Neutrality Patrol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (May 2008)

This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations.
You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations.

The German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 began hostilities in Europe, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately declared the United States’ neutrality.

The Neutrality Patrol, organized in September 1939 as a response to the war in Europe, was ordered to track and report the movements of any warlike operations of belligerents in the waters of the Western Hemisphere. To augment the fleet units already engaged in the Neutrality Patrol which President Roosevelt had placed around the eastern seaboard and Gulf ports, the Navy recommissioned 77 destroyers and light minelayers which had lain in reserve at either Philadelphia or San Diego.

The Neutrality Patrol led to U.S. warships assisting British Royal Navy vessels in convoying merchant shipping across the Atlantic Ocean. This placed U.S. naval personnel at considerable risk, as shown by the sinking of the destroyer USS Reuben James by the German submarine U-552 on October 31, 1941.

[edit] External links

Strict Neutrality - Britain and France at War with Germany: September 1939 - May 1940. United States Navy and World War II. Naval-History.net. Retrieved on 2007-05-14.

Capt. William E. Scarborough, USN (Ret.). The Neutrality Patrol: To Keep Us Out of World War II? (PDF). Naval Historical Center, United States Navy. Retrieved on 2007-05-14.