On October 30, 1941, the U.S. Congress, urged on by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, approved $1 billion in Lend-Lease Aid to the Soviet Union, which at this time was reeling under the massive German offensives in Operation Barbarossa. The Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was an interest-free loan which did not have to be repaid until five years after the end of the war. The aid was passed despite anti-communist sentiment among some of the legislators.
The Lend-Lease Act was first passed on March 11, 1941 with the intent of helping Britain in its war against the Axis Powers. The act also allowed the United States to could provide weapons and other defense materials free of charge to “any country whose defense the [U.S.] President deems vital to the defense of the U.S.” The reasoning was that providing assistance to countries facing military aggression ultimately would be in the interest of the security of the United States.
By the end of World War II, more than $50 billion in Lend-Lease money, weapons, tanks, warplanes, and ships had been allocated to 44 countries.
(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)
The United States enters World War II In November 1939, two months after World War II had started in Europe, the United States declared its neutrality, which was a re-affirmation of its Neutrality Act of 1937. The Neutrality Act maintained the United States’ long-standing position of non-involvement in European political and military affairs. But it also contained provisions that favored the Western democracies, particularly Britain and France, viewed in light of the rise of totalitarian states, e.g. Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Stalin’s communist Soviet Union. U.S. foreign policy experienced a major shift in mid-1940 with Germany’s stunning victories in Western Europe, which saw the fall in quick succession of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and especially France. Then with Germany concentrating its efforts on the conquest of Britain, the United States became alarmed at the prospect that the whole of Europe may very well come under Hitler’s control.
Although believing that Britain was doomed to fall, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt rushed to help the government of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In September 1940, the two governments signed the “Destroyers for Bases” Agreement, where the United States transferred to Britain 50 old destroyers in exchange for Britain granting the United States long-term military leases to a number of strategic British territories in the Western Hemisphere. Then in March 1941, the United States permanently moved away from neutrality when U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, where the United States could provide weapons and other defense materials free of charge to “any country whose defense the [U.S.] President deems vital to the defense of the U.S.” Armaments, food, and funds soon arrived in Britain (and China, and later, the Soviet Union). The next month, April 1941, the Pan-American Security Zone (established in October 1939) was extended to 22° longitude to just west of Iceland. In June 1941, following the U-boat sinking of the American vessel, the SS Robin Moor (its crew and passengers were allowed to board lifeboats beforehand), the U.S. government froze German assets in the United States and ordered Germany (and Italy) to close their consulates, except their embassies.
Finally, on December 8, 1941, the United States entered World War II by declaring war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Three days later, December 11, Germany (and Italy) declared war on the United States; that same day, the latter declared war on Germany (and Italy); the United States was now a member of the Allies.
American and British strategic initiatives At the outset, U.S. and British military planners agreed to concentrate most of their combined efforts on first defeating Hitler (the “Europe First” policy) because of the immediate danger that Germany posed to the survival of Britain and the Soviet Union. By contrast, distant Japan did not directly threaten London and Moscow. With Germany’s defeat, the Allies agreed to concentrate on defeating Japan.
But the two western Allies differed on the strategy for Europe: the United States, which desired a rapid end to the war, favored an immediate invasion of France from Britain through the English Channel, while Britain, which saw the war in geopolitical terms, particularly with curbing Soviet expansionism in post-war Europe, called for an invasion through the Mediterranean region into southeastern Europe, that is, as far to the east as possible. For British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, an attack further east, particularly into the Balkans, would achieve simultaneous aims: it would First, deny the Germans vital resources, especially Romania’s oil; Second, meet up with the Soviet Red Army, and Third, allow the Western Allies a stronger bargaining position after the war. However, Stalin wanted the Allied invasion to be as far to the west as possible, as he saw Eastern Europe as falling inside his sphere of influence.
In the end, the United States went along with Britain, and temporarily shelved its plans for a joint cross-channel invasion of France that had been slated for 1942 and 1943, this decision influenced by the disastrous attempt in August 1942 to seize the French port of Dieppe, where the Allies lost 60% of its invasion force.