All language subtitles for World War II Race To Victory Series 1 2of6 An Unholy Alliance 1080p

[narrator] 22nd of June 1941.

Dawn has yet to break.

Three million German troops

storm the Russian border
as the Nazis launch

the biggest military assault
in history.

Stalin has retreated
to his dacha.

The country's leader

and one of the world's
most feared dictators

drinks himself
into a stupor for nine days

as the Wehrmacht gorges itself
on his beloved motherland.

[explosion]

Despite warnings

from British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill

and the U. S. president
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

that the invasion was imminent,

Stalin dismissed their warnings
as a "capitalist plot,"

designed to undermine
the pact he'd made

two years earlier
with Adolf Hitler.

Only as the iron columns
of the Wehrmacht

poured over Russia's borders,

did he realise how utterly
he'd been betrayed.

[boom]

Before the year is out,

another
of the world's great powers

will be similarly surprised
by the enemy.

President Roosevelt
has done his utmost

to keep American out of the
war,

confident in his belief
that the Axis Powers

would never dare to take on
the might of the United States.

On the morning
of Sunday the 7th of December,

he, like Stalin, will be undone
by a devastating strike

designed to inflict
maximum damage and loss of life

in the shortest possible time.

While the President is enjoying
Sunday lunch at the White
House,

an Imperial Japanese
strike force torpedoes

America's Pacific Fleet
stationed at Pearl Harbour

in Hawaii.

In a matter of minutes,
Roosevelt's hopes

of staying out of the war
are destroyed.

An aerial assault
by the Japanese

and a land invasion
by a supposed ally

have caught Roosevelt and
Stalin
completely by surprise.

Now these ideologically
opposed leaders

need to somehow work together

if they're to have
any hope of defeating

the combined might
of Nazi Germany,

Imperial Japan
and Fascist Italy.

[theme music]

[engines roar]

[slides clicking]

‐[explosions]
‐[troops marching]

[bombs hiss]

[ominous music]

[narrator] The morning of Sunday
the 7th of December, 1941,

would change history.

A date which
will live in infamy.

The United States of America

was suddenly
and deliberately attacked.

[narrator]
In a matter of minutes,

two devastating attacks
by hundreds of Japanese planes

carrying bombs
and aerial torpedoes

left 18 American warships
in smoking ruin.

2,403 U. S.
service personnel dead.

And 188 aircraft destroyed.

Yet at the time of the attack
on Pearl Harbour,

America was not at war.

The President,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

had won the 1940 U. S. election

on a promise that the country
would remain neutral.

A series of neutrality acts
was passed by the U. S. Congress

which banned American citizens
from trading

with any nations at war,

a move intended
to keep the U. S.

out of
any international disputes.

Essentially,
what they do is they say

if a war is declared,

and particularly,
if the president

says that there is
a war ongoing,

then it limits the abilities
of the United States

to trade with those nations.

In a sense, it's trying
to constrain the United States,

but it's also especially
trying to constrain

the President as well,

because they're sort of
looking back to World War I,

when Woodrow Wilson
was president,

and they had an attitude
that Woodrow Wilson

had sort of overstepped the mark
and made the United States

more likely to be drawn
into this European war.

[narrator] With the country
only just emerging

from The Great Depression,
many felt America

had enough problems of her own,

and Roosevelt,
an astute politician,

was only too aware
of public opinion.

[Andrew] Roosevelt does not
want another war

and he believes,
up until really the last minute,

that Hitler can be appeased
in some way,

or certainly up to the time
of the Munich Agreement.

Therefore,
he supports Chamberlain

in his policies of appeasement.

Famously,
after Munich in September 1938,

he sends Chamberlain
a two‐word telegram: "Good man."

He believes,
against expectations,

perhaps, that Hitler,
in some way,

can be constrained
and that he can be controlled.

I hope the United States
will keep out of this war.

I believe that it will.

And I give you assurance
and reassurance

that every effort
of your government

will be directed
toward that end.

[narrator]
Roosevelt, a Democrat,

had decided to stand
for a third term as President,

something no one had ever
achieved in U. S. history.

This was despite
the partial paralysis

he had suffered
from contracting polio

when he was 39,
leaving him wheelchair‐bound.

Roosevelt
is a fascinating character

and one of the most
wily politicians

of the twentieth century.

And the way he behaved,

and the way he got himself
re‐elected in December 1940,

is an absolute masterclass
of politics.

He could present himself
as someone who was not scared

of getting involved
in Europe

if the circumstances
required it.

He's quite clever, really,
in that he stays out of it

for a large part.
He sends proxies out

to do most of the work for him.

And what that is doing,
of course, is shielding him,

but it's also allowing him
to be presidential,

to show
that he is doing the job,

that he is standing up
for the United States

and he's trying
to keep the U. S. out of the war.

[narrator]
His Republican opponent,

businessman Wendell Willkie,

played on the public's fear
of war,

arguing that a Roosevelt
victory
would mean

wooden crosses
for American boys.

The polls swung against FDR,
and he was forced to insist

there would be
"no foreign wars,"

carefully chosen words
that, crucially,

did not preclude responding
to an attack

on American territory.

Roosevelt had to make
a famous promise at Boston

days before the election,

that he would not let
American boys

fight in a foreign war,

and he did not add
the usual condition

"unless we are attacked first."

[narrator] To keep voters happy,

America needed
to remain neutral.

But when war broke out
in Europe,

Roosevelt's speech to the
nation
revealed his personal beliefs.

This nation will remain
a neutral nation.

But I cannot ask
that every American

remain neutral
in thought as well.

Even a neutral has a right
to take account of facts.

Even a neutral cannot be asked

to close his mind
or to close his conscience.

[narrator] We now know
his personal thoughts

were far from neutral.

He'd corresponded secretly
with Churchill

about how Hitler
could be defeated

even before Churchill
had become Prime Minister.

Roosevelt did hope
that he could allow

aid to the Allies
to win the war,

but not get
the United States involved.

So it was a very fine line
that he was walking,

that wasn't quite isolationist,

but wasn't
quite interventionist.

It was non‐active intervention,

which is a very complex idea,
but very typical of the way

that Roosevelt conceived
of things.

[narrator] In November 1939,

Roosevelt introduced
a "cash‐and‐carry" policy,

allowing Britain to buy
and collect weapons from
America

in their own ships,

in order that they might gain
access to materials and
supplies

as quickly as possible.

Whatever his public statements,

many historians now believe
that Roosevelt's actions

suggest he privately wanted
America to enter the war.

After Churchill
became Prime Minister,

the U. S. president
resupplied the troops

rescued from Dunkirk and leased
Britain 50 destroyers,

saying that he wanted America

to be the "great arsenal
of democracy."

In 1940,
the United States still had

10 million people unemployed,

and war orders
from France and from Britain

from the other Allies helped
to drag the American economy

finally out of recession,

so that the arsenal
of the democracy idea

was clearly self‐interested,

clearly served
domestic American goals

and Roosevelt's
own political goals,

but also, I think seemed,
to him,

the way in which
the United States

could contribute most clearly
to the Allied war effort

and wouldn't involve
all the complications

of America entering the war.

[narrator]
This also suited Churchill.

[Martin] It was very important
for the British,

both in terms
of the material itself,

and in some crucial areas,
the Americans were supplying

things that the British
simply couldn't supply.

[narrator] Churchill had been
pushing the men's friendship

to breaking point,
as he lobbied continually

for America's entry
into the war.

The U. S. was helping Britain
and buying itself time.

As Secretary of War
Henry Stimson admitted:

"We find ourselves
unprepared and unarmed,

facing a thoroughly prepared
and armed potential enemy."

Neutrality wasn't just
about a principle,

it was about survival.

[explosion]

[narrator] By late 1940,

Britain had defied the odds
to win the Battle of Britain.

But people were now enduring
nightly bombings

as the Blitz hit towns
and cities all over the
country.

And as a result of being at war
for more than a year,

Britain was now almost
bankrupt.

[Martin]
Churchill put as much pressure

on Roosevelt as he could,

by pleading with Roosevelt,

by a number of public speeches

where he tried
to align the British cause

with American interests.

But by the end of 1940

when Britain's
financial situation

was getting very bad,

Britain simply couldn't afford
to pay for the aid.

And up to that point,

they'd have to pay for it
in cash.

Churchill begins
to pressure Roosevelt

in a different way,
by essentially dangling over him

the prospect that Britain's
going to have to give in,

because it simply
cannot afford to buy

American aid anymore.

And that of course,
as Churchill knew,

confronted Roosevelt
with having to go and tell

the American public,
who had very nicely paid jobs

supplying all this material
for the British,

that they would now
lose those jobs

because Britain was no longer

going to be able
to provide the money.

[narrator] Between September
1940 and May 1941,

43,000 British civilians
were killed

and 139,000 wounded
in the Blitz.

The Germans hoped
these bombing raids

on towns and cities

would not only destroy
British infrastructure,

but also her morale.

I think aerial bombardment
of civilians,

which is basically
what the Blitz was...

you can have perhaps

one of two outcomes.

One is the...

psychological surrender
of those suffering the bombing,

or the opposite.

Stiffening their resolve:

"To hell with you,
we're not giving in to this."

And I think
it was the latter reaction

which found its place

in London, Coventry
and all the other cities bombed.

[narrator]
Churchill pleaded with FDR

to "give us the tools
and we'll finish the job."

Churchill very much set out to,
as he later said,

"Woo Roosevelt like a maid"

and persuade Roosevelt
to take action.

And Roosevelt
knew perfectly well

that that was what Churchill
was doing.

[narrator] How could FDR

balance Britain's desperate
need
for supplies on credit

with the pressure
to appear neutral?

Ingeniously, he disinterred
an old law from 1892

and repurposed it
as "Lend‐Lease,"

an idea he compared to lending
something to your neighbour.

The Americans
were not allowed to lend money

to people who were at war.

That's what
the American Neutrality Acts

were really about.

So Lend‐Lease was a way
of getting around that,

exploiting a loophole
in the legislation, effectively,

whereby they would be...
rather than lending money

to Britain, they would be paying

for the use
of certain British assets,

bases in Bermuda, the Caribbean,
these sorts of things.

Lend‐Lease meant,
as Roosevelt explained,

both in a press conference
and in one of his fireside chats

was that you don't actually
require payment in cash.

When your neighbour
asked to borrow your hose

to put out a fire in your home,

you say: "Certainly,
you can use the hose.

And when the fire is put out,
you can either return it to me,

or if it's been destroyed,
you can buy another hose

and give me that."

But a good neighbour
will not ask

for immediate payment in cash.

[narrator] Lend‐lease led
to a ferocious debate

in Congress.

Britain still owed the U. S.
money from the First World War,

but Roosevelt won the day.

And in March, 1941,
$7 billion was agreed.

For Churchill, that was
a heavy price to be paid.

The U. S. commandeered

what was left
of Britain's gold reserves

and overseas investments,
due to the nature

of the cash‐and‐carry
agreement.

Lend‐lease was the only method
that could now aid Britain

in the war.

Britain was not the only
beneficiary of the new policy.

Our most useful
and immediate role

is to act as an arsenal for them
as well as for ourselves.

[applause]

[narrator]
The Molotov‐Ribbentrop Pact

of August 1939

had enabled Hitler
to occupy much of Europe

without fear
of Russian reprisals.

but when it was torn asunder
by the German invasion

of Russia in June 1941,
known as Operation Barbarossa,

Stalin's unprepared military
was caught

entirely by surprise.

And many in the West
were concerned

there was a genuine risk
that the Nazis could gain

complete control
of the world's largest country.

[tense music]

[Andrew] The Americans
did take great interest

in the Nazi invasion
of the Soviet Union.

But the interest
and the attitude

sort of depended really
on whether people thought

that the Soviet Union
needed to be helped

to defend themselves
against the Nazis,

or, in fact, that they
sort of deserved everything

that they got for doing
the Pact with the Nazis

in the first place.

[narrator] However,
when Stalin finally emerged

from a week of drunken despair,
he didn't capitulate.

He turned to the capitalists
and asked to join Lend‐Lease.

This was actually
a big compromise on his part

because for the years before
the start of the war,

Stalin had seen Britain
and America as major enemies.

This fit
with his ideological view

of the world that saw things
in a very black or white sense.

It was communism
versus capitalism.

But now he had to make a deal
with capitalist powers

in order to beat Hitler.

[narrator] Roosevelt granted him

$1 billion
of interest‐free credit

in supplies and raw materials.

Stalin expressed
his "heartfelt gratitude"

for this urgent aid
in the fight

against the common enemy,
"bloodthirsty Hitlerism."

I think that Stalin
saw Allied aid central

to Soviet victory in the war.

This is because so much
of the Soviet economy

had been turned over
to military production

and fighting the Nazis.

Without Allied aid,

the Soviet Union
would not have been able

to feed its people.

And this is why
it's of central importance.

Stalin understood this.
So the real contribution

from the Americans and British,

aside from the, you know,
military resources

that they did send over,
was the food supply.

[narrator]
But despite the aid agreements,

the Big Three
were by no means aligned

in their aims and ambitions.

By the summer of 1941,

Stalin's Russia
was battling for its life

against the largest
land invasion in history.

Churchill's Britain
was bombed and near bankrupt.

While militarily,
Roosevelt's America

still stood on the side‐lines.

By contrast,
Hitler and Mussolini's alliance

was holding strong,

and they took pleasure
in parading

their close relationship
in front of the cameras,

in a series
of highly publicized meetings.

To strengthen
Anglo‐American relations,

Churchill felt it was essential
that he meet Roosevelt

face to face.

In August 1941,

the Battle of the Atlantic
was at its height,

with German U‐boats,
Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine

viciously patrolling the ocean.

The journey
was considered so dangerous

Churchill had to seek
the King's permission first.

But despite the dangers,

Churchill secretly boarded
the HMS Prince of Wales

at Falmouth and set sail
to meet the U. S. President.

Churchill very much hoped,
when he crossed the Atlantic,

to finally meet Roosevelt,

that Roosevelt's agreeing

to the meeting
signalled the fact

that Roosevelt
had finally decided

to bite the bullet
and join in the war.

So he was hoping
for a declaration of war

or the promise
that the United States

would become
properly active in the war.

He, of course,
was quite disappointed.

[narrator] It was the first

had met as heads of government.

Over four days

from the 9th to the 12th
of August 1941,

Roosevelt and Churchill
had a series

of secret meetings
aboard naval ships

off the coast of Newfoundland.

[Jonathan] Roosevelt didn't want
the American public to know

until he'd had the meeting,

because he wanted to make sure

that he could get
the result he wanted,

which was
the Atlantic declaration.

[narrator] Churchill arrived
with a long wish list

of munitions and supplies,

but he also had a burning
desire
to bring America

into the war immediately,

a point he emphasised
by having Roosevelt join him

in singing the hymn

"Onward Christian Soldiers,
Marching As to War"

in front of the news cameras.

[crowd singing]
♪... Christian soldiers ♪

♪ Marching as to war ♪

♪ With the cross of Jesus ♪

♪ Going on before ♪

[narrator] But Roosevelt
had his own agenda.

Roosevelt wanted
grand objectives

to justify the war towards
which

he was gradually
guiding America,

an idealistic plan
for the post‐war world,

a special relationship between
the men and their countries.

When they met together
at Placentia Bay,

and met for the first time...

since they had originally met
in the First World War,

or after the First World War,

and they sang hymns,

and a genuine friendship started
to grow from that moment,

because they were able
to sit down

and recognise in each other

what it is exactly
they wanted to happen.

And they were very happy
to work together.

[Martin] It's quite clear
that they enjoyed

each other's company,
and in a war that was run

by some very significant
close personal relationships

between very powerful leaders,

having a relaxed
personal relationship

was very important,

when a lot
of the communication, of course,

has to be conducted
at a distance,

by telephone call,
and by letter and by telegram.

Famously when Winston Churchill
went to visit the White House

after the bombing
of Pearl Harbour

and he stood up... by accident,

the president walked on him
in the bath,

and he stood up and he said,
without his towel,

and he said:
"I have nothing to hide

from the President
of the United States."

[narrator] The trouble was
that Churchill and Roosevelt

saw the world
in very different ways.

Churchill wanted to protect
the British Empire,

whereas Roosevelt wanted
to end European Imperialism

and open the world up
to American influence.

To remain allies, they had
to find common ground, quickly.

The two men worked together
behind the scenes

to devise what was
to become known

as The Atlantic Charter.

The agreement rejected
territorial aggrandizement,

affirmed
national self‐determination,

promised
"improved labour standards,

economic advancement,
and social security."

And against Churchill's wishes
to the contrary,

an end to colonialism.

Ultimately,
what he was hinting at

is that he wants
to get rid of empires,

and that's
the real point of controversy

between him and Churchill.

When they meet,

and Churchill has
a little clause inserted

trying to sort of make out
the present regimes,

the imperial regimes,
will sort of be allowed to stay,

but Churchill knows
that ultimately Roosevelt

wants to end them.

Basically
one of the main planks of it

was to articulate the wish
of self‐determination.

But in Churchill's
interpretation,

that meant Europe.

And Roosevelt meant
the wider colonial world.

[narrator]
Despite their differences,

the Newfoundland meeting
cemented their friendship.

Roosevelt cabled Churchill
after the meeting:

"It is fun to be
in the same decade with you."

Churchill later wrote:
"I felt I was in contact

with a very great man

who was also
a warm‐hearted friend."

So much of the war aims
as articulated

in several of their discussions,
as well with Stalin,

involved thinking
of liberating Europe

from, if you like,
the Nazi fascist empire.

But then, of course,
the ramification of that

would mean, potentially,

especially
in Roosevelt's understanding,

that would also mean
self‐determination

for the British Empire as well,
for places like India,

but also Africa and other parts

where that could be
the implication taken.

And with the Atlantic Charter,

this was a point of contention
between Churchill and Roosevelt.

[narrator] They chose to repeat
this successful meeting.

Newfoundland was to be

the first of nine
face‐to‐face conferences.

The Atlantic Charter was signed
on September 24, 1941,

by the USSR

and the nine exiled governments
of occupied Europe:

Belgium, Czechoslovakia,
Greece, Luxembourg,

the Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia,

and by the representatives
of General de Gaulle of France.

It's an important document
in that it sets out

these aims
for the post‐war world,

and in many ways,
what it's doing is

it's picking up
where the United States left off

after World War I.

And Woodrow Wilson
had his 14 points,

which he articulated
for the post‐World War I order,

and so Roosevelt's
really taking some of those

and saying that what he wants
to achieve is a freer world,

a freer world economically.

He wants
a freer democratic system.

[Jonathan] The Atlantic Charter
was what we're fighting for.

And although America
was not yet in the war,

it was the Anglo‐American way
of saying the world

we want to live in after the war

is one where we don't have
Hitlerism or Italian Fascism.

[narrator] But despite
the success of the meeting,

the Atlantic Charter
failed to persuade

the American public that
the U. S. should join the war.

Supporters saw it
as ground‐breaking

and world‐changing.

But leading isolationists saw
the Charter as evidence

of a secret commitment
by Roosevelt

to pull the United States
into the war.

But the U. S. was about
to become the victim

of an unexpected
and devastating attack.

[narrator] Getting 12 nations
to sign an agreement

as far‐reaching
as the Atlantic Charter

was a remarkable achievement.

But Roosevelt, like Churchill,
appreciated the addition

to the Allied cause
of Soviet power.

He couldn't promise
American material aid quite yet,

because he'd have to persuade
Congress to extend Lend‐Lease

to the Soviet Union,

but very early on
indicates to the Soviets

that they can expect that
as soon as he can manage it,

and most significantly,

he sends his right‐hand man,
Harry Hopkins,

to the Soviet Union
towards the end of July

to see Joseph Stalin,
to actually make an assessment

as to whether the Soviet Union
is going to survive,

and to open up relations.

And Harry Hopkins comes back

and reports in a very positive
way about the Soviet war effort

and about
the Soviet determination,

despite their earlier defeats,
to carry on fighting.

[military music]

[narrator] For his part,
Churchill lost no time

in condemning the invasion
of the Soviet Union.

The night after it began,
in June 1941,

he addressed the British
nation,

describing Barbarossa
as an "outrage"

and a "turning point"
in the war.

[Churchill on radio]
The invasion of Russia

is no more than a prelude

to the attempted invasion
of the British Isles.

I think what Churchill saw,

and again, this goes back
to Churchill being pragmatic,

was an opportunity.

And that is, that he recognised

that this was a moment
to bring Joseph Stalin in

on his own side.

I think Churchill
quite early on recognised

that Soviet Russia
was less of a threat

than Nazi Germany.

[narrator]
While Churchill was extending

his friendship
and support to Stalin,

Hitler, who only weeks before
had been Russia's ally,

was now waging what he called
a "war of destruction"

against a nation
of "sub‐humans."

[artillery fire]

[Peter] The Germans make
very quick gains in 1941,

partly because Stalin had done
so little preparation.

He'd ordered his troops
not to do anything provocative,

not to give Hitler a reason
to launch the attack,

and so that means
that the Germans

could just go like
a knife through butter

through the European parts
of the Soviet Union.

[narrator]
The Germans were carrying out

a three‐pronged attack
on the USSR.

Their southern assault
was on the Ukraine region.

The northern advance
tore through

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia,

powering on to its
main objective: Leningrad,

while the central part
of the attack

was the route to Moscow.

Between 17 and 25 million
Soviet citizens

were forced to flee

from the western borders
of the country

to the east and south.

Stalin's refusal
to plan for a Nazi betrayal

meant there were
insufficient resources

and many evacuees suffered
from exposure and malnutrition.

As the Germans advanced
towards the Soviet capital,

they killed or captured

more than
500,000 Soviet soldiers

near the cities
of Bryansk and Vyazma,

the last substantial
strongholds
of the Red Army

that stood between
the Germans and Moscow.

But despite the heavy losses,

the Soviets
were proving resilient.

The USSR fielded
more than a million soldiers

and a thousand tanks
to defend Moscow.

Women and children
joined their menfolk

to dig multiple defensive
lines.

The Nazis
would not be gifted Moscow.

Another Soviet success

in the immediate aftermath
of the invasion

was the rapid relocation
of 1,500 large factories

to preserve vital resources
for the war effort.

A lot of this had
to be dismantled, in fact,

from the western side
of the Soviet Union,

put on trains, and then rebuilt

in the eastern part
of the Soviet Union,

which is one of the reasons
why they managed

to claw things back in the end.

[narrator]
Meanwhile, The Nazi attack

became increasingly focused
on Leningrad,

a city
of strategic significance.

The city's prime position
on the Neva River

offered easy access to the sea.

It was the base
of Russia's Baltic Fleet

of warships,
destroyers, aircraft,

torpedo boats, and submarines.

And with more
than 600 factories,

Leningrad was second
only to Moscow

in industrial output.

It was also
of symbolic importance.

Hitler was determined
to destroy Leningrad,

which he hated
for its very name.

This was the birthplace
of the Russian Revolution.

It was named after Lenin.

[narrator]
As the Nazi forces advanced,

Leningrad's terrified civilians

raced to build trenches
and anti‐tank fortifications.

[tense music]

The Nazis
were advancing at speed,

and the Russian Red Army
and volunteer forces

could not build
their defences quickly enough.

The city was almost completely
encircled by the Germans

with their Finnish allies
to the north.

By the 8th of September,

the only way
in or out of Leningrad

was by water,
via the vast Lake Ladoga.

[news commentator] The camera
can show but little

of the suffering
and death and horror

that has reigned upon
this heroic city

in the long months
during which the Nazis

have vainly smashed
at Leningrad's gates.

[narrator] Eventually, though,
the frantic trench building

by Leningrad's inhabitants
paid off.

[man shouting]

[narrator] Soviet forces managed
to bottle‐up the Germans

in the city's suburbs.

Hitler decided his forces
would no longer continue

to fight their way in
to Leningrad.

Instead,
he settled in for a siege.

Hitler had no qualms
about shelling

and starving civilians to
death.

Any requests for surrender
negotiations were to be
ignored.

The Nazis didn't want to feed
3 million Russians.

Much now depended
on the endurance

of the inhabitants.

If Leningrad fell,
the Soviet Union's fate

was all but sealed.

.

In a matter of minutes,

two waves of almost
200 Japanese planes

appeared above
Pearl Harbour in Hawaii,

killing 2,403
U. S. service personnel,

destroying 188 aircraft,

and torpedoing
18 American warships.

It was the worst disaster
in American military history.

Roosevelt could not
have been less prepared.

It was supposed to be
a quiet Sunday

at the White House.

The President
had just finished lunch

and was about to attend
to his vast stamp collection

when he learned
of the Pearl Harbour attack.

His advisors warned
that Japan could be planning

to follow up with an attack
on America's West Coast.

Roosevelt had
no time to hesitate.

His wife, Eleanor,
described him as "deadly calm"

as he decided he had no choice

but to rally the nation
behind a war

many had hoped to avoid.

Well, I think the Japanese...

bombing of Pearl Harbour,
as Roosevelt famously said,

"a day that will live
in infamy,"

was as big a turning point
as you can have, almost,

in the wider history
of the Second World War.

Up to that point,

you could argue
that for Roosevelt

and for the isolationists

within the American Cabinet
and the American Congress,

did not want to be involved
in what they saw

as a European conflict,

and did not want to become
an active military player

in the Second World War.

With the bombing
of Pearl Harbour,

of the American fleet in Hawaii,

this, of course,
literally brought the war

to American shores.

[narrator]
The attack on Pearl Harbour

shocked the world.

Roosevelt wasted no time
in making it clear

that U. S. neutrality was over.

The American people,
in their righteous might,

will win through
to absolute victory.

[applause and cheers]

I think a lot of people
were scared.

A lot of people were happy

about having to fight.

Yeah, I think people
were very scared

that it could happen so close.

Pearl Harbour
happened on our land.

A lot of people said:
"Let's go, let's get them.

I'm ready to go, and I'm ready
to get these guys."

[narrator] Had Roosevelt
misjudged the national mood,

his entire presidency
would have been in jeopardy.

The vast majority
of the American public

recognises
that now the United States

has had war brought
to its shores, essentially,

and it has to respond to that,
as indeed Roosevelt does.

[narrator]
Roosevelt's declaration of war

was passed within minutes.

With only one vote against,

it was clear America
was no longer wedded

to isolationism.

So Pearl Harbour
is a significant defeat

for the American forces
in the Pacific,

severely damages
their ability to respond

to the Japanese.

But what it does do, of course,

is unites American
public opinion,

that all of those doubts
as to whether

the war going on in Europe
was part of America's business,

and whether America
was best keeping out of wars,

were swept away,

because of the way
that they'd been attacked.

[narrator] At last, Churchill
had got what he wanted.

But for Churchill,
this was the wrong war.

The U. S. was at war
in the Pacific fighting Japan.

And Britain
desperately needed the U. S.

to join the fight
against Hitler.

For three long days,
this remained in doubt.

Japan also wanted the Germans
to declare war on the U. S.

On December the 8th, 1941,
Japanese Ambassador Oshima

visited Nazi Foreign Minister
Von Ribbentrop

to request this.

But Von Ribbentrop stalled.

He feared that U. S. involvement
in Europe

would tip the balance
of power against the Axis.

Roosevelt and Hitler's
personal brinkmanship

forced matters to a head.

[Martin]
Hitler makes his own decision

to declare war
on the United States.

Roosevelt does try
and provoke him to doing so

by making a fireside chat
on the 8th of December

where he says some
very rude things about Hitler.

He accuses Hitler

of all sorts
of aggressive actions,

of conspiring with the Japanese

and basically being behind
what the Japanese had done.

[narrator] Three days after
the attack on Pearl Harbour,

first Mussolini, then Hitler,
declared war on America,

claiming their "pact of steel"

would bring about
a "new world order."

Hitler couldn't stand Roosevelt.

He'd been very rude
about him before,

and if you listen to the speech
that Hitler makes

to the Reichstag
when he declares war,

he just rants about Roosevelt.

Roosevelt clearly
has got him on the raw,

which I think was what
Roosevelt intended to do.

There was a good reason.
Again, in Hitler's world view

for attacking America,
for declaring war on America,

and that was that, in his view,

Jews were at the centre
of everything that was wrong

with the world.

And America, and particularly
New York finance,

with large number of Jews
in banks and investment banks

in New York, of course,
were at the centre of that.

And therefore,
in a perverse kind of logic...

[scoffs]

...this was going to be part
of his final settlement,

final solution
of the Jewish problem,

would be taking on
and defeating America as well.

[narrator] Roosevelt responded,

arguing that the Axis powers

were "endeavouring to enslave
the entire world"

and calling on
all nations to unite against

the "forces of savagery
and of barbarism."

The American Congress
and Senate were unanimous.

In just four days, America
went from glorious isolation

to waging war on two fronts.

The Japanese did arrange
for a submarine

to lob shells
towards Los Angeles

when Roosevelt was giving

one of his early
wartime fireside chats,

but by and large,
they posed no threat

to the American mainland.

But it shocked Americans
out of this sense

that we can steer clear of war.

[narrator] Japan was already
proving a deadly enemy.

[tense music]

Hours after Pearl Harbour,
Japanese planes struck
airfields

north of Manila
in the Philippines,

destroying more than half
the fighters and bombers

of the U. S. Army's
Far East Air Force.

Two days later,

further strikes obliterated
Cavite Naval Yard,

the Americans'
only ship repair facility

in the Philippines.

The Americans
were not the only victims

of the Japanese attacks.

As the Japanese blitzed
through Asia,

they singled out
the British in Singapore,

sinking the HMS Repulse
and the HMS Prince of Wales

on which Churchill had crossed
the Atlantic to meet Roosevelt,

resulting
in 840 British casualties.

Over the course of seven hours
on 8th December,

the Japanese launched
simultaneous attacks

on the British‐held colonies
of Malaya,

Hong Kong, and Singapore.

In one knock‐out blow,

the Japanese sought
to cripple the Western Allies

and gain total mastery over
Southeast Asia.

The issue that is absorbing
the Japanese government

right from 1931 onwards

is how to sort out
the China problem.

They're at war there
throughout the 1930s,

undeclared at first,
then declared,

on an ever‐increasing scale

and, of course,
China just pulls in resources

and pulls in difficulties,
creates difficulties for Japan.

But that's the number one
problem so far as they see it,

is how to solve
the Chinese problem.

[narrator]
Two weeks after Pearl Harbour

on December 22nd, 1941,

Churchill arrived
in Washington, D. C.,

to attend
the Arcadia Conference.

Stalin, who hated travelling,
did not attend,

and sent the Russian ambassador
to the U. S.,

Maxim Litvinov.

On New Year's Day 1942,

all three countries signed
the United Nations Declaration,

pledging to use
all available resources

to defeat the Axis powers,

and to create
an organization dedicated

to ensuring
"life, liberty, independence,

religious freedom,
the rights of man, and
justice."

Representatives
of 26 other countries

fighting the Axis
signed the next day,

but, crucially, the declaration
was driven by The Big Three.

As 1941 drew to a close,

the Axis powers
were ravaging the globe.

[crowd] Heil! Sieg Heil!

[narrator] Could a communist,
a capitalist and a colonialist

cooperate and defeat the Axis?

[theme music]

Next time on Race to Victory.

Britain and America needed
to build a united front

against the Axis powers
by creating a blueprint

to defeat fascism
as well as a post‐war vision.

U. S. troops join the British
for the first time to battle

the Axis forces in North
Africa.

Churchill makes
the famous quote about

this not been
"the beginning of the end,

this is the end
of the beginning."

[narrator] While the Soviets

continue to fight
on the motherland.

The people of Leningrad
were soon forced

to start eating cats, mice,
dogs, leather,

whatever they could find
to sustain themselves.

There were cases of cannibalism.

[narrator] And would
America's reluctant entry

into the war make
enough of a difference

to clinch victory?

[theme music]