 1930s, the United States Government enacted a series of laws designed to prevent the United States from being embroiled in a foreign war by clearly stating the terms of U.S. neutrality

– KNOWN AS Neutrality Acts –OUTLAWED ARMS SALES OR LOANS TO NATIONS AT WAR

Isolationists argued the opposite

“I do not believe that we can become an arsenal for one belligerent without becoming a target for another”

~ US Senator Vandenberg

Debated for 6 weeks…

• Congress passed law and Cash-and-Carry went into effect

HOWEVER….over the next few months, it began to look like too little, too late.

From your article…

• Summer 1940– France had fallen– Britain under siege from German air attacks

• September 1940– Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a mutual

defense treaty (Axis Powers)• Each nation agreed to go to the defense of the others in

case of attack• MEANING – If US were to declare war on any one of the

Axis Powers it would face a military nightmare 1 two-ocean war (Atlantic and Pacific)

1940…

• Britain had run out of money to “cash-and-carry” military supplies from U.S. so President asked Congress for “lend-lease” of arms and other supplies

• President would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was VITAL to the United States.”

• 1941 – Congress passed it

At this time of lend-lease…• Hitler, who had made a treaty with Stalin NOT TO

INVADE ignored it and INVADED the Soviet Union with 3 million troops (Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact you read about)

• Roosevelt began sending lend-lease supplies to the Soviet Union (HOWEVER SOME AMERICANS OPPOSED THIS)– Argued Hitler doing U.S. a FAVOR by attacking the

communists– BUT Roosevelt agreed with Churchill (Prime Minster of Britain)

– “If Hitler invaded hell, the British would be prepared to work with the devil himself”

For lend-lease to be successful, supply lines across the Atlantic had to be kept open

• To prevent delivery of shipments, Hitler deployed hundred of German U-Boats (subs) in the North Atlantic

• Wolf Packs (15-20 subs in group) searched shipping lanes for cargo ships

• Successful – sunk 1.2 million TONS of British shipping goods

• So…Roosevelt ordered U.S. Navy

to protect shipments (attack out of self-defense)

On Sept 4 – U-Boat Attack• A German U-Boat fired 2 torpedoes at the U.S.

destroyer Greer• Roosevelt announced – U.S. Navy..

FIRE ON GERMAN SHIPS ON SIGHT

“When you see a rattlesnake poised to

strike, you do not wait until he had struck

before you crush him…Nazi subs…are the rattlesnakes

of the Atlantic” ~FDR

2 weeks later…

• The Pink Star, an American merchant ship, was sunk off of Greenland– Cargo – machine tools, evaporated milk, cheddar

cheese (feed more than 3.5 million for a week)

Mid-October – U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed near Iceland

- 11 men died

“America has been attacked…the shooting has started…and history has recorded who fired the first shot.” ~ FDR

Few days after that…• German U-Boats sank the U.S. destroyer

Reuben James *Let’s Listen… (Guthrie 1942)

– Killed 100 sailors

Congress now allowed the arming of MERCHANT SHIPS…however Roosevelt knew something more persuasive would have to occur before Congress would declare war…

So what about the 2 sides….Let’s look at the two arguments

• Isolationist • Interventionist

Those wanting to avoid war Those who believed America must get involved in the war against fascist aggression

Let’s look at The Pacific Ocean.

In Japan, expansionists had long dreamed of creating a vast

colonial empire

Again…Failure of League of Nations

• In 1931, Japan was hit badly by the depression. – People lost faith in the government – Turned to the army to find a solution

.  

First, the Japanese army invaded Manchuria in China, an area rich in minerals and resources

Again…Failure of League of Nations

• China appealed to the League for help

• Response The Japanese government were told to order the army to leave Manchuria immediately. – However, the army took no notice of the

government and continued its conquest of Manchuria.

 

Again…Failure of League of Nations The League then called for countries to stop trading with Japan but because of the depression many countries did not want to risk losing trade and did not agree to the request.

The League then made a further call for Japan to withdraw from Manchuria but Japan's response was to leave the League of Nations.

Connecting Japan to Germany

Remember from the reading…in 1936

The Japanese had signed a pact with Nazi Germany because Germany looks like becoming the preeminent power in the West

Japanese occupation of China.• By 1938 there were 1 million Japanese troops in

China.– By 1941 … 2 million troops

• HOWEVER NOT ENOUGH - Japan could occupy only key areas and cities

• Out of fear and retaliation against Chinese they adopted The ‘Three All Campaign’

(‘Kill all, burn all, destroy all’)

General Okamuraimplemented the policy in Northern China

*BUT this brought the Japanese into conflict with other colonial powers (France, Britain, Netherlands)However by 1941, France and Netherlands had fallen to Germany – Britain was too busy fighting Hitler to block Japan - so the only one in the way…

UNITED STATES!

The Japanese army rapidly advanced through China, Indo-China, Malaya,

and Indonesia.Began taking over French military bases in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos)-Some Asian people welcome them as liberators from western Imperialists HOWEVER…soon they were generally feared as new imperialists, not as Asian liberators•They treated non-Japanese peoples with ruthlessness, cruelty and severity.

On Feb. 5, 1938, A Chinese woman surveys the remains of her family, all of whom met death by the Japanese during Japanese occupation of Nanking,China

Japanese soldiers execute captured Chinese soldiers with bayonets in a trench as other Japanese soldiers watch from rim

Take a look at the Imperial Japanese expansion up to 1941

(in brown)

Japanese Soldiers…

• Highly skilled in attack, defense, and jungle warfare.

• Highly motivated to defend their Emperor and their land to the death.

U.S. disliked the Japanese move of

expansion and invasion…

So they cut off trade with Japan

The embargoed (def: prohibited) goods included

one thing that Japan couldn’t live without… OIL

Japanese military leaders

warned without oil –

Japan could be defeated

Either negotiate with US or look to seize oil fields in Dutch East Indies

In October, the Japanese General Hideki Tojo became Prime Minister of Japan

When he met with the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Tojo PROMISED the government would try one more time to make peace with U.S.

*If peace talk failed – war would be the only option

**He also knew that because

America is bigger and more

powerful than Japan a

surprise assault is the only

realistic way to defeat her…

And so…

• On the same day as a special “peace” envoy was flying to the United States, Tojo ordered the Japanese Navy to prepare for an attack on the U.S.

December 7th 1941-the ‘day of infamy’

Infamy strong condemnation as the result of a shameful, criminal, or outrageous act

HOMEWORK

The Political Dr. SeussComplete Table and answer questions below

Due Wednesday

Pearl Harbor (Hawaii)

Why here? The major fleet base of the US navy in the Pacific. It was home to all the major US warships in the Pacific. Destruction of these ships would take out all the resistance to Japanese expansion to the East and South.

Map of Hawaii showing the Japanese bombing routes to Pearl Harbour, Oahu island, Hawaii. The plan was simple: destroy the US air force on the ground and then destroy all the defenceless

US ships in the harbour. To ensure surprise- attack on a Sunday.

Pearl Harbour