# How big of a debate/controversy was American involvement in WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701 "2013-04-14T19:01:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/1 "2013-04-14T19:01:10Z")
Over here in the UK we have a bit of a joke that Americans are late for every World War - 1917 in the First World War and 1941 in the Second. I’ve been reading through Churchill’s volumes of The Second World War, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1953. One thing I’ve picked up on is his fixation on the United States, long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbo(u)r and Hitler’s declaration of war. Natural given his mum’s nationality and personal friendship with Roosevelt, whose attempts at negotiating a peace with the US as a mediator were coldly rebuffed by the British and French who thought they had it all in hand. How much flak did Roosevelt take from isolationist circles from his ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ policy and lend-lease? In the 1940 election, how big of a debate was had over the issue of Europe? After 1941, how pissed off were people that Roosevelt had decided on ‘Europe First’ - giving the hated Japanese only 15-20% of Allied resources? Lots of qs, but I know we have lots of Americans on the board who hopefully can enlighten me. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/2 "2013-04-14T21:18:07Z")
Let me essay an answer – top of the head and undocumented, just based on 64 years of living with the aftermath, and reading up a lot on what things were like to have gotten us into that situation in the first place: Prior to 1938, only those strategic planners at the War and Navy Departments whose job it was to prepare contingency plans for any possible enemy, plus a vanishingly small faction of Anglo- and Europhile extremists, saw Hitler as any danger. He was generally viewed much as Putin of Russia is now – strong leader, some outrageous ideas and a touch of megalomania, but no real threat. The Navy and MacArthur’s small but often influential coterie at War saw Japan’s threat clearly, but nobody else believed “those little islands” were any conceivable threat to the US. Beginning with the Anschluss and continuing through the Fall of France, there was a sea change in how Germany was perceived, with more and more seeing it as a real threat. Although political leaders such as Hull, Ickes, and Srimson, and many New Deal Senators and Congressmen, began recognizing Japan as a threat, the American people by and large did not. But throughout this period the majority, shrinking in the German case, remained isolationist, feeling that at most our role should be to supply Britain with war materials, and some opposed even this. Between the summer of 1940 and the end of 1941 this shifted, with a majority favoring intervention but a strong minority still isolationist; Japan was still not perceived as a danger by the general [ublic for almost all this period. Between midnight and noon on Sunday, December 7, 1941, this changed radically. The country was united behind war. with only a small proportion of isolationists remaining – most of whom would shift over within the next few days. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/3 "2013-04-14T21:37:15Z")
Well, and don’t forget that a fairly large number of Americans had German ancestry. There was a certain sympathy there even despite WWI, and those people were pushing hard for America to stay the fuck out of anything that happened in Europe, especially given we’d already been involved the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/4 "2013-04-14T21:45:35Z")
The “Europe first” strategy wasn’t a big public thing. It’s not as if Roosevelt ever made a speech saying “December 7, 1941 - a day that will live in infamy, but first we have to take care of the Nazis.” Besides, Hitler declared war on the U.S., so it wasn’t like Roosevelt was just making stuff up. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/5 "2013-04-14T22:13:11Z")
I think I answered a question you didn’t ask. As noted by **kunilou** , “Europe First” was not something publicized, but the hard-nosed decision of FDR and his chief advisors that defeating Hitler would inevitably lead to Japan’s defeat at the hands of the USA/UK/USSR alliance, while the reverse was not true. So enough force was committed to the Pacific to stop and slowly roll back Japanese advances, with the focus on Europe. And the American people, in those halcyon days, trusted the President and his military advisors to do the right thing in time of war, and acquiesced. BTW: Lexicography of Pearl Harbo(u)r: The protected inlet with the three lochs on the south side of Oahu was discovered by an English explorer and named “Pearl Harbour”, which remains accurate for the body of water. The U.S. Naval base and ancillary developments, and the iconic attack event, are named “Pearl Harbor” with no U. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/6 "2013-04-14T23:12:53Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > How much flak did Roosevelt take from isolationist circles from his ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ policy and lend-lease? Enormous amounts. Republicans were loudly vocal that America should not ever get involved in another of Europe’s wars. Some of this was real and some of it was politically motivated. The groups that had been calling out Hitler and demanding that Roosevelt do more were Jewish and leftist, even Communistic. The right saw the opportunity to portray Roosevelt as an allied of these groups, who were not well liked by the public. They were also against the rise in government spending that was part of the New Deal and used any attempt to spend money on Europe as an example of Roosevelt’s profligacy. It is impossible to imagine a scenario that would have brought them into war mode without the direct attack on the U.S. > [@](#): > > In the 1940 election, how big of a debate was had over the issue of Europe? Just as Wilson had in 1916, Roosevelt promised that he would never get the U.S. involved in a European war. But it turned out to be less of an issue than the Republicans hoped because their candidate, Wendell Wilkie, had the same sympathies for Europe that Roosevelt did. > [@](#): > > After 1941, how pissed off were people that Roosevelt had decided on ‘Europe First’ - giving the hated Japanese only 15-20% of Allied resources? Lots of qs, but I know we have lots of Americans on the board who hopefully can enlighten me. Hitler’s declaration of war made this moot. Americans understood Europe in ways they never had Asia, so a European war made sense to them. Historians still argue about what would have happened if Hitler didn’t make this mistake; my opinion is that it would have been extremely difficult for Roosevelt to declare war against Germany even after Pearl Harbor. That’s how strong the opposition was. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/7 "2013-04-15T02:02:03Z")
You have to keep in mind that as far as most Americans were concerned our mistake in World War I wasn’t waiting until 1917 - it was getting involved at all. And quite frankly, a lot of British and French people retroactively wished they had skipped that war as well. So the American attitude around 1940 was “Well, those Europeans might be dumb enough to fall into another war but we learned our lesson. We’re staying out of this one.” As far as the British fixation on America, it was mostly realism. There were seventy million Germans and less than fifty million Britons. The UK realized it needed allies if it was going to win the war. And American allies were a lot easier to contemplate than Russians. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/8 "2013-04-15T02:59:20Z")
From a book I happened to be reading, here’s the result of some polls conducted in the USA between march and may 1939 (hence when war was looming in Europe) : [QUOTE=Gallup] In case a war breaks out, should we sell Britain and France food supplies? Yes : 82% No : 18% [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > Our present Neutrality Law prevents this country from selling war materials to any country fighting a declared war. Do you think the law should be changed so that we could sell war materials to England and France in case of war : > > Yes : 57% > No : 43% > [@](#): > > In case Germany and Italy go to war against England and France, should we lend money to England and France to buy airplanes and other war materials from the US? > > Yes : 31% > No : 69% > [@](#): > > What country do you like best? > > 1)England : 43% > 2)France: 11% > … > 6)Germany : 3% > … > 8)Italy : 2% After September 1939 : > [@](#): > > Which side do you want to see win the war? > > Allies : 84% > Germany : 2% > No opinion, neutral : 14% ETA : I’ve often read on this board that there was a significant pro-German sentiment in the USA. The last poll seems to demonstrate it wasn’t the case. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/9 "2013-04-15T03:35:22Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I think I answered a question you didn’t ask. As noted by **kunilou** , “Europe First” was not something publicized, but the hard-nosed decision of FDR and his chief advisors that defeating Hitler would inevitably lead to Japan’s defeat at the hands of the USA/UK/USSR alliance, while the reverse was not true. So enough force was committed to the Pacific to stop and slowly roll back Japanese advances, with the focus on Europe. And the American people, in those halcyon days, trusted the President and his military advisors to do the right thing in time of war, and acquiesced. > > BTW: Lexicography of Pearl Harbo(u)r: The protected inlet with the three lochs on the south side of Oahu was discovered by an English explorer and named “Pearl Harbour”, which remains accurate for the body of water. The U.S. Naval base and ancillary developments, and the iconic attack event, are named “Pearl Harbor” with no U. Although the body of water might originally have been called “Pearl Harbour,” the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which is the authority on the correct styling of U.S. place names, refers to it as “Pearl Harbor,” no U. That has been the official spelling of the body of water since 1914. There is no other correct way to spell it. > **[U.S. Board on Geographic Names](https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names)** ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/10 "2013-04-15T03:58:25Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Well, and don’t forget that a fairly large number of Americans had German ancestry. German Americans were the single largest demographic component of the country. The war effort would have been seriously affected without their 100% commitment, and they delivered, 10s of millions of them, from Eisenhower on down. > [@Chimera](#): > > There was a certain sympathy there even despite WWI, Not unless you assign undue significance to the Bund movement. > [@Chimera](#): > > and those people were pushing hard for America to stay the fuck out of anything that happened in Europe, especially given we’d already been involved the first time. German-Americans are not known to have been more isolationist than any other group. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/11 "2013-04-15T04:14:24Z")
It’s interesting that the general consensus seems to be that the US was anti war before 7/12/1941. But, I have read quite a bit about that era including contemporary articles and it seems that there was a change between 1939 to 1941, from a determination to stay out to an acceptance that intervention was necessary and would happen. There is an article published in Time/Life in July 1940 which discusses what would happen in the UK falls and the general theme of the article is that the US would then get involved. Between 1939 and 1941 the US had a massive buildup of it’s armed forces. If isolationist sentiments were that deep then I doubt such a build up would have been politically possible. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/12 "2013-04-15T04:48:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Just as Wilson had in 1916, Roosevelt promised that he would never get the U.S. involved in a European war. But it turned out to be less of an issue than the Republicans hoped because their candidate, Wendell Wilkie, had the same sympathies for Europe that Roosevelt did. Timing can be everything. When the 1940 election cycle began, Willkie was considered a long shot. The more likely Republican candidates were Taft and Dewey and Vandenberg, all of whom were isolationist. Then in just six weeks in the Summer of 1940, Germany invaded and defeated France. This shocked everyone, including Americans. Everyone had assumed that World War II would be a replay of World War I. If Germany invaded, there would be years of fighting. Everyone was now aware that Germany was a much bigger threat than it had been in 1914. So while Americans weren’t willing to go to war, they no longer felt they could just ignore the war and let the Europeans settle it. Americans now felt they had an interest in supporting the British war effort and were willing to commit money and supplies if not soldiers to the cause. So isolationism now looked outdated and the isolationist candidates looked out of touch. It was the internationalists like Roosevelt who now looked like they knew what they were doing. Willkie, as the only internationalist Republican candidate, jumped ahead of the others and got the nomination. (The Republican National Convention convened just two days after France surrendered.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/13 "2013-04-15T08:41:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You have to keep in mind that as far as most Americans were concerned our mistake in World War I wasn’t waiting until 1917 - it was getting involved at all. Why was that? I should have thought the US came out pretty well from WWI: relatively small losses (compared the European combatants, anyway) and they got to share in the victory and play a significant, even disproportionate, role in setting the terms of the peace. Why should it not have been seen as a triumph? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/14 "2013-04-15T12:42:37Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Why was that? I should have thought the US came out pretty well from WWI: relatively small losses (compared the European combatants, anyway) and they got to share in the victory and play a significant, even disproportionate, role in setting the terms of the peace. Why should it not have been seen as a triumph? The aftermath was all disillusionment. The country was reluctant to get into the war even after the provocations of the sinking of the Lusitania and u-boat attacks, but Wilson did a good job of positioning it as the war to end wars and saving the world for democracy and all those patriotic slogans that people really believed in for a time. The peace conferences after the war destroyed whatever few ideals Americans had left. The European powers couldn’t care less about democracy; they only wanted to destroy Germany. Wilson’s utopianism was seen as naive by the Europeans and putting us at the mercy of them by his Republican opponents. By the time they voted the League of Nations down in the Senate, they got Americans to believe that our sacrifice - Americans consider any dead disproportionately - was wasted, leaving only one feasible stance: never get involved overseas again. Add in other factors like a huge inflationary period right after the war, the start of Prohibition - somehow considered being put over on them while the boys were away, and the general change in morals post-war, and Americans felt their world had turned upside down. They blamed the War, and many blamed the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/15 "2013-04-15T14:18:09Z")
Much thanks for the very detailed answers so far, folks. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/16 "2013-04-15T17:39:51Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Why was that? I should have thought the US came out pretty well from WWI: relatively small losses (compared the European combatants, anyway) and they got to share in the victory and play a significant, even disproportionate, role in setting the terms of the peace. Why should it not have been seen as a triumph? Mostly the general disillusionment with the war. There was a feeling that the war had not accomplished anything worth its costs. Granted, America paid less of those costs than any of the other powers but we still felt the war had been a bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/17 "2013-04-15T18:03:59Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > The “Europe first” strategy wasn’t a big public thing. It’s not as if Roosevelt ever made a speech saying “December 7, 1941 - a day that will live in infamy, but first we have to take care of the Nazis.” > > Besides, Hitler declared war on the U.S., so it wasn’t like Roosevelt was just making stuff up. The US Plan for the war, [Rainbow 5](http://ariwatch.com/Links/RainbowFive.htm), was leaked to the press 3 days before Pearl Harbor. It had the Europe first plan and an attack on Europe in the summer of 1943. It made the headline on both the Chicago Tribune, and Washington’s Times Herald. So the Europe first part was known it was just not officially confirmed. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/18 "2013-04-15T18:25:23Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Why was that? I should have thought the US came out pretty well from WWI: relatively small losses (compared the European combatants, anyway) and they got to share in the victory and play a significant, even disproportionate, role in setting the terms of the peace. Why should it not have been seen as a triumph? Because the US got nothing out of it. Bear in mind that while the cost was low as compared to European powers, it was a still awfully steep. Over 100,000 Americans were killed in combat, a staggering number - twice the number as in Vietnam. It was at the time the second worst war in American history in terms of fatalities, and is still third worst. The fact that, say, France lost so many more doesn’t change the fact that 100,000 men didn’t come home alive. And within just a few years it became very apparent to the U.S. public that those men had died for almost nothing. The U.S. peace plan was largely rejected, the League of Nations was a joke, and the European powers were back to their old tricks in no time at all, fighting and warring and invading weaker countries. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/19 "2013-04-15T18:30:58Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > German Americans were the single largest demographic component of the country. The war effort would have been seriously affected without their 100% commitment, and they delivered, 10s of millions of them, from Eisenhower on down. German Americans however were vastly outnumbered by Americans of English ancestry, most of whom would call themselves simply Americans rather than English-Americans. In the 1940 census the top five surnames in the country were Smith, Johnson, Brown, Williams and Jones. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701/20 "2013-04-15T18:41:37Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > ETA : I’ve often read on this board that there was a significant pro-German sentiment in the USA. The last poll seems to demonstrate it wasn’t the case. Significant enough to deserve mention perhaps? I happened to see the photo in this Wikipedia article the other day: [German American Bund](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_Bund) A vocal pro-Nazi organization having a well-attended parade in NYC with a Nazi flag leading a procession of American flags. I wouldn’t have believed it either if I didn’t see the photograph. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-of-a-debate-controversy-was-american-involvement-in-wwii/655701.md?page=2)