Friday August 15, 1941. The coming war.

Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of embattled Britain, and Franklin Roosevelt, President of the ostensibly neutral United States, jointly wrote Josef Stalin, the head of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union who had presided over the decimation of its officer corps just before World War Two, stating:

We realize fully how vitally important to the defeat of Hitlerism is the brave and steadfast resistance of the Soviet Union and we feel therefore that we must not in any circumstances fail to act quickly and immediately in this matter on planning the program for the future allocation of our joint resources

It's often noted that the United States was quite involved, obviously, in aiding the fighting Allies prior to December 7, 1941, but running across these day by day entries such as this really do provide quite a revelation.  The US, in a communication such as this, was effectively acting as if it was at war.

It nearly was, although it wasn't a declared belligerent yet.  Just this past week, however, the US had entered into a "charter" with the UK about what the post-war world should look like, and it had made a declaration under the Monroe Doctrine, quite sensibly and in keeping with its historical position, that it would not allow German U-boat attacks in the Western Hemisphere.  But at the same time the House of Representatives had nearly started sending inductees into the Army home, as the first inductees had planned on, when their October conscription dates were up.

Roosevelt remains a controversial President in some quarters, particularly for his role in expanding the government in the Great Depression.  It's interesting how the shock and horror of the Second World War, once we were in it, has pretty much silences his pre-war actions in edging up, and indeed over, the line that crossed into war.  His view and attitude were correct, but the degree to which the US not only flaunted its neutrality, but pretty much ignored it short of an actual declaration of war, is really remarkable.

On the same day, the Philippine Army Air Corps was inducted into the United States Army Air Forces in the Far East.

Ceremony at Camp Murphy in the Philippines on August 15, 1941, Gen. MacArthur presiding.

This gets into the peculiar status of the Philippine military at the time.  The Philippines were slated for independence in 1946, and they had their own military establishment, which had been created in 1935.  Nonetheless, the islands were not yet fully independent, although they were functioning in a quasi independent manner, sort of like pre-1918 British dominions, although less so.

Nonetheless, as war with Japan grew closer, and recent embargoes upon the Japanese made it nearly inevitable at this point, the wisdom of incorporating the infant air force into the US establishment was obvious.  On this day, it was done.  The move was more than symbolic, it actually made the Philippine Air Corps an American military unit.