Follows the U.S. & its path to entering WWII

1. The Road to War
Ch. 17.4
pp. 585-589

2. Neutrality
• Focus on domestic concerns
• Great Depression, unemployment, New Deal
programs
• FDR seeking re-election in 1940
• Bitter taste left from WWI
• History of isolationism

3. Neutrality Acts
• 1935—Banned U.S. from providing weapons
to belligerent nations
• 1936—Banned loans to belligerent nations
• 1937—Permitted trade w/ belligerent nations,
but Cash & Carry only
• Didn’t help countries fighting aggression
• U.S. was part of the appeasement problem

4. Europe in 1940

5. Some action!
• Built military bases on British possessions in
the Atlantic
– In exchange for 50 destroyers given to Brits
– Ended neutrality by doing this!
• Congress increased defense spending and
had a peacetime draft
– Selective Service & Training Act—Sept. 1940
• 1st ever peacetime draft
• Ages 21-35; later 18-45
• U.S. had 2.2 million sailors & soldiers by Dec. 1941
• Roughly 10 million inducted via draft during WWII

6. Election of 1940
• FDR ran for an unprecedented 3rd term
– Not a constitutional amendment yet (22nd/1947)
• Wendell Willkie, lawyer & industrialist, no
political experience, darkhorse candidate, flip-flopped
on American intervention in WWII,
very critical of FDR’s New Deal & his attempt
at a 3rd term
• WWII was central issue
• FDR did esp. well in large urban areas

7. Election of 1940

8. Lend-Lease Act
• After winning election of 1940
• President had power to lease, lend, or
otherwise dispose of arms and other
equipment whose defense was considered
vital to the security of the US
• When Germany invaded the Soviets in
1941, they expanded the program to them

9. Four Freedoms Speech
• FDR’s State of the Union speech; Jan. 1941
• Four fundamental freedoms that people
everywhere should enjoy
– Freedom of speech
– Freedom of worship
– Freedom from want
– Freedom from fear
• Became a basis for war aims
• An attempt to gain public support

12. Atlantic Charter
• FDR and Churchill
• Ideological foundation of the Western
cause
• Similar to Fourteen Points in that it:
• Called for economic collaboration
• Guarantees of political stability
• Free trade, national self-determination,
collective security

14. Opposition to War
• America First Committee
– 800 K members in 1940
– Hoped to block further aid to Britain
– Charles Lindbergh=spokesperson

15. Japan/Pearl Harbor
• In July of 1940 FDR limited sale of supplies to
Japan
– Steel, iron
• Hoped to limit Japanese aggression; didn’t
work
• Later cut off all oil shipments
• War seemed inevitable

16. Japan/Pearl Harbor
• Hideki Tojo, militant
army officer, rose to
power in Japan in
October of 1941

17. Japan/Pearl Harbor
• Thanks to code-breaking
the U.S. knew
Japan was planning an
attack…but didn’t know
when
• Japan hoped to cripple
America’s Pacific Fleet
& achieve goals before
U.S. Navy could recover

18. Japan/Pearl Harbor
• Attacked at 7 AM on
December 7, 1941
• A Sunday
• Japanese airplanes were
detected on radar, but
ignored
• W/in an hour 180 planes
had arrived
• ½ of the Pacific Fleet was
located there
• Attack was over by 9:45
AM
• 2,400 Americans killed
• 200 warplanes
damaged/destroyed
• 18 warships
sunk/damaged
• Japan lost only 29 planes

19. Japan/Pearl Harbor
• FDR declared war on
Japan the next day.
• “A date which will live in
infamy.”
• Germany & Italy
declared war on the
U.S. on December 11,
1941