T3C: WWII IDs: #24-42

The Committee to Defend America

An American political action group formed in May 1940. It was at the forefront of the effort to support a "pro-British policy" against Axis aggression. It advocated American military materiel support of the United Kingdom as the best way to keep the United States out of the conflict in Europe. Politically pro-intervention, it strongly believed the US should actively assert itself in the Second World War in Europe. It competed for American sympathy with the America First Committee, the main pressure group supporting complete neutrality and non-intervention. It supported the Lend-Lease Act and opposed the various Neutrality Acts of the late 1930s and sought their revision or repeal. It was also influential in mobilizing public support for the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. They always maintained an officially anticommunist stance.

America First Committee

Influential political pressure group in the United States (1940–41) that favored isolationism and opposed aid to the Allies in World War II because it feared direct American military involvement in the conflict. It was also characterized by anti-Semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric. It claimed a membership of 800,000 and attracted such leaders as General Robert E. Wood, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, and Senator Gerald P. Nye.

Smith Act

A United States federal law that was enacted on June 29, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government. The law was repealed in 1952. Approximately 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged communists, anarchists, and fascists.

Destroyers For Bases Deal

Britain had purchased US small arms in the summer of 1940, but needed an alternative to cash transactions. The Roosevelt administration came up with the straight trade concept, and in September 1940, Roosevelt signed this. This gave 50 US naval destroyers - generally referred to as the 1,200-ton type - to Britain in exchange for the use of naval and air bases in eight British possessions: on the Avalon Peninsula, the coast of Newfoundland and on the Great Bay of Bermuda.

Executive Order

A directive issued by the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government, and has the force of law. The legal or constitutional basis for these has multiple sources. Article Two of the United States Constitution gives the president broad executive and enforcement authority to use their discretion to determine how to enforce the law or to otherwise manage the resources and staff of the executive branch. The ability to make such orders is also based on express or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation). Like both legislative statutes and regulations promulgated by government agencies, these are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution. Major policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but these have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes.

Selective Training and Service Act

Enacted on September 16th of 1940. This was the first such act of conscription in the United States during a time of peace. Conscription is the process that drafts individuals into military service, as opposed to having individuals volunteering. This was not however the first time conscription was used in America. This new law required all male United States citizens between the ages of 21 and 35 to register for the draft. Individual names were drawn through a lottery system. If you were called to duty the time of your service would be one year. It also addressed the subject of conscientious objectors. These were men who claimed they could not fight due to their religious beliefs and convictions. If approved by the draft board, these individuals would still be required to enter the military, but would be assigned non-combat duties.

Election of 1940

This was fought in the shadow of World War II in Europe, as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic candidate, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue. The surprise Republican candidate was maverick businessman Wendell Willkie, a dark horse who crusaded against Roosevelt's perceived failure to end the Depression and his supposed eagerness for war. Roosevelt won a comfortable victory by building strong support from labor unions, urban political machines, ethnic minority voters, and the traditionally Democratic Solid South, going on to become the first and the only United States president in American history to be elected to a third term.

Four Freedoms Speech

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses Congress in an effort to move the nation away from a foreign policy of neutrality. The president had watched with increasing anxiety as European nations struggled and fell to Hitler’s fascist regime and was intent on rallying public support for the United States to take a stronger interventionist role. In his address to the 77th Congress, Roosevelt stated that the need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily–almost exclusively–to meeting the foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency. Roosevelt insisted that people in all nations of the world shared Americans’ entitlement to these certain things.

Lend-Lease Act

Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, this was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” By allowing the transfer of supplies without compensation to Britain, China, the Soviet Union and other countries, the act permitted the United States to support its war interests without being overextended in battle. It brought the United States one step closer to entry into the war. Isolationists, such as Republican senator Robert Taft, opposed it. Taft correctly noted that the bill would “give the President power to carry on a kind of undeclared war all over the world, in which America would do everything except actually put soldiers in the front-line trenches where the fighting is.”

Atlantic Charter

The United States and Great Britain issued a joint declaration in August 1941 that set out a vision for the postwar world. In January 1942, a group of 26 Allied nations pledged their support for this declaration. This was the document that resulted from the Roosevelt-Churchill meetings and was issued on August 14, 1941. The document is considered one of the first key steps toward the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. It included eight common principles. Among them, the United States and Britain agreed not to seek territorial gains from the war, and they opposed any territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned. The two countries also agreed to support the restoration of self-government to those nations who had lost it during the war. Additionally, it stated that people should have the right to choose their own form of government. Other principles included access for all nations to raw materials needed for economic prosperity and an easing of trade restrictions. The document also called for international cooperation to secure improved living and working conditions for all; freedom of the seas; and for all countries to abandon the use of force.

Undeclared Naval War

In July 1941, in a top secret memo to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Harold Stark, President Roosevelt authorized the Atlantic Fleet to change from defensive to offensive operations, writing, in part, “…the presence of any German submarine or raider should be dealt with by action looking to the elimination of such ‘threat of attack’ on the lines of communication, or close to it.” Therefore, unknown to Congress and the American people, months before Pearl Harbor the U.S. Navy secretly hunted Axis warships in the North Atlantic with authorization from President Roosevelt. FDR’s reasoning was protection for the continuation of the Lend-Lease policy.

Convoy System

A group of merchant vessels sailing together, with or without naval escort, for mutual security and protection. During World War II it was developed to its fullest extent, and it played a decisive role in achieving victory against the formidable German submarine fleet formed to prey on Allied shipping.

Casus Belli

Latin expression meaning "an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war" (literally, "a case of war"). One of these involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas another involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one bound by a mutual defense pact. Either may be considered an act of war.

Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere

An imperial concept created and promulgated for occupied Asian populations during 1930-45 by the Empire of Japan. It extended greater than East Asia and promoted the cultural and economic unity of Northeast Asians, Southeast Asians, South Asians and Oceanians. It also declared the intention to create a self-sufficient "bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers". It was announced in a radio address entitled "The International Situation and Japan's Position" by Foreign Minister Hachirō Arita on 29 June 29, 1940. The intent and practical implementation of this varied widely depending on the group and government department involved. Policy theorists who conceived it, as well as the vast majority of the Japanese population at large, largely saw it for its pan-Asian ideals of freedom and independence from Western colonial oppression. In practice, however, it was frequently corrupted by militarists and nationalists, who saw an effective policy vehicle through which to strengthen Japan's position and advance its dominance within Asia.

Tripartite Pact

The Axis powers formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan became allies with the signing of this in Berlin. It provided for mutual assistance should any of the signatories suffer attack by any nation not already involved in the war. This formalizing of the alliance was aimed directly at “neutral” America–designed to force the United States to think twice before venturing in on the side of the Allies. It also recognized the two spheres of influence. Japan acknowledged “the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe,” while Japan was granted lordship over “Greater East Asia.” • There was a fourth signatory - Hungary, which was dragged into the Axis alliance by Germany in November 1940.

Japanese Invasion of Indochina

The main objective of the Japanese was to prevent the Republic of China from importing arms and fuel through this area along the Kunming–Hai Phong Railway, from the port of Haiphong, through the capital of Hanoi to the Chinese city of Kunming in Yunnan. Although an agreement had been reached between the French and Japanese governments prior to the outbreak of fighting, authorities were unable to control events on the ground for several days before the troops stood down. Per the prior agreement, Japan was allowed to occupy Tonkin and effectively blockade China.

Hideki Tojo

A general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), the leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 17, 1941, to July 22, 1944. As Prime Minister, he was responsible for ordering the attack on Pearl Harbor, which initiated war between Japan and the United States, although planning for it had begun in April 1941, before he entered office. After the end of the war, he was arrested, sentenced to death for Japanese war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and hanged on December 23, 1948

Admiral Yamamoto

Japanese Marshal Admiral of the Navy and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II until his death. He held several important posts in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), and undertook many of its changes and reorganizations, especially its development of naval aviation. He was the commander-in-chief during the decisive early years of the Pacific War and therefore responsible for major battles, such as Pearl Harbor and Midway. He died when American code breakers identified his flight plans and his plane was shot down. His death was a major blow to Japanese military morale during World War II.

Pearl Harbor

Gundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked an American naval base. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan; Congress approved his declaration with just one dissenting vote. Three days later, Japanese allies Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States, and again Congress reciprocated. More than two years into the conflict, America had finally joined World War II.