Changing U.S. Involvement - GE/TT

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Changes in U.S. Policy

Isolationism

See how the record player, which represents the US people, is shouting??? It is saying keep out of Europe, as in stay out of war

You may remember from our study of WWI that after that war the U.S. wanted to go back to a policy of Isolation. That means they wanted to stay to themselves and NOT get involved in any European wars.  

No country could get away from the problems. Eventually the U.S. began changing their ideas because they wanted to help countries already fighting they were friends with.

One of these ideas was to give money and supplies to friends, it was called Lend-Lease.

Economic Aide To Allies: Lend-Lease

The lines represent the supplies we were sending to countries involved in the war we wanted to support. We did this BEFORE our soldiers were fighting. Click here for a graph that shows how much was being spent

The U.S. was not yet involved in the war, but it was becoming clear to many that they eventually would. They began to feel a need to help out those countries they were friends with by providing them with ships, planes, guns, trucks, ammo, FOOD, etc).   

A program was developed to do this called the Lend-Lease program.  we gave them almost a TRILLION $ worth of supplies. In return the U.S. got a promise to some day return the equipment.

One of the really strange products sent to the Soviet Union was Spam.

Lend-Lease Spam

Modern-Day Spam

Spam on plate

It is chopped pieces of pork meat in a can. Some say it kept the Soviet army from starving.

We were not yet fighting, but the fact we started sending supplies to friends in Europe, Germany decided to start sinking our ships on the ocean.

We even gave lots of money to countries in Central and South America so they would still be our friends. 

Big Change

Direct Involvement In War

U.S. involvement in WW II changed totally on December 7th, 1941.  That is when the Japanese carried out a surprise attack on our navy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

This shows what it was like when the Japanese attacked

We were not at war with them at the time. Yes, we were talking with them at the time about problems, but they had not told us they intended to attack.

The next day President Roosevelt appeared before government leaders and gave this speech

December 8th, 1941 Speech

By the time the war was over the U.S. would send 16,000,000 men and women into uniform to fight in one part or another of the United States armed forces.

When the war was over 418,500 U.S service people had given their lives (died) fighting for freedom. In comparison, the Soviet Union had 26,954,000 men and women, both civilians and military (army) killed.