#49 AIM: How did Japanese Expansion Finally Bring the US into the War?

By the beginning of 1941 US industries were slowly beginning to produce war supplies, but the main emphasis was still on consumer goods. Americans viewed the war with alarm & hoped we would not get involved. However most Americans believed that it was inevitable & only a matter of time that we would be drawn into the war.

While FDR & Congress still wanted the US to remain neutral, FRD realized that only the US had the industrial capacity to produce sufficient weapons to fight the Axis. FDR therefore proclaimed that the US would be an “Arsenal of Democracy”, to produce war supplies for the Allies.

Congress authorized the Lend-Lease Act of 1941 to permit the President to sell or lend war supplies to “any nation whose defense was vital to US interests”. Congress still wanted to remain neutral, & not send US troops, but realized that the US had to help Great Britain & the USSR (who had been invaded by Germany in June 1941). The US still feared & distrusted the USSR, but now they had a common enemy, _________, that had to be defeated.

In the Far East Japan had expanded south, & had taken over large parts of South East Asia that were European colonies; ( French Indo-China, Malaya, Indonesia & Singapore). The Europeans were in no position to resist Japanese aggression because they were either under Hitler’s control or fighting to protect their own homeland. Japan saw that they would have little resistance as they grabbed territory for their growing population & to provide sources of raw materials (coal, oil, iron, etc.) which it did not have at home.

Japan realized that only the US had the power to stop her advances. If Japan could destroy a large part of the US Navy then Japan could safely consolidate its power & gains before the US could react & rebuild its forces.

Japan therefore decided on a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. The attack, if successful, could cripple US naval power in the Pacific & leave Japan with no opposition. The Axis realized that such an attack would immediately bring the US into the war but reasoned that by the time the US was fully prepared it would be too late for the US to have any effective role in ending the war.

Japanese forces attacked the Pearl Harbor naval & air bases on Dec. 7,1941. The next day the US declared war on Japan, & the other Axis nation declared war on the US!

The Axis assumed that the US would not have the time or ability to mobilize rapidly or to gear up its factories for war. However the Axis never counted on the will or determination of the US or its ability to rapidly mobilize, & retool its industries to quickly produce an enormous amount of supplies & weapons.

HOMEWORK: Read pgs. 631 - #4 on pg. 635. Do pg.631 ques 3 & 4 & pg. 644 Ques 2A