America and Nazi Germany Waged an Undeclared Naval War Way Before Pearl Harbor

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America and Nazi Germany Waged an Undeclared Naval War Way Before Pearl Harbor
By James I. Marino/ Warfare History Network/ The Buzz/ The National Interest/ nationalinterest.org

"Between September 1939 and December 1941, the United States moved from neutral to active belligerent in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany. During those early years the British could well have lost the Battle of the Atlantic.

The undeclared war was the difference that kept Britain in the war and gave the United States time to prepare for total war.With America’s isolationism, disillusionment from its World War I experience, pacifism, and tradition of avoiding European problems, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved cautiously to aid Britain.

Historian C.L. Sulzberger wrote that the undeclared war “came about in degrees.” For Roosevelt, it was more than a policy. It was a conviction to halt an evil and a threat to civilization. As commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Navy from neutrality to undeclared war.

It was a slow process as Roosevelt walked a tightrope between public opinion, the Constitution, and a declaration of war. By the fall of 1941, the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy were operating together as wartime naval partners.

So close were their operations that as early as autumn 1939, the British Ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian, termed it a “present unwritten and unnamed naval alliance.” The United States Navy called it an “informal arrangement.”..."

Richard

 

[WalnutBaron]

For more than a century, the United States and the United Kingdom have enjoyed what is referred to as a “special relationship”. While Canada may be our biggest trading partner and friend of the U.S., our closest ally is the UK— a relationship sealed in the searing events of the most horrific worldwide upheaval in human history: World War II.