Franklin D. Roosevelt

::FDR redirects here. For other uses, see FDR (disambiguation).

Pearl Harbor

Roosevelt was much less keen to involve the U.S. in the war developing in East Asia, where Japan occupied French Indo-China in late 1940. He authorized increased aid to China, and in July 1941 he restricted the sales of oil and other strategic materials to Japan, but also continued negotiations with the Japanese government in the hope of averting war. Through 1941 the Japanese planned their attack on the western powers, including the U.S., while spinning out the negotiations in Washington. The "hawks" in the Administration, led by Stimson and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, were in favor of a tough policy towards Japan, but Roosevelt, emotionally committed to the war in Europe, refused to believe that Japan might attack the U.S. and favored continued negotiations. The U.S. Ambassador in Tokyo, Joseph C. Grew, passed on warnings about the planned attack on the American Pacific Fleet's base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, but these were ignored by the State Department.

Related Topics:
East Asia - French Indo-China - 1940 - 1941 - Oil - Henry Morgenthau - Tokyo - Joseph C. Grew - Pearl Harbor - Hawaii - State Department

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On 7 December 1941 the Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, damaging most of it and killing 3,000 American personnel. The American commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter Short, were taken completely by surprise, and were later made scapegoats for this disaster. The fault really lay with the War Department in Washington, who since August 1940 had been able to read the Japanese diplomatic codes and had thus been given ample warning of the imminence of the attack (though not of its actual date). The War Department had not passed these warnings on to the commanders in Hawaii, mainly because its analysts refused to believe that the Japanese would really have the effrontery to attack the United States.

Related Topics:
7 December - 1941 - Attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor - Husband E. Kimmel - Walter Short - War Department - 1940

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It has become a staple of postwar revisionist history that Roosevelt knew all about the planned attack on Pearl Harbor but did nothing to prevent it so that the U.S. could be brought into the war as a result of being attacked. There is no evidence to support this theory. On 5 December the Cabinet discussed the mounting intelligence evidence that the Japanese were mobilizing for war. Navy Secretary Knox told the Cabinet of the decoded messages showing that the Japanese fleet was at sea, but stated his opinion that it was heading south to attack the British in Malaya and Singapore, and to seize the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies. Roosevelt and the rest of the Cabinet accepted this view. There were intercepted Japanese messages suggesting an attack on Pearl Harbor, but delays in translating and passing on these messages through the inefficient War Department bureaucracy meant that they did not reach the Cabinet before the attack took place. There is no evidence that Roosevelt was made aware of them. All contemporary accounts describe Roosevelt, Hull and Stimson as shocked and outraged when they heard news of the attack.

Related Topics:
Revisionist - 5 December - Malaya - Singapore - Dutch East Indies

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The Japanese took advantage of their pre-emptive destruction of most of the Pacific Fleet to rapidly occupy the Philippines and all the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, taking Singapore in February 1942 and advancing through Burma to the borders of British India by May, thus cutting off the overland supply route to China. Pearl Harbor was followed immediately by declarations of war on the U.S. by Germany and Italy. Isolationism evaporated overnight and the country united behind Roosevelt as a wartime leader. Despite the wave of anger that swept across the U.S. in the wake of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt decided from the start that the defeat of Nazi Germany had to take priority. Fortunately, in a major foreign policy blunder, Nazi Germany played directly into Roosevelt's hands when it declared war against the USA on December 11 which removed any meaningful opposition to fighting the Third Reich. He met with Churchill in late December and planned a broad alliance between the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union, with the objectives of, first, halting the German advances in the Soviet Union and in North Africa; second, launching an invasion of western Europe with the aim of crushing Nazi Germany between two fronts, and only third turning to the task of defeating Japan.

Related Topics:
Philippines - Southeast Asia - Singapore - 1942 - Burma - British India - December 11

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Although Roosevelt was constitutionally the Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces, he had never worn a uniform and he did not interfere in operational military matters in anything like the way Churchill did in Britain, let alone take direct command of the forces as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin did. He placed great trust in the Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, and later in his Supreme Commander in Europe, General Dwight Eisenhower, and left almost all strategic and tactical decisions to them, within the broad framework for the conduct of the war decided by the Cabinet in agreement with the other Allied powers. He had less confidence in his commander in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, who he rightly suspected of planning to run for President against him. But since the war in the Pacific was mainly a naval war, this did not greatly matter until later in the war. Given his close personal interest in the Navy, Roosevelt tended to intervene more in naval matters, but strong Navy commanders like Admirals Ernest King in the Atlantic theater and Chester Nimitz in the Pacific enjoyed his confidence.

Related Topics:
Commander-in-Chief - Adolf Hitler - Joseph Stalin - George Marshall - Dwight Eisenhower - Douglas MacArthur - Ernest King - Chester Nimitz

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