If it wasn't for Pearl Harbor , the USA would have entered the WW ll?

Answer 1

The US was already in a shooting war with Germany in the late summer of 1941. It was just kept from the public. And the oil embargo imposed on Japan ensured they were going to push for the Dutch oil fields, at which point the US Navy was going to steam west to check them. Pearl Harbor was a surprise only in the specific details; the US knew there would be war, just not exactly where or when. Even the "when" is pretty relative, because Japan only had about 3 months' oil reserves, so they had to move no later than January 1942. This was well known in Washington, if not in the rest of the country.

Answer 2

The USA was already in conflict with Germany, just not open warfare. German submarines fired on US warships and US warships fired on German submarines (a mutual thing). But also realized that there was no guarantee that Hitler would declare war on the USA if Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Japan, Germany and Italy had a treaty that stated if one was attacked the others would help, not if they did the attacking.

What if Japan had decided to attack Pearl Harbor a couple of months later, would Germany have declared war on the USA. By then the Russian front wasn't doing so well, so would Hitler have wanted to fight another powerful country. Its an interesting 'what if' question.

Answer 3

Yes. Roosevelt wanted to enter the war. Besides, Pearl Harbor was not a complete surprise. Roosevelt had been pushing the Japanese into acting against the U.S., and General Billy Mitchell had predicted a Sunday morning surprise attack on Pearl Harbor as far back as 1937, I believe.

Answer 4

Yes, sooner or later after US interests had been bombed, torpedoed or attacked. For instance, if there had been no Pearl Harbor but the US bases in the Philippines had been attacked, we would have entered the war.

Japan, Italy and Germany had signed supporting agreements so sooner or later one or the other would have triggered the US entry into WWII.

Answer 5

Yes, the U.S might not have fought Japan, but they would have entered around the same time against the Third Reich.
The U.S had already had been supplying Britain and had given them 50 destroyers in the Lend-Lease Act. In 1941 the U.S occupied Iceland and began escorting convoys heading to Britain as far as Iceland. There were a number of skirmishes between German U-boats and American ships, similar to before the U.S entry in World War I.

Answer 6

I think so. I wish the gov't would've put the base on alert, because they didn't know for sure but the evidence suggests that they had some suspicion that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before the Japanese got there. I'm pretty sure Hitler eventually declared war on us, so we would definitely have eventually entered WWII. Plus, the army was very active in training, drafting, etc. before we officially entered, so people knew that we were going to participate in WWII.

Answer 7

If not Pearl Harbor, than probibly against the Germans in response to their U-Boat attacks on American shipping.

Answer 8

Yes. Pearl Harbor was just a pretext!

Answer 9

Eventually. They took long enough to become involved in World War One, so why not do the same in World War Two.
Better late than never I suppose.

Answer 10

Maybe not with Japan, but Germany and Italy declared war on us