America Responses (reacts) to events in Europe

Photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt that portrays an American sailor kissing a young nurse in a white dress on Victory over Japan (V-J Day) in Time Square, New York City, on August 14, 1945. Japan official surrender on Sept 2, 1945.

Returned to Isolationism after The Great War

• Part of our past history

• Disillusioned (disheartened) by the Great War

• Many young men had been killed or wounded

• Felt betrayed by European nation who had not paid debts

• Did not want to be drawn into European’s problems again

Nye Committee• Said the US went to war so

that banks and manufactures could make money

• Finding based on a book The Merchants of Death by Helmuth Engelbrecht

• Became known as the “merchants of death” theory

• 1934 Senate committee headed by Gerald Nye confirm theory

Congress passes Neutrality Laws

• in 1935, 1936, 1937• Keep America out of war• If President said there was a war or two

nations were at war• One could not1. Sell weapons to them2. Make loans to them3. Sail on their ships

Policy of Appeasement• Policy followed by Western Nations• Appease (give it to Hitler) hoping

he would stop• Why?1. Sick of war2. Depression3. Communist more of a threat• Munich Pact is signed• Hitler takes the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia• “They have chosen between

dishonor and war. They chose dishonor, they will have war.” Churchill

But events in Europe Change that

Cash and Carry• Germany takes Poland on Sept 1,

1939 • War is declared

• President Roosevelt convinces Congress to allow a nation at war to buy US arms as long as they paid cash and transported them in their own ships

• Problem was that shortly the European nations and China would run out of money

Destroyers for Bases

• By summer of 1940, Germany took France• US traded 50 destroyers to use British bases

in the Caribbean• “A decidedly un-neutral act” British Prime

Minister Winston Churchill

Lend-Lease Plan• Britain under attack as the Battle for Brittan

is fought in the air“We shall defend our island whatever the

cost may be.We shall fight on the beaches.We shall fight on the landing grounds.We shall fight in the fields and the streets.We shall fight in the hills.We shall never surrender.” – Churchill

• if England fell Germany would have slave labor of all Western Europe the strength of the British navy and ports

Lend-Lease Plan Continues• US would lead supplies to any

country whose defense was important to the US

• He compared plan to a garden hose and a neighbor who’s house was on fire

• Makes US “The Great Arsenal of Democracy”

• Called the “Act of 1776”

• an economic declaration of war / abandonment of neutrality

Atlantic Charter• Roosevelt and Churchill meet in secret on

US warship

• discussed how to help Soviets who had been invaded in July ’41

• mutually agreed upon war aims and post war world after war– self-determination of people– freedom of the seas– disarmament– freer international trade

• Political declaration of war

Churchill’s edited copy of the final draft of the

Atlantic Charter

Greer Incident• “neutral zone” to Iceland in which the US escorted

shipments of supplies and radioed to British ships locations of German U-boats

• USS Greer was fist ship to shot on German ship

• Attacked or acted aggressively?

• Pres Roosevelt orders “shoot on sight”

• A military “declaration” of war

Pearl Harbor

• Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

• On Dec 7, 1941• On Dec 8, 1941 US

declares war• “A day which will live

in infamy (notoriety)”• US is official at war!