Kevin Tarr asked: > Sorry I don' have the e-mail, I got a historical piece about the Civil Air > Patrol. German U-boats were parked right off the eastern AND gulf coasts, > sinking boats with impunity before Dec. 1941. They even sank boats in the > St. Lawarence and Conneticut rivers. Without Pearl Harbor, don't you think > that America would have eventually gone to war in Europe? Even assuming the > CAP work as it did, u-boats would still sink American boats in the shipping > lanes or near England. I figure some point would be reached where America > wouldn't take it any more.
The St Lawrence, of course, being Canadian territory was fair game for the U-boats as Canada was officially at war with Germany from about 6 September 1939. As was the Caribbean, or at least those areas around the British protectorates such as Guyana, Jamaica and Bermuda. And any non-US ship outside the 3 (or 12?) mile limit was in international waters and also "fair" game. Of course, the Germans had committed, in 1936, to warn ship crews before attacking and sinking their ship. Within hours of the British declaration of war on 3 September 1939 a U-boat had sunk a passenger liner, the Athenia, killing 28 Americans. The Kapitan thought it was a troopship, which presupposed enormous efficiency on the British side. Anyway, the British reinstituted convoys almost immediately but could only escort them part way across the Atlantic - there were far too few escorts available, and even fewer with the range to cross without refuelling. It was not until 1943 that all convoys could be protected the entire journey across the Atlantic, by both ship escorts and aircraft. Roosevelt was hamstrung until after the 1940 election in how much aid he could provide to the British. The Republicans were solidly isolationist and were already muttering impeachment about how much Roosevelt had already aided Britain and France. Hitler was still a golden boy for much of the US Right. It was after that election that Lend Lease was introduced and the US Navy took on more of the role of convoy support, which released British and Canadian resources to provide greater coverage over a smaller area. During 1941, well before Pearl Harbour, the US Navy was effectively at war against Germany's U-boats. In July US troops replaced British troops in Iceland (Iceland was a Danish territory, and Britain had occupied Iceland at request of the Danish government in exile to prevent it falling to Germany), and the US Navy thereafter provided some convoy escorts up to about Iceland across the Atlantic. I think US PBY aircraft flew anti-submarine patrols from Reykjavik, too. Roosevelt authorised the US Navy to hit back after 2 destroyers were attacked by U-boats in September and October 1941 (one of them sunk). The case was building, partly due to coat-dragging by the US Navy, and would eventually have triggered an official US response. There was always the option for US "volunteer" units to enter on Britain's side, and hundreds of Americans had already joined Canadian defence units. America was starting to become very aggressively neutral. Then Japan attacked and Hitler foolishly declared war on the US which gave the greenlight to full US entry against both Axis powers. (I don't know if Mussolini declared war on the US or if Italy just got caught up as a German ally. It's noteworthy that the US never declared war on Finland, which in December 1941 was a German ally.) Churchill was desperate to get America involved (which is why there are so many rumours about British codebreakers and Pearl Harbour) and Roosevelt had identified Hitler as America's greatest threat and was preparing the case for a war against Germany. The two had been corresponding for years. Had Pearl Harbor not happened, I think the US would have increased its involvement but more slowly. As it was, the US was turning out Hudson bombers in 1939 for the British (and Australia) along with Catalinas (PBYs) and Dakotas (C-47s), in 1940 and '41 were added P-40s, Buffaloes (F2A), Wildcats (F3A), and Vengeances among others, often redirected from US Army/US Navy orders. In 1942 Mustangs were added, along with improved versions of the P-40 etc. Merlin engines were being built and exported by Packard, radar was already being developed and produced in the US from British research and the A-bomb research had also been passed across to the US (not that that counted anything for the Brits after 1945). All of this was done in 1940. British-bound vessels were in convoy from the start of the war, Halifax in Canada being the major convoy collection point. The U-boats could legally sink any British flagged vessel in international waters, along with any ship flying the flag of any allies or conquered nations, such as Australia, Canada, NZ, Norway, Holland or Poland, etc. And if a US ship was bound for Britain, especially if it was in a convoy, then it too was bad luck, as far as the Kriegsmarine was concerned. American coastal cities weren't blacked out until well after Pearl Harbour, and the US Navy thought convoying was an unnecessary, defensive, option. It took months after Pearl Harbour for the US Navy to institute convoy systems along the US coast which resulted in thousands of lives lost. I mean, why should the US learn anything from the British? I think U-boats even sank a ship in New York in early '42. So, I believe that Roosevelt would have eventually joined the war against Germany without Pearl Harbor. However, once Japan attacked he would have had an enormous problem directing any effort against Germany had Hitler not himself declared war on the US. As it was, there was a huge struggle in Washington, up until 1943, between the Germany-firsters and those wanting to beat Japan first. Roosevelt was a Germany firster, the US Navy was almost entirely Japan-first. Without Hitler's declaration, the US may have been restricted to providing materiel to Britain, possibly also to Russia (much less likely), while actually fighting Japan. So US military entry against Germany may not have happened until minimum 1944 and probably quite later given that an invasion of Japan would probably have been required. (It was use against Germany that drove the A-bomb programme, not Japan.) And without US materiel, particularly trucks, electronics and aircraft, the Russians would not have been nearly as effective in 1943/44 against the Germans. I don't doubt the eventual outcome, but WW2 could well have continued into the 1950s. Brett
