I think because of German uboats hunting in the Atlantic. They were attacking so close to the US coast there were cases where ships could be seen exploding and sinking from Manhattan at night.
It was the German uboats sinking US ships that was a factor in them joining WW1.
If Japan had never attacked the USA, it would never had entered the war.
The USA did not declare war on Germany after Pearl Harbour, only Japan. It was Germany that declared on the USA.
Both of which is totally understandable.
The USA joined the allies because it was forced to, not because it decided to.
Why did America care that Germany declared war on them?
I think because of German uboats hunting in the Atlantic. They were attacking so close to the US coast there were cases where ships could be seen exploding and sinking from Manhattan at night.
It was the German uboats sinking US ships that was a factor in them joining WW1.
In particular the sinking of civilian ships, such as the Lusitania.
As an Aussie I often forget about the Atlantic because our world map is always Asia centered.
Nevertheless, why did Germany bother? It isn’t like they planned to invade USA did they?
The yanks were sending supplies to the UK. Without it the brits would have run out of food, oil and ammo.
It was called Lend Lease
TIL.
And this from Wikipedia…
Stalin told Nikita Khrushchev that Lend-Lease enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Germany.
They sold that stuff to the Brits (the £27bn in today’s money was only finally paid off in 2006).
If memory serves, the US were also supplying the Nazis at the start of the war.
I agree that US involvement was vital to winning WW2, but the idea that they won it themselves is pure American propaganda.