Framework Chapter V The Atlantic Crisis of 1941

The critical world situation confronting the United States in the spring of 1941 raised questions that were not answered by drafting long-range war plans. The most pressing of these questions was how to help insure the survival of Great Britain. Britain's weakness in early 1941 stemmed primarily from its increasingly critical shortage of merchant shipping. In March and April the British lost ships to Axis submarine, surface, and air attacks at an annual rate of about 7,300,000 gross tons; with a current British shipbuilding capacity of 1,250,000 tons, continuing losses at that rate would result in a net loss to Britain of about 6,000,000 tons a year, or about one fourth its available merchant fleet. The British Isles simply could not long survive continued losses of this magnitude. The shipping crisis had been the basis for Admiral Stark's prediction in December 1940 that Britain might not be able to hold out for more than six months. A month later Secretary Hull, in testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the proposed Lend-Lease Act, asserted the necessity for control of the high seas by law-abiding nations and called such control "the key to the security of the Western Hemisphere. Enactment of the lend-lease bill on 11 March did not in itself furnish much relief for Britain's immediate plight. In fact, the great bulk of military material furnished to Great Britain during 1941 consisted of items ordered before the bill was passed. The Lend-Lease Act nevertheless had a very great significance in the evolution of American policy toward the war.