U. S. AND BRITAIN FREEZE JAPANESE ASSETS; OIL SHIPMENTS AND SILK IMPORTS HALTED (7/26/41)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 7/26/41 | John H. Crider, Daniel T. Brigham, Otto D. Tolischus, C. Brooks Peters, G.H. Archambault, more

[PeterPrinciple]

Your points are valid, but as I look through history, you can almost see the “invisible hand”. War with Japan was going to happen no matter what FDR did. I maybe wrong, at best it could be deferred or changed to a degree. It appears to me FDR saw it coming and prepared for it. I am not an FDR fan in any respect but just like today, we can see the crap storm coming and at best we can prepare for it but we can’t avoid it.

[PeterPrinciple]

Very interesting. So many small battles, that become part of the major conflict.

[PzLdr]

If at first you don’t succeed [starting a war with the Germans], try, try again[start a war with Japan].

Roosevelt’s actions in destroyers for bases, escorting British shipping, dividing the Atlantic into “defense” zones, trailing, radioing U-boat positions to the Brits,providing the co-pilot on the PBY that found the BISMARCK, constitute co-belligerency under international law. But Adolf didn’t bite.

SOOOO, you embargo Japan, a naval power with no oil of its own, from petroleum acquisitions, leaving it with one potential source, Indonesia [the raison d’etre for WW II in the Pacific], or withdrawing from not only Indochina, but China as well. Then you send that nation’s largest potential adversary, the U.S Pacific Fleet, from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor, despite the Navy’s reticence to do so.

There’s a difference between preparing for a war, and actively seeking one.

But at least old Franklin managed to hand the Japanese Navy all the trump cards in their argument with the Japanese Army over whether to go north [Siberia], or south [Indonesia], allowing the Soviets to pull their Far East armies west to face the Germans.So FDR quite possibly affected the outcome of WW II.

[PeterPrinciple]

There’s a difference between preparing for a war, and actively seeking one.

---

I'm going to stick with the “invisible hand” theory. But you do raise a good question that we will never know the answer to. What if FDR had done everything possible to avoid war?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I was 15 that summer.

So you must have been 18 when you landed in France a few summers down the line, is that right?

[BroJoeK]

PeterPrinciple: "War with Japan was going to happen no matter what FDR did.
I maybe wrong, at best it could be deferred or changed to a degree."

War with Japan could easily have been avoided, if that was President Roosevelt's intention.
All he needed to do was agree with Japan's aims and goals.
If FDR had just maintained normal trade relations with Japan, supplied them all the oil they wanted, agreed to their conquest of China and take-over of Indo-China, then there need never have been a Japanese "mistake" putting the US into the war.

If FDR had even kept the US fleet in Los Angeles, as all his naval commanders advised him to, the Japanese would feel no need (and have no ability) to secure their flanks by attacking the US fleet, when Japan invaded towards raw materials in South Asia.

Indeed, if the US had remained friendly to Japan, the Japanese may well have seen that their first strategic interest was in helping their ally Hitler defeat Stalin's Soviet Union by attacking Soviet forces in Siberia.
Then the Axis powers would have won the war and forced Britain to accept peace on their terms.

But avoiding war was not FDR's goal.
Instead, his goal was to come to Britain's aid, just as the US did back when a handsome young FDR was President Woodrow Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy, responsible for naval intelligence.
Now President, his basic problem was: Adolf Hitler's determination to avoid giving Roosevelt the same excuse Wilson had to declare war on Germany -- unlimited U-boat sinkings of US ships.

So what was FDR to do?
Well, if he could poke the Japanese hard enough, maybe they would solve his problem?

And that's what he did.
And that's what they did.

[PeterPrinciple]

We will have to agree to disagree. All the appeasement and perceived weakness you propose would only have made Japan more aggressive. When they were done with Russia, we were next on the list. What you proposed would not have avoided war, only changed when and how in my opinion. If the axis powers had won, we would have had to deal with NAZI socialism instead Communist socialism. Lots of ifs presented here that we will never know, history is what it is. I guess my point is that war and conflict are the norm through the history of man, we will not create utopia here on this earth because of the nature of man. In many ways I wish we had dealt earlier with the crap storm we are now in and confronted it on our terms, but now is the time.

[ex-snook]

So you must have been 18 when you landed in France a few summers down the line, is that right?

---

Well almost. I spent year 18 being drafted and infantry replacement training. I understand then you were not sent over as an infantry replacement if you were still 18. I was on the ship to France on 19th birthday with a Division.

ps I wasn’t interested in music anymore - war can concentrate the mind! Regards,

[dfwgator]

And that's what he did. And that's what they did.

And thank God he did.

[Larry381]

Whoops, I notice I posted one of my replies with photos to yesterday’s thread. Sorry about that-I’ll repost it again to today’s forum. Again, my apologies.

[Larry381]

The Spanish Volunteer Division of the Wehrmacht is designated the 250th (”Azul/Blue”) Infantry Division. It is called the “Blue Division” because the original uniform includes the dark blue shirts of the Spanish Fascists (the Falange).

The Catholic Church had suffered atrociously during the Civil War. Thousands of priests had been assassinated and many thousands of religious buildings had been destroyed. The Vatican had qualified the war against the Popular Front as a 'Holy Crusade'. Therefore, although the neo-paganism of the Nazis was alarming for Spanish Catholics, it was still considered far preferable to the hatred inspired by the Soviet Union.

Other conservative groups in Spain were stupefied to see the United Kingdom ally itself with Stalin. Many of them, who until then would have preferred to see a British victory over Germany, changed their opinion when it became clear that the defeat of Germany would be a victory for Stalin.

So it was that the Blue Division arose with massive popular support from all those social and political groups who had supported the Nationalist Uprising of 18 July 1936.
For these sections of Spanish society, the campaign against the Soviet Union was the continuation of a war that had begun in Spain. Therefore, Spain could lay claim to the honour of being 'the first country to defeat communism'. Because of this, it was felt, Spain could not fail to participate in some way in Operation Barbarossa.
This desire to fight communism was integral to the origins of the Blue Division and was given as the main justification for its existence.
Many of those who passed through its ranks also wanted to show their sympathy for the Third Reich. They admired its social and economic policies and wished to see similar ideas implanted in Spain. They also hoped that their presence in the campaign in Russia - a campaign it was assumed would end in victory - would result in Spain improving its international position.

Russia had never before been an enemy of Spain, but the Soviet Union was definitely considered an enemy by many Spaniards. Nothing obliged the Spanish to march to Russia to fight communism, but many thousands of them did: some 45,000 took part in that campaign. The profile of the typical soldier filling the ranks of the Blue Division can be perfectly defined from the beginning: volunteer and anticommunist.

Another casualty of Yelnya

German column heading eastward through The Ukraine-not far from the old Russo-Polish border. July 1941

Infantrymen board a small inflatable boat, which could carry three or four men. They are going to reconnoiter the far shore before the main body attempts to cross. One of the men aboard the boat is armed with a Czechoslovak 7.92mm vz.26 light machine-gun. Some German units were armed with this weapon in lieu of the MG34 machine-gun, which was in short supply. The Germans designated this weapon the MG26(t) or MG146U) depending on whether it was obtained from Czechoslovak or Yugoslavian stocks. It was fed by a 3D-round box magazine; the man about to board the boat is carrying a container with extra magazines.

No description or date but appears to be German mountain unit passing through a village (Ukraine?)

Another abandoned Soviet airfield outside Lvov.

Panzer troops interrogate a Soviet POW. The officer with his back to the camera wears a black panzer jacket while the German tank crewman center wears the mouse-gray "Trikot" shirt. The odds that the Red Army prisoner survived German captivity are very slim.

Traffic jam at a Luga River bridge in late August. The river is neither wide, with steep banks, nor fast flowing yet was obviously an obstacle. German pioneers have constructed a new bridge to the left.

A German soldier inspects a Soviet sniper's nest high in a tree. Snipers were such a threat in the heavily wooded north that the SS-Divison "Totenkopf" commander Theodor Eicke authorized division officers to remove rank insignia on Barbarossa's second day.

Exhausted German soldiers relax in the shade of a building. Unusually, the men appear to wear SS-pattern camouflaged helmet covers and smocks over their regular army tunics.

[CougarGA7]

War with Japan could easily have been avoided, if that was President Roosevelt's intention.

I can't agree with this statement either. The best case scenario would have only made the war start later.

Taking the Neville Chamberlain approach would have only emboldened the Japanese towards their next conquest. Likely if they wanted to avoid immediate war with the United States it would have been by joining their Axis partner by attacking the British. This would mean an attack on Singapore.

With Singapore gone, it would have opened the doors to the Dutch East Indies.

Eventually, the United States would have had to respond to this expansionism and the only way to stop it would have been war.

I think the prospect of Japan ever joining the Germans in an attack on the Soviets was never a realistic prospect. If it was they probably would have done so from the moment they reaffirmed the Tripartite Pact. I think the battle of Nomonhan really set the stage for that and Japan (and the Kwantung Army) wanted no part in fighting Soviet Siberian Divisions.

[BroJoeK]

PeterPrinciple: "What you proposed would not have avoided war, only changed when and how in my opinion.
If the axis powers had won, we would have had to deal with NAZI socialism instead Communist socialism."

Of course, "what-if" history is tons of fun, since nobody can prove you wrong. ;-)

There is no evidence that Japan ever had designs on the United States itself.
Yes, the Philippines were "in the way" of Japanese expansion towards the Dutch East Indies, but that is just the kind of thing the Japanese were willing to negotiate: in exchange for a non-aggression treaty between the US and Japan, the US stands aside while Japan takes over the Dutch oil-rich colonies, and Japan doesn't touch the Philippines.

So what happens later -- after Germany conquered all of Europe and Soviet Russia, after Japan conquered China and all of South Asia -- how well does the US get along with the victorious German and Japanese empires?
Or is there some eventual new war, when they attack America itself?

Well, I don't see Japan ever seriously invading the US mainland.
But Hitler's Germany is a different matter.
Every military victory only increased his appetite for more victories.

And Germany's military had contingency plans to invade the US going back before the First World War.
So there's no telling...

On the other hand, Hitler was in increasingly deteriorating health, unlikely to survive much longer, even without his suicide.
So Germany would have a new leader in, say, 1946 or 1947.
Would the new German leadership be eager to make peace with the new US President, Harry Truman?

Hard to say, but my point is, I think President Roosevelt did exactly the right things in preparing the US for war, and leading us into it.
In general, I don't see how he could have done a better job of it.

My complaints are along these lines:

• Kimmel & Short in Hawaii should have been better warned about the possibilities of Japanese air attacks.

• FDR put way, way too much trust in "Uncle Joe" Stalin, especially regarding Eastern Europe and Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project.

Think about that: thanks to the diligent efforts of FDR, J Edgar Hoover and others, so far as we know, there were no, zero, German of Japanese spies in the program, but it was literally crawling with Communist spies, who kept Uncle Joe fully informed of every development.

[PzLdr]

The German officer facing the camera [in the overcoat] in the sixth picture is, I believe, Guenther von Kluge.

[Larry381]

Soviet KV taken out by German infantry

German recce unit enters Ukrainian village in early August 1941

Soviet prisoners head west from Uman area of the Ukraine.

German listening post somewhere in White Russia.

German unit in the Uman area of the Ukraine.1941

Photo with a description of "ambush" and date of July, 1941. Appears to be a German in the foreground.

Ukrainian landscape.

[CougarGA7]

Great pictures as always Larry.

[BroJoeK]

CougarGA7: "The best case scenario would have only made the war start later."

Note my response to PeterPrinciple, I think it answers most of your points.

Remember, the Japanese negotiated in pretty good faith as long as they believed a peaceful solution was possible.
So if FDR had offered the Japanese a non-aggression treaty, wherein the US fleet returns to permanent station in Los Angeles, and US forces in the Philippines stand aside while Japan has it's way with French, British and Dutch colonies, the President could have bought us several more years of "peace."

After that, who knows, it's all speculation, but we know Roosevelt died in early 1945, and Hitler was in very poor health, so by 1950 at the latest, there would be a wholly new cast of characters, and who might they be?

But please don't misunderstand my speculations here -- I think President Roosevelt did exactly the right things (with some exceptions I've mentioned), and deserves all the credit for America's success in the war.

[BroJoeK]

dfwgator: "And thank God he did."

Of course.
Imho, FDR did exactly the right things -- only trying to point out that he did have other, at least somewhat viable options.

[dfwgator]

Imho, FDR did exactly the right things -- only trying to point out that he did have other, at least somewhat viable options.

True, but then again, hindsight is 20/20.

[CougarGA7]

I read what you wrote to PeterPrinciple, and I just don’t agree. The Japanese only negotiated for terms that fit their designs on putting Asia and the West Pacific Rim under one Asian pagoda. The best FDR could have done different was bye some time. War would happen. Even if we had done nothing as Japan moved into the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, the Philippines would eventually become a target. The Japanese knew that the only force that could get in the way of their designs on Asia was the United States Navy. It really was the only show in town outside the IJN and IJA.

Had FDR offered a non-aggression treaty where the fleet would return to its permanent station in San Diego (not Los Angeles, the fleet was based in San Diego prior to 1940’s move to Pearl) it would have bought him some time, but not very much. At best I would say about 2 years, but with carte blanc in the Pacific, I’d bet the Japanese would have stepped up their timetable for conquest of the South Pacific.