Having readI was strongly inclined toward that view. Because the US Navy became more aggressive in protecting shipping from America to Britain “though out the summer of 1941” - which, when you consider that summer started on June 22 and so did Hitler’s invasion of the USSR. This, after diplomatic recognition of the USSR had been FDR’s first foreign policy act.
- The New Dealers' War:
- FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas Fleming
But having recently readI realize that that apparently is not the case. Because that book make a very credible case that FDR was frantically working to keep Britain in the war from Dunkirk on. The British Army was essentially unarmed after Dunkirk, and FDR sold all the Army’s WWI surplus (because the US Army was adopting the Garand) rifles. And allowed Britain (and France, before its fall) to shop for arms in America with little or no restriction. Churchill occasionally sent FDR a telegram warning of Britain’sprecarious position - at one point warning that if Britain fell, Churchill obviously could not speak to what his successors might feel obliged to allow Hitler to do with the Royal Navy. FDR did not want the Royal Navy to appear off the coast of New Jersey.
- Freedom's Forge:
- How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
Arthur HermanYou probably know, as I already had, that the British had sent the blueprints for the Rolls Royce Merlin fighter engine and plans for radar and the Wittle jet engine, and other advanced devices to America. But it had not sunk in to me that that was over a year before Pearl Harbor. The British also paid cash on the barrelhead, as long as they were able, for American supplies - and FDR made sure that that money helped the US build up its military-industrial complex.
As under Secretary of the Navy, FDR had seen first hand that during WWI America’s factories had never delivered any military materiel to Europe, still less the front, before the shooting ended. And he knew that a repeat of that performance would be disastrous in WWII. So he called Bertrand Russell, the only industrialist who had impressed him during WWI. Russell demurred, saying he was too old for the job, but recommended Bill Knudsen. Knudsen had immigrated in 1900, had gone to work for Ford, risen to Henry’s right hand man, and had quit in a policy dispute in 1920. He then signed on with a struggling auto company known as General Motors, and brought the Chevrolet division up to parity with Ford. So basically from the time of Dunkirk to the time of Pearl Harbor, Knudsen - operating as a dollar-a-year man - organized the American ability to mass produce war materiel. Knudsen gave FDR an estimate of 18 months to finish preparation for mass production - first get enough machine tools, then enough factory space, and so on - and was ready to seriously ramp up production when the smoke cleared away from Pearl Harbor.
That 18 month period from Dunkirk to Pearl Harbor meant that America was even more of a “sleeping giant” than Yamamoto knew in 1941. America had few warplanes in 1941 - but it was in a position to undertake to make 50,000 planes (many multiengine) in 1942.
I am reminded of something I heard on the John Batchelor show about the GNP and the role it played during W.W.II. This is from Batchelor's website:
1005P Jim Lacey . . . tells how a few obscure American economists guided the miracle of production that crushed the Axis. In 1940-1943 all-outer military chiefs and Roosevelt himself badly misjudged American capacities of labor, materials and finance. Their jumbled arms programs were out of touch with reality. Lacey persuasively describes how the economists, applying then-new statistical measure like gross national product, convinced them to recalibrate output to credible goals that assured a timely victory.
A little serendipity here. Mr. Edward S. Miller, author of Bankrupting the Enemy: The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan Before Pearl Harbor, was mentioned associated with the above. The new book is described:
"Award-winning author Edward S. Miller contends in this new work that the United States forced Japan into international bankruptcy to deter its aggression. While researching newly declassified records of the Treasury and Federal Reserve, Miller, a retired chief financial executive of a Fortune 500 resources corporation, uncovered just how much money mattered . . . ."