America enters WWII

8 Key excerpts on "America enters WWII"

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  Origins of the Warfare State

  World War II and the Transformation of American Politics

  • Carl Boggs(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 From Pearl Harbor to the “Asian Pivot” The optimum point of departure for exploring how World War II has shaped American politics is surely Pearl Harbor—not simply the Japanese attack itself but the complex historical forces leading up to, surrounding, and following the attack. An epic moment in twentieth-century history, the Pearl Harbor events have few parallels either militarily or politically, for the U.S. or the world at large. It clearly goes down in the lore of armed strategy as one of the most daring, risky, and audaciously successful military exploits ever, all the more astonishing given the vastly unequal power relationship between the Japanese and the U.S. It brought destruction of the American battleship fleet in the Pacific—a fleet in those years viewed with awe and envy around the world. At a time of strong public and elite antiwar sentiment, the attack brought the U.S. into World War II against the Axis powers, giving the country a profound sense of wronged self-righteousness that fueled its four-year pursuit of war to victorious conclusion. The events fundamentally altered the way Americans came to view the global arena and the U.S.’s place within it. Just as important, the Pearl Harbor attack set the U.S. on a path towards an institutionalized military-industrial system without rival—a warfare state that would sink deep roots in the economy, political system, and culture, from which there would be no retreat or reversal. World War II established an historical trajectory that would persist well into the twenty-first century. Although Pearl Harbor in the early 1940s symbolized defeat and humiliation for the U.S., the attack has over time been duly celebrated in the form of an endless production of ceremonies, rituals, books, TV specials, monuments, and of course Hollywood movies

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  Ways of War

  American Military History from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century

  • Matthew S. Muehlbauer, David J. Ulbrich(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  With its quagmire in China not improving, Japan turned to Southeast Asia as another area ripe for conquest. The region held incredible natural resources of oil and rubber in French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and British Malaya. By late 1940, only the British and American forces could stop the Japanese. Although fighting for survival against Germany in Europe, the British maintained a major naval base in Singapore. It stood in the way of Japanese expansion into the “Southern Resource Area.” In addition, American forces under General Douglas MacArthur’s command in the Philippines, Marine Corps units on Pacific islands, and movement of the Pacific Fleet from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor posed serious threats to Japanese territorial ambitions. For their part, the Japanese, most notably Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, began planning to launch several preemptive strikes against Anglo-American forces that would buy Japan time to finish mobilizing for war against those nations.

  In September 1940, another alarming event occurred when representatives of Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact. Although not binding like a treaty, this pact unified the three nations in a common cause to continue consolidating their gains, expanding further beyond their borders, and assisting one another if attacked. It was an indication that the regional conflicts in East Asia and Western Europe were evolving into a truly global war.

  These events in Asia and Europe were not lost on President Franklin Roosevelt. He reacted by slowly increasing diplomatic and economic pressures against these potential adversaries. He initiated an embargo on exporting American aircraft and aircraft parts to Japan in January 1939. Later in November, the president convinced Congress to modify the strict Neutrality Act of 1937 to allow American sale of arms to France and Great Britain.

  After the defeat of France in 1940, Roosevelt adopted a short-of-war strategy that gave him more flexibility in supplying weapons, equipment, and financial support to the British. This support tipped the American hand to Adolf Hitler and the Germans. Repeating their efforts during the First World War to blockade the British home islands, the German Navy’s U-boats once again searched the Atlantic Ocean for merchant ships to attack. In the closing months of 1939, the U-boats German teamed with surface vessels and aircraft to sink 700,000 tons of shipping and inflicted another four million tons of losses in both 1940 and 1941. Few of the victimized ships, however, flew American flags until late 1941.

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  American Military History

  A Survey From Colonial Times to the Present

  • William Thomas Allison, Jeffrey G. Grey, Janet G. Valentine(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  World War II was the greatest and most destructive conflict in history and one that helped to cement the American rise to global dominance. The Allies could not have won the war without the involvement of the United States, and with the United States in the war, they ultimately could not lose it, either. The United States did not win the war alone. Victory in Europe could not have been achieved without the Allies; the Soviets had many more divisions in the field, fought the majority of the German forces deployed on the continent, and tore the heart out of the German war effort in a series of extensive and very costly offensives. Britain provided significant forces but, more importantly, was the primary staging area for the Allied return to Western Europe. The United States was much more the driver of the war against Japan, but even here the Allied efforts by Australia, China, and other Allied nations need to be considered.

  By taking a leading part in the occupation of Germany and the overwhelming lead in the occupation of Japan, the United States remade those societies along liberal-democratic and capitalist lines and helped both to create the economic miracles in those countries and to reshape them as participatory democracies and significant allies in the ensuing Cold War with the Soviet Bloc. The seeds of success in the Cold War, ultimately, were sown through the generosity of the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of defeated enemies and the far-sighted decisions by the Truman administration not to repeat the failures that occurred after 1919 and to remain engaged with the rest of the world.

  For the American military, World War II was a triumph of mobilization, procurement, leadership, and combat capability. A staggering 16 million Americans had been equipped, trained, and deployed to fight this war. Over 291,000 of them died in battle, with another 113,000 dead from other causes. Over 670,000 had been wounded. Victory over Germany and Japan, however, did not guarantee lasting peace. A new and different conflict was brewing even as World War II was still being fought.

  Further Reading

  Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 . New York: Henry Holt, 2002.

  Atkinson, Rick. The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944 . New York: Henry Holt, 2007.

  Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944–1945 . New York: Henry Holt, 2013.

  Frank, Richard. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire . New York: Random House, 1999.

  Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan

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  History of American Foreign Policy, Volume 2

  From 1895

  • Jerald A Combs(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Perhaps the best evidence against a Roosevelt conspiracy is that it made no political or strategic sense. If Roosevelt had wanted to galvanize American opinion to fight the Axis, he did not have to sacrifice the fleet; a Japanese attack on an empty harbor would have sufficed. No one knew at the time that the battleships and cruisers lost at Pearl Harbor would prove obsolete and that the carriers would be decisive in the naval war to come. Besides, Roosevelt did not want war in the Pacific; he wanted to fight the far greater threat of Hitler in Europe. There was no guarantee that Pearl Harbor would bring America into the European conflict. It might even have diverted American public attention to the Pacific and made a declaration of war against Germany all the more difficult. Fortunately for Roosevelt, he did not have to request war against Germany as well as Japan. Hitler cheered Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States. He had avoided provoking conflict while Roosevelt extended aid to Britain, but evidently he had concluded that war was inevitable. Roosevelt had waited until Japan forced his hand, but now Americans were united in their commitment to World War II.

  Controversial Issues

  America’s entry into World War II caused far less historical controversy than its entry into World War I. World War I revisionists Charles A. Beard, Charles Tansill, and Harry Elmer Barnes survived to write parallel denunciations of World War II, but historians dismissed them far more quickly than they had the earlier ones. (These World War I and World War II revisionists are to be distinguished from the more modern revisionists who have been writing since the advent of the Cold War.) Beard, Tansill, Barnes, and their revisionist compatriots denied that either Germany or Japan had posed a serious threat to American interests or security. They admitted that Hitler was a dangerous neurotic, but his major goal had been the destruction of the Soviet Union. If Roosevelt had stood aside, Hitler and Stalin would have demolished each other. If, in the process, Germany and Japan had destroyed the British Empire as well, that was no concern of the United States.

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  World War II

  A Global History

  • Michael J. Lyons, David J. Ulbrich(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  8 America’s Path to War and Japan’s Tide of Victories, 1939–1942

  If Germany’s growing military disaster in the Soviet Union was not bad enough, Hitler committed his second blunder. He declared war on December 11, 1941, on the United States, opening the prospect of a really serious two-front conflict. Hitler’s decision marked the culmination of steadily deteriorating relations between the two countries since the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. The events in Europe unfolded while Japan and America also embarked on a collision course that led to war in the Pacific. The Japanese would only enjoy six months of victories in Asia and the Pacific between December 1941 and May 1942 while the United States transitioned to wartime economy and military.

  The United States in the 1930s: From Neutrality to Rearmament

  Over time, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt grew ever more supportive of Britain in the struggle against Nazi Germany. Even so, he hesitated to push matters too far, especially without assurance that American public opinion would be receptive to his policies. This approach was characteristic of Roosevelt’s keen political instincts that helped guide him through his successful career. A member of a wealthy New York family and a distant cousin of former President Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin possessed boundless energy and endearing charisma. He won his first elected office as New York State senator in 1910. Early in his career, his one shortcoming may have been arrogance. He enjoyed the best schools, contacts, and opportunities that only the most privileged upbringing could provide. This elitism gave him a certain aloofness.

  Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during Woodrow Wilson’s administration from 1913 until 1920. Roosevelt learned how the U.S. Navy functioned in wartime, and he also interacted with many of the men later rising to flag rank in World War II. Roosevelt encountered his first major defeat in politics as the Democratic party’s vice presidential candidate in the disastrous election of 1920. Then in August 1921, an attack of polio nearly killed him. Although he recovered from some of the symptoms, the affliction left his lower body paralyzed. He could not walk without braces and assistance for the rest of his life. Roosevelt was 39 years old at that time. He spent the next several years in rehabilitation and therapy hoping to regain strength and mobility in his legs. Although he also lost two inches in height, his physical therapy helped develop his upper body strength and made him seem vigorous and energetic.

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  War, Peace and International Relations

  An introduction to strategic history

  • Colin S. Gray(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Given their ambitions and assumptions, Japanese leaders were in an unenviable position in late 1941. They could not abandon the war in China. They could not endure the oil embargo, because it must have the consequence that the armed forces, especially the Imperial Navy, would grow progressively weaker, to the point where they would be literally unable to move and fight. Furthermore, Japan was well aware that the United States was midway through a programme of headlong rearmament. It would be far more formidable as a military adversary from 1943 onwards than it was in 1941 and would be in 1942. Predictably – dare one say inevitably? – diplomacy failed to produce an acceptable compromise. Japan decided to strike in a bid to fight its way out of its strategic dilemma. But where to strike? What would be the objectives? How would the new acquisitions be defended? And, given the inherent strength of the United States, how could Japan avoid eventual defeat?

  Key points

  1. World War II in Europe appeared to provide Japan with the permissive strategic context it needed in order to solve its economic and strategic problems.
  2. The decline of China, and the chaos there that succeeded the 1911 revolution, created the opportunity for Japan to seek a great continental empire.
  3. US–Japanese antagonism pre-dated Pearl Harbor by nearly forty years. It was fed by racial and cultural disdain, but it centred upon Japanese policy towards China.
  4. In 1941, Japan's decision not to join Germany in the war against the Soviet Union was probably a strategic error.
  5. US-led efforts to deter Japan from further aggression in 1940–1 had the reverse effect from the one intended. Economic sanctions drove Japan to war.
  6. Japan and the United States did not wish to fight each other, but their policies towards China were comprehensively irreconcilable. Compromise was impossible.

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  The Second World War

  • A. W. Purdue(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  The wisdom of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor can be criticised on the grounds that if Japan had attacked British and Dutch possessions but not American territories, the USA might well have not intervened militarily. The Japanese attack, which, like that on the Russians at Port Arthur a half century earlier, had taken place without a declaration of war, had the immediate effect of uniting American opinion behind a war with Japan and, after Hitler’s declaration of war on the USA, with Germany and Italy. If there had to be a war with the USA, however, Yamamoto’s daring raid gave Japan the best possible start. Japan’s strategy was to conquer a large economically self-sufficient empire in South-East Asia and the southwest Pacific and then go on the defensive. In view of the potential strength of the United States and the effect of Pearl Harbor on American public opinion, this, in itself, was a desperate strategy, but given war with the USA, it was the best available. Its success depended on two things, a rapid conquest of the targeted territories and subsequent success in defending the perimeter of the conquests. Other factors, which might determine success or failure, were out of the hands of the Japanese and largely depended upon the progress of the war in Europe, but in the fluid world of 1942, Japan could hope for the success of her Axis allies.

  The support of those allies was immediately made manifest with the declarations of war on the US by Germany and Italy. These declarations appeared to link the fortunes of the Axis partners and to turn a European and a Far Eastern war into a world war. Yet little thought had been given in Berlin and Tokyo as to how the Axis powers might co-operate and co-ordinate their strategies. The war in Europe and the war in the Far East were to remain largely separate, connected only by the active involvement of Britain and the USA in both.

  Why Germany declared war on the most powerful economy, and potentially the most powerful military state in the world, has long puzzled historians. Germany had, after all, previously ignored America’s increasingly overt support for Britain and been careful to avoid provocation. Many have concluded that Hitler had simply abandoned the degree of caution that had qualified his daring prior to Barbarossa

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  The Great Sea War: The Story Of Naval Action In World War II

  • E. B. Potter, Fleet-Admiral Chester W. Nimitz(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Verdun Press

    (Publisher)

  As it became apparent that Japan was preparing to move south, the United States attempted to concert plans with potential allies. The ABC-1 Conference held in Washington early in 1941, besides establishing the European theater as primary, designated the Pacific theater as the responsibility of the United States in event of war with Japan. A conference at Singapore in April proved ineffectual, producing only a recommendation for mutual support against aggression.

  The Japanese advance in Indo-China was, in American eyes, the crucial issue. When in July 1941 the Japanese announced that the Vichy government had agreed to a “joint protectorate” of Indo-China, the United States countered by freezing all Japanese assets in the United States, thus at long last shutting off the supply of oil. This move precipitated the final crisis. Japan had to have oil or see her military machine grind to a halt. In October the Konoye government fell, and a military government headed by General Tojo took over. In November a special Japanese envoy arrived in the United States to assist Ambassador Nomura in negotiations looking toward a resumption of the flow of oil. The failure of these negotiations led directly to Pearl Harbor.

  United States Preparations

  The approach of war in the Pacific found the United States preparing but still unprepared. In 1938, in accordance with a directive of Congress, the Hepburn Board had recommended an extensive program for development of Pacific bases. Except for the fortification of Guam, most of the board’s recommendations were adopted, and work was under way when war broke out.

  The greater part of the United States Fleet had long been based on the West Coast, but in the spring of 1940 President Roosevelt, in the hope of deterring Japan from further aggression, directed that it be based at Pearl Harbor. Here it lay somewhat exposed while, after the outbreak of war in Europe, much of the new construction went to the Atlantic. In the spring of 1941, because of the necessity for convoying Lend-Lease goods, Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, transferred from the Pacific to the Atlantic three battleships, the carrier Yorktown,

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