Pearl Harbor

8 Pages 2036 Words

st 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a nonaggression pact. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, which led England and France to declare war on Germany. With all these aggressions, Americans increasingly doubted that the United States could avoid becoming involved. 3
In June of 1940, Germany conquered France, and British troops that had been in France retreated across the English Channel. Then German bombers began to pound Britain. That same month, the United States started supplying Britain with “all aid short of war” to help the British defend themselves against Germany. President Roosevelt asked Congress for more funds for national defense. Congress complied and began the first American peacetime military draft, the Selective Training and Service Act, under which more than 16 million men were registered. After the 1940 election, Roosevelt urged that the United States become “the great arsenal of democracy.” In 1941 he and British prime minister Winston Churchill announced the Atlantic Charter, which set forth Allied goals for World War II and the postwar period. These two nations pledged to respect “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live” and promised a free world without war “after the final destruction of Nazi tyranny.” In that same year, the Japanese government allied their country with Nazi Germany in the Axis Alliance. The fact that the U.S. was assisting nations which Japan was allied against, only made their aggression grow stronger towards America. 4
In the following year, the island nation occupied all of Indochina, and at the same time was menacing Britain’s Pacific colonies. Japan’s plan was to conquer Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, India, Malaya, Guam and the Philippines. T...