--- America - Dragged into war! ---
 

    In reality, after the invasion of Poland, most Americans knew that we'd eventually be in the war. The question was, who'd it be?  In 1935, the congress passed and president Roosevelt signed the Neutrality law, in effect making America neutral in any future conflict in Europe.  Even while signing it, FDR stated that it would tie America's hands in any future conflicts.
(Peace and War united states Foreign Policy 1931-1941)  In March of 1940 The Bureau of Aeronautics issued detailed instructions for the proper placement of the United States Insignia to be applied ot the fuselages and hulls of US Navy Aircraft participating in the Neutrality Patrol. (NAVY AIR COLORS - United States Navy, Marine Corps and Cost Guard aIrcraft camouflage and markings VOL.1 1983)

    America was officially neutral, but most of her effort was aimed at submarines in the western Atlantic.  Most submarines in that area were German.  From the very outset of the war, Churchill had been in contact with Roosevelt, written to him often as "former Naval Person."  In August of 1941, the two were to meet at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.  The meeting was not widely broadcast.  Of it Churchill says, "... conversations were then begun between the President and myself,  Mr. Sumner Wells and Sir Alexander Cadogn and the Staff officers on both sides, which proceeded more or less continuously for the remaining days of our visit... On sunday morning, August 10, Mr. Roosevelt came aboard H.M.S. Prince of Wales and, with his staff officers and several hundred representatives of all ranks of the Unite States Navy and Marines, attended divine Services on the Quarterdeck...  I chose the hymns myself - 'For Those in Peril on the Sea' and 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' We ended with 'O God Our Help In Ages Past...' Every word seemed to stir the heart. It was a great hour to live. Nearly half of those who sang were soon to die." -(The Grand Alliance, Winston s. Churchill)

    On November 27, 1941 the War Department sent the following alert, radioed to all commands. "NEGOTIATIONS WITH JAPAN APPEAR TERMINATED...JAPANES FUTURE ACTION UNPREDICTABLE BUT HOSTILE ACTION POSSIBLE AT ANY MOMENT. IF HOSTILITIES CANNOT REPEAT CANNOT BE AVOIDED THE UNITED STATES DESIRES JAPAN COMMIT THE FIRST ACT."

   General Short, Army commander received the following, "MEASURES SHOULD BE CARRIED OUT SO AS NOT REPEAT NOT TO ALARM CIVIL POPULATION OR DISCLOSE INTENT."

Admiral Kimmel received the following, "THIS DISPATCH IS TO BE CONSIDERED A WAR WARNING . . . AGGRESSIVE ACTION EXPECTED BY JAPAN IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS." (THE PACIFIC WAR 1941-1945, John costello, 1981)

    Roosevelt clearly saw the danger of a rearmed Germany in the hands of the Nazi party.  Italy and Japan had also attacked neighbors to gain territory.  Reading the summaries of speeches made by Hull and Roosevelt in those days, it is easy to see the direction they were trying to lead America.

March 15, '41 - Roosevelt: 'The Nazi forces were not asking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries; that they openly sought the destruction of all elective systems of government on every continent -- including our own...'

To congress, June 20 - following the sinking of an American Merchant vessel, the Robin Moor: '...This Government could only assume that Germany hoped, through the commission of such acts of cruelty, to intimidate the United States and other nations into a course of non- resistance to German plans of universal conquest....'

Sep 11 radio address - following the sinking of the Sessa and the Montana, American owned Merchant ships, under Panama flag and the Unites States Merchant ship Steel Seafarer: '...Under Nazi control of the seas no merchant ship of the United States or of any other American republic would be free to carry on any peaceful commerce, "except by the condescending grace of this foreign and tyrannical power." ' (PEACE AND WAR State department, 1942)

    How much of these speeches he believed, himself and how much he saw as only a way to prepare America for the coming battle, no one knows. But we can be sure of a few things...