Chapter 3: 3. U.S. Ties to Britain Strengthened FDR’s Re-election a Victory for Britain

On November 5, 1940, President Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie. However, he did not win by as large a margin as in 1936 over Republican Alfred Landon. With the election over and won, FDR no longer needed to exercise the same caution with respect to his dealings with England. Just two days after his re-election he met with British Purchasing Agent Purvis to discuss more military supplies for England. Roosevelt proposed allocating military supplies to Britain and Canada on a “fifty-fifty basis.” When the subject of ships came up, FDR mentioned “leasing supplies to the Allies; and he said nothing about payment.”^[1]

On November 8 the SS City of Rayville became the first U.S. merchant vessel to be sunk in World War II.^[2] It hit a mine laid by a German raider south of Australia in the Bass Strait. FDR did nothing about it.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military was continuing to plan for war. On November 4 Chief of Naval Operations Stark drafted a new estimate of the world situation for presentation to the secretary of the Navy. In this draft, presented as a formal memorandum on November 12, Stark considered four possible plans for action:

(A) limiting American activity to [western] hemisphere defense; (B) directing primary attention to Japan, and secondary attention to the Atlantic; (C) directing equivalent pressure in both theaters; (D) conducting a strong offensive in the Atlantic, and a defensive [one] in the Pacific.

Stark then argued for his fourth plan, Plan D or “Plan Dog” as it was known in service lingo.^[3]

U.S. Aid to the British

[As] a preliminary to possible entry of the United States into the conflict he [Stark] recommended that “the United States Army and Navy at once undertake secret staff talks on technical matters” with the British in London, the Canadians in Washington . . . and the British and Dutch in Singapore and Batavia, “to reach agreement and lay down plans for promoting unity of allied effort should the United States find it necessary to enter the war.”^[4]

British Ambassador Lord Lothian had been advised in October that his discussions with the United States about further supplies for England would have to wait until after the election. On returning to Washington on November 23, he spoke with newsmen. “Well, boys,” he remarked, “Britain’s broke; it’s your money we want.”^[5] FDR, Morgenthau, and Churchill all chided him for this “calculated indiscretion.”^[6] In his defense, Lord Lothian reported to London that

American public opinion . . . was still “saturated with illusions . . . that we have vast resources available that we have not yet disclosed . . . and that we ought to empty this vast hypothetical barrel before we ask for assistance.” It was this fact, he explained, which had induced him to make his statement. It is clear that the exhaustion of funds could hardly have been concealed much longer.^[7]

A week after that, Sir Walter Layton, director-general of programs in the British ministry of supply, submitted to Treasury Secretary Morgenthau a paper headed “Initial Orders to be placed for Output.” The British document cited a figure of $2,062 million plus $699 million for “Capital Investment necessary for creating New Productive Capacity.”^[8] Morgenthau immediately took this document to FDR and asked for instructions. Thus, Roosevelt was finally forced to face up to the question, which he had successfully avoided until then, of financing Britain’s urgent purchases.

Roosevelt sailed aboard the Tuscaloosa on a post-election cruise for rest and reflection.^[9] While at sea, he received a 4,000-word plea from Churchill for American naval escorts in the Atlantic, 2,000 aircraft per month, and much, much more. Churchill stated further that “orders already placed or under negotiation . . . many times exceed the total exchange resources remaining at the disposal of Great Britain. The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash.”^[10] The ball was clearly in FDR’s court.

Stephenson, the British agent “Intrepid,” described the U.S.-British relationship at the end of 1940 as “a common-law alliance.”^[11] In other words, the United States and Britain were “bound” in a relationship that did not enjoy the blessing or sanction of law, a relationship that existed in spite of the officially enacted U.S. Neutrality Act and in spite of Roosevelt’s pledges to the people of the United States that he would not permit the nation to become involved in “entangling foreign alliances” or “intervention in foreign disputes.”

Lend-Lease for Peace

It was apparent that the British could no longer operate on a cash-and-carry basis. FDR had been trying for some time to devise a new arrangement to help England. Finally, he hit on what became known as “lend-lease.” On returning from his cruise, he announced at a press conference a new aid-to-Britain program. In his folksy manner, he explained:

[I]f my neighbor’s house catches fire . . . and I am watering the grass in my backyard, and I don’t pass my garden hose over the fence to my neighbor, I am a fool. How do you think the country and the Congress would react if I should put aid to the British in the form of lending them my garden hose?^[12]

This new lend-lease program was intended to help Britain by tapping the wealth of U.S. taxpayers.

A few days after FDR proposed his scheme, the German government charged that U.S. aid to the United Kingdom was “moral aggression.”^[13]

During his December 29 “fireside chat” on the radio, Roosevelt answered Hitler’s charge:

The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.

The intentions of the United States were completely honorable and peaceful, he said:

There is no demand for sending an American Expeditionary Force outside our own borders. There is no intention by any member of your Government to send such a force. You can, therefore, nail any talk about sending armies to Europe as deliberate untruth. Our national policy is not directed toward war. Its sole purpose is to keep war away from our country and our people. . . . We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice, as we would show were we at war.^[14]

FDR sent his proposal for lend-lease to Congress early in 1941. As noted New York Times correspondent Arthur Krock recalled,

Congress and the public were assured, on the highest Executive word, that the measure was a means to keep the United States from becoming involved abroad, on land, sea and in the air, in World War II.

For Krock, this constituted “gross deception.”

[I]t was obvious—and so pointed out repeatedly at the time that militant reaction by the Central Powers and Japan was a certainty; hence the Lend-Lease Act would inevitably change the position of the United States from a disguised cobelligerent—a status previously reached by presidential “Executive Orders”—to an active one.^[15]

Morgenthau testified for lend-lease, saying that its purpose was to save the British fleet as a bulwark in the Atlantic.^[16] The House passed the bill on February 8, the Senate on March 8, and the president signed it into law on March 11, 1941.

Meanwhile in the Far East

The United States put $100 million at the disposal of Chiang and promised him a supply of up-to-date fighter aircraft.^[17] Then, in January 1941, Britain decided to enter into closer relations with Chiang so that, if war came, Chiang would be willing and able to help Britain in Burma and Hong Kong.^[18] Moreover, former U.S. Army Air Corps Colonel Claire Chennault was openly training his Flying Tigers in Burma for air battle with the Japanese. And behind the scenes, FDR was supportive. On April 15, 1941, he signed an

unpublicized executive order authorizing Reserve officers and enlisted men to resign from the Army Air Corps, the Naval and Marine Air services so they could join Chennault’s American Volunteer Group. Since the U.S. was not at war with Japan and could not deal openly with China, all arrangements had to be made with an unofficial agency to ensure secrecy. The Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company of China was set up and authorized to hire a hundred American pilots and several hundred ground crewmen to operate, service and manufacture aircraft in China.^[19]

As the British and Dutch were building up their defenses in the Far East, the Japanese were pursuing their own program. They were concerned not only with the advance of their forces southward, obtaining supplies of oil, but also with preventing the Communists from harassing their northern border.^[20] On April 13, 1941, Japan signed a “neutrality pact” with Russia to safeguard her position in the north and to make it possible for her to pursue her plans southward.^[21]

U.S. War Planning with Britain

Secret U.S.-British staff conversations, held in Washington from January 29 to March 27, 1941, led to an agreement on joint strategy. (American officials had already met with British counterparts in London in January 1938, before the war in Europe began, and again in August 1940, after England was at war with Germany.) The British sent naval and military officers as envoys, attired in civilian dress to conceal the true nature of their mission. The stated purpose of these secret ABC meetings (American-British-Conversations) was “To coordinate, on broad lines, plans for the employment of the forces of the Associated Powers” and “To reach agreements concerning the methods and nature of Military Cooperation between the two nations.” The agreements were to cover the “principal areas of responsibility,” and “the major lines of Military strategy to be pursued by both nations.”^[22] The agreement arrived at in Washington, known as ABC-1, supplanted the one developed in London three years earlier (January 1938) and outlined procedures to be followed if and when the United States entered the war. It provided that “If Japan does enter the war, the Military strategy in the Far East will be defensive.” The United States was not to increase her present military strength in the Far East, although she would “employ the United States Pacific Fleet offensively in the manner best calculated to weaken Japanese economic power, and to support the defense of the Malay barrier^[23] by diverting Japanese strength away from Malaysia.” Also according to the agreement, the United States would so “augment its forces in the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas that the British Commonwealth will be in a position to release the necessary forces for the Far East.”^[24]

Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, chief of the Navy’s war plans division, participated in these secret conversations. According to him, the ensuing understanding was

a world-wide agreement, covering all areas, land, sea, and air, of the entire world in which it was conceived that the British Commonwealth and the United States might be jointly engaged in action against any enemy. On the conclusion of that agreement with the British, the WPL-46 [U.S. Navy war plan] was prepared after a great many talks with the Army and was approved by the Joint Board, the Secretaries of War and Navy, and by the President. The Navy issued their form of that war plan in May of 1941, and it is my recollection the Army form of it was issued about August.^[25]

Turner wrote further,

The plan contemplated a major effort on the part of both the principal associated Powers against Germany, initially. It was felt in the Navy Department, that there might be a possibility of war with Japan without the involvement of Germany, but at some length and over a considerable period, this matter was discussed and it was determined that in such a case the United States would, if possible, initiate efforts to bring Germany into the war against us in order that we would be enabled to give strong support to the United Kingdom in Europe.^[26]

Thus Turner reaffirmed that the primary goal of the U.S.-British agreement was to help England and to target Germany.

In complete disregard of the Neutrality Act officially in force, these conversations put the United States definitely in Britain’s camp in her war against Germany.

The Undeclared Battle of the Atlantic

The Germans had invaded and occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940. Exactly one year later the United States assumed responsibility for the defense of Greenland, then Danish territory. According to the April 9, 1941 agreement between the United States and Denmark, the defense of Greenland “against attack by a non-American power is essential to the preservation of the peace and security of the American Continent.”^[27]

FDR wrote Churchill on April 11 that he intended to have the United States lend still more active support to the hard-pressed British in the Atlantic. To do this,

We will want in great secrecy notification of movements of convoys so our patrol units can seek out any ships or planes of aggressor nations. . . . We will immediately make public to you position [of] aggressor ships or planes when located in our patrol area.^[28]

That same day, the first U.S. shot was fired against a German target in World War II, although apparently without hitting its mark. The U.S. destroyer Niblack had been en route from Halifax to Iceland, where she was to explore the convoying of ships to Iceland, which lay within the German submarine war zone. She responded to an SOS call from a Dutch freighter that was sinking after having been torpedoed by a German sub. Niblack picked up survivors. When soundings indicated a submarine in the area, Niblack dropped three depth charges, but no wreckage was seen.^[29] The president was reportedly furious when an account of this incident appeared in the press.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Adolf Hitler was taking great pains to avoid a clash with the United States. On April 25 he cautioned his naval forces that “all incidents with American ships be avoided.” The commander-in-chief of his navy, Admiral Erich Raeder, was pushing for aggressive action against the United States. Hitler answered Raeder at a conference on May 22, ordering that “Weapons are not to be used. Even if American vessels conduct themselves in a definitely unneutral manner. . . . Weapons are to be used only if US ships fire the first shot.”^[30]

In late April, Roosevelt extended the Atlantic patrol’s area of surveillance from 200 to 300 miles east of our shores, to the western border of the German submarine war zone or 26 degrees west longitude, whichever was farther west,^[31] and south to 20 degrees south latitude.^[32] This encompassed the vast expanse of the Atlantic between Bermuda and the Azores. Arrangements were also set in motion to strengthen the Atlantic Fleet at the expense of the Pacific Fleet, by transferring a carrier and five destroyers from Pearl Harbor to the Atlantic.

By May, U.S. Navy personnel were flying regularly as pilot “advisers” aboard some of the planes the British had received through lend-lease. On May 26 one of these “advisers,” ensign Leonard B. Smith, aboard a U.S.-manufactured PBY (Catalina Patrol Bomber) over the Atlantic, about 690 miles west of Brest (France), spotted the Bismarck, a huge German battleship. Although only fairly recently commissioned, the Bismarck was menacing British shipping and had already sunk the illustrious British battle cruiser Hood. When the sighting was broadcast, other American PBYs with U.S. personnel aboard, as well as some ten or twelve British warships, joined the chase. The Bismarck tried desperately to make port, but failed. She was finally sunk on May 27, after enduring a horrendous bombing; over 2,000 officers and crew went down with the ship.^[33]

The first U.S. ship to be torpedoed by a German submarine was a freighter, the Robin Moor, sunk in the South Atlantic on May 21. News of the event reached the world only when survivors finally landed in Brazil on June 11. Roosevelt was outraged. But, although some British officials in Washington, as well as the President’s close friend and adviser, Harry Hopkins, wished for decisive U.S. retaliation, FDR did no more than remonstrate.^[34]

On June 6 Roosevelt authorized the seizure of all idle foreign merchant ships in our ports “for urgent needs of commerce and national defense.”^[35] German, Italian, and Danish ships had already been taken into “protective custody” on March 30 for the duration of the emergency.

Then on June 14 Roosevelt “ordered Axis funds in the United States frozen.” Two days later the United States “requested withdrawal of German and Italian consular staffs by July 10,” charging them with having “engaged in activities wholly outside the scope of their legitimate duties.”^[36]

FDR had long since given up all pretense of applying the Neutrality Act equally to all belligerents. In his view, Britain had enjoyed special status from the very beginning of the war. Then after Germany attacked Russia on June 21, 1941, FDR refrained as well from applying the neutrality law to the Soviet Union. He released Russian credits and promised Stalin lend-lease aid. By these actions, Roosevelt was further committing this country to the British cause and against Germany. At the same time that he was allying the United States with the communist Soviet Union, he was also lending support to the communists on the opposite side of the world—in China. By cooling down the conversations the U.S. government had been holding with capitalistically oriented Japan, long engaged in a struggle against the Soviet Union in Asia, Roosevelt was taking the side of the communists and thus placing the United States directly in opposition to Japan.

On July 1 the Roosevelt administration exchanged letters with Iceland, pointing out that it was

imperative that the integrity and independence of Iceland should be preserved because of the fact that any occupation of Iceland by a power whose only too clearly apparent plans for world conquest included the domination of the peoples of the New World would at once directly menace the security of the entire Western Hemisphere.

On July 7, the United States occupied Iceland.^[37] “The Icelanders accepted the occupation fatalistically as a ‘necessary evil’.”^[38]

The U.S. Begins Escorting British Ships

The desirability of instigating escort operations to help safeguard U.S. and British ships plying the Atlantic was seriously discussed during the early months of 1941. Stark had pressed for escorts in June, so as “not to let England fall.” He proposed at one time to coordinate the departure of U.S. ships and British convoys from the vicinity of Halifax. Then on July 2 the president approved the Atlantic Fleet’s plan for escort operations. The occupation of Iceland and the need to assure the arrival there of supplies and provisions provided the immediate excuse. By late July the decision had been made to escort,^[39] and on August 20, U.S. ships actually began escorting American and British merchant ships in the North Atlantic to and from Iceland.^[40]

The decision to escort was a policy decision, in line with that of continuing to support Britain and to oppose Germany. Historian Patrick Abbazia described it as

the logical conclusion of . . . the President’s previous policy, his determination to prevent the Germans from winning the Battle of the Atlantic. It had little to do, as is sometimes said, with the need to safeguard precious Lend-Lease cargoes as such.^[41]

Roosevelt Meets Churchill; They Discuss Japan’s Threatening Encroachment on British in Far East

In August 1941 it was announced that FDR was leaving Washington on an extended fishing expedition. He left aboard the Coast Guard cutter Calypso and fished off the coast of Massachusetts for a couple of days. Then he quietly transferred to the American cruiser Augusta, which sped north to Newfoundland. Churchill, traveling from England aboard the British battleship the Prince of Wales, also headed for Newfoundland. The two shipsrendezvoused in Placentia Bay, just off Argentia, Newfoundland. There, from August 9 to 12, the two heads of state met, talked, and entertained one another in turn, each on his respective ship.

On August 11 Churchill wired London from Argentia an account of his conversations with FDR. He reported to his secretary of state for foreign affairs, Anthony Eden, that Roosevelt had agreed to negotiate

a moratorium [with Japan] of, say, thirty days, in which we may improve our position in Singapore area and the Japanese will have to stand still. But he will make it a condition that the Japanese meanwhile encroach no farther, and do not use Indo-China as a base for attack on China. He will also maintain in full force the economic measures directed against Japan. These negotiations show little chance of succeeding, but President considers that a month gained will be valuable.

Churchill’s report to Eden continued:

At the end of the Note which the President will hand to the Japanese Ambassador when he returns from his cruise in about a week’s time he will add the following passage which is taken from my draft: “Any further encroachment by Japan in the Southwest Pacific would produce a situation in which the United States Government would be compelled to take counter-measures, even though these might lead to war between the United States and Japan”.^[42]

During their private conference, FDR indicated to Churchill that because he was uncertain that he could carry Congress with him in a declaration of war, and because more time was needed to strengthen America’s forces, he must seek to delay a break with Japan. Churchill had hoped at this meeting to persuade Roosevelt to have the United States declare war on the German-Italian Axis. Churchill told him that he “would rather have an American declaration of war now and no supplies for six months than double the supplies and no declaration.” However, Churchill recognized the president’s constitutional difficulties: “He may take action as Chief Executive, but only Congress can declare war.” According to Churchill, “He went so far as to say to me, ‘I may never declare war: I may make war. If I were to ask Congress to declare war, they might argue about it for three months’.”^[43]

Although Churchill hoped for a U.S. declaration of war, he was generally pleased at the outcome of the Argentia meeting. FDR had in effect agreed to issue an ultimatum to Japan along the lines of Churchill’s suggestion. No further encroachment in the southwest Pacific would be tolerated, or else “various steps would have to be taken by the United States notwithstanding the president’s realization that the taking of such measures might result in war between the United States and Japan.”^[44]

The newspapers and newsreels of the day announced the meeting at Argentia and showed the two men sitting at their ease on the deck of the Augusta, or attending Sunday church service on the Prince of Wales. When FDR returned to Washington, he let it be understood that the only outcome of the meeting had been the “Atlantic Charter,”^[45] a plan for postwar world peace and prosperity. The Charter, signed by both Roosevelt and Churchill, set forth certain idealistic common principles. Force was to be abandoned, peaceful trade and economic collaboration among all nations was to be assured and it was hoped that “after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny” all men in all nations would be able to “traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance” and to “live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.”

The Undeclared Battle of the Atlantic Continues

The U.S. Patrol Force had seen little activity since late 1940, when some of its destroyers had trailed several German ships from Mexican ports until they were intercepted by British or Dutch ships and then scuttled by their crews.^[46] Then in March 1941, all Axis ships remaining in U.S. ports had been seized. So when the decision to escort was made, the Patrol Force was simply diverted from routine patrolling. After August, when convoys of British and U.S. merchant ships crossed the Atlantic to maintain a lifeline of supplies and equipment to England, they were usually accompanied by U.S. destroyers.

On September 4, the destroyer Greer was on her way to Iceland with mail and miscellaneous freight when a British bomber overhead signaled that it had sighted a German submarine in the area. The submarine released a torpedo. The Greer responded with a depth charge. The submarine released a second torpedo. Neither sub nor the Greer hit its target.^[47]

German submarines had also torpedoed and sunk several other ships operated by “non-belligerents”—on August 17, the SS Sessa of Panamanian registry, on its way to Iceland; also on August 17, the SS Panaman;and on September 6 in the Gulf of Suez, the SS Steel Seafarer.^[48]

FDR, stirred to action by the attack on the Greer, issued to the U.S. Navy serving in America’s expanded defense waters a “shoot-on-sight order.” He sounded angry when he spoke to the nation by radio on September 11:^[49]

It is the Nazi design to abolish the freedom of the seas and to acquire absolute control and domination of the seas for themselves. . . .

We have sought no shooting war with Hitler. We do not seek it now. . . .

But when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.

These Nazi submarines and raiders are the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic. They are a menace to the free pathways of the high seas. . . . The time for active defense is now. . . .

Upon our naval and air patrol—now operating in large number over a vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean—falls the duty of maintaining the American policy of freedom of the seas—now. That means, very simply and clearly, that our patrolling vessels and planes will protect all merchant ships—not only American ships but ships of any flag—engaged in commerce in our defensive waters. They will protect them from submarines; they will protect them from surface raiders…

It is no act of war on our part when we decide to protect the seas which are vital to American defense. The aggression is not ours. Ours is solely defense.

But let this warning be clear. From now on, if German or Italian vessels of war enter the waters the protection of which is necessary for American defense they do so at their own peril.

The orders which I have given as Commander-in-Chief to the United States Army and Navy are to carry out that policy—at once.

As a result of the president’s order, our destroyers escorting convoys in the North Atlantic began to engage in “active defense.” They searched, took sonar readings, frequently made contact with German submarines, and released depth charges. German submarines truly learned that they ventured into the vicinity of British convoys being escorted by U.S. destroyers only “at their own peril.”

On September 16, the destroyer USS Kearny, heading from Argentia to Iceland with a convoy, was trying to corral late arrivals and stragglers. To discourage a trailing submarine, the Kearny dropped a depth charge. The sub launched several torpedoes. A number of ships in the convoy were torpedoed, set ablaze, and sunk. The Kearny, silhouetted against the burning ships, became an easy target. The German U-boat fired three torpedoes, hitting her almost amidships and causing an explosion. Eleven men were killed and 22 were wounded in the attack. Yet the surviving crew members, by prodigious effort, saved the ship. She limped into Reykjavik Harbor two days later.^[50]

On September 22 Stark, in Washington, reported to his Asiatic Fleet Commander, Admiral Hart, on the situation:

So far as the Atlantic is concerned, we are all but, if not actually, in it [the war]. . . . If Britain is to continue, she has to have assistance. She will now get it openly. . . . In a nutshell, we are now escorting convoys regularly from the United States to points in the Iceland area. . . . [C]ontacts are almost certain to occur. The rest requires little imagination.^[51]

Stark’s expectations were soon borne out. “Active defense” in the Atlantic meant that U.S. ships searched for submarines and dropped depth charges. Unsurprisingly, a U.S. ship was soon torpedoed and sunk. In October the destroyer Reuben James was accompanying a convoy in the North Atlantic. Several submarines were harassing the convoy. On October 31 a German torpedo hit the Reuben James on her side; an explosion burst her in two. Forty-five men were saved; a hundred died.^[52]

The United States was still officially neutral. Yet it had seized Axis ships in its harbors and frozen Axis funds. It was supplying England and her allies with weapons and supplies. Its ships were escorting British convoys in waters infested with German submarines, dropping depth charges on them. Its ships had trailed Axis ships, notified the British of their whereabouts, and stood by while the Axis ships were sunk. Its ships were being sunk, and its sailors were being killed. The president of the United States, commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy under the U.S. Constitution, was doing precisely what he had told Churchill he might do: he was beginning to “make war,” without “declaring war.”