and the underlying issue of keeping the USA out of the war.
Roosevelt's continued push for peace and neutrality continued through late 1939. Roosevelt sent both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini a message that warned them of the dangers and results that waging a war would cause. He used Hitler's own statements by telling him, “You have repeatedly asserted that you and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war.” It appeared that Roosevelt was trying as hard as he could to keep, not only the USA, but the entire world out of war and stay in a state of neutrality, simultaneously. Hitler's invasion of Poland as a part of his policy of blitzkrieg can essentially be seen as his response to President Roosevelt's letter, as Hitler was primarily concerned with Germany taking over neighboring lands and territories. Benito Mussolini received a letter similar to this one but, instead, it featured arguments put together by taking some of his old statements and using them against him, similar to what Roosevelt did to Hitler.
Roosevelt’s policies were effectively, yet with some bias, keeping the USA out of war with the European nations, yet Roosevelt still was not done with his involvement in European affairs. The most widely accepted date for the start of the Second World War is September 1, 1939, which marks the beginning of the Invasion of Poland by Hitler's Third Reich.
“The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future
for the world.” Similar to President Woodrow Wilson's “Fourteen Points” during World War I, the Atlantic Charter was almost the same thing, but about World War II. The Atlantic charter came as a result of the alliance with Britain due to their agreement through the lend-lease act between the two nations. This can be seen as President Roosevelt's official choice of sides, as this charter is in favor of the Allied Powers. Although this was written as an aid for the end of the war, the United States had still not been attacked by the Japanese, so they were not yet officially a part of the war, showing the lack of neutrality by President Roosevelt.
Japan's conflict with the USA stemmed from the USA condemning Japan's actions against the invasions in Asia, primarily China and series of islands in the Pacific. President Roosevelt appeared to have focused more on the conflict in Europe but still had Japan on the back of his mind. It would be Japan that would lead the United States to officially join the war. The day before the attack at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt sent letter to the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, as an attempt to maintain the “long period of unbroken peace and friendship” between the two countries. Roosevelt wrote that this appeal was a way “of dispelling the dark clouds” of conflict between the two nations. He ended the appeal by telling Hirohito that both nations' “have a sacred duty to restore traditional amity and prevent further death and destruction in the world.” Ironically, it would be Japan that would cause a mass amount of death and destruction
the following morning at Pearl Harbor.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese navy bombed and nearly destroyed the USA's
naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. With the death toll in the thousands, President Roosevelt would react quickly to this event. In a joint session to Congress the following day, he introduced December 7, 1941 as “a date which will live in infamy.” He ended his address to Congress by saying “I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.” With this, Japan and the USA were officially in a state of war, but they would not be officially involved in the world war until a few days later when Japan's ally, Germany, declares war on the United States.
Germany declared war on the USA on December 11, 1941. Adolf Hitler made a statement that said, “As a consequence of the further extension of President Roosevelt's policy, which is aimed at unrestricted world domination and dictatorship the U.S.A. together with England have not hesitated from using any means to dispute the rights of the German, Italian and Japanese nations to the basis of their natural existence,” essentially calling President Roosevelt a dictator. He also accuses President Roosevelt of being “guilty of a series of the worst crimes against international law” which include “illegal seizure of ships and other property of German and Italian nationals, attacking ships under the German and Italian flags, and boasting of the destruction of German submarines.” With this declaration, the alliance between Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Tojo's Japan was set in stone. The alliance between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union was also set in stone due to the USA being brought into the war by Japan and the USSR joining sides with the allies due to Hitler invading the USSR's territories
following an agreement between the two nations.
Conflict between the alliances continued with the USA focusing more on defeating the Japanese Empire by island hopping. Battles such as the ones on the islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima led to many deaths on both sides. In Europe, Britain and the Soviet Union were successfully keeping the Germans at bay. Led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower in June of 1944, the Allies invaded Normandy in France in order to try to push the Nazis back to Germany, which was successful and also established the Western Front, in addition to the Eastern Front. With the Germans surrounded, the surrender of the Germans would be inevitable. The “Big Three” made a joint statement at the Yalta Conference by saying that “Nazi Germany is doomed. The German people will only make the cost of their defeat heavier to themselves by attempting to continue a hopeless resistance.” Had the USA not gotten involved in the war in Europe, the conflict could have ended a lot later and with a different outcome, so it is thanks to Japan that the Allies were winning in Europe.
One of the major events in Truman's presidency came early on. The Germans surrendered to the Allies completely by May 8, 1945, made official by President Truman when he said, “This is a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces
of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe.” At this time, Hitler was no longer in power due to the fact that he commit suicide on April 30, 1945, three days after Benito Mussolini of Italy was executed. With the victory in Europe, there was only Japan to deal with now.
Japan was still not giving up. The nation that brought the United States into World War II held on tightly to the war but the response by the Americans was unexpected. On August 6, 1945, an American airplane flew over Hiroshima, Japan and dropped an atomic bomb, the first nuclear weapon ever used in history. President Truman later made a statement regarding his decision to drop it, saying that using the bomb was to “spare the Japanese people from utter destruction” and that “if they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” Japan refused to surrender immediately, so the USA dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Japan announced its surrender to the allies six days later, effectively ending World War II with an Allied Power victory.
The alliances during the war were all a part of chain reactions. The acceptance of Japan as an ally of Germany and Italy justified the fact that Germany and Italy both declared war on the United States. Although it was Japan who brought the USA into the war, it was the USA who made it out on top. The loss affected Japanese leader Hideki Tojo so much, that he asked the military police who had arrived to arrest him to wait for a moment and shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. It is claimed that a Japanese spy was sent to Oahu in Hawaii and would look at Pearl Harbor through a
telescope and through this, plans were made to attack Pearl Harbor. The attack at Pearl Harbor was nearly one year in the making so it was obvious that the Japanese forces wanted to bring the United States into the war. The Japanese fleet set sail their carrier ships on November 26, 1941 in order to get closer to Hawaii. If there were not any
conflicts in other parts of the world, the war between the United States and Japan could have been delayed, due to the fact the President Roosevelt was an advocate of working things out among nations.
The influence that Nazi Germany had on Japan's motives also helps to explain why Japan would join an alliance with them. Hideki Tojo, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini were all on the far-right of the political spectrum so it only made sense for these three to form an alliance.
Had the Axis powers won World War II, nothing would have mattered anyway because it is likely that these powers would have had conflicts in the future regarding land ownership and leadership.
Neutrality Act of 1935, August 31, 1935, 49 stat. 1081; 22 U.S.C. 441 note
Message to Czechoslovakia, Germany, Great Britain, and France on the Threat of War from Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 26, 1938
Message to Czechoslovakia, Germany, Great Britain, and France on the Threat of War from Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 26, 1938
Message to Adolf Hitler from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 14, 1939
The Atlantic Charter by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1941
Appeal to Hirohito by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 6, 1941
Address to Joint Session of Congress asking for Declaration of War against Japan by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941
Declaration of War against the USA by Adolf Hitler, December 11, 1941
Statement By Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt Regarding the German Defeat, February 11, 1945
Speech to the Public Announcing the Surrender of Nazi Germany by President Harry S. Truman, May 8, 1945
Statement Regarding the Use of the Atom Bomb in Hiroshima by President Harry S. Truman, August 6, 1945
Martin Gilman Wolcott, The Evil 100: Fascinating True-life Tales of Terror, Mayhem and Savagery (New York: Citadel, 2004), 91
Jacqueline Laks Gorman, Pearl Harbor: a Primary Source History (Pleasantville, NY: Gareth Stevens Pub, 2009) 16-18