Posted on 10/31/2021 7:50:39 AM PDT by DFG
Most of us tend to associate the start of America’s involvement in World War II with the tragedy that struck Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Technically, we aren’t wrong. The United States did in fact make the decision to officially enter the war following the events of that terrible day. However, the Attack on Pearl Harbor was not the first deadly attack against U.S. forces during the overall duration of the war, nor was it the first time a U.S. warship was ravaged by the Axis.
The story I am about to tell you may sound familiar to any Woody Guthrie fans out there. In 1942, Guthrie released a song entitled, “The Sinking of the Reuben James”, whose recognizable chorus reads,
Tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James? What were their names, tell me, what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?
Guthrie’s song recounts the fate which befell the Clemson-class destroyer USS Reuben James (DD-245) on 31 October 1941, 78 years ago to this day, making her the first U.S. Navy ship to be sunk during World War II.
(Excerpt) Read more at navalhistory.org ...
That U-Boat skipper had bragged to his comrades about the ease in which he had been able to get thisclose to the torpedoing of an American Schlachtschiff and when the news reached Hitler's desk, he had issued an order to his U-Boat skippers that they were simply not to open fire on an American ship, even as the American ship might be assisting Royal Navy vessels in their pursuit of the U-Boats.
(He was well aware of the push for entrance into the war on this side of the Atlantic and the propaganda the interventionists would use to carry out their aim; after the push for war that took place here after the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, he was determined that the Germans provide absolutely no cover for these interventionists.)
If you had been an interventionist in the summer of 1940, you would have been in a small minority; the country was still overwhelmingly against the idea of sending Americans overseas to keep Europeans from killing each other.
Most though did support aiding Britain.
Hitler’s mistake was assuming that Japan would help the Germans in Russia in return for declaring war on the US.
Of course I assert it only would have been a matter of weeks before we got the Casus Belli to declare war on Germany, as now there were no restrictions on aiding Britain, as they had also declared war on Japan. All it would have taken was one more US ship being sunk by a U-Boat.
The troops that went into North Africa and Sicialy were largely National Guard troops that had been federalized in 1940. The massive USN of 1944 began building in the same year. If FDR hadn’t been pushing, the US buildup would have been delayed and the war might have lasted to 1950 with the Soviets on the English Channel.
FDR pretty much knew we’d be involved even when the Nazis invaded Poland.
I don't doubt this, although most Americans at the time absolutely drew the line at shedding American blood as part of that "aid".
I think deep down most knew it was “wishful thinking”.
I think that after Pearl Harbor, the sentiment here in the US had clearly shifted, and I think your point is valid.
A lot of the rhetoric after Pearl Harbor, suggested that Japan was acting on the orders of the Nazis. So yes, you could say that really the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, LOL!
6 months from laying her keel to christening in 1919. That seems quick to me.
"Wishful thinking" or not, Americans had clearly drawn the line at sending troops overseas to fight another European war.
At the time, an overwhelming number of Americans had European ancestry and we had left that part of the world for a reason; Europe's problems were not ours. The political class was well aware of American sentiment at the time, which is one of the reasons their efforts against Germany and Japan (with Chennault and the Flying Tigers, for example), had to be done discreetly; people simply had no interest in the "vaccine" of the day that was being pushed.
Six posts.
FReepers rock.
5.56mm
From everything I've read, Hitler was apoplectic at Japan for having launched that attack.
It may have been to our benefit that he declared war against us when he did, because Germany at the time was completely unprepared for war against the UK, never mind the US.
But there was also another part of the American psyche that Patton put best...
Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.
When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
I’m sure Hitler would have rather had Japan focusing on the Soviet Union than the US.
But I think after Zhukov kicked their ass in 1939, the Japs wanted no part of the Soviet Union.
I'm not sure where you've been for the last sixty years, or even for the last sixty days.
We just had our a$$es handed to us by a bunch of goat herders who came out of the seventh century to do it; we even left them enough equipment and munitions to provide for all of next year's military needs for a small nation.
It was a different country then, to be sure.
Johnny Horton also.
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