Figure 1.--It was not just arms and militay supplies that ameica shipped to Britain during the War. Here an American Red Cross worker is preparing a shipment of Christmas toys for British kids bombed out of their homes. The photograph is undated, but we suspect was taken about October-November 1940. Britain and America forged bonds that helped make the Anglo-American rlationship the most powerful military alliance in the history of warfare.

Both World War I and World War II began with German invasions of countries which were nt threatening Germany. The German image was, however, were very different. Germany in 1914 was perhaps the most respected country in Europe. It was the leader in scince and Nobel Prize awards. It had a constitunional parlimentary system. It was the British and Belgians that had dark images. They had committed widely publicized atrocities, the Belgians in the Congo, the British in South Africa. It was the British who created concentration camps to control the Bohrs. The large German minority in America looked mor favorably on the German than the British. Germany was seen as atable, nodern coyntry with high cultural and intellectual standards. And there had been not conrrontations with the Germans, unlike the long list of 19th century confrontations with Britain. This only changed with World War, beginning with the invasion of neutral Belgium, followed by a series of actions which inflamed American public opinion. British propaganda magnified German atrocities, but did not create them. While this turned public opinion against Germany, it did not create widespread sympathy for the British. American sypathy was primarily dorected toward the Belgians and French as well as the various countries invaded and occupied by the Germans. All had ethnic communities in America concened about their homelnd. Germany in 1939 was looked on very differently. Americans had seen the wild speeches of Hitler in the movie news reels as well as the thugery of the book burning, Jew hating NAZIs. Anti-semitism existed in Ametica, but the NAZI excesses, especially Kristalnacht, appauled Americans even many who had no love of Jews. And the subsequent NAZI rampage in Poland, Denmark, Norway, and then the Netherlands, Belgium, and France shocked Americans. The governing opinion, however, was to say out of another European war. Dislike of the NAZIs, however, did not automatically transform into sympathy for Britain. This came more thany thing from Briain's valiant stand against the NAZIs after the fall of France, especially the Blitz and the evocative images of London burning. It was clearly nothing short of barbarian forces set on destroying not only the British, but civilization itself. the forces of The Blitz had a narator -- CBS corresponent Edward R. Murrow. American nightly tuned into Murrows broadcasts with the background of Luftwaffe bombs dropping on the city. And then there were the masterful sppeches od Prime Minister Churchill, contrasting with Hitler's rantings. A majority of Americans still were opposed to entering the War, but the bond with the British people were forged in the smoke and flames around St. Paul's.

Created: 1:16 AM 7/1/2017
Last updated: 1:16 AM 7/1/2017