How big of a debate/controversy was American involvement in WWII?

Factual Questions
21

Additional factors in postwar disillusionment: Beginning in the 1920’s, there were endless “renegotiations” of the war debts owed to us by our Allies, which they could not possibly repay. These were as popular in the US as the renegotiations of southern European debt are in Germany today, and inevitably disillusioning. (“Why did we help those ungrateful bastards anyway?”)

Then came the Great Depression. And then, as if a further blow were needed, came *The Merchants of Death* and the ensuing Nye Committee hearings. Authors Engelbrecht and Hanigen argued that we had entered World War I only to bail out wealthy bankers who had loaned money to the Allies, and arms merchants who profited from the war. The Nye Committee, formed by a bipartisan isolationist coalition in the Senate, flogged the issue and lent credence to the charges.

Like generals fighting the last war, politicians sought to preserve the last peace. If loans, arms sales, and Americans travelling in war zones had led to involvement in World War I, Congress would prohibit those things during future wars. This they did, via the increasingly strict Neutrality Acts of the 1930’s.

Roosevelt’s first job, after World War II broke out, was to get the Neutrality Acts modified so that Great Britain could buy arms for which it could pay cash (no loans!) and carry away in its own ships (no sinking of American ships!). Even this minimal revision faced stiff opposition, but by this time Nazi aggression and racial policy had softened public opinion to the point where FDR was able to prevail.

22

Trouble was nations that owed us money [Russia] had also defaulted, wiping out the funds we had calculated on paying back the loans with.
Germany borrowed money from America to pay its reparations to the British and French, so that they could then pay the Americans.
The Ambassador (Lothian) assessed US public opinion in 1939 as overwhelmingly pro-Allied, but equally determined to keep out of this war.

23

The switch from isolationism didn’t happen overnight. There was a series of changes in the American mood (with some people lagging behind or jumping ahead at every point). The steps were sort of like this:

  1. Who cares what happens in Europe or Asia? It can’t effect us as long as we stay out of it. A big military is just a waste of money and having one is likely to get us into a war.
  2. We need to build up our military so nobody attacks us. A strong defense will keep us out of the war.
  3. Germany and Japan are bad guys. We won’t go to war against them but we should give help to the countries they’ve attacked.
  4. Attack us? After we did everything we could to stay neutral? This means war!
24

This can’t be overstated enough. The US military underwent its largest expansion in history up to that point in the years leading up to Dec 7, 1941. This included the first peace time draft in US history and the largest naval appropriation bill in history, the Two Ocean Navy Act which expanded the size of the US Navy by 70%. From here on the pre-war expansion of the army:

The degree of Isolationist sentiment in the US is easy to exaggerate. The German American Bund never had any significant influence. While Americans might not particularly want to become involved in the war, it was clear that things were heading in that direction and FDR had no problem getting approval for the mass military expansion or for lend-lease. It should also be noted that the US was already in an undeclared naval war with Germany before Pearl Harbor, which FDR wasn’t getting any real flak for. The US Navy was escorting British convoys and had orders to shoot on sight at any German U-boat encountered. Even had the attack at Pearl Harbor not happened, open war between the US and Germany was little more than another *Reuben James *or two away.

25

It also occurred to me to note the complete lack of opposition to this huge military expansion. From the wiki link to the Two Ocean Navy Act, bolding mine:

26

Also, Japan was clearly not self-sufficient, even with the conquered territories, while the Axis + conquered European territories was. So we could wait to take on Japan – they would not gain much strength in the meantime. But the Axis were gaining strength, and adding to their defenses, in the meantime.

27

Remember that this was just after the Hoover Depression. Providing millions of jobs to shipbuilders & other workers in arms factories, and drafting millions of men into the military, was welcomed by most people.

28

Here is an interesting site with extracts from Gallup pollsfrom 1940 and 1941 concerning

The surveys show that although the number of people who said they do not want to go to war against Germany and Italy, there was a growing support for the war during this two year period, and it shows that a greater number of people supporting various policies which would lead to war, such as increasing support for England.

29

They should have seized the chance to overrun Canada, Mexico and drive through SA all the way to tierra del fuego.

30

To add:

What’s clear is that a vast majority of people did not want to just enter the war, with up to 80% opposing it. However, a major of the people did see Germany as an eventual enemy of the US and believed that the US should go to war, if needed. A majority of people saw events, such as the loss of England, as causes for going to war.

People did not seem to be completely opposed to the war, just that they were not seeing an immediate cause for it. It does make one wonder what would have happened if Hitler had not declared war on the States.

31

FDR was in his third term in 1941, Hoover had left office in 1933. There was a recession in 1937, but the Great Depression was a thing of the past by 1939-41. A peacetime draft was unheard of before FDR got it enacted in October 1940, and he did get some resistance to extending the terms of service for draftees to be longer than the 12 months originally envisioned. The scale of the $8 billion in naval appropriations passed without a single dissenting vote after less than an hour of debate might be lost due to inflation, where $8 billion today barely covers the cost of a single aircraft carrier and her air wing. In 1940 the US was tied with the UK as the largest navy in the world, and this single bill would expand it to 170% of its then current size.

32

While Hitler’s declaration of war was certainly gratuitous as he was under no treaty obligation with Japan to do so, and he grossly underestimated the effect the US would have on the war, he really didn’t have anything to lose by declaring war. The US and Germany were already in an open shooting war in the Atlantic and had been from mid-late 1941. Openly going after US merchant shipping right off the US East Coast in Operation Drumbeat was devastatingly effective:

33

Submitted for your approval

34

Interesting read. During that nine months they sank about 60% of the total amount that Allied subs did against Japanese shipping.

Anyway, I suspect that even had Hitler elect to not declare war, it would have happened eventually, as something would have come along once the US was actively fighting Japan. With the US on full war footing, ramping up production and training, it could have had the same result, less this Second Happy Time.

Still, one has to wonder what the US military was thinking during 1940 and 1941. Much of the losses in the Pacific could have been eliminated by more aggressive preparation and studying British methods, which many US military leaders were loath to do.

35

Nm

36

Could you give specific examples of this? I’m not saying the British didn’t have useful knowledge but they had been fighting the Germans in Europe. They had no more experience fighting the Japanese than the Americans did.

37

I’m just reading “19 Weeks” by Norman Moss which covers the spring and summer of 1940, when the anti-war sentiment in the US was changing substantially. I was surprised at the existence of strong anti-war movements on colleges in spring 1940 - petitions stating that no aid of any kind should be given to England even if it were on the verge of defeat (signed by Gerald Ford and Sargent Shriver), mock groups like the “Veterans of Future Wars” and “Future Gold Star Mothers,” etc. By the end of the summer, things had changed significantly

38

My post was poorly written, as I had intended to express two different thoughts.

First, the charge here about the US not learning from the British is mostly to be leveled at Earnest King, Chief of Naval Operations who apparently detested the Brits as well as Admiral Andrews who held responsibility for protecting shipping on the East Coast during the early war years. They refused to learn from the British navy and flatly refused to accept any advice on how to protect US shipping. Both were opposed to the convoy system, although they eventually changed this position.

The greater problem was the the US military in 1940 and 1941 was still very much a peace time army and navy. One account of Pearl Harbor has General Short staying late in the office one night double checking the figures for the number of rounds of ammunition at the various bases and a visitor commenting that he needed a good lieutenant for that, going to editorialize that if the generals were doing the lieutenants work, no one was going the generals’ jobs.

However, in peace time, that is the sort of thing that becomes the most important job and it was the failure of most of militaries, generals, admirals and governments to recognize the handwriting on the wall; that war was immanent, and they needed to prepare.

The Allies completely failed to take steps to assess Japan’s potential as an adversary. They relied on outdated information about Japan air power, for example and were caught completely unaware of the capabilities of the modern aircraft which Japan had developed.

This was not a failure simply of the US. The British and Dutch protecting their possessions in South East Asia also suffered a similar lack for foresight.

It would not have taken that much more to have avoided the complete defeat of the Allies in the early months. Baatan could and should have been saved, even with the loss of the rest of the Philippines. The British and Dutch suffered unimaginable losses in Malay, Singapore and DEA which would not have been nearly as severe had there been better planning.

To their credit, the US armed forces responded well and did become much better at learning from their lessons. Much more so than the Japanese, who lagged in this effort.

39

I think you can make a strong argument that the Americans fought better in the months after Pearl Harbor than the British did. The British garrison in Malaya and the American garrison in the Philippines held about the same number of troops. Japan attacked both of them at the same time with almost twice as many troops being sent to the Philippines. But the Philippine garrison held out over twice as long.

40

The British Army in Malaya and General Percival did not cover themselves in glory (nor did Chruchill for that matter). But, they did not have the luxury of retreating to a well defendable area like the Americans in the Philippines.