Wednesday November 19, 1941. British Commonwealth in Action.

It was a day for British news, albeit news spread all over the globe, just like the British Empire and Commonwealth.

HMAS Sydney

Off the coast of Australia the Australian light cruiser engaged the German auxiliary cruiser Komoran in surface action, something that people tend to imagine didn't occur during World War Two, but which in reality occurred a fair amount.  Both ships were so heavily damages that they were both lost.  The action occurred in the Indian Ocean off of the western coast of Australia.

The loss is a bit odd, however, in that the Sydney was sunk in the engagement but the Komoran had to be scuttled.  This is explained by the Komoran running as a disguised merchant ship and having the jump on the Syndney as its identity was about to be discovered.

It was an Australian tragedy.  All hands were lost from the over 600 man crew.

In North Africa, the British took Sidi Rezegh, ten miles south of besieged Tobruk.  On the same day Sir John Dill retired from his position as Chief of the General Staff and was replaced by Sir Alan Brooke.

Sir John Dill.

Dill was a remnant of the Chamberlin administration and was not a favorite of Churchill's.  Churchill promoted him uphill to remove him as Chief of Staff, at which point he was assigned to the British diplomatic mission in the United States, which he proved to be very adept at.  Well liked and well respected in the United States, he died of aplastic anemia in Washington in 1944.

Brooke would remain as Chief of the Imperial Staff through the rest of the war and into 1946.

Wednesday July 20, 1921. Attacking the Ostfriesland.

The Army Air Corps sank the Ostfriesland, the largest German vessel to be subject to the Air Corp's aerial bombing experiment.

It was also the last vessel to be sunk.

The SMS Ostfriesland was a 1908 vintage German battleship and its use as demonstration proved to be a bit more accurate than had been planned for.  The effort was watched by the Secretaries of War and the Navy and Gen. John J. Pershing and only 13 of the 52 bombs launched from Army Air Corps airplanes struck her, a not atypical ratio.  This was, of course, before dive bombing and torpedo runs became the areal norm for attacking surface vessels.

Worse yet, only four of the bombs detonated.

A second run, using two 2,000 lbs bombs, occurred the following day, which did finally sink the former German dreadnought.

While the experiment confirmed what had already been proven, that aircraft could sink any surface ship, it also showed that some ships weren't easy to sink and that conventional bombing, such as engaged in by the Air Corps, had its limitations  In the following years before World War Two the Navy would take this to heart and develop specialized aircraft and weapons for attacking both surface ships and submarines.  The Air Corps, however, continued to take the view that bombers were effective against surface ships, which would prove to be in error in World War Two.

Parliament approved Prime Minister David Lloyd George's peace proposal to the Irish Republicans. The authorization envisioned an offer which granted Ireland complete domestic government, Dominion status, but which reserved defense and foreign relations to the United Kingdom.

If this seems rather limited, it was actually the status that other British Dominions, such as Canada and Australia, had at the time.  It was not until the Statute of Wesminster of 1931 that the Dominions obtained control of their own foreign relations, including the ability to declare war.

Monday, July 14, 1941. Bastille Day and the Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre

On this day in 1941 French forces in Lebanon and Syria officially ended hostilities with the British Commonwealth in what is known as the Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre.  

It was Bastille Day.

The day was marked in British Palestine at a hospital for Free French troops.

That day had been transformed into a sort of memorial day by the Vichy regime.  It remained on France's official calendar of holidays, but was altered from a celebration of the initiation of the French Revolution to one commemorating France's war dead.  This was part of an overall Vichy struggle with republican symbols and holidays that saw efforts to recast many such things, where they were not discarded.

Hitler, if he took note of the day at all, obviously didn't celebrate it.  Rather, he was still pondering the imminent defeat of the Soviet Union, revised his directive of the previous day with a part "A", which read:

The Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces

Führer Headquarters, 14th July 1941. 13 draft copies

On the basis of my intentions for the future prosecution of the war, as stated in Directive 32, I issue the following general instructions concerning personnel and equipment :

1. General:

Our military mastery of the European continent after the overthrow of Russia will make it possible considerably to reduce the strength of the Army. Within the limits of this reduced Army, the relative strength of the armoured forces will be greatly increased.

The manning and equipment of the Navy will be limited to what is essential for the direct prosecution of the war against England and, should the occasion arise, against America.

The main effort of equipment will be devoted to the Air Force, which will be greatly strengthened.

2. Manpower:

The future strength of the Army will be laid down by me, after receiving proposals from Commander-in-Chief Army.

The Replacement Army will be reduced to conform with the diminished strength of the Army.

The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces will decide, in accordance with my directives, on the employment of the manpower which will become available for the Armed Forces as a whole and for the armaments industry.

The Class of 1922 will be called up at the latest possible date, and will be distributed by the High Command of the Armed Forces in accordance with the future tasks of the various branches of the Armed Forces.

3. Arms and Equipment:

(a) The Armed Forces as a whole.
The arming and equipment of troops will be reduced to the requirements of the situation in the field, without reference to existing establishment scales.

All formations not intended for actual combat (security, guard, construction, and similar units) will be armed basically with captured weapons and second line equipment.

All requests for 'general Armed Forces equipment' will be immediately reduced or rejected in relation to available supplies, need, and wear and tear. Continued manufacture of such weapons as can be proved to be necessary will be decided in agreement with the Minister for Armaments and Munitions.

Plant (buildings and machine tools) already in use will not be expanded unless it can be shown that existing equipment cannot be put to full use by the introduction of shift working.

Work on all such permanent buildings for industry and the Armed Forces as are intended for use in peace-time, rather than for the immediate prosecution of the war and for the production of arms, will be halted. Construction directly necessary for the conduct of the war and for armaments will remain subject to the regulations of the General Plenipotentiary for Building. Buildings erected by civilian contractors will be limited by him to such as are most essential to the war effort.

Contracts of all kinds which do not comply with these principles will be immediately withdrawn.

The manpower, raw materials, and plant released by these measures will be made available for the main tasks of equipment and placed, as soon as possible, at the disposal of the Minister of Armaments and Munitions for use elsewhere.

(b) Army:
The extension of arms and equipment and the production of new weapons, munitions, and equipment will be related, with immediate effect, to the smaller forces which are contemplated for the future. Where orders have been placed for more than six months ahead all contracts beyond that period will be cancelled. Current deliveries will only continue if their immediate cancellation would be uneconomic.

The following are exceptions to these limitations:

The tank programme for the motorised forces (which are to be considerably reinforced) including the provision of special weapons and tanks of the heaviest type.

The new programme for heavy anti-tank guns, including their tractors and ammunition.

The programme for additional equipment for expeditionary forces, which will include four further armoured divisions for employment in the tropics, drawn from the overall strength of the armoured forces.

Preparations for the manufacture of equipment unrelated to these programmes will be halted.

The Army's programme for anti-aircraft guns is to be co-ordinated with that of the Air Force, and represents a single unified scheme from the manufacturing point of view. All available plant will be fully employed in order to achieve the delivery targets which I have laid down.

(c) Navy:
The Navy will continue its submarine programme. Construction will be limited to what is directly connected with this programme. Expansion of the armaments programme over and above this is to be stopped.

(d) Air Force:

The overall armaments program will concentrate on carrying out the expanded 'Air Armaments program' which I have approved. Its realization up to the spring of 1942 is of decisive importance for the whole war effort. For this purpose all available manpower from the Armed Forces and industry will be employed. The allocation of aluminum to the Air Force will be increased as far as possible.

The speed of the programme, and the extent to which it can be fulfilled, will be linked to the increased production of light metals and mineral oil.

4. The programme for powder and explosives will concentrate upon the requirements of the Air Force (bombs and anti-aircraft ammunition) at the expense of the requirements of the Army. Buildings will be restricted to the barest essentials and confined to the simplest type of construction.

Production of explosives will be limited to the existing basis.

5. It is particularly important to ensure supplies of raw materials and mineral oil. Coal production and the extension of the light metal, artificial rubber, substitute materials, and liquid fuel industries will be supported by the Armed Forces in every way, particularly by the release of miners and specialist workers. The construction of the necessary plans for the extended air armaments industry will be developed simultaneously.

6. The allocation of manpower, raw materials, and plant will be made in accordance with these principles.

7. The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces will issue the necessary orders for the Armed Forces, and the Minister for Armaments and Munitions for his sector, in mutual agreement.

signed: ADOLF HITLER

These directives are interesting not only in that he thought he'd won the war, by this time, against the Soviet Union, but that in he thought it would still require some prosecution against the British, and perhaps the United States, about which he didn't seem overly concerned.  That war, in his mind, was going to be primarily an air and naval war, and his decisions to start shrinking the German army as soon as possible reflected that.

In New York some kids were still acting normal.

Vladeck Houses, Madison St., New York City.   This was a housing project.

Wednesday July 13, 1921. A rump Irish Parliament meets, a treaty ends, layoffs at the War Department, sinking empty ships, request for nature funding.

The Southern Ireland Parliament, that body set up by the British Parliament for Irish self rule in the south, convened, but only twelve Senators and two members of the House of Commons attended.  This was likely no surprise as the British had entered into an armistice with the Dáil Éireann a few days prior, that being the self-declared legislative body of Ireland that had declared independence.

The Dáil Éireann had made use of British election laws when the Sinn Fein ran members for Parliament in 1919.  They did well and those members refused to take their seats in Parliament, declaring instead that they were the Irish Parliament.  It was, at the time, a unicameral body with only the equivalent of a House of Commons. A Senate would be added in 1922, thereby effectively duplicating the structure of the anticipated Southern Ireland Parliament.

Fifteen-year-old Jimmie Bradley testified in front of Congress in support of funding for nature study.

The Anglo Japanese Alliance, entered into in 1902, expired.

The alliance had been the legal basis of the Japanese Empire entering World War One on the Allied side, although it can be debated whether or not the Japanese would have entered anyway.  At any rate, they did as a British ally.  The alliance had served Japan well in its naval development but at the time the Pacific members of the British Commonwealth were increasingly worried about Japan as a potential enemy.  Indeed, a conference of Commonwealth members was ongoing at the time the treaty was allowed to expire.

On the same day, the U.S. War Department laid off 21,174 employees as a cost savings measure.

Harding reviewed a portrait of Gen. Pershing, the hero of the recent war, from the U.S. prospective.

The United States Army Air Corps sank the German destroyer SMS G102, a war prize ship, from the air.  The Air Corps, under Billy Mitchell, was busy proving its ability to sink ships, which would soon prove to be to the irritation of the Navy.

President Harding was given a chair made from the remnants of the USS Revenge, a pre War of 1812 warship.

Laddie Boy got to sit on it too.

The ship only served six years before running aground off of Rhode Island in 1811.  Its remains may have been located about a decade ago.

Saturday July 12, 1941. The Vichy end in Syria and Lebanon, the USSR and UK come to an agreement.

The Battle of Beirut brought to an end the British Commonwealth Syria-Lebanon campaign with a successful Commonwealth outcome.  An armistace between the Vichy French and the British Commonwealth would be signed that day.

An interesting overall feature of this campaign is that it never resulted in a declaration of war by Vichy France.  The fighting was outright, of course, but the French held back on formally entering the war in spite of it.

The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom signed an agreement that they would render each other assitance and that neigther would negotiate a seperate peace.

Tuesday, July 1, 1941. The dawn of the Television commercial.

On this date in history, the first television commercial ran, which you can now watch above.

It was an interesting day in the history of television overall:

Today in World War II History—July 1, 1941

On this day in 1941 a Federal photographer was photographing defense housing in Marrimack Park, Virginia.  You can tell which photographer it is by the fact that one of them consistently could never fully focus his camera.  Perhaps it was his equipment, but the photos are always out of focus.

Defense housing. Merrimack Park, Norfolk, Virginia. This project to house married enlisted personnel of the Norfolk naval base has 500 units which include single-story detached dwellings, two family houses, two-story group houses and apartments. Built at a cost of $1,980,000 by the US

Defense housing. Merrimack Park, Norfolk, Virginia.   Enlisted housing.

On the same day, the British took took the Syrian location of Palmyra.

British troops in Palmyra.

The battle featured mechanized British cavalry, and the Arab Legion, which would become famous post war in regard to the early Arab Israeli conflicts.  The location was inhabited since vastly ancient times, but was abandoned in 1932.

A press photographer photographed a convalescent home for British officers.  One of the photos appears here:

Lady MacMichael, at the Knights of St. John's Br. Red Cross, convalescent house for officers.

The Germans and Finns were also advancing, in the northernmost front of the war.  They jointly commenced Operation Arctic Fox, which aimed to capture Murmansk.  The operation would run until November, and fall short of its goal.

That failure was significant, as was the Finnish participation in the effort to seize the port.  The seizure would have choked off Allied supplies from that port, one of the most significant routes to the Red Army by sea.

The Vichy French government froze Soviet assets in France.

The Germans killed a small number of Polish academics and their families in Lwow, a targeted strike against the Polish intellectual community.  The death tole was 25, small in comparison to the number of people being executed elsewhere, but its still significant nonetheless.

Tuesday, June 28, 1921. Gatherings.

The Parliament of Southern Ireland attempted to convene, but failed as only four members showed up.  The failure signified the transfer of loyalties to the putative Irish Republic by the residents of the southern Irish counties.

General Pershing was photographed with General Harford.

I don't know who Harford was. Usually details on a U.S. Army senior commander of this period are easy to find, but in this instance, I'm drawing a blank.  He was in the 2nd Division at some time, which we can tell as he's wearing its divisional patch.

Harford on the same day:

The British Air Navigation and Transport Act took effect, giving the United Kingdom the authority to regulate air travel in the Commonwealth.  And the Kingdom of Yugoslavia adopted its first constitution.

Monday, June 20, 1921. Wheels.

It seemed to be a bicycle themed day.  President Harding met with a group of young men and their bicycles.

And two boys who were joint winners of a bicycle from the Washington Post posed with it, although they didn't look too thrilled. . . perhaps because there were two of them.

Rep. Robertson on June 20, 1921.

In Congress, Representative Alice Mary Robertson presided over the U.S. House of Representatives, thereby becoming the first woman to do so.

Robertson was a strong willed personality who had defeated an incumbent in order to take office, making her the second woman to obtain a position in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The Republican from Oklahoma was a Native American advocate and an opponent of feminism.  She never married and served only one term, after which she retired to a dairy farm, although she held an appointed position in the Harding Administration.  Her farm was destroyed by those angered by her votes in Congress.  She died in 1931 at age 77.

The United Kingdom held a conference with its Dominions that commenced on this day.  Policy in regard to Japan was a focus of it.

Thursday June 19, 1941. Blackout

U.S. Tank in training accident in Tennessee, June 19, 1941.  The US was engaged in full scale training in anticipation of war at this time.

Germany and Italy retaliated for the closure of German and Italian consulates in the US by closing US consulates in the two countries, something no doubt expected.  We learned of that here:

Today in World War II History—June 19, 1941

As you can also see from that item, the Soviet Union, realizing that things were looking ominous along its long border with the Axis, ordered a nighttime blackout on the border and camouflaged its airfields.

The Battle of Merdjayoun commenced in southern Lebanon, pitting British Commonwealth forces against Vichy French and Colonial Lebanese forces.

Australian artillery during the Battle of Merjayoun.

Wednesday June 18, 1941. The Middle East

 The Battle of Damascus began on this day in 1941.

Free French Circassian cavalry in Damascus.

The battle pitted Allied forces, lead by Indian troops on the ground, but including various Commonwealth countries and Free French forces against Vichy French and colonial Syrian troops.

The battle ran until June 21 and resulted in the surrender of the Vichy French administration to the Allies, thereby closing an Axis rear door in North Africa.

Germany and Turkey signed a treaty of friendship.

The treaty closed the door to the possibility, in German minds, of the Allies wooing Turkey, which was unlikely in the first place. Turkey, for its part, was on a dedicated path of neutrality.

The treaty would benefit both Germany and Turkey, with the Turks benefitting in some unexpected ways.  The Germans received a guaranteed supply of chromite from turkey through the treaty, putting the Turks basically in the same position as the Swedes in buying neutrality through raw materials, although in both instances the countries would have been a handful for the Germans to attack if they'd thought it necessary.  Indeed, in Turkey's situation the country was far more valuable to Nazi Germany as a neutral than as a combatant, as that closed the door to the British to the south who, as can be seen from the above, were defeating the Vichy French in Syria and who had already defeated an attempt at fascism in Iraq.  Unbeknownst to the Turks, the treat also shortened German lines, already pretty stretched, for Operation Barbarossa, which was just about to commence.

The Turks received cash, for chromite, but they also received a large guaranteed supply of arms which, in the dangerous world in which they were living, were something they very much needed.  Germany actually took advantage of this provision to supply the Turks with a large supply of unfinished Polish arms, which were of very high quality.  Polish small arms were partially based on German designs and the Germans themselves had put them to use in their own armed forces, but Poland had used "small ring" Mausers rather than the "large ring" ones used by the Germans which made finishing them off unattractive to the Germans.  This was not the case for the Turks.

The treaty did not preclude other nations, including belligerents, from trading with Turkey and the treaty would inspire a chromite buying effort on the part of the Allies.

The treaty's term was ten years, but the Turks would terminate the agreement in 1944, seeing which way the war was going, and they declared war on Germany on February 23, 1945.  Their declaration did not mean that they contributed troops in the final months of the war but can be seen as a means of attempting to protect themselves against a potential Soviet incursion into their territory.

Joe Louis knocked out Billy Conn in a heavyweight boxing match.

Sunday, June 8, 1941. The British Commonwealth invades the French Empire

On this day in 1941, Commonwealth forces and Free French forces invaded French Syria.

Today in World War II History—June 8, 1941

Britain invades French occupied Syria

The campaign is remarkable for a variety of reasons, including the use of cavalry by both sides.  The action was made necessary by legitimate British fears that Vichy would allow the Germans to occupy Syria, a threat made credible, if only from the Allied prospective, by the airborne invasion of Crete which had just occurred and by Vichy allowing the Luftwaffe airport rights in Syria.  Indeed, the action had been proceeded by Royal Air Force strikes on French airfields and retaliatory French raids on British ones in Transjordan.

The campaign was short, but it was marked by notable French resistance to the Commonwealth invasion and a decline of an offer of German Luftwaffe assistance.  The action overall is one of several that cast some legitimate doubt on the common concept of all Frenchmen being pro Ally at the time.

Surprisingly, the action did not result in a Vichy declaration of war against the United Kingdom and in fact Vichy's forces in Syria fairly rapidly fell in spite of their stout resistance.  The British had battlefield superiority, but this required diversion of Commonwealth forces from Libya, where their loss was keenly felt.  The action also, however, saw the deployment of Free French forces in what might be regarded as a near civil war being fought, and really for the first time, in a French colony.

The Free French were given military administration of Syria and Lebanon following the Allied victory, something that more or less made it clear that the British at least were recognizing a rival claim to the governance of France.  That administration, in keeping with the spirt of the age, recognized the independence of Lebanon and Syria, with Lebanon achieving a real measure of independence that Syria did not.  Lebanon declared war on the Axis powers in 1943.

DeGaulle, who was effectively the head of the Free French state by the war's end, was not sympathetic to Syrian independence and as with Algeria, the end of the war brought on demands for immediate statehood. Demonstrations in Damascus turned violent in May, 1945 which resulted in French troops being deployed inside of Syria to quite the demonstrations.  This didn't work and the British intervened with their troops having authorization to fire on the French if necessary, which it did not turn out to be, one of two instances of the British intervening in favor of a post war independence movement against a European colonial power (the other being in the Dutch East Indies).  This ended with the French leaving and the British briefly staying, until they were able to withdraw.

April 25, 1941 Echoes of wars past.

On this day in 1941, the Afrika Corps took Halfaya Pass between Egypt and Libya and entered Egypt from the west.  Given the dire situation, the British withdrew its Hurricanes from Tobruk, although they were down to two there at the time.  This left only Westland Lysanders stationed there for artillery spotting purposes.

Westland Lysanders over Madagascar in 1942.

The move conceded control of the skies to the Luftwaffe over Tobruk.

On the same day, Arab recruits to the British forces paraded in Jerusalem.

 

In spite of manpower shortages, and in spite of the fact that Arab volunteers were forthcoming, the British made very little use of them.  It made some, but not much.  All in all, there seems to have been an element of lingering mistrust of Arab volunteers and forces in spite of the significant cooperation between the Hashemites, now ruling Transjordan (and recently overthrown, albeit temporarily, in Iraq), during World War One.  This was partially amplified by Arab unrest between the wars.

On this day, the British forces were defeated at Thermopylae.  

Be that as it may, however, the British defense there did amount none the less to a strategic victory given as the delaying action gave the British forces now withdrawing from Greece much needed time.  The British forces made a 100 miles strategic withdrawal in twelve hours, a remarkable feat, and were greeted with flowers by crowds in Athens.

Many of the troops in Greece were New Zealand, so here again we'll not a bit of an irony in that on this day the British in the Middle East were observing ANZAC Day.

Australian troops at Anzac Monument in front of cemetery, April 25, 1941.

Regarding German intervention in Greece a complete success, Hitler ordered, on this day, the invasion of Crete.

In a press conference, President Roosevelt compared Charles Lindbergh's position on the war to that of the Copperheads to the Civil War.

April 24, 1941. Go tell the Spartans

The British began to withdraw their expeditionary force from Greece on this day in 1941.  The World War Two Battle of Thermopylae, on the same general location of famous battle in 480, also commenced, the same being a British rear guard action covering its withdrawal.

Germans at Thermopylae.

The battle would remain a controversial one in Greece as no Greek troops participated, which was regarded by some as shameful for many years thereafter.  Their absence, due to the collapse of the Greek army in the face of massive German intervention, was understandable.

A remarkable aspect of the British defense is that the British Commonwealth commanders on scene were unaware of the commencement of the withdrawal and expected it to be a last stand in the classic tradition.

On the same day the Italians attempted an assault on Tobruk with disastrous results.

Bulgaria belated declared a state of war pertaining to the parts of Yugoslavia it was occupying.

On April 23, Charles Lindbergh had delivered a speech to 30,000 listeners urging the US to stay out of World War Two and, further, blaming the British for the ongoing war while predicting their defeat.  On this day, the Secretary of State delivered a speech on the topic of the war which was, perhaps, a rejoinder.

FELLOW MEMBERS AND GUESTS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF INTER­NATIONAL LAW: On the occasion of this our thirty‑fifth annual meeting I shall undertake to discuss briefly certain acute phases of the world situation which are of vital interest to all of us. 

We are in the midst of desperately serious days which involve all peoples and all nations. Unfortunately, many people fail to grasp the nature of this world‑wide crisis and its meaning to our country. 

Too many people assume that the present struggle is merely an ordinary regional war, and that when it comes to an end the side which is victorious will collect indemnities but otherwise leave the defeated nations more or less as they were before the conflict began. 

This assumption would prove entirely erroneous should the aggressor powers be the winners. As waged by them this is not an ordinary war. It is a war of assault by these would‑be conquerors, employing every method of barbarism, upon nations which cling to their right to live in freedom and which are resisting in self‑defense. 

The would‑be conquerors propose to take unto themselves every part of every conquered nation: the territory, the sovereignty, the possessions of every such nation. They propose to make the people of each conquered nation into serfs; to extinguish their liberties, their rights, their law, and their religion. They systematically uproot everything that is high and fine in life. 

Such is the movement which is extending rapidly throughout the world. 

If experience shows anything, it shows that no nation anywhere has the slightest reason to feel that it will be exempted from attack by the invader, any more than, in a town overrun by bandits, the wealthiest citizen might expect to be free from attack. 

Every thinking man can answer the question for himself by simply calling the roll of the wretched victims of world‑aggression who are now in a condition of semi‑slavery and whose every hope of again enjoying the blessings of civilization depends only on the defeat or failure of the movement of conquest. So it is in Austria, Czechoslo­vakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Albania, Luxemburg, France, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia. Many right‑thinking people have not been able to conceive that this would happen. To them it has seemed incredible. Yet the physical facts are now before our very eyes, and the agony of the period through which the world is passing is marked by the most terrible events. As the armies of invasion move on, they bring with them blasted houses, families driven out to starve, civilian dead in the fields. When fighting is over, the administration of the invader offers no relief. Homes are plundered; families are separated; churches are closed; food is denied; semi‑slavery is introduced. Military frightfulness is merely replaced by civilian terror. Every resource of organized fiend­ishness is set to work to subjugate and cow the individual and to use the conquered territory as a springboard for new aggressions. 

The conclusion is plain. Now, after some 15 nations have lost every­thing that makes‑life worth living, it is high time that the remaining free countries should arm to the fullest extent and in the briefest time humanly possible and act for their self‑preservation. 

Some among us, doubtless with the best of intentions, still contend that our country need not resist until armed forces of an invader shall have crossed the boundary line of this hemisphere. But this merely means that there would be no resistance by the hemisphere, including the United States, until the invading countries had acquired complete control of the other four continents and of the high seas, and thus had obtained every possible strategic advantage, reducing us to the corresponding disadvantage of a severely handicapped defense. This is an utterly short‑sighted and extremely dangerous view. 

Events have shown beyond possible question that the safety of this hemisphere and of this country calls far resistance wherever resistance will be most effective. In my judgment our safety and security require that, in accordance with the declared policy of the legislative and executive branches of the Government, aid must be supplied without hesitation to Great Britain and those other countries that are resisting, the sweep of the general conflagration. This policy means, in practical application, that such aid must reach its destination in the shortest of time and in maximum quan­tity. So ways must be found to do this. 

You and I are familiar with the questions sometimes raised when we speak of aid to other nations. Why, it is asked, should we interest ourselves in the defense of other countries? Surely the answer is terribly clear. 

Those nations that are making resistance are primarily seeking to save themselves, their homes, and their liberties. Great Britain for instance is acting primarily for her own safety. The United States, both in its direct defense effort and in the aid which it ex­tends to the resisting nations, is likewise acting primarily for its own safety. As safety for the nations that are offering resistance means security for us, aid to them is an essential part of our own defense. Every new conquest makes available to the aggressor greater resources for use against the remaining free peoples. Our aid to the resisting nations is not the mere crusading of a world­-benefactor. It is based on the definite knowledge that every free nation anywhere is a bastion of strength to all the remaining free peoples everywhere. 

Sometimes the same confusion of thought is expressed in a dif­ferent question. Why, it is asked, should we care who wins? Is not this merely the traditional and recurrent struggle for power? Does it make any difference to America? What difference does it make to America? 

It makes a fateful difference. In a world which was, in the main, devoted to the cause of peace and in which no nation had designs upon the Western Hemisphere, we could, perhaps, take a detached attitude. But evidence has been piling up over several years which makes it perfectly plain that one group of powers ac­tually does have designs both upon the New World and upon the principles, the possessions, and the way of life that are ours. All the military movements and official acts and utterances of these powers have confirmed the knowledge that we too are included in their plans for world domination. Our freedom and our wealth inevitably make us magnets for their machine of force. 

Yes, it makes a difference who wins—the difference between whether we stand with our backs to the wall with the other four continents against us and the high seas lost, alone defending the last free territories on earth, or whether we keep our place in an orderly world. 

Again, it is asked, How are we in danger? Are not these idle fears? Since one warring nation cannot successfully invade Brit­ain across 20 miles of the English Channel how can any nation invade us from across three thousand miles of the Atlantic? 

The reason why the English Channel has not been successfully crossed is that the British have maintained control of that Channel. Forty million determined Britons in a heroic resistance have con­verted their island into a huge armed base out of which proceeds a steady stream of sea and air power. It is not water that bars the way. It is the resolute determination of British sea power and British arms. Were the control of the seas by the resisting nations lost, the Atlantic would no longer be an obstacle—rather, it would become a broad highway for a conqueror moving westward. Our protection would be enormously lessened. 

Those Americans who, in effect, are saying that a British defeat would not matter to us, signally overlook the fact that the result­ing delivery of the high seas to the invader would create colossal danger to our own national defense and security. The breadth of the sea may give us a little time. It does not give us safety. Safety can only come from our ability, in conjunction with other peace‑loving nations, to prevent any aggressor from attaining control of the high seas. 

Some, hoping that this crisis may end, ask whether some sort of peace cannot be made—a peace that will end the struggle in Europe and that will permit us to resume our normal life. I wish this were possible. But one obstinate fact stands in the way. One of the contending groups not only does not wish peace, as we un­derstand peace, but literally does not believe in peace. That group uses the word, it is true—as it was used by the aggressor at the time of the Munich arrangement in 1938. Peace to that group is merely a convenient cloak for a continuing undeclared, under‑cover war, as France and many other nations to their misery have dis­covered. Behind the deceptive protection of the word "peace" the rulers of that group accumulate vast striking‑forces. They infil­trate shock troops disguised as peaceful travelers and businessmen. They set up organizations for spying, sabotage, and propaganda. They endeavor to sow hatred and discord. They use every tool of economic attack, bribery, corruption, and local disturbance to weaken the countries with which they are at "peace", until a military move­ment can easily complete the task of subjugation. That kind of peace is nothing more than a trap—a trap into which many nations fell in earlier phases of this movement for world conquest when its true nature was not understood. Indeed; the dictator nations make no secret of their plans. They scornfully state their ideas, arrogantly confident that the law‑abiding nations will not take them seriously—until it is too late successfully to resist them. 

Finally, there are those who sometimes wonder whether aid to freedom‑loving nations and a vigorous policy of defending our interests will not irritate some aggressor into attacking us. This theory assumes that a lawless invader will become "irritated" if its intended victim dares to defend itself at the most effective stage. Under this theory, the only way to avoid giving such "irritation" is to submit. 

No nation is going to attack us merely because it is our policy to defend ourselves. Neither, for that matter, are any aggressors going to let us alone merely because we attempt to placate them. In the philosophy of the conquerors, an attack is justified whenever and wherever it looks easy and convenient and serves their purposes. There is no possible safeguarding our security, except by solid strength, placed when and where it is most effective.

The best, indeed the only way, of allaying the fears and doubts and questions of those who are in anxiety is for us, one hundred and thirty millions of Americans, to rise in our might and proceed as one man in the Herculean task of equipping this Nation to the fullest for its self‑defense. These preparations should not be for a month or for a year, but they must continue as long as our safety is threatened. 

The countries that have set about to impose their rule upon the world have turned their backs upon all the ordinary peacetime ways of work and living. They dreamed of force, they have created force, and they are now using it to the full. In their preparations and in their warfare they have demanded everything of their peo­ples. Ordinary family life, leisure, personal enjoyment, pursuit of private interest—all of these have been swept aside. Everything has been given over to the creation and use to the utmost of force. 

For us, the task of safeguarding our security requires the full, continuous, patriotically inspired effort of each and every one of us. The energies of those who control the operation of our factories and their machines, together with the labor of those who make and operate the machines, must be devoted to the attainment of maximum production. Each and all must work with a sense that what they do or do not do is important in determining whether this country shall be secure. Every part of our vast productive machine that can serve to produce military supplies must be put to that purpose. The desire to continue ordinary ways of business must yield to the needs of the crisis. Individuals and groups have no right at this time to think or act primarily in terms of their personal interest to the detriment of the general national good. 

What we do in the production of the fighting instruments needed by ourselves and by the free countries of the world now becomes a measure of our intelligence. 

There are those who are too easily discouraged when the news is temporarily unfavorable. Powerful propaganda machines endeavor to spread that discouragement. It is not the tradition of those who love liberty to yield to discouragement. That is not the American tradition. Our country owes its place in history to the fact that the people become more resolute and determined as danger and difficulty increase. 

There can be no temporizing with lawlessness or with disregard for the elemental rights of nations and peoples. 

Although the task is huge, though time is pressing, and though the struggle may continue for a long time, I am confident that at the end there will come a better day. We are at work not only at the task of insuring our own safety but also at the task of creating ultimate conditions of peace with justice. We can help to lay a firm foundation for the independence, the security, and the returning prosperity of the members of the family of nations. I have abso­lute faith in the ultimate triumph of the principles, of humanity, translated into law and order, by which freedom and justice and security will again prevail.