William Tyler
Not So Neutral: America 1939 - 1941

William Tyler - Not So Neutral: America, 1939 - 1941

- But welcome to this, which is my first talk, which takes us to the era of the Second World War. The American historian Alan Axelrod has written of the interwar years in this way. He writes this. “Exhausted humanity had assumed the horrors of the First World War, combined with the peaceful prosperity of the twenties, guaranteed the permanent rise of international civility and liberal constitutionalism. But Germany, crippled by the harsh conditions of the Versailles Treaty, had been excluded from any post-war prosperity. Then the Depression drove its desperate people to even deeper desperation. In Germany and Italy, militaristic authoritarianism, fascism, burst into iron blossom.” What a wonderful phrase. “Burst into iron blossom with promises of a return to national glory and national prosperity.” And eventually, in 1939, Germany took Europe to war again, a mere 20 years after the first war had ended with the treaty at Versailles. War had of course come to Europe before 1939 with the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Well, 1936 to be precise. With the Spanish Civil War, both the United States and the United Kingdom stood aloof, as did France. They stood aloof because they were fearful that any involvement on the side of some of the Republicans, the Democratic Republicans, would lead to a further escalation of the Spanish War across the continent of Europe. That did not stop Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, supporting the fascist General Franco.

We got a taste during the Spanish Civil War of what a war by the 1930s might look like, as Hitler deployed the Luftwaffe in that war. Russia also supported the communist Republican opposition to Franco. And so here we have the beginning, if you like, of the cache which is to come in World War Two between fascist Germany and Soviet Russia. And America and Britain and France stood aloof, but Britain and France were unable to stand aloof for long. In fact, by 1939 it looked as though war was inevitable across Europe. And indeed war came in 1939. On the 1st of September, Germany invaded Poland. On the 3rd of September, getting no reassurances from Germany that they would not expand their war, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Two days later, on the 5th of September, 1939, President Roosevelt in Washington proclaimed America’s neutrality in that war. So 1939 by the autumn, the war which many people had thought would come, not least President Roosevelt, who had earlier that year asked for 1.3 billion pounds for the defence budget of America, preparing himself for the possibility or the necessity that America might have to, if war came to Europe, join in. But when war did come in that September, America stood aloof under its policy of neutrality. Now, if I asked all of you to write down a definition of neutrality, you’d write a classic definition of neutrality, something that will go like this. And this is a quotation simply from an English dictionary, that neutrality is “the state of not supporting or helping either side in a conflict.”

Well, that’s pretty clear, well, it isn’t really, because neutrality is simply not as clear cut as that. In practise, neutrality can be a fluid concept, and it’s no more fluid than between September in 1939 and the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France, and December 1941, when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour in that period, September ‘39 to December '41, American neutrality is certainly not standing apart from both sides. Increasingly between those dates, America becomes more and more involved in supporting Britain against the foe of Germany. In 1935, 4 years before this, a book was published in America on the reasons why America entered the First World War in 1917. The book is called “The Road to War” and is written by an American Walter Mills. Now, in that book, Walter Mills writes this, if I may share this with you, Walter Mills argued that there were three main causes of America entering the war, three main pushes towards America entering the war. Firstly, he said it was British propaganda. Secondly, he said it was the heavy purchases of American arms by the Allies, France and Britain. And thirdly, it was Woodrow Wilson favouring the Allies and therefore upsetting Germany unnecessarily. Well, that’s a very specific view, which you can argue with considerably. But nevertheless, in 1939, there is a view in America that they should remain neutral. Indeed, in the year that this book was published, 1935, there was already neutrality acts coming in in America and there was a neutrality act introduced in that specific year of 1935, the 1935 Act, I read, “Forbade the sale of munitions to all belligerent nations.”

Whenever the American president proclaimed that there was a state of war in some part of the world. Well, that’s the position of strict definition neutrality, that America would not take sides. However, in 1936, there was a second act which forbade all loans, the two competence in any war, that America would not loan money to pay for arms. So this is really very strict neutrality by 1937, and in 1937, there was a public opinion poll taken in America, which found that 94% of Americans were in favour of neutrality. And as I’ve said many times before, America’s default position on foreign policy is isolationism from Europe, not to get involved in European wars. Now, it had got involved in 1917, and we’ve talked about that, but here in 1937, when it was pretty clear to most people that war was going to come in Europe, 94% of Americans did not want to go to war. Well, they weren’t threatened in the way that France and Britain were threatened geographically by Germany, but they had, like Britain and France, lost a great number of young men, even though it was a relatively short period that they were in the war, as I said before, when talking in the First World War. American losses were absolutely proportionate to those suffered by Britain and France, and the general view was, “Why should we send our young men to fight a European war? This has nothing to do with America.” But when war did come in 1939, in September, in November 1939, Congress amended the neutrality acts and passed a new neutrality act of 1939.

This act said, “Allowing arms to be exported to belligerents who pay cash and ship them away in their own vessels. Roosevelt called this Cash and Carry Policy.” So that is the first breach, formal breach in American neutrality. Even though it’s under the title a neutrality act, America is now prepared to sell arms to Britain and indeed to France in November 1940 for money, provided that Britain and France actually move the war material in British and French ships, not in American. It’s becoming clear as we move from '39 to '40, that American public opinion begins to change. And indeed it gives Roosevelt, who was always pro the Allied position and in particular pro Britain, an opportunity. When France fell in the June of 1940, he appointed two Republicans into his cabinet. He appointed the new Secretary of State for War, and the new Secretary of the Navy were both Republicans. FDR is now moving definitely towards Britain’s course. With the fall of France, of course, Britain is isolated in Europe, on its own in Europe, despite the fact of course that Britain’s Empire and Commonwealth is around the same troops and so on. But in truth, in terms of Europe, Britain is alone and faces what looks to the world as though it’s a matter of weeks rather than months before Britain will fall. “But Roosevelt went on to do more than that. He negotiated a deal with Britain that gave Britain 50 over-aged.” I love that phrase. That was Roosevelt’s phrase. “50 over-aged US Destroyers in return for a 99-year lease on naval and air bases throughout the Western hemisphere.”

It was a deal entirely in Britain’s favour, and it’s the first real injection of military help to Britain. And that has come as a result of the fall of France and a result of Britain being on its own. In America itself, conscription was introduced, and defence spending was increased even further to $17 billion. Roosevelt is clearly aware that at some point he cannot, at the moment he’s not focused on Japan, he’s focused on Germany, and they realise, Roosevelt realises that it’s unlikely as in World War One that America can stand aside. And in particular, if Britain was to fall, that would make America’s job much more difficult. You can’t launch D-Day from the east coast of America across the Atlantic. It simply couldn’t have been done. You needed Britain as a base if you were ever going to reinvade the mainland of continental Europe. And then in May, the 10th of May, 1940, a very important event happened. A new British prime minister came to power, who was himself half American through his American mother, taking over from the lacklustre and frankly, sick, ill Neville Chamberlain. The new prime minister was of course Winston Churchill. And Churchill took power in, I would say, the worst circumstances in which any democratic leader could take power, in the middle of a war. And on that very day, the Weimar marched into the Netherlands and Belgium on route to France, May 1940. And as we noted before, by June 1940, France had fallen.

And as I said in European terms, Britain is on its own. Supported, it’s true, by the Empire and Commonwealth, but in European terms on its own. And then Churchill suffered a terrible defeat at Dunkirk evacuating the British army and a large part of the French army in small boats across the channel. An incredible thing that happened. And only Churchill could spin it that this was not a defeat, not a victory either, but an indication that Britain would stand firm. On the 18th of June, 1940, Churchill told the House of Commons this, and this is Churchill’s words as related by Martin Gilbert. Churchill said to the House of Commons, “General Weygand had called the Battle of France. What General Weygand had called the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain to about to begin upon this battle, he says, depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British light and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.” A favourite phrase of Churchill’s, sunlit uplands. “But if we fail,” said Churchill, “then the whole world,” and this is the key phrase, he said, the 18th of June in the House of Commons, he said, “If we fail, then the whole world, including the United States and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves.”

He said to the British people, “Brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say this was their finest power.” But it’s the reference to America that is important because Churchill realised that although Britain could hold out for at least a period of time, inevitably in the end it would succumb. And it certainly was not in a position to reconquer the continent of Europe. And remember, this is a year before Operation Barbarossa and the German attack on Russia and Russia coming into the war. At this point, Russia is allied to Germany. Churchill realised that Britain needed America. That speech made to the House of Commons, and four hours later, broadcast on the BBC in Britain, was also aimed to a United States political audience. “We can’t win without you, at some point, everything we do will not be enough,” is what he’s really saying. And true, that very night that he made that speech in the House of Commons and later broadcast on the BBC, later that night, the Luftwaffe launched a bombing attack on East Anglia. We were under attack, and the general view was that we would fail. No one wanted to fail. Everyone talked it up. But there was a realisation that we might fail.

The phrase at the time is, “Take one with you. Take one with you.” That is to say, if the Germans parachuted down, just take one of them with you. In other words, don’t die without killing a German. It was desperate times. And without Churchill, I don’t know what might have happened. Churchill was really something else. On the 20th of June, he told the House of Commons after these bombings had begun, “Let us get used to it. Eels get used to skinning.” Only Churchill could make a comment like that. “Let us get used to it. Eels get used to skinning.” And you might think, well, people would’ve reacted badly with that sort of speech, they didn’t. Ordinary people reacted well to it. Churchill had judged the spirit of the nation. “We might lose. Individuals might lose their lives, but whatever we would go on,” as Churchill said, “we will go on, on to the end.” And so the Battle of Britain began, and the Spitfires and Hurricanes went into the air couped by young men, young pilots, some of them straight from school, to defeat the bombers that came over. The Battle of Britain. There were enormous losses, both in aircraft and in young men. But in the end, the Spitfires and the Hurricanes stemmed the advance of the German bombers and pushed them back. But it wasn’t only British young men. There were Poles, who had fled from occupied Poland and took to the air with the RAM. The problem with the Poles is that they felt they had nothing to lose. They’d lost their country. Most of 'em had lost their families. And so they just went into almost suicide mode, and they lost so many machines, and we couldn’t build the machines fast enough.

And there was a major problem with the Poles. The Canadians came, and young American volunteers came. Public opinion in the States was changing during the course of the Battle of Britain. It was seen that Britain would fight. It would not be over in a matter of weeks. And at the very least it would give those in America who were supportive of Britain an opportunity to persuade American public opinion. And it was changing. And many young Americans wanted to fight, and they made their way to Canada and either joined the Canadian Air Force or from Canada, the RAF. They were called the Eagle Squadrons in the RAF. It was all financed by an American businessman living in London called Charles Sweeney. He persuaded the British government to form a squadron of American airmen. In fact, in the end, they formed three squadrons, the three Eagle Squadrons, made up of about 36 or so planes at full, when they were fully focused. And in Canada there was an enormous amount of effort put into training the Americans. And until America came into the war, the Canadians had trained 6,700 Americans, all paid for by Mr. Sweeney, something like a hundred thousand American dollars. Americans who fought in the war were given time leave as of course, and some of them went, took the opportunity to fly home.

And they all recorded that when they got home to various parts of the States, no one seemed to understand what was going on in Britain. No one really believed their stories, and everything seemed so normal that they felt totally out of place on their return to the States for a brief break, until they came back to Britain. The first American to die was First Officer William Billy Fisk. He was killed in action, and a plaque was later unveiled to his memory. And anyone, well you, you don’t have to be American, but this is is American history. Many of you are Americans and you are in London. Go into St. Paul’s Cathedral and find the plaque to Billy Fisk’s memory. And it reads, I think very movingly, “An American citizen who died so that England might live.” I find that very moving. So although America isn’t in the war, Americans are in the war in 1940, but not all Americans were as behind Britain in its hour of need as those young, some of them very young, volunteers or FDR himself. From 1938 to 1940, the American ambassador in Britain was JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy. His name is still Mud in Britain for his basically pro-fascist views. A couple of years ago, an American historian Susan Ronald wrote a book called “The Ambassador”, his story here in Britain. And in a review of that book, another American historian, Carl Rollis, writes this.

“When Kennedy arrived in Britain in early '38, he quickly found a home among the ruling elite who believed, as Susan Ronald puts in the book, that fascism was the cure for communism.” Now remember that in Britain, there was a lot of support in the upper echelons of British society, not least from people like Lord Halifax, who believed that there was a need to support fascism as an alternative to communism. Rollis then goes on to say, “Notwithstanding FBR’s unprecedented provocation of sending an Irishman with no diplomatic skills to Great Britain, Kennedy immediately sided with the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the British appeasers, believing that any deal with Hitler, no matter how humiliating and lethal to the lives of millions, was preferable to war. Kennedy never stopped believing that Hitler could be bought off.” Well, he never would’ve been. He believed that it was simply a business transaction with Hitler that could produce a peace with Britain. Well, it wasn’t, as we know, quite like that. In fact, it was nothing like that. It was absolutely appalling. Kennedy not only left the poor reputation behind in Britain, but also, in truth, in America itself. Well, he sent messages back to America. Roosevelt understood that Hitler, in this review, could not be appeased, and became increasingly wary of Kennedy, but kept it in England.

Why did he keep it in England? Because he felt that Kennedy’s defeatist attitudes would demoralise Americans and undermine democracy. Kennedy, when he came back to America on leave, lectured FBR continuously and said, and this is a quotation, “That the United States would have to come to some form of fascism here.” He did not believe Great Britain could survive a war, he never believed, even during the Battle of Britain. And when we won it, he never believed that Britain would win and that America should bail out. But what he wanted was a type of fascism in America. But I’ve mentioned the American young men who volunteered for the RAF and the Canadian Air Force. It will be totally unfair to describe Kennedy’s attitude as a common one amongst Americans working in Britain during 1940. One American journalist who was the head of the New York Times Bureau in London wrote this, oh, and I will read you what he said. “I found the Ministry of Information bar in Bloomsbury more cheerful than I’d ever seen. You could tell the correspondence from the officials at a glance. The former were long face and sad looking. The latter were beaming.” Why were they beaming? Well, oddly because France had fallen. He goes on to say, “I was unsure whether I was insane or the whole British government had gone dark.” So he asked his taxi driver in London. “With his droopy moustache, the taxi driver said in a laconic British way, 'Not too bad,’ he said. ‘Not too bad,’ when France surrendered. ‘Well, can you really win?’ said the American. ‘Well, we can’t if we don’t try, can we?’ he replied. When the American reached his office, the British lift operator observed, ‘Things are looking better.’ ‘Better? France has fallen.

Britain is on its own.’ He said, ‘Things are looking better, aren’t they? You see, sir, there’s nobody left to desert us now.’” And these American journalists were extraordinarily inspired by the comments they heard, which they reported faithfully back in the States. And back in the States, some of the newspapers felt that they had gone native as it were in Britain, and it couldn’t possibly be like that. But as the American young men serving in the RAF thought as well, yes, it was like that. And they tried and all of them tried to say it as it was. There’s another example that I wanted to give here. “American editor and proprietor Ralph Ingersoll made a brief fact-finding tour, specifically to discover the truth behind the stories coming from London. After a guided tour around the East End by a little man we discovered by his Anderson Shelter, Ingersoll joked that he must have been a Ministry of Information plant. He wrote, ‘We should have had the dialogue on the soundtrack to use for the film. "London Can Take It.” Business as usual,’ wrote Ingersoll. Meant guess what it says by day, not by night, but by day. The night is something else again. But by day it’s business as usual. It really is. How can I make this clear? There is a sense of frustration about trying to convey something so commonplace.“ In England, it was commonplace to take it, but to try and explain that to an American audience, this American said it was extremely difficult to do so, very difficult. Before we leave 1940, I must add that FDR won a presidential election against his Republican opponent, Wendell Wilkie.

And he won it by an extraordinary 449 votes, 449 votes to 482 electoral votes. 1940 was an extraordinarily difficult year. It looked for a time indeed that Britain wouldn’t survive, but it did. It’s almost as though America was holding its breath to see quite what would happen, not Roosevelt, but remember that in the States, if the States are to go to war, then the president has to have a vote in Congress. And he remained convinced right up until, he actually, after Pearl Harbour, that he could not get a vote sufficiently decisive enough to declare war on Germany. And at this time it is only Germany that America’s concerned about. But even after Pearl Harbour, although he could get a vote, a decisive vote, obviously an overwhelming vote, a total vote, bar one abstention, to go to war with Japan, he could not, he thought, get a vote that would give him sufficient power to go to war with Germany. And I want to emphasise that Roosevelt is not only pro British, but he’s pro Churchill. They had one thing in common. Both Churchill and Roosevelt had served politically in the First World War as Secretaries of the Navy. And Churchill used to write to him as a former naval person in their own correspondence. The two men got on extraordinary. Well, now Churchill is not an easy man to get on with, General de Gaulle would vouch for that. But in this difficult year of 1940, Churchill did everything that he could and more to bring America onto the side of Britain.

I had a friend who sadly now passed on called Olive, Olive Shapley. She was a student of mine when I was principal in Manchester. And Olive was married to a Mr. Salt, rather rich man. Both of them worked for the BBC, and Salt was, both were left wing, but Salt was a bit more than that wing. And so the BBC thought they would shoot them off, get shot of them, if you like, and sent them to New York. They broadcasted from America. In fact, Olive did interviews with black Americans in Harlem, sort of Vox Pop interviews, a quite unusual thing at the time. But they nevertheless were part of the propaganda machine for Britain in America. I’ve mentioned to some of you, I’m sure, before a book that was written by a British fiction writer, Margery Allingham, who wrote murder stories, a sort of sub Agatha Christie. And she was employed by her American publisher. She was popular before the war on both sides of Atlantic. Her American publishers were called Doubleday. And they asked her in 1940 to write a book about, and not a fiction, a factual account, in any way she wanted about Britain at war. And she wrote a book, which I think is a magnificent book, called "The Oaken Heart,” Oaken, O-A-K-E-N. “The Oaken Heart” by Margery Allingham. And she wrote it not for a British audience, but for an American audience. And it was first published in the States by Doubleday. There are extraordinary things that are happening. There’s also Alice Duer Miller’s book or long poem, “The White Cliffs,” again an American writing. She was a Hollywood script writer.

Again, Americans writing in support of Britain to push American opinion that to say as Mills had done about the First World War, that it was British propaganda. It isn’t in America, it’s not just British propaganda, it’s American propaganda in support of Britain. American opinion is divided over war. But increasingly the pro-war Americans are winning the day and winning the battle. And they’re winning the day and winning the battle largely because of Churchill, largely because of the resistance Britain had put up and the fact that it didn’t go under in 1940. It’s an extraordinary story. If Britain had fallen in 1940, and we were very, very close to failing. And many of you know the story that at the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill was at one of those RAF Centres, looking at the map, pushing things on a table of German bombers and British bombers. And whether this story actually happened or not, we’re not now entirely sure, but the message is clear. Churchill said to the Senior RAF Officer, “When are you putting the reserves up into the sky, Air Marshall?” To which the reply was, “Prime Minister, we have no reserves.” And the truth was we did have no reserves. If Hitler had continued the Battle of Britain, it is undoubtedly, undoubtedly he would’ve won.

We would simply have run out of planes as well as of trained pilots. I mean some of the pilots who went up towards the end of the Battle of Britain had relatively few hours of flying experience. They were children at the centre to all. In fact they were just out of sick form, many of them, and up they go. It was an extraordinary moment in British history and in European history. But Churchill remained firm in his belief that America would come to Britain’s aid and America would come to Europe and Germany would be defeated as it was during the First World War. This is an extraordinary moment in history. So we move from 1940 to 1941, and in 1941 in January, the president addressed Congress. And it’s a most interesting speech because he outlined what he called the four cherished freedoms of democracy. The freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. That is really a declaration against both Nazism, the enemy at the moment, and long term, the argument against communism. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear, January, 1941. In March 1941, Roosevelt went further than he’d ever gone before, and he passed what saved Britain. The Lend Lease Act in March of 1941. The Lend Lease Act read was this. “Lend Lease Act prompted by the British inability to continue paying for American arms.” Britain can no longer, under those earlier neutrality acts, allowed to pay and transport arms were bust. “We’ve got no money.”

“The Lend Lease Act entitled the President to sell, lend, lease, or otherwise supply goods and services to nations whose defence he deems vital to the defence of the US.” And that is only of course Britain. “Roosevelt sold this policy of Lend Lease to Americans by the analogy of lending a garden hose to a neighbour whose house is on fire.” Roosevelt like Churchill could always find the right phrase to energise people. Without Lend Lease, it might well have fallen in 1940. Now we can get the arms we desperately need. Just in parenthesis think Ukraine. And just in parenthesis, if Trump was to withdraw from NATO, was Trump to become president, then Ukraine would undoubtedly fall without American arms as Britain would’ve fallen without Lend Lease in 1941. Roosevelt is doing everything he can short of coming into the war on Britain’s side. But in August 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt met at sea off the coast of Newfoundland. And this is a book called “Atlantic Meeting,” which is on my book list on the blog, by someone who was actually there, H. V. Morton. “Upon Sunday, August the third, 1941, Mr. Winston Churchill and the chiefs of Star travelled by train to the north. And on the following day, and in conditions of the greatest secrecy, they embarked in a battleship. Five days later upon Saturday the 9th of August, the battleship dropped anchor in a lonely bay off the shores in Newfoundland. American warships were waiting there with President Roosevelt who had come so secretly to the rendezvous that the entire press of America was speculating upon his disappearance. In that desolate bay, the warships laid at anchor, while the two statemen conducted their conference, the public outcome of which was the very famous Atlantic Charter.”

The Atlantic Charter signed by both men echoed Roosevelt’s January speech to Congress, the four freedoms. In fact, article six of the charter, the Atlantic Charter read, “After the destruction of Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries and which will afford assurance of all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.” Now, if that isn’t a clear message from Roosevelt to Churchill, that America is prepared to come into this war, then I don’t know what is. Back in Britain, Churchill described, oh incidentally on the way back to Britain, Churchill’s small flotilla of warships went through a convoy, a British convoy sailing from America. They went through the convoy, and they hoisted the message that Churchill was on board, and all the crews of all the merchant ships sounded their hooters, sounding the V for victory sign on the hooters. People cheered. It was tremendous.

But there were U-boats in the area, and the British senior officer said to the Prime Minister, “Well, we must keep going.” And he said, “Oh no, we must go back.” And Churchill insisted they turn round and went back for more cheers. And Churchill cheering and doing the V sign all the way, we sometimes forget that leaders need support. And Churchill didn’t obtain his support from the king. He didn’t gain his support from Parliament. He gained his support from ordinary people. They were the people that topped his tank up, if you like. And that is an example. But back in London, he made this speech of the meeting of Newfoundland. “This was a meeting,” he said, “which marks forever in the pages of history that taking up by the English speaking nations.” That’s the phrase that Churchill uses to link Britain and America. “The English speaking nations amid all the peril, tumolt, confusion, of the guidance, of the fortunes, of the broad toiling masses in all the continents. And our loyal effort, without any clog of selfish interest, to lead them forward out of the miseries in which they have been plunged back to the broad high road of freedom and justice. This is the highest honour and the most glorious opportunity which could ever have come to any branch of the human race.” And Churchill is saying, “This is not coming to Britain.” This is Britain and America standing shoulder to shoulder. And it’s a message to America as much as to Britain and a message to Roosevelt. “Stand by your words of the Atlantic Charter. We will win. We can win.”

But let me just read you, the point, go on, let me before I get. But let me read you from Martin Gilbert’s book on his huge one volume biography of Churchill. “The United States made five main pledges of Newfoundland. She will give aid to Russia on a gigantic scale,” and that was the phrase used, “on a gigantic scale and will coordinate that aid with Britain. She would allocate considerably more merchant ships to take bombers and tanks across the Atlantic to Britain. She would provide a five destroyer escort for every North Atlantic convoy to Britain together with a cruiser or other capital ship. She will deliver bombers, both the Britain and West Africa using American pilots, many of whom would then stay on to give war training. And she would take over all naval duties as far east as Iceland.” Now that cannot in any way be regarded as neutral. This is Roosevelt pushing as far as he dare American public opinion. And he did so having met Churchill. But despite all of that, America did not enter the war. But American public opinion was now gathering pace. This is a book by Martin Gilbert called “Churchill and America.” And he tells a story here. Now, this may not resonate with anyone except a few British people like me.

“On November the 21st, 1941, two British-based American entertainers, Bebe Daniels and her husband Ben Lyon,” they were on the radio after the war when I heard them because my parents listened to them, ‘cause they’d listened to them before the war, during the war rather. It was called “Life with the Lyons.” It was a soap opera, if you like, with a separate story each week. “On the 21st of November, 1941, two British based American entertainers, Bebe Daniels and her husband Ben Lyon, went to Downing Street to meet Churchill. They gave him five special badges called Thumbs Up badges that were being sold in New York by the Mayor La Guardia on behalf of the British War Relief in the United States.” This is America in the war in all but name. This is America in the war in all but name. And then, on the 7th of December 1941, comes the bombing at Pearl Harbour. “When Japan attacked the United States fleet at Pearl Harbour on the 7th of December, 1941, America declared war.” Japan’s ally was Nazi Germany. And Roosevelt still felt that he could not risk a vote with war with Germany. But he didn’t have to agonise long because Germany declared war on the United States on the 11th of September, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbour. America was now fully engaged in the war on two fronts, against Germany and against Japan. It’s been a long road in this talk from September 1939, and Britain’s declaration of war to December 1941, and Hitler’s declaration of war on America and America’s declaration of war on Japan. But now we are fully Allied. Churchill is no longer really a fit man. We can’t say that he’s losing it, but he is not in the best of health. And to all intents and purposes, the battle has passed from Churchill to Roosevelt.

Without Churchill, Britain would’ve fallen in 1940 I don’t doubt, without Churchill, there would’ve been nothing to enable America to launch D-Day in 1944. And Churchill had done his job by December '41, what he’d always set out to do, which was to bring America into this war. And he was aware, as I think Roosevelt was aware, that although they were fighting fascism and they were allied to communist Russia, Russia and communism was a second threat. And that is the story really this bigger, wider story that the defeat of fascism in 1945 still left us with the problem of the Cold War and the fight with communism that we will come to. But I just want to make that point. Now all my British friends know that I’m a Churchill fanatic. And I guess some of you listening in Canada, Israel, wherever, America, will also have gathered that by now. I think even historians are allowed to have heroes. And for those of us who are British, there is no greater hero than Churchill. And forgive me if I finish this talk by quoting Churchill. And again, I turn to the book I mentioned just now, “Churchill and America” by Martin Gilbert. Again, it’s on my book list on the blog. And it goes, the story goes like this. “Immediately after learning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Churchill telegraphed Harry Hopkins, signing the telegram joint Wyville Harren. The message read, "Thinking so much at this historic moment, reflecting on that historic moment a decade later.” So after the war is over, Churchill wrote, after the war was over, “thinking about Pearl Harbour, no American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy.

I could not foretell that cause of the events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the marshall might of Japan. But now at this very moment, I knew that the United States was in the war up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all, yes, after Dunkirk, after the fall of France, after the horrible episode of Iraq,” when he had to sink the French fleet, “after the threat of invasion when apart from the air and the Navy, we were an almost unarmed people. After the deadly struggle of the U-boat war, the first battle of the Atlantic gained by a hand’s breath. After 17 months of lonely fighting and 19 months of my responsibility in dire stress, we’d won the war. England would live, Britain would live, the Commonwealth and nations in the Empire would live, and why? Because America was now in the war.” And next week we turn to America fighting on two fronts to begin in North Africa and move into Europe and across the Pacific with the goal of Japan. There are many years to come until peace finally descends with the defeat of both enemy powers and the rise of America, and American power is indisputable by 1945. Britain is if not a busted flush, certainly a very junior partner to America. So if you want to know more, tune in next week, and the story will continue.

Q&A and Comments:

Now, would Britain and France not have declared war on Germany? No, Britain and France were always going to have to declare war on Germany. We had chickened out over Czechoslovakia. We weren’t going to chicken out over Poland.

They, Sharon says, “The best book about American sympathy for Nazis and for what a Nazi American state would involve, Philip Roth wrote 'The Plot Against America.’ The USA entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, leading to a fortunate event. Hitler, in his wisdom declared war on the US. If the US had become involved in World War Two, North Americans would be speaking, had not become involved in World War Two. North Americans would be speaking German.” I’m not sure that’s true, but certainly we in Britain would’ve been speaking German.

Carol, “There was a double agent named Dusko Popov who tried to warn Roosevelt about Pearl Harbour. Popov’s book, ‘Spy/Counterspy’ is fascinating.” We’ll look at Pearl Harbour in more detail next week.

Q: “Do you see a parallel between Britain as a whole against Nazism than Israel against Islam?”

A: It, no, it’s a different issue. This was an old fashioned war, World War Two, of states against states, aiming in Germany’s case for hegemony over continental Europe and Britain into a greater rite. That is not what the Israeli Hamas is. That is a war of a state against a terrorist organisation. It’s part of what Bush had called “the war on terror.” We are living in different times, and I don’t think the parallels are there.

Estelle, Brenda, “Yes, I was thinking the same thing, whatever Brenda was thinking.”

Sheila says, “I just wanted to say that the fact that we had radar in the Battle of Britain, which really made a difference, being able to hold off the Luftwaffe and a possible invasion,” absolutely right. Susan, South Africans also joined. It was part of the Empire, of course, South African Royal Air Force.

“American citizens who fought on the side of the Allies before America entered the war where they opened the prosecution in America.” Absolutely not. Absolutely not. They simply walked over the border. In fact, Roosevelt certainly wouldn’t have taken any action. The Royal Navy still ruled the seas.

Q: “Could Hitler control the English Channel and landed in Kent?”

A: It doesn’t matter what the Royal Navy would’ve done. If Hitler had controlled the air, the Navy was irrelevant, in my opinion, by 1940. If it could have been bombed from the air, the British had taken terrible losses in Norwegian campaign, and we were to lose the ship, the battleship that Churchill sailed to Newfoundland on. The Prince of Wales was sunk by Japanese aircraft with not a ship in sight. It was just depended on air. If they had taken the Navy out by air, they would simply have been able to shuttle across the channel with the greatest of ease with a parachute landing followed by a full landing.

Q: “Why was Kennedy made ambassador to England?”

A: Basically to get him out the way, I think, Arlene, Sheila, and in the same way that Lord Halifax was sent by Churchill to Washington to get him out the way.

Sheila says, “South Africans were in the central part of the Allied Forces fighting North African campaign, like my father who also volunteered when he turned 18 in 1940.” Absolutely right, all of them, all the imperial forces. I don’t want ever to play that down. All I’m saying is that if Britain as a location had fallen to the Germans, then that would’ve been it, Canada and America. Well, if Canada had been attacked, then clearly America would’ve come in. But whether Hitler would’ve done that, I’m not at all sure. I don’t know that he would have, I don’t think he could have contemplated, he’d never contemplated going across Atlantic. What he wanted was Russia, had Britain fallen, he would’ve been able to have taken forces into Russia in greater numbers, and even when he did, America wouldn’t have been in the war. He could have withdrawn the forces from North Africa, et cetera, et cetera. The American journalist, I don’t know that I can quickly, I can’t remember his name quickly. It’s in the book “Blitz”, which is on my book list.

“If Kennedy seems to persuade Virginia. Well, JFK had a chance nomination.” Yeah, well, Francine, I think there was an ignorance in America, not an ignorance, a lack of knowledge in America of Joseph Kennedy. There was certainly no lack of knowledge in Britain, and I think that was just one of those things. We knew about Joseph Kennedy as we knew about Lord Halifax. We didn’t, and many Americans were not. Why should they be? They weren’t bothered about Europe in 1938.

Stewart says, “William Stephenson served as the senior representative of the British security coordination exchanged secrets between Churchill and Roosevelt his exploiter in a book called ‘A Man called Intrepid,’ which is a fascinating study of UK US relationship before US entered the war. There were secret UK offices in New York’s Rockefeller Centre and camps in Canada that had special effects experts from Hollywood, false tanks, cabins, and false trucks that were later in the UK to fall German reconnaissance planes.”

Oh, Shawnee, “I went to school with Olive Schley’s daughter, Christina Salt.” Did you indeed? Olive was such a super, super person. I loved Olive, she used to take me for lunch in the BBC in Manchester, and it was like the story of the Israelites and the Red Sea. As you walk behind Olive, the people parted and Olive swung through like some ancient Old Testament prophet. She was some lady, was Olive.

“Joseph F. Kennedy’s grandson, RFK Jr as a maverick running for president as a spoiler against Biden. And seems to be in some ways in the tradition of his grandfather, though his father and uncle are probably turning over in their grave from him.” Yes, we are aware of that here. “He’s an environmental lawyer, but sounds like his grandfather in this respect according to Wikipedia. ‘In June '23, Kennedy stated in an interview that in broad terms, he believes that US foreign relations should involve significantly reducing the military presence in other nations. He specifically said the country must start unravelling the Empire through closing US bases in different locations worldwide. He’s also outspokenly anti-vaccination and anti-abortion.” Now there is, we had on our television morning shows yesterday an interview with the former head of the security services Sir Richard Dealer, whom I incidentally had been at school with, and Richard Dealer was asked what the threats were to the world. And of course he outlines Russia, and he outlines China. But he said there’s a political threat. He said, “I’m not really in a position to comment on a political threat, but there is a major threat if Trump was to become president.” Now he was the head of security for security services for Britain. Think FBI in American terms, and he said that Trump was a real risk because if Trump was to cut American presence in Europe and Trump was to withdraw from NATO, it would leave Europe open. Absolutely right, Sheila, we only completed in Britain paying for Lend Lease in 2016.

Julian says, Trump wasn’t about withdrawing from NATO, but European nations getting it for free instead of paying.“ No, no, no, that’s not what the former head of British Security said. He said it’s a very dangerous move for Trump.

Q: Irene. Hello, Irene. "How does one know what Trump believes? He’s such a maverick.”

A: Yeah, well that’s true. Well, yeah. I think “maverick” is a rather kind way of expressing Trump’s position.

Karen, Irene, thank you.

“Whoever is writing his speeches is the moving force.” Yeah, well, yeah, we don’t know, but it is a considerable worry was America to cut its commitments to Europe, and it’s a worry for America if it does so.

Do they want Putin to retake Poland and the Baltic states and the Scandi-? Do they really? Come on. They don’t.

Oh, Ronald says, “The four freedoms were painted by Norman Rockwell. They were published in four consecutive editions of the 'Saturday Evening Post.’ The four paintings were displayed around the USA by the US Department of the Treasury.” Irene remembers with me “Life with the Lyons.” “As a child, I enjoyed the programme.”

Stan says, “So did I.” So I’m not alone.

Carol, “Churchill was a hero to my late husband too. We had to choose Paul Roger champagne because that was Churchill’s favourite. Oh, good for you.

Q: "What would you say was the most important thing that changed the US opinion?”

A: I think what the important thing was that Britain survived 1940 and Churchill, that Churchill enabled Britain to survive potential invasion in 1940. I think most historians would agree with that.

Q: “Do you think there is any truth in the reports that I’ve read regarding December ‘41?”

A: I’m going to talk about December '41 next time, Sheila, because that’s a big question and yes, that has to be answered there. There’s all sorts of questions raised about Pearl Harbour inevitably, so I’ll deal with that.

Monique and Danny, “Yet to skip ahead from 40, 41, to term of President Obama, we find this president remove the bust of Churchill being in the White House for decades. What do you think of this?”

Monique then says, “Correct, he was moved out of public view into the residential part, question stands.” Well, Obama’s a different generation. He’s American and doesn’t have the same feel in his generation for Churchill as Americans of our generation, my generation do, and my generation of Britains do. If you ask younger Britains about Churchill, you don’t get the same replies. In fact, there’s a lot of money being made by people who write books, accusing Churchill of all sorts of things. None of it bothers me. All I would say is it doesn’t matter what Churchill was like. None of us are perfect and he wasn’t perfect. But without Churchill, I wouldn’t be giving this lecture is my view, or I would be giving it in German, broadcasted across German Europe. I hope I wouldn’t be, but I certainly wouldn’t be giving it to a free America. “If UK would’ve lost the Battle of Britain in the air, the assumption of Nazi invasion skates over the likely role of the Royal Navy.” It could not have prevented the, as I said before, the Navy would’ve been sunk. The whole… The whole… I quoted the sinking of the Prince of Wales, it was, and Norway. There was no way, if we had lost the Air War and we had no planes to put in the air, the Germans would’ve simply bombed the fleet and the fleet could not have prevented that. The armaments on the fleet were not good enough to have brought the bombers down. They thought they could do that in Singapore and Malaya and they failed.

Q: “What did Roosevelt gain by sending Kennedy?

A: He got rid of him.

Q: "Is it, Your Honour, is it reasonable draw a parallel between the cowardice of Europe to confront Germany when it rearmed and marched into the sovren and the current failure to confront the onslaught of radical Islam?”

A: No, I don’t think it is. I said before, I think I know, it’s an attraction to try and compare the present situation with the war on terror. But it is a quite, quite different situation. No, I do not think that. We in Britain have banned another Islamic organisation just today because of what it was doing in marches, in support of Hamas in Britain. It’s not the same thing at all. And that is why it’s so difficult is, well, let me put it around the other way. It’s why it’s so easy for certain countries like South Africa to attack Israel’s position because no country has ever been in Israel’s position to attempt to crush a terrorist organisation that controls a whole area of land. It’s even quite different, in my view, to the Syrian situation. This is not, this is unprecedented and that is why Britain and America standing firm by Israel, it has to, because if we don’t do that, we are in considerable problems with, well, we, it’s just impossible. We have to stand. We would anyhow, but it’s imperative we stand because if we don’t, we are saying we’re opening the doors of Europe to a stronger Islamist approach where they would try to seize part of a country or something. We really don’t know. I’ve lost the place. Hamas.

“Oh, Hamas was running a defacto state.” Absolutely. “Hezbollah defacto runs Lebanon. Iran soon to be a nuclear.” Yeah.

Monty says, “A brilliant academic on Islam is Mordecai Qadar. You’ll find him on YouTube.” Josie, “Your comment of state versus state and state versus territory. Let’s recall that when Mandela visited the US as a hailed leader, the US State Department hurried to intervene to let him in because he was seen as a terrorist, so he was in Britain.” But that’s different. That’s as though in Israel, there was a group of Israelis who were opposed to the government and defeated the government and took power and it, they, these are not similar. It’s difficult, but it isn’t similar. Sometimes trying to make these comparisons gets you into deeper water of understanding.

Yeah, “Today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s independence leader,” and all of that, but that is not what Hamas is about. Hamas is about destroying a state, another state, because they don’t accept that Israel should be there in the first place. They believe Israel should be Palestine controlled by Palestinians on the West Bank, Israel and Hamas. That’s what they believe, and they believe that every Israeli should be bluntly killed. The wider Islamist view is that every non Muslim should be killed. And another view is that every country that Islam has ever been in, eg Spain, should be returned to Islam. I mean, it’s in a minefield, but Hamas is, it’s quite clear what Hamas’ policies are, at least I think that is clear.

Monique, again, “There is some information available. Germany built small number of long range bombers that could reach the Northeast coast. America said they made at least one test flight that approached Long Island. Also, there were plans for a multi-stage rocket.” I don’t think they would ever have, if America had not come into the war, Germany would have, Germany would’ve left it alone. All it needed was probably a change in precedent and someone who was prepared to come to a deal, not to turn America fascist, but to deal with them in the same way that American presidents dealt with Soviet leaders in the Cold War.

“Trump’s grandfather and perhaps father were Nazi sympathisers,” says Myrna.

Riva, I agree with you a hundred percent. My favourite Churchill saying is, “That which deserves to live lives.” Well, yeah, we have to be positive about the sort of situations we’re in now.

“Oh, thank you for your moral support. We are really running short of sympathy. So I guess you are writing from Israel?” No, I think there is a clear view that the people who shout loudest are not necessarily remember the majority. I would like to believe that at least in Britain, the majority would stand by Israel. Certainly all our political parties are standing by Israel. But don’t ask about the SNP, Scottish Nationalist Party in Scotland, because their leader is, at the very least dubious, I think, or lacklustre in his support of Israel. In fact, I, yeah, we leave that. That’s a British problem, not an international problem. Britain, whether when, if we change government, which seems likely, that Starmer will be as firm in his support as Soonak is with the present government. No one need worry about Britain’s support. You need to worry more about American support if it was to be Trump. Oh dear. Well, we don’t want to end with Trump. We’ll end with two great statesmen, Churchill and Roosevelt, and with that, I leave you until next week, when we join Roosevelt as a war leader and as the leader of democracy, leading us to victory over both Germany and Japan. See you next week all. Bye for now.