Roosevelt and the American involvement in WW2 With the emergence of World War 2, America experienced its neighboring

countries battle while trying to remain neutral. As President Franklin Roosevelt stated, this nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well (Brinkley, p.718). The United States began to merge from the neutrality mindset when the President convinced America to aid favoring countries. Soon, Roosevelt completely moved the United States into the war while justifying the decision with the fact that America would be receiving large sums of money from their participation in the war. Despite being neutral, Americans naturally favored Britain, France, and other allied nations in the conflict (Brinkley, p.718). This is where the neutrality lifestyle of the Americans was first tested. Although claiming neutrality, Roosevelt believed that the United States should aid the allied countries throughout their participation in the war. In fact, Roosevelt ended up asking Congress for a revision of the Neutrality Acts in order that America could legally send weapons made within the country to allied countries participating in the war. Roosevelt believed that this would create a reliable source of income as long as the war continued. This radical concept was disliked by citizens to the point that Congress forced Roosevelt to create a simpler and more conservative revision. The revision permitted belligerents to purchase arms on the same cash-and-carry basis that the earlier Neutrality Acts had established for the sale of nonmilitary materials (Brinkley, p. 719). Unfortunately, Britain ended up going bankrupt in December of 1940 and could no longer afford the weapons being sent from the United States. The

President, still wanting to end up with money by the end of the war, suggested that Britain lease the weapons and pay for them later once the war was over. Now, the President still had the problem of figuring out a way to send the weapons across the Atlantic now that the British navy was losing ships they could no longer afford to replace. In order to get the United States merchandise successfully shipped to England, President Roosevelt issued the United States navy to defend transport ships in the Atlantic by patrolling the oceans and escorting merchant ships. While doing this, American ships radioed information to British vessels about the location of Nazi submarines (Brinkley, p. 722). President Roosevelt justified this act by claiming that the American ships were patrolling neutral zones that were under the responsibility of America. During this time, the Soviet Union was driving deep into Russian territory. Roosevelt now wanted to use his lend-lease concept with the Germans. With the forming relationship of Stalin and Roosevelt, the United States was soon an alliance with the Soviet Union. In return, Russia took their Nazi submarines and began a campaign against American vessels. Soon, a German U-boat fired on an American vessel while it was radioing the U-boats position to the British. President Roosevelt instantly responded by ordering the American ships to fire back on the German submarines (Brinkley, p.722). Later, Nazi submarines shot two American vessels, sinking one of them while killing a large number of American sailors. After this event, Congress voted to approve the United States navy to go into naval war against Germany, thus destroying their position on neutrality. By fall of 1941, the United

States became an official participant in the war, all while America and Britain engaged themselves in a cooperative team for the destruction of Russia.