Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

by Ian Kershaw

  It was a distinctly unneutral act. An elated Churchill told the House of Commons it was ‘an event of first-rate political and strategic importance; in fact, it is one of the most important things that has happened since the war began’.56 Privately, he took the view (shared by the British ambassador in Washington, Lord Halifax) that its significance was in accelerating American intervention in the war alongside Britain.57 Indeed, it did take the United States closer to hostilities in the Atlantic. Perhaps, as has been claimed, ‘if ever there was a point when Roosevelt knowingly crossed some threshold between aiding Britain in order to stay out of war and aiding Britain by joining in the war, July 1941 was probably the time’.58

  Eight days after the American troops had landed, the western hemisphere was designated as including Iceland, even though ‘everyone concedes [it] is in the eastern hemisphere and therefore logically attached to the continent of Europe’.59 At Iceland, the American defence zone and the German combat zone intersected. The prospects of ‘incidents’ involving German submarines and the US navy, now engaged in the defence of Iceland as well as escort duties for American convoys as far as the island, were now far greater than they had been. But the occupation of Iceland was approved by 61 per cent of Americans questioned in an opinion survey, with only 20 per cent opposed.60 Despite his fears of a ‘vitriolic outburst’ against the move,61 the President was carrying the population step by step with him to the brink. But still he remained cautious of pushing opinion too far, too quickly. Though the opportunity appeared to present itself to introduce the escort of non-American convoys, Roosevelt did not seize it.

  The President’s sensitivity towards public opinion was shown to be justified in the heated debates that flared up in July and August over the issue of amending the Selective Service Act of 1940. At stake was nothing less than what General Marshall described as the ‘disintegration of the army’.62 Had the administration failed to carry through Congress the amendments it was proposing, the large army envisaged under the Victory Program (still being prepared) for future engagement in Europe would have been impossible. The strength of public feeling in the country, alongside the intense battle in Congress, was a sharp reminder to Roosevelt that, whatever the level of readiness to support Britain, and now the Soviet Union too, the opposition to any notion of American soldiers being sent to fight abroad was as vehement as ever.

  The Selective Service Act of August 1940 had allowed the army to draft up to 900,000 men, but only for a period of one year, unless Congress (not the President) should declare that national security was imperilled. A second stipulation had been that men drafted could not serve outside the western hemisphere (a condition which Roosevelt circumvented in the occupation of Iceland by using marines). The President’s declaration in May of a state of unlimited national emergency had no bearing on the Act; Congress leaders told Roosevelt that they could not muster the votes to amend it; and the expiry date was looming for the first men conscripted the previous autumn. Moreover, around the country families wanted their ‘boys’ back home, while in the army itself morale among the draftees was so poor that it seemed many were on the point of deserting if they were not to gain their promised release. It was by any assessment an awkward, indeed critical, situation for the President. His first inclination, as so often, was towards caution. He wanted to avoid the struggle in Congress. Stimson, Knox and especially Marshall worked for days to persuade Roosevelt to confront Congress. The issue plainly could not be ducked for long. Eventually, he agreed to brave the inevitable and extensive opposition.

  Three resolutions of amendment to the original Act were introduced on 10 July: to retain draftees in service as long as the national emergency lasted; to allow them to be sent beyond the western hemisphere; and to remove the upper limit of 900,000 men on the size of the army. The opposition was bitter and mostly along party-political lines. The most heated attacks, predictably, came from Republicans. But many Democrats who had backed earlier measures were also deeply concerned at the implications of giving the President powers to send troops abroad. The usual isolationist core of opposition could on this occasion, therefore, reckon with a wider base of anxious support–with Congressmen anxious not least at the reaction of their constituents if they voted to keep ‘their boys’ in military service. Eventually, the bill passed through the Senate on 7 August by the reasonably comfortable margin of 45 to 30. The main drama, however, was reserved for the debate in the House of Representatives. When that ended, on 12 August, the bill secured its passage by a single vote: 203 to 202.63

  It was later described, with pardonable hyperbole, as ‘one of the decisive battles of the war’.64 Doubtless, if the vote had gone the other way the administration would have been compelled to bring in new measures to ensure its military planning was not vitiated. But valuable time would have been lost. The attack on Pearl Harbor, four months later, would have struck a country with its army in a process of dissolution.65 Most significantly, as the prospect of global conflict loomed ever larger, the vote carried the warning to Roosevelt, as expressed by the high priest of isolationism, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, ‘that the Administration could not get a resolution through the Congress for a declaration of war’.66

  While the torrid debates were preoccupying Congress and much of the country, Roosevelt and Churchill were meeting for the first time since either of them had taken office. The meeting gave tangible expression to Churchill’s words a year earlier, that Britain, with its Empire, and the United States were becoming ‘somewhat mixed up together’.67 For Churchill, a personal meeting with Roosevelt was of immense importance. ‘Nothing must stand in the way of his friendship for the President on which so much depended,’ one of the Prime Minister’s aides had noted. That Roosevelt had sought the meeting was significant, Churchill thought. He would not have done so ‘unless he contemplated some further step’.68 But nothing significant was on Roosevelt’s agenda. He wanted as far as possible to coordinate policy on a number of vital issues, to iron out any differences and to get to know Churchill. But he did not have in mind what Churchill was hoping for: a decision to take America into the war.69

  Plans for a meeting had been laid as early as the spring. Eventually, the crucial talks took place in secret between 9 and 12 August aboard the American heavy cruiser Augusta and the British battleship Prince of Wales, which had borne Harry Hopkins alongside Churchill across the Atlantic to Placentia Bay, just off the disused Newfoundland silver-mining settlement of Argentia. Roosevelt and Churchill were accompanied by military top brass and important diplomatic officials in the discussions on the two warships, anchored alongside each other.70

  The talks ranged widely, embracing aid to the Soviet Union, convoys in the Atlantic, the Japanese menace in south-east Asia and the postwar order. Oddly, perhaps, the Atlantic Conference was devoted less to the Atlantic than the Pacific. With Hitler preoccupied by the Wehrmacht’s progress in Russia, the danger in the west had at least temporarily subsided. The American occupation of Iceland had gone smoothly. A sort of uneasy stalemate had settled over the Atlantic. In the Far East, by contrast, the tension had mounted sharply since the Japanese invasion of southern Indochina and the American imposition of an oil embargo. The more immediate menace seemed to come from that direction. Little by way of concrete action emerged from the talks. Churchill urged a strong American line on any further Japanese expansion, amounting effectively to an ultimatum. Roosevelt agreed to use ‘hard language’ when warning the Japanese ambassador in Washington on his return, though in the event, on the intervention of the State Department, he toned this down. Despite the oil embargo, deterrence, not provocation, remained the policy. The aim was to keep the Pacific quiet as long as possible.71

  As regards the Atlantic, though it figured less prominently in the talks, there was encouragement for the British. Roosevelt, disappointing Churchill’s hopes, had swiftly ruled out expectations of immediate American involvement in the war. But two steps were agreed that seemed to have the potential
to bring the moment of intervention closer.

  Roosevelt was seriously worried about Nazi agents penetrating the bulge of Africa and opening the way for Hitler to make a quick strike through the Iberian peninsula into north Africa.72 The relatively short distance across the southern Atlantic from the bulge of Africa to Brazil had long been a concern of American strategic planners, envisaging this as the simplest way for German troops to establish a footing on the American continent. To head off any danger, Roosevelt was willing to promise Churchill (who had outlined the danger of a German thrust to take Gibraltar, the gateway to the south Atlantic routes as well as controlling entry to the Mediterranean) that he would send occupying forces to the Azores once Britain could arrange for an invitation from Portugal (analogous to that from Iceland).73 Nothing came of it. In the event, there was no German takeover in Gibraltar, no need (at least, not at this stage) for an invitation from Portugal and no occupation by American troops of the Azores.

  A second point of agreement gave Churchill some satisfaction. Roosevelt finally consented to provide armed escorts for all shipping, not just American or Icelandic, across the western Atlantic as far as Iceland. British ships could at last reckon with American protection. It was what the ‘hawks’ in his Cabinet had been exhorting the President to do for months. Admiral Stark sent out instructions from Placentia Bay, to take effect from 16 September.74 The President had taken an important (and in British eyes long overdue) step, amounting to ‘the beginning of undeclared hostilities with Germany’.75 At least, that was Churchill’s understanding. In fact, only the contingency plans for escorting had actually been decided, while the implementation still rested on the President’s order. When he returned to Washington, he did nothing at first to expedite the implementation.76 Technical and logistical problems–organizing the communications links with British naval intelligence, and making sure the ships were in the right place at the right time, for instance–posed their own obstacle to any immediate start.77 But the President’s real difficulty was political. How he was going to tell the American public, and broach the matter to Congress, he still did not know.78 According to Churchill’s report on the talks to the British Cabinet, the President had told him ‘he was skating on pretty thin ice in his relations with Congress’. Asking Congress for a declaration of war, Roosevelt went on, would produce a three-month debate. (His real belief, in fact, was that a request to Congress for a declaration of war would be defeated by two or three to one.79) Instead, he said, ‘he would wage war, but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative…He would look for an "incident” which would justify him in opening hostilities’.80

  In practical terms, the Conference ended by achieving little. It was of importance, nevertheless. Out of it came the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles, largely an American inspiration, for a postwar world envisaged by the United States and Great Britain. Though not all of the eight points of the Charter, amounting in effect to a declaration of democratic war aims, had an easy birth, final agreement on the wording was reached by 12 August and the text was made public two days later. The Charter proclaimed that the United States and United Kingdom sought no territorial or other aggrandizement, wished no territorial changes beyond the wishes of the peoples concerned, respected the right of all peoples to choose their form of government, would endeavour to promote equal access to trade and raw materials, would work for economic advancement and social security for all and would strive for world peace and disarmament.81

  The Charter, whose initial purpose had been mainly as propaganda, came to have historic significance as a list of democratic rights and principles that would later become enshrined in the aims of the United Nations. But the real value of the Atlantic Conference at the time lay less in its statement of abstract war aims–noble though they were, they were widely viewed on both sides of the ocean as no substitute for firm joint policy declarations–than in the personal relations that were cemented between Roosevelt and Churchill.82 An understanding of profound importance was established, and on a direct, personal basis, between the two leaders. The sense of trust created at the Conference would last throughout the vagaries of the war.

  The meeting left its mark on both. For Churchill, it evoked the common purpose of the two countries, symbolized movingly for him in the joint church service on the Sunday morning of 10 August, on the quarterdeck of the Prince of Wales, as British and American sailors together sang hymns he had chosen beneath the ship’s big guns while the flags of the two nations draped the pulpit side by side. He later described ‘the fact alone of the United States, still technically neutral, joining with a belligerent power’ in drawing up the Atlantic Charter as ‘astonishing’.83 For Roosevelt, too, the meeting had been significant, and not simply for the joint declaration of war aims embodied in the Charter. Like Churchill, he had been greatly moved by the symbolism of the joint church service on the Prince of Wales, the ‘keynote’ of the entire Conference, as he recorded. ‘If nothing else had happened while we were here, that would have cemented us,’ his son Elliott, present on board, reported him saying.84 He had established a personal rapport with Churchill. But he was also pleased at the tone of the Conference, which implicitly acknowledged American leadership in the informal alliance with Britain and her Empire.85 And though he had formally agreed little of substance during the Conference, he had gained sharper insight into British strategic thinking and how, with American help, the war against Hitler could be won.86 He was starting more clearly to see the eastern front as the key to the outcome of the war, and his determination to provide aid to the Soviet Union found expression in the warmly couched message to Stalin that he and Churchill sent on 12 August, the last day of the Conference, proposing a meeting in Moscow (as Hopkins had suggested during his visit) to work out arrangements for long-term aid.87 He was also now prepared to move away from neutrality to adopt a more actively belligerent role in the ‘battle of the Atlantic’ amounting to a limited, undeclared war against Germany, one which ran an increased risk of the United States being fully drawn into hostilities.88

  The crucial question of when the United States would enter the war had, however, come no closer to finding an answer. Certainly, Roosevelt’s comment about provoking an incident seemed to suggest that it was merely a matter of time. But when might that be? From a British perspective, the issue could not be stretched out indefinitely. Yet there was little expectation that American entry was imminent. News of the alarmingly close vote on the renewal of the Selective Service Act, which had reached Placentia Bay on the last day of the Conference, offered scant encouragement.89 And Churchill’s initial high spirits on his return from the meeting had been dissipated by the reaction at home.90 Not only was the public response to the meeting muted (as it had been in the United States); the Cabinet seemed far from encouraged by the talks to believe that the United States would soon be in the war alongside Britain. Lord Beaverbrook, Churchill’s Minister of Supply, had travelled on to Washington from Placentia Bay and had reported back that there was no chance of the United States entering the war until a direct attack on its own territory forced it to do so. This was thought to be highly unlikely until both Britain and Russia had been defeated.91 Roosevelt’s rejoinder to criticism by alarmed isolationists that the Atlantic Conference had taken the United States no closer to war gave further sustenance to the deflated mood in Britain.92

  Towards the end of August, a depressed Churchill sent Harry Hopkins ‘one of the gloomiest messages that ever came to the White House from the normally confident, ebullient Prime Minister’. Churchill pointed out the heavy British shipping losses to U-boats in the Atlantic–50,000 tons in the previous two days. ‘I don’t know what will happen if England is fighting alone when 1942 comes,’ he added. He noted that Hitler’s submarines were keeping clear of the zone defined as belonging to the western hemisphere, so that ‘there was little prospect of an "incident” serious enough to bring the United States into the war’.93

 
Less than a week after Churchill’s dispirited message to Hopkins, however, an incident did take place which gave Roosevelt the opportunity to make public his escort policy, and edged the United States closer to the brink.

  III

  In the early morning of 4 September, a German submarine, the U-652, was spotted by a British bomber patrolling about 165 miles south of Iceland, at a point within the overlap between the German combat area and the American security zone. The submarine dived to avoid the immediate danger. But her location was signalled to an American destroyer in the immediate vicinity, the USS Greer, carrying mail and a few military passengers to Iceland. Since she was not escorting American shipping, the Greer had no authority to attack, and was officially bound only to report the submarine’s position. Nevertheless, the Greer closed in and trailed the submerged U-boat for over an hour, taking sonar readings of her position and flashing these to the British bomber, which dropped four depth charges. These easily missed their target, and the bomber returned to base. But the pursuit continued, and an hour and a half later, following the Greer’s radio signal, another British plane arrived to search for the U-boat. The pursuit had gone on for around four hours when the U-boat’s commander, presumably fearing that the batteries would fail and force him to the surface, decided to turn the tables. He fired two torpedoes at the Greer, though each of them passed harmlessly by. The Greer now retaliated by dropping eight depth charges, but inflicted only minor damage on the U-652. A British destroyer arrived on the scene an hour or so later and also dropped a depth charge, to no effect. The Greer made a last attempt to destroy the U-boat in mid-afternoon, dropping eleven more depth charges, though now missing by a long distance. Only in the early evening, about ten hours after taking up the chase, did the Greer give up and sail on to Iceland.94