USS Greer, USS Kearny, USS Reuben James, and the Undeclared War.

Germany declared war on the United States on December 11th 1941 and in many ways that seem as sort of an unavoidable response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but the German declaration of war didn't actually mention the Japanese at all instead it listed three United States destroyers the USS Greer the USS Kerney and the USS Ruben James as reasons that Germany was going to war with the United States those three ships and what at the time were called incidents represent a nearly forgotten part of US history and that is the undeclared war that came before the second world war it is history that deserves to be remembered by the mid 1930s War clouds were already on the horizon throughout the world in the United States the prevailing mood was isolationism and non-interventionism the US involvement in World War I had been costly and the national attitude and the attitudes of powerful members of Congress was that the US must be prevented from being dragged into another European War the Congress passed Neutrality Acts starting in 1935 intended to prevent the nation trading with powers at War but the 1930s starting with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935 would test the nation's ability to remain neutral in a time of conflict the slow drift towards War accelerated after the September 1st 1939 German invasion of Poland The Invasion ostensibly pred predicated over a dispute regarding the free city of Danzig had sparked a broader war France and Britain had joined military agreements with Poland largely in an attempt to force a diplomatic solution but when diplomacy failed and Germany invaded both were obliged to enter the war Roosevelt understood that the outbreak of War would include as it had in World War I a conflict over shipping in the Atlantic despite the isolationist attitude at home Roosevelt wanted to help Britain as much as possible without outright violating neutrality on September 5th Roosevelt announced an air NC neutrality Patrol he claimed that the intent of the patrol was to monitor the actions of belant ships and October 7th was joined by the foreign Ministers of the American republics in what was called the the Panama declaration which designated a patrol Zone that extended between 2 and 300 miles from the shores of North and South America the patrolling was done by a task force that included both the Navy and the Coast Guard if the patrols cited a ubo they were not allowed to attack but they could Monitor and radio its location to British and Canadian Forces in addition Rosevelt convinced Congress to amend the Neutrality Act to allow so-called Cash and Carry sales this provision allowed the sale of goods to a belligerent Nation so long as they pick them up from an American and transported them themselves in theory this allowed sales to both sides without threatening neutrality but as Britain had a large enough Navy to prevent German trade the provision impr practice only helped the Allies us neutrality was looking less and less neutral the boundary was further tested in September 1940 when Roosevelt signed an executive agreement with Britain called destroyers for bases the agreement traded 50 older US destroyers to the British in exchange for land rights on certain British possessions the Destroyers taken from a reserve Fleet were outdated they were in poor repair and of little use in the ongoing battle protect shipping in the Atlantic in fact Churchill saw them as virtually useless but agreed to the deal since he knew that us support was needed after France had fallen to Germany in June the bases rights supposedly enhance us defense but the agreement really allowed the US to take up some defensive responsibilities for places like the Bahamas freeing Britain to redeploy troops to the war as well as to allow the US to finance base improvements like airfields that could then be used used by the British again Roosevelt was overtly helping the Allies while still pretending neutrality but cash and carer was pressing its limits as Britain who with its Empire was bearing the weight of the conflict after the fall of France was running short of assets that could be used to provide the cash Churchill sent a 15-page letter to Rosevelt which was ironically delivered on December 7th 1940 pressing for help us opinion was slowly shifting but not to the point of supporting War however the nation was becoming more positively disposed towards Britain providing Aid was seen as a way to fund the war against Germany without having to fight it ourselves in March FDR signed the bill that was popularly called Lend Lease the ACT allowed the US to provide billions in Aid initially to Britain and China making the US an indirect participant in the war lendle was extended to the Soviet Union after Germany invaded on June 22nd as the Lindley Aid represented a substantial investment rusal then had a reason to the neutrality Patrol to protect that investment in July the US agreed to take over the occupation of Iceland an agreement that required a formal request from the government of Iceland which again allowed a redeployment of British troops but also further extended the US Zone in the Atlantic eventually the zone for the neutrality Patrol extended 3/4 of the way across the Atlantic well technically under the terms of the neutrality treaty US forces were not allowed to attack axis forces without being shot at first the US was in practice doing Convoy escort a crash violation of neutrality the US was in essence fighting an undeclared war on April 10th the gleaves class destroyer USS niblack was picking up survivors from a Dutch ship that had been sunk by a ubot when it got a sound contact that suggested that a submarine was according to the action report rapidly approaching a position for attack the niak released a depth charge of the Target that attack appears to have been the first action between the United States and German forces in the Second World War 8 months before war was officially declared US public support had significantly shifted by mid 1941 a Gallop poll showed more than 2third thought it was more important that Germany be defeated than that the US stay out of the war us Merchant vessels were being attacked both under us and Panamanian flags and US warships were escorting conv convoys through combat zones it was only a matter of time before us warships found themselves in the fry on September 4th 1941 the US s s Greer a Wix class destroyer was carrying mail and passengers to Iceland when it was informed by a British plane that a suspected ubot was operating in the area the submarine was the U 652 following the terms of the neutrality Patrol the Greer located the submarine using Sonar and broadcast its location to British and Canadian units but did not attack the Greer pursued the submarine for nearly 3 hours when according to the US Navy the U 652 made a torpedo attack upon the Greer which detected the torpedo launched by sonar the Torpedoes missed and the Greer then proceeded to attack the submarine with dep charges while the Navy initially said the outcome was undetermined the u52 survived fought on until June of 1942 roselt described what was called the Greer incident as an unprovoked attack saying in a broadcast on September 11th I tell you the blunt fact that the German subing fired first Upon This American Destroyer without warning with the deliberate design to sink her he even declared the attack an act of piracy because don't all great stories involve Pirates the German response was to claim that the Greer attacked with dep charges first and that the submarine fired in self-defense it's still not proven who fired first it's possible that the U 652 mistook depth charges dropped from a British plane as coming from the Greer but as critics noted at the time the Greer had pursued the submarine for nearly 3 hours before the torpedo attack something which would normally be considered a hostile act still the Greer incident LED Roosevelt to declare a new policy called shoot on site he apped when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him under the new policy if German or Italian warships were cited in waters we deem necessary for our defense the US ships would attack them the following month the USS Kerney a Benson Livermore class destroyer was docked at rikic when a nearby British Convoy was attacked by a wolf pack of German new boats on October 17th the Kerney and three other destroyers responded Ed and following the shoot on site rules attacked the submarines with dep charges during the fight the U 658 fired a spread of three Torpedoes at Kerney one striking her a midships while the crew was able to control the flooding and withdraw 11 crew were killed and 22 injured these were American combat casualties nearly two months before the US officially entered the war 10 days later Roosevelt address the nation By Radio on Navy day he said we have wished to avoid shooting but the shooting is started and history has recorded who fired the first shot in the long run however all that will matter is who fired the last shot America has been attacked the USS Kerney is not just a Navy ship she belongs to every man woman and child in this nation two weeks later on October 31st the Clemson class destroyer USS Ruben James was escorting a convoy when they got a high frequency Direction finding or Huff Duff contact indicating a German submarine the Ruben James move to put herself between the suspected ubo and the Convoy and was struck by a torpedo fired by U 552 and apparently intended for one of the Convoy ships the torpedo dep detonated the ship's Ford magazine blowing the bow off the ship chief petty officer William bergstresser told the St peterb times I went topside and found that the whole forward part of the ship including the bridge was completely demolished and carried away the battle section sank immediately the stern section sank 5 minutes later 100 members of the crew were killed incl including all of the ship's officers Ruben James was the first US Navy ship sunk by hostile action in the European theater in World War II and the worst single US Naval disaster since the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898 the sinking starkly represented the fact that the battle of the Atlantic was being fought even though War had not been declared the New York Times noted that the sinking brushes away the last possible doubt that the United States and Germany are now at open war in the Atlantic folk singer Woody Guthrie immortalized the sinking in a song released in 1942 have you heard of a ship called the good Reuben James Man by hard fighting men of both honor and fame she flew the Stars and Stripes of the land of the free but tonight she's in her grave at the bottom of the sea tell me what were their names tell me what were their names did you have a friend on the good Ruben James the sinking of the Reuben James embolden those members of Congress that were pressing for war Texas Senator Tom Connelly said this unjustified and dastardly sinking must be Avenged but the isolation blamed Roosevelt Vermont Senator George Akin said that Roosevelt was personally responsible for the casualties the sinking of the Ruben James might well have been that event that shifted public opinion and allowed FDR to take us to war but the Japanese took away any need for that discussion when they bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th still the incidents with the Greer Kerney and Ruben James were aaza belly for Germany in their declaration of war against the United States on December 11th German foreign minister ribbon trop cited the shots fired by the three destroyers as open military acts of aggression and argued that the government of the United States has thereby virtually created state of war and of course the Germans were absolutely right the neutrality Patrol was never neutral FDR always intended to be go as far towards intervention as the public would allow without destroying this fiction of neutrality but FDR also argued that the United States would be in Desperate shape if england were to fall on the axis were to take all of Europe and Asia and there seems to be a fair point of discussion there perhaps the question shouldn't be was was this undeclared war neutral because obviously it wasn't the question was was neutrality ever a viable option and questions like that will keep historians busy for as long as we study history but what is not question is that the casualties of this undeclared war deserve to be remembered I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short Snippets of Forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that Thumbs Up Button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 321,671

Keywords: History, the history guy, us history, world war II, USS Greer, USS Kearny, USS Reuben James, wwii, history guy

Id: KkArqS9y1D0

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2019