World War II
"What is our policy? ... to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime."
Winston Churchill, 1940
Winston Churchill, 1940
WWII Cartoon, Rube Goldberg
"On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland... German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses... Britain and France... declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939."
INVASION OF POLAND, FALL 1939, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
On March 11, 1941 President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law. It permitted him to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government [whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States] any defense article." American factories, like ALCO, began mass-producing arms and munitions to supply the Allies.
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, a US naval base in Hawaii. As Roosevelt pronounced the attack "a day that will live in infamy", Congress passed a formal declaration of war against Japan and officially brought the US into World War II. Four days later, Germany declared war on the US.
