June 13th, 1940 lesser known critical events.
Jun 13, 2013 8:21:47 GMT -5
Post by rah on Jun 13, 2013 8:21:47 GMT -5
1940 – Roosevelt signs a new $1,300,000,000 Navy bill providing for much extra construction. Meanwhile, in response to Churchill’s pleas in his telegrams to President Roosevelt, surplus stocks of artillery weapons and rifles have been assembled from US government stores. The first shipment now leaves the USA on the SS Eastern Prince for the voyage to Britain. The US Neutrality Laws have been subverted by first “selling” the arms to a steel company and then reselling them to the British government.
The weapons sent were crucial for Britain. Almost all of the 338,000 men evacuated from Dunkirk, Belgium came without their arms. Nearly 1/3rd of Churchill's growing Army lacked military weapons.
The last day of the 9 day evacuation effort at Dunkirk was June 4th, 1940. And so we see that in 9 days after the evacuation FDR had a ship load of old arms on it's way to the beleaguered British to be used for the defense of their island. In a space of two days there were over 600 train car loads of WW I era Enfield rifles, Lewis Machine guns, French style 75 mm field guns, and 100,000,000 rounds of ammunition for those weapons loaded on that ship.
The US was emptying it's arsenal at that time to help Britain. This came about because FDR against advise from many of his advisers and the US military pushed it through by brute force. He all but ordered his military commanders to declare as surplus the arms he wanted sent to Britain.
Much can be criticized concerning FDRs New Deal policies before the war. But there is little to criticize concerning the actions of this president when the world was going to war and the chips were down. He, above most of his own countrymen and even most of his own military leaders and diplomats, was far sighted enough to see that continued strict isolation policies, while politically advantageous on the domestic front would lead to disaster. That the US and Great Britain's fates were connected. And so he inexorably expended a great deal of his political capital at this critical juncture even though he was sure that in the short term it would hurt him and his party on the domestic political front.
1942 – President Roosevelt created the Office of War Information, and appointed radio news commentator Elmer Davis to be its head. The OSS, Office of Strategic Services, was formed.
The OSS was the predecessor of the CIA.
1942 – 1st V-2 rocket launch from Peenemunde, Germany, reached 1.3 km.
And so the largest step towards the space age since the father of modern rocketry, Goddard, was firing off his relatively small liquid fuel powered rockets in Massachusetts nearly two decades earlier, was taken.
The weapons sent were crucial for Britain. Almost all of the 338,000 men evacuated from Dunkirk, Belgium came without their arms. Nearly 1/3rd of Churchill's growing Army lacked military weapons.
The last day of the 9 day evacuation effort at Dunkirk was June 4th, 1940. And so we see that in 9 days after the evacuation FDR had a ship load of old arms on it's way to the beleaguered British to be used for the defense of their island. In a space of two days there were over 600 train car loads of WW I era Enfield rifles, Lewis Machine guns, French style 75 mm field guns, and 100,000,000 rounds of ammunition for those weapons loaded on that ship.
The US was emptying it's arsenal at that time to help Britain. This came about because FDR against advise from many of his advisers and the US military pushed it through by brute force. He all but ordered his military commanders to declare as surplus the arms he wanted sent to Britain.
Much can be criticized concerning FDRs New Deal policies before the war. But there is little to criticize concerning the actions of this president when the world was going to war and the chips were down. He, above most of his own countrymen and even most of his own military leaders and diplomats, was far sighted enough to see that continued strict isolation policies, while politically advantageous on the domestic front would lead to disaster. That the US and Great Britain's fates were connected. And so he inexorably expended a great deal of his political capital at this critical juncture even though he was sure that in the short term it would hurt him and his party on the domestic political front.
1942 – President Roosevelt created the Office of War Information, and appointed radio news commentator Elmer Davis to be its head. The OSS, Office of Strategic Services, was formed.
The OSS was the predecessor of the CIA.
1942 – 1st V-2 rocket launch from Peenemunde, Germany, reached 1.3 km.
And so the largest step towards the space age since the father of modern rocketry, Goddard, was firing off his relatively small liquid fuel powered rockets in Massachusetts nearly two decades earlier, was taken.