Question

What were the steps FDR took to prepare the nation for war? How did he mobilize the nation after the attack on Pearl Harbor? Why did he and his military commanders adopt a Germany First policy when it was the Japanese who brought the United States into the war?

Answer 1

Answer:

Japan attacked the American military bases in the Pacific on December 7, 1941 with the Pearl Harbor base being the worst hit.

Steps taken by President Roosevelt in response to this to prepare and mobilize the nation for war:

1. December 8, 1941: President Roosevelt declared war in Congress against Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy allied with Japan against the US. The US later built allies with the British and then the Soviets.

2. Even then, he faced an uphill task at home mobilizing troops, training them and reorienting the economy to focus on the war efforts. The war had to be fought on two fronts - Europe and the Pacific. The US had mobilize atleast 16 million troops for the war.

3. A major part of the war efforts was to mobilise, train and build a military force quickly for which government spending had to be increased. At the same time, spending had to be increased to supply the Allies (Great Britain and the Soviet) with war equipment, artillary, ammunition and other war supplies due to which industries had to be reoriented and the co-operation and sacrifice of labor was required.

4. A lot of civilians had to be pressed into military service - either they volunteered or the peacetime draft of September 1940 was used to enlist draftees into the army ranks. The draft mainly required men of the age of 18 to 38 to register for military service though older men were also enrolled and a rigourous process of selection to determine whether the potential draftee would be fit to join the military was followed.

5. Selection involved physical and psychiatric examination which after passing, the potential candidates had to select the service, though the military had the final say based on their requirement. There were other exams and basic tests conducted once the inductees were shipped to training camps to determine the specialization and units they could be inducted into for e.g. artillary corps or anti-aircraft units.  

6. At training camps, inductees were stripped of the freedoms they had as civilians and had to live in a new way which involved strict conduct, military combat training and physical training. Their lives almost no privacy as they were assigned to military barracks.

7. The army and the allies had to be supplied with uniforms, tanks and artillary, arms and ammunition, war aircraft and vessels and this required the support of domestic industries and its conversion into a war economy. This led to creation of tremendous employment opportunities and took the economy to a new high.

8. Several campaigns were launched with the war efforts with themes such as doing with less so that more was available at the war front which involved rationing items like coffee, sugar, meat etc to civilians so that more food was available to the military as part of its rations or the food for victory campaign which involved eating leftover food or growing one's own fruit and vegetable essentially encouraging home cultivation and boosting food supplies.

Germany First policy

The Germany First policy essentially meant that the US and UK would concentrate most efforts and resources on fighting Germany (Japan's ally after the attack on Pearl Harbour) in Europe first with lesser resources being used against Japan and once Germany was defeated, the Allied troops would concentrate all resources in fighting Japan after that. Germany was seen as a major threat to the US since it had attacked many of the countries in Europe in 1940 and its prime enemy was now th UK and hence all joint policies framed by the allies was focussed on the early defeat of Nazi Germany.