Destroyers‐For‐Bases Agreement

Destroyers‐For‐Bases Agreement (1940).
On 3 September 1940, after intricate negotiations, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that he was transferring fifty destroyers of World War I vintage to England—already at war with Germany—in exchange for ninety‐nine‐year leases to seven British air and naval bases in the western hemisphere (Newfoundland, Bermuda, several Caribbean islands, and British Guiana). Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill had first asked for the warships to replenish British losses in the Norwegian campaign. Despite his promise that spring to support England with “the material resources of this nation,” Roosevelt waited as Britain continued the war against Nazi Germany after France's surrender. Private groups like the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies worked to arouse public opinion in support of Britain, while FDR sought...

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