World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseFranklin Delano Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, United States into a privileged family. Frequent trips to Europe made him well versed in German and French. He learned to ride, shoot, row, and play polo and lawn tennis. He studied at the Groton School in Massachusetts, United States, then went on to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He attended Columbia Law School in New York City, New York, United States, but never completed the program there, though he was able to pass his bar exam.

ww2dbaseAfter a brief career in corporate law, Roosevelt became a New York State Senator in 1910; he had aimed to join the lower house, the New York State Assembly, but was placed on the ticket to the State Senate by favorable luck. In 1919, he was appointed the Assistant Secretary of the US Navy by President Woodrow Wilson, where he was credited with the founding of the Naval Reserve. In this role, he further developed his political repertoire; while he sincerely fought for the well-being of the laborers at naval shipyards, for example, he was known to take credit for any success at the increase of their hourly wages and blame others when the wages went down. While in the US capital, he maintained his political influence back in his home state of New York, secretly setting himself up as one of the political bosses to speak to should a junior politician wished to advance in his career. During WW1, he toured Britain and France, met many important European politicians (including King George V, David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Winston Churchill, although he left so little an impression on Churchill that Churchill would forget the encounter), and witnessed as much of the war as possible for a civilian administrator (an action done in lieu of doing fighting himself). Upon his return to the United States via USS Leviathon, he wanted to create new US Navy railway gun artillery units to fight on land, and resign from his desk job to command one such unit; US President Woodrow Wilson denied Roosevelt's request, nothing that the war would be over before he would be able organize such units anyway.

ww2dbaseDuring his time as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt allegedly had an affair with Lucy Mercer. Mercer had written Roosevelt several times during Roosevelt's time away, and Roosevelt had packed these letters in his luggage. He contracted pneumonia on his way home. When Roosevelt's wife Eleanor Roosevelt, whom he had married in 1905, unpacked the luggage for him, she discovered the letters. The couple was said to have had a serious discussion and decided to stay together. This speculation could not be confirmed, however, as no evidence in support of this rumor or otherwise. It was known, however, that it was around this time that the two began maintaining separate bedrooms. Roosevelt and Mercer would maintain contact with each other; in fact, Mercer would be with Roosevelt when he passed away in 1945.

ww2dbaseRoosevelt resigned his position as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1920 and briefly retired from politics after a failed run for vice presidency; though doubtlessly a political defeat, the election campaign made him a figure on the national political scene.

ww2dbaseIn Aug 1921, Roosevelt contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. The illness was misidentified as poliomyelitis at the time. Being a politician, Roosevelt was careful in not revealing the paralysis in public, fearing that it could be seen as a sign of weakness that might negatively affect his political career should he choose to return. As he was recommended water-related exercises as a form of physical therapy to combat muscular atrophy, he discovered the geothermal springs at the Meriwether Inn in Warm Springs, Georgia in southern United States; he believed that the warm and dense waters there significantly enhanced the effectiveness of his physical therapy, and this feeling gathered those suffering from similar illnesses to the same location, ultimately leading Roosevelt to become the unofficial voice of poliomyelitis victims. In 1926, he purchased the Meriwether Inn as the base of a foundation to serve those suffering from poliomyelitis. This purchase was a great financial gamble, as the purchase price was more than half of his household's net worth. It was this time that he came in personal contact with those in financial distress for the first time in his life. With many of this neighbors being farmers, he began to understand the vulnerability of these families to unpredictable crop markets and empathize with them.

ww2dbaseIn the mid-1920s, Roosevelt again allegedly had an affair with another woman, but this affair was disputed even greatly than the one with Mercer; Roosevelt's son Elliott Roosevelt recalled seeing Marguerite "Missy" LeHand sitting in Roosevelt's lap in Georgia and suggested that all his siblings had an understanding of the existence of an affair, but his siblings did not make similar notions. LeHand would remain Roosevelt's private secretary until 1941 when her health prevented her from maintaining that position.

ww2dbaseIn 1928, Roosevelt managed the presidential campaign of fellow Democratic Party member Alfred "Al" Smith; Smith would ultimately lose the election by a great margin to Republic Party candidate Herbert Hoover (embarrassingly losing even his home state of New York where he held governorship), but through this campaign Roosevelt made numerous appearances presenting Smith and gained much popularity for himself. Roosevelt's use of radio as a new form of mass media was interesting, as his speeches in support of Smith promoted himself as well (ie. listeners heard Roosevelt's voice as much as Smith's platform), thus effectively strengthening his own political future, something he was not sure if he still wanted to pursue. This question would soon be challenged by Smith himself prior to the presidential election of 1928.

ww2dbaseAs Smith vacated his governorship, Smith saw Roosevelt as the ideal candidate to succeed him. Roosevelt initially turned down the notion, citing his commitment to his poliomyelitis foundation, but ultimately he accepted the nomination and won the election by a narrow margin. As the governor of New York, he implemented progressive policies that would provide hints for his future tenure as the president of the country, which came in 1932; he took office in Mar 1933.

ww2dbaseAs the President of the United States, Roosevelt's first challenge was the Great Depression, and his response was the New Deal program, which focused on relief for those in need, reform so that government-backed social programs would protect the well-being of the people, and recovery of the economy via government spending. A friend had once told him that "[i]f the New Deal is a success, you will be remembered as the greatest American president", but Roosevelt cautious responded that "[i]f I fail, I will be remembered as the last one". While whether he was the greatest US President is debated, the New Deal slowly but steadily showed success, and he avoided the fate of being the last US President. In 1936, he was elected to his second term in the White House. On the foreign policy front, Roosevelt carefully tried to engage Americans in international politics, but he fought against strong isolationist sentiments. In 1940, he presented the destroyers-for-bases deal to Britain, which was "the first of the president's clever and arguably illegal tricks to evade the neutrality laws and to help the British", commented journalist David Brinkley; "[h]e got away with only a few bruises". He continued to lobby for American participation while he dangerously came close to violating American neutrality, using common language to speak to the American people with his "fireside chats". Even though isolationist Americans outnumbered those with a more global view five to four, he continued to strive to "buy peace for a generation of Americans, but the more he pondered the character of the regime in Berlin, the more convinced he became that the next U.S. generation would lie at Hitler's mercy." Bypassing the appeaser British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's office, he contacted Winston Churchill directly via telephone and established what was to become one of the most important working relationships during the war.

ww2dbaseRoosevelt was a master at political maneuvers. When the United States was brought into WW2 with the Pearl Harbor attack, his immediate finger-pointing left him completely blameless of the devastation of the US Navy Pacific Battle Fleet, despite the fact that he was the commander-in-chief of the United States military; instead, scapegoats Husband Kimmel and Walter Short shouldered the entire responsibility. His diplomatic capabilities also helped him achieve his military goals, as demonstrated by his ability to convince (or, mislead, as per MacArthur) Douglas MacArthur to retreat from the Philippine Islands against his wishes. As Roosevelt discovered MacArthur's political potentials in the upcoming presidential election, some reported his nervousness. "I'm sure," said Australian Prime Minister John Curtin, "that every night when he turned in, the President had been looking under the bed to make dead sure [MacArthur wasn't] there." Naturally, Roosevelt found his solution. He befriended MacArthur and publicly sided with many of his decisions, such as choosing the liberation of Philippine Islands over an invasion of Taiwan. As a result, Roosevelt was able to capture a part of the potential votes that might had gone to MacArthur had he really become a presidential candidate.

ww2dbaseAs President, Roosevelt continued to suffer from paralysis. He could not walk without his cane or his aide, but he had done a remarkable job in masking this from the public. From when he initially campaigned for presidency to the years at the White House, no photograph or video footage revealed his handicap in a public way. It reflected not only his determination to appear strong as the head of his nation, but also the media's complete cooperation with the White House resident. Some of the cooperation stemmed from Roosevelt's openness to the press, which began early in his presidency. In fact, he was the first President of the United States to hold a press conference that accepted direct questions. Unlike his predecessors, he was willing to entertain all questions, saying "there is no news on that today" on the only very few questions he did not wish to answer. He felt he was a president who was close to the people, and he wanted the public to feel the same way.

ww2dbaseOf course, there were exceptions. Press lords Cissy Patterson and William Randolph Hearst, for example, were some of Roosevelt's harshest critics and greatest political enemies since the introduction of the New Deal. They called Roosevelt, among other things, a dictator, and argued that the lend-lease program was "a sneaky and illegal device to trick the American people... into another war to bail out the British" in their widely circulated publications.

ww2dbaseDuring WW2, when Roosevelt needed to travel around the continental United States, he rode in an armored rail car built by the Association of American Railroads, which the White House purchased for a token price of US$1. The rail car, named "Ferdinand Magellan", had two elevators built-in so that he could get on and get off with ease in a wheelchair. The car featured an office, a lounge, a bedroom, and a galley, all protected by 12 inches of steel-reinforced concrete underneath and armor plates on the sides. It even had three underwater escape hatches built according to submarine specifications, in case the train was to derail and end up at the bottom of a lake. The train avoided traveling on rail lines that were too close to the east coast of the United States in fear of German submarine attacks.

ww2dbaseIn Oct 1944, Roosevelt's doctor noted that his patient had frequent bouts with high blood pressure and had frequently complained of loss of appetite. Upon his return from Ukraine at the end of Feb 1945, the doctor observed that Roosevelt's left ventricle was showing warning signs of failure. By Mar 1945, Roosevelt's close aides began to suspect that his health situation might be fairly serious; shortly after, rumors began circulating among the American public. Although he had always insisted on putting up a strong physical appearance, his final address before the Congress was conducted from a wheelchair, something he had not done in public before. He visited his retreat of Warm Springs, Georgia, United States in Apr 1945, where he could rest and work on his speeches for Jefferson Day on 13 Apr and for the United Nations Charter conference in San Francisco on 25 Apr. After complaining of an acute headache on 13 Apr 1945 during a portrait painting session with artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff, he passed away from cerebral hemorrhage that afternoon at 1525 hours. He was 63 years old.

ww2dbaseUpon hearing the news, Winston Churchill sent the following message to the citizens of the United States:

ww2dbaseIn a sign of respect, the French observed a national day of mourning, the first time it was done for a non-French citizen, while the British Parliament did not meet for one day. Contrastingly, "Tokyo Rose" and Adolf Hitler rejoiced as if they had bought into their own propaganda without realizing the dire situation of their own countries.

ww2dbaseHastily, a special train was hastily summoned to Warm Springs and customized to hold Roosevelt's coffin. En route to Washington, millions of people gathered along the tracks to pay respect to Roosevelt, and the train slowed to a crawl so that the people could see his coffin through the windows, shades opened wide. A funeral precession was held in Washington, and two days later he left by train for Hyde Park, New York, where he was to be buried in his mother's rose garden.

Famous Quote(s)

• "Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free.... If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation."
      » Address to the US National Education Association, 30 Jun 1938
• "We must be the great arsenal of Democracy."
      » Fireside Chat, 29 Dec 1940
• "As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed."
      » Eighth State of the Union Address, 9 Jan 1941
• "We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom."
      » Eighth State of the Union Address, 9 Jan 1941
• "With confidence in our armed forces with the unbounded determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God."
      » To the United States Congress, 8 Dec 1941
• "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
      » To the United States Congress, 8 Dec 1941

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