<<< Of Flying Tigers . . . >>>

 CCLXXVIII

As the United States emerged from the Great Depression, people began to take notice, and take stock of, the world beyond U.S. shores, and what they saw disquieted them, for it looked like the world was beginning to fall apart. In 1935, the Saarland voted overwhelmingly (90.3%) to rejoin Germany, Hitler announced the creation of the Luftwaffe, the Nazi Party banned any publications produced by “non-Aryans”, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship while imposing severe social, economic, and political restraints on the community as a whole, King Boris of Bulgaria banned all political parties in his country, the British patented ASDIC (radar), China and Japan signed the Ho-Umezu Agreement which recognized Japanese control over several northeastern (formerly) Chinese provinces, the Yangtze River flooded (again in China) killing 200,000 people, and Abyssinia was invaded by Italy. 

The news wasn’t all bad. “Krueger’s Cream Ale” became the first beer to be sold in a can (a decision even more popular than the Saarland Plebiscite), the Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour premiered on NBC, “Your Hit Parade” debuted on the radio, becoming the Number One U.S. program (a position it would hold for years), James J. Braddock beat Max Baer in 15 rounds at the Garden to become the World Heavyweight Boxing Champ, the U.S. instituted Social Security, and the China Clipper made its first airmail flight. In the world of baseball, Babe Ruth retired, but Hank Greenberg was unanimously elected MVP for the year.

And the first Neutrality Act went into effect in the United States. President Roosevelt balked at signing it into law, but not too loudly. Neutrality was the price he was paying for the New Deal, and the Congress had finally recognized the New Deal as an integrated package of reforms only this same year. The Act, signed on August 31, 1935, imposed a general embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war. It made no distinctions between aggressor and defender, calling both sides “belligerents”. The Act was set to expire after six months, but it was in effect when Mussolini’s Italy invaded Abyssinia. Although the Abyssinians had done nothing to warrant an invasion, Roosevelt also announced a “moral embargo” on both parties, meaning that neither the Italians nor the Ethiopians could receive even humanitarian aid.*

In 1936, the Neutrality Act was renewed (for 14 months); this second Neutrality Act had an odd blind spot --- civil wars. Texaco, Standard Oil, Ford, General Motors, and Studebaker all made a healthy profit providing vehicles and petroleum products to Francisco Franco’s Nazi-backed Nationalists. The Republicans, with no deep pocket, could buy nothing.

The Neutrality Act of 1937 closed the “civil war” loophole. It forbade the transshipment of any war-related goods to any party on any U.S.-flagged ship. U.S. citizens were forbidden to travel on any foreign-flagged ship, aircraft, or rail line that belonged to a belligerent nation. Again, the Neutrality Act made no distinction between the attacker and the attacked, and it had no expiration date.

Even the isolationist 75^th Congress however bowed to geopolitical reality. American arms manufacturers lobbied for a “cash and carry” exemption in which a belligerent with enough greenbacks could buy weapons and war materiel as long as they arranged for transport themselves. President Roosevelt strongly supported the exemption. China had been invaded by Japan and was in desperate need of arms. FDR announced that since a formal war had not been declared the United States could sell arms to China, but he imposed another “moral embargo” on Japan. 

Not only did the U.S. give loans to China so it could buy U.S. weapons. It sent clandestine advisors. This was the genesis of the A.V.G. (American Volunteer Group) or “Flying Tigers”

There was an outcry from Congress that the President was flouting the law, but it was muted. The powerful China lobby, made up mainly of millionaire businessmen whose parents had been Protestant missionaries (and many of whom had been born and grown up in China) supported Roosevelt’s policy, and so arms sales to China went forward. In order to make purchases, China, which had little money to buy weapons, was funded by the U.S. government through backchannels. However, the ban on weapons sales to European powers remained strictly enforced.

In 1939, the fourth Neutrality Act was passed even as World War II was raging. Public sentiment had shifted, and though Senator Gerald Nye (the sponsor of all four Neutrality Acts) wanted a complete cessation of all arms sales, this fourth Act actually permitted greater sales to the U.K. and France. Purchasers still had to transport their own purchased goods. In effect, this meant that the United States was supporting the Allies since England controlled the sea lanes. 

A steady stream of arms began flowing back across the Atlantic from Canada, limited only by Great Britain’s reserves of cash on hand. 

November 1939: Just the first day of the Cash & Carry program saw $220,000,000 in orders from Great Britain and France and the other Allies. Lockheed provided medium bombers (top) while surplus World War I dive bombers could be had for a song (bottom). Due to the provisions of the 1939 Neutrality Act none of this military hardware could be shipped directly from the U.S. to the U.K. It all had to be sent to Canada and transported on British-flagged vessels. The airplane being towed is crossing the Canadian border

*As opposed to American policy toward China and Japan in 1937, that only embargoed the aggressor nation. The embargo on humanitarian aid to Abyssinia caused untold human suffering