The Great American Story: The Finest Hour

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast

Episode: The Great American Story: The Finest Hour
Date: June 10, 2026
Host: Hillsdale College (featuring Professor Maclay with commentary from Juan Davalos & Jeremiah Regan)

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Overview

This episode presents a sweeping, insightful history of World War II as part of Hillsdale’s “The Great American Story, A Land of Hope” series, focusing on the United States’ role during one of humanity’s darkest and most decisive eras. In “The Finest Hour,” Professor Maclay traces the global and American journey from 1930s isolation to postwar leadership, highlighting major battles, policies, personalities, and transformational consequences for the nation and the world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. American Attitudes & Isolationism (1930s)

• Domestic Focus: Throughout the 1930s, Americans were largely preoccupied with domestic troubles stemming from the Great Depression, with little appetite for foreign entanglements ([01:32]–[01:54]).
• Regret over WWI: The horrors and perceived futility of World War I soured much of the nation on international intervention ([01:56]).
• Debate on ‘Isolationism’: The term “isolationist” is seen as an overstatement; while Americans avoided war, they participated in peace conferences and were open to some forms of international cooperation, but always in line with national interest ([02:16]–[03:15]).
• Gallup Poll Data: “In March of 1937, a survey by the Gallup organization found that 94% of its respondents preferred efforts to keep America out of any foreign war over efforts to prevent such wars from breaking out.” (Professor Maclay, [06:58]–[07:11])

2. Rising Threats in Europe & Asia

• Expansionism and Appeasement: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and imperial Japan’s aggressive moves were initially met with Western appeasement to avoid another war ([03:35]–[06:20]).
• The Munich Betrayal: “Hitler broke the pledge he made at Munich. He took over all the rest of Czechoslovakia. There would be no more peace in our time.” ([06:32])
• Failure of Neutrality: US and Western neutrality emboldened Axis powers, who gambled on minimal American intervention ([07:26]–[07:54]).

3. The Outbreak and Escalation of War

• War Begins: German blitzkrieg crushes Poland in September 1939, followed by rapid conquest of Western Europe—culminating in the fall of Paris in June 1940 ([08:36]–[10:19]).
• Britain Alone: “The whole world could see pictures of the swastika flag of Nazi Germany juxtaposed against the Eiffel Tower.” ([10:19])
• Winston Churchill’s Leadership: Churchill’s stirring speeches galvanized British resistance (“We shall never surrender.” [11:24]–[11:33]) and inspired hope worldwide.

4. America’s Gradual Shift from Neutrality to Engagement

• Roosevelt’s Persuasion: FDR steadily nudged Americans away from isolationism, underscoring the stakes for Western civilization ([11:45]–[12:42]).
• Arsenal of Democracy: “He proposed that America be seen as the great arsenal of democracy, the chief supplier, provider of material support to the allies without being directly involved in the struggle.” ([17:00]–[17:10])
• Lend-Lease Program: Enabled substantial, though indirect, Allied support ([18:04]–[18:38]).

5. Critical Turning Points

The Battle of Britain

• “The outcome depended on a few stalwart men, pilots, skilled pilots in the Royal Air Force, who were able to defeat a superior German Luftwaffe...” ([15:03])

America Enters the War

• Attack on Pearl Harbor: “Overnight the country went from furious disagreement to furious agreement over the need to respond to this violation of American integrity.” ([23:33]–[23:44])
• Hitler First: The Allies prioritized defeating Germany before turning to the Pacific ([25:49]–[25:58]).

6. The Arsenal and Willpower of the U.S.

• Industrial Might: “By the end of the first year of the American involvement in the war, American arms production was already at the same level as that of Germany, Italy and Japan combined. By 1944, it was double that combination.” ([26:44]–[27:01])
• Productivity Decides Victory: American industry was a decisive factor for the Allied win ([27:08]–[27:20]).

7. Key Military Campaigns

• Securing the Atlantic, North Africa, & Italy: Stepping-stone campaigns set stage for D-Day ([27:40]–[28:33]).
• D-Day (Normandy Invasion): Largest amphibious operation ever, “one of the great success stories and the dramatic breakthrough...” ([29:02]–[29:22])
• Eisenhower vs. Churchill on Berlin: Eisenhower’s choice not to push for Berlin first allowed USSR to take the city—Churchill predicted post-war consequences ([30:19]–[30:38]).

In the Pacific:

• Japanese Early Successes: Rapid advances following Pearl Harbor ([30:38]–[31:04]).
• Battle of Midway: “John Keegan, the great historian of warfare, said that this was the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.” ([31:47]–[32:02])
• Okinawa: “An 82-day battle...resulted in the deaths of over...a quarter of a million people, many of them Okinawans, who were used as human shields...” ([33:53]–[34:05]).

8. The War’s Conclusion and Moral Reckoning

• Death Camps Discovered: “A shudder of horror went through the ranks of the military and the ranks of the American people.” ([35:06])
• Eisenhower: “We’re told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for, but now at least he can know what he’s fighting against.” ([35:20]–[35:27])
• Atomic Bomb Decision: Truman’s fateful choice, with immense ethical and humanitarian implications. “To fail to use this weapon and condemn countless Americans and Japanese to a death that might otherwise be avoided by a master stroke...would be a dereliction of duty.” ([36:59]–[37:09])
• Japan Surrenders: WWII ends on September 2, 1945 ([38:30]–[38:44]).

9. America’s Transformed Role & The Cost of Victory

• Global Leadership: “It was no longer going to be possible for the United States to withdraw from the world...” ([39:08]–[39:10])
• Permanent Change: Balance of centralization vs. tradition, the rise of standing armies, and the question of American values under global responsibility ([39:35]–[41:44]).

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Memorable Quotes (with timestamps)

• “The mood of the country has been characterized by many historians as isolationist. I think that’s a little bit of an overstatement...” – Professor Maclay ([02:14])
• “Americans in particular...find it hard to use their imaginations and put themselves into the shoes of the British as they contemplated...standing alone against [the Nazi war machine].” ([13:07]–[13:24])
• (Churchill) “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last 4000 years, men will still say this was their finest hour.” ([14:11]–[14:19])
• “By 1944, [U.S. arms production] was double that combination [of the Axis].” ([26:56])
• “General Eisenhower...thought the capture of Berlin was a merely symbolic target and it was not worth the lives of American soldiers...” ([29:52]–[30:02])
• “A shudder of horror went through the ranks of the military and the ranks of the American people [upon discovery of the Nazi death camps].” ([35:06])
• “It was an unaccustomed role [global leadership]. It was one that didn’t rest easily with a great many elements of the American past.” ([40:55]–[40:57])
• “Would it represent a departure from everything that the nation had been and aspired to be...or would it be a logical continuation of the American idea...?” ([41:04]–[41:22])

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• Gallup Poll on isolationism ([06:58]–[07:11])
• Fall of France, Hitler in Paris ([10:19])
• Churchill’s “finest hour” speech ([14:11]–[14:19])
• FDR’s arsenal of democracy ([17:00]–[17:10])
• Pearl Harbor ([19:44], [21:44])
• D-Day invasion ([28:52]–[29:22])
• Discovery of Nazi death camps ([35:06])
• Truman’s atomic bomb decision ([36:59]–[37:09])
• End of WWII ([38:44])

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Conclusion

This episode compellingly presents World War II not just as the Allies’ victory in a “finest hour,” but as a hinge in America’s story—raising profound questions about freedom, power, sacrifice, and the enduring tension between national tradition and global responsibility. Professor Maclay’s narrative combines moral clarity, strategic insight, and careful attention to the war’s transformative legacy for the United States, closing with an open question: Was this a break from American ideals, or their highest fulfillment?

Transcript

[Jeremiah Regan]

Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan.

[Juan Davalos]

And I'm Juan Davalos. And we're back with the Great American Story, A Land of Hope Lecture 19, the finest hour.

[Jeremiah Regan]

Professor Maclay does some very impressive work in this lecture because he covers the entirety of World War II in one session, which is quite a feat. It is the most momentous global occasion in world history. He gives a very clear presentation of the most important parts, including the involvement of America in the war.

[Juan Davalos]

This is a compelling episode because World War II is such an important part of history. And if you'd like to learn more about World War II, I encourage you to take our course, the Second World wars, taught by Victor Davis Hansen and Larry Arne. They will go into the tactics in the they will go into the different tactics that the Allies and the Axis powers used during the war and analyze what is it that led the Allies to victory. To take that course, go to Hillsdale. Edu Course. That's Hillsdale. Edu Course.

[Jeremiah Regan]

Now let's turn back to professor maclay with lecture 19 of the great American Story, the Finest Hour.

[Professor Maclay]

Hello and welcome back.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

This lecture is entitled the Finest Hour.

[Professor Maclay]

Through Most of the 1930s, Americans had

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

their gaze fixed on their own internal problems. They were not particularly interested in, or did not have the energy to devote to consideration of foreign affairs, of what was going on in Europe and Asia.

[Professor Maclay]

In fact, when they did contemplate these

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

things, they were likely to feel intense feelings of regret over the country's involvement in the First World War, which had come to seem to be a misadventure at best, and a horribly bloody one at that.

[Professor Maclay]

The mood of the country has been

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

characterized by many, many historians as isolationist. I think that's a little bit of an overstatement. That's a use of the word that maybe could at least stand some explanation,

[Professor Maclay]

because the country was not unwilling to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

involve itself in foreign affairs. It was not unwilling to participate in naval conferences and other conclaves to try to bring about a more peaceable world.

[Professor Maclay]

And even the question of the League of Nations, if Wilson had not been

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

so stubborn about accepting no alterations to the treaty as negotiated, there was certainly a willingness to be involved in the League of Nations.

[Professor Maclay]

So what I think is fair to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

say is that after the First World

[Professor Maclay]

War, the United States reverted or attempted

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to revert to its traditional position of evaluating involvements abroad in terms of the national interest

[Professor Maclay]

in ways that were independent

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

of the international security system that was in the process of coming into being or attempting to come into being. So it's really returned to the foreign policy vision of John Quincy Adams and George Washington.

[Professor Maclay]

Meanwhile, however, the situation in Europe and

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

in Asia was deteriorating rapidly and becoming dangerous and unstable with the rise of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes and expansionist regimes in several countries, principally Germany, Italy and Japan.

[Professor Maclay]

I wish I could talk more about

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the dynamics in those three places, but I think we need to just generalize to say that this was a period of time of great danger and instability at a time when much of the west was so exhausted and demoralized by the first World War that it was averse to any kind of involvements that might bring on a repetition of that.

[Professor Maclay]

So as we look back at the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

1930s, we see, are we here in a pattern of events, something like the beat, the foreboding beat, boom, boom of a coming catastrophe, like a deep bass drum with loud and menacing tones.

[Professor Maclay]

And beginning as early as 1931 with

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, someone, looking back in retrospect, could see what was likely to be coming. Japan through the 30s, 1937, went to war against China over an effort to both expand the Japanese empire and secure access to natural resources, which the Japanese, being an island nation, had scant possession

[Professor Maclay]

of in their own right. The Germans, meanwhile, began to violate the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Versailles Treaty with impunity, expanding occupation of the Rhineland with military forces and then

[Professor Maclay]

later on moving into areas where large numbers of German speaking people, ethnic Germans,

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

their presence was taken to justify Germany

[Professor Maclay]

incorporating them into a greater Germany. This was actually a very Wilsonian argument,

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

a notion of national self determination.

[Professor Maclay]

In any event, the western governments, the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

western democracies, did little or nothing to stop these expansionists moves.

[Professor Maclay]

Instead, they adopted what became known as a policy of appeasement in which relatively small and regional acts of aggression were sloughed off. They were tolerated in the larger interest

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

of maintaining peace and obviating that the possibility of a large scale open warfare such as had just been seen had just torn the world apart.

[Archival or historical voice (possibly a documentary narrator)]

Hitler broke the pledge he made at Munich. He took over all the rest of Czechoslovakia. There would be no more peace in our time.

[Professor Maclay]

As for the United States, it stood back, taking its traditional position of neutrality, which had been reinforced by the experience

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

of the first World War and the sour taste it left in many people's mouths.

[Professor Maclay]

In March of 1937, a survey by

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the Gallup organization found that 94% of

[Professor Maclay]

its respondents preferred efforts to keep America out of any foreign war over efforts

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to prevent such wars from breaking out.

[Professor Maclay]

Now that I think, is a sentiment

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that can be called isolationist, since it

[Professor Maclay]

meant forswearing any attempt to involve America

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

in the influencing of the flow of events.

[Professor Maclay]

In hindsight, we can see these neutrality

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

measures, often quite vocally expressed, played into

[Professor Maclay]

the hands of the militarists among the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan.

[Professor Maclay]

They could feel confident that Americans would

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

not intervene in Japanese efforts to conquer China, in Hitler's efforts to use unrestricted submarine warfare to cripple the British and to try out some of his new weapons in a proxy war in Spain, Spanish Civil War, which became a kind of testing ground for warfare to come.

[Professor Maclay]

Looking back, all of this is crystal clear.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

That beat of the drum, ever accelerating, ever increasing in volume, is clear to us, but was not clear to those at the time.

[Professor Maclay]

So events were conspiring to make the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

position of neutrality, the position of appeasement, more and more difficult to sustain.

[Professor Maclay]

And eventually, by the time the German

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

invasion of Poland occurred on September 1st

[Professor Maclay]

of 1939, the Western Allies, the British

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

in particular, had committed themselves to the defense of Poland should Germany attack. And they were in a position where they had to make good on their threat when that attack did in fact come.

[Professor Maclay]

Hitler's military arsenal, his military force, was

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

awesome and unstoppable, it seemed at first. The blitzkrieg, as it was called, was

[Professor Maclay]

a form of mechanized warfare that was

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

more deadly and more rapid in its progression and in its effects than anything that had been seen in land warfare to that point.

[Archival or historical voice (possibly a documentary narrator)]

Poland, September 1939. The German foe begins its ruthless march of conquest and sets the stage for World War II. Poland's 34 million inhabitants crushed, scattered and enslaved tens of thousands of square miles of territory shrink the before the movement of lightning armored columns, Poland and the world learned the meaning of a grim new word. Blitzkrieg.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

The blitzkrieg swept through Poland. Then, after a deceptive lull of several months, it went on offense again to

[Professor Maclay]

the west, going through Denmark and Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and then on to France. And By June of 1940, June 14,

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

1940, Hitler had succeeded in doing what his predecessors had never been able to do to occupying the city of Paris. The whole world could see pictures of the swastika flag of Nazi Germany juxtaposed against the Eiffel Tower, the symbol of Paris, the symbol of France.

[Professor Maclay]

And to top it all off, Hitler accepted surrender terms in the same railway

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

car in Sedan that the defeated Germans had in 1918 accepted their bitter defeat, and then the humiliation of Versailles to follow that.

[Professor Maclay]

So these photographs conveyed a grim reality

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that Europe was now completely dominated on the European Continent by Hitler, with the sole remaining holdout being Great Britain, the British Isles.

[Professor Maclay]

So all eyes turned to Britain and

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to Britain's prime minister, Winston Churchill, who quickly declared, in oratory that will live

[Professor Maclay]

forever, that we shall never surrender.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

His oratory is so beautiful, if you're not acquainted with it, you should become acquainted with it.

[Professor Maclay]

On the home front in America, Franklin Roosevelt, who could see now pretty clearly

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that the policy of neutrality was not going to be sustainable much longer, it

[Professor Maclay]

was his job to begin to wean

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the American people away from what he saw as the illusions of isolationism and begin to accept the necessity of involving themselves in this conflict, which had implications

[Professor Maclay]

not only for Europe, but for the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

United States itself in the long run.

[Professor Maclay]

Roosevelt's job was persuading, cajoling, nudging Americans

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

towards some kind of engagement.

[Professor Maclay]

Because we know how the war came out, our tendency is to be a little bit lackadaisical in misunderstanding or underestimating

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the degree to which it was a

[Professor Maclay]

very close run thing.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

It could have gone the other way

[Professor Maclay]

very easily, and therefore how harrowing these

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

times were to live through for those who experienced them.

[Professor Maclay]

Americans in particular, having never, except perhaps

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

in parts of the south in the 19th century, had the prospect of their country being overrun by hostile foreign forces,

[Professor Maclay]

find it hard to use their imaginations

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

and put themselves into the shoes of the British as they contemplated the most

[Professor Maclay]

fearsome military machine the world had ever

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

seen and contemplated standing alone against it.

[Professor Maclay]

Churchill's oratory was one of the great

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

weapons to bolster the morale of the Britons and keep them going. I'll just quote from one speech which

[Professor Maclay]

is relevant to the title of this lecture. He said, the Battle of Britain is about to begin.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.

[Professor Maclay]

Upon it depends our British life and

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the long continuity of our institutions and our empire.

[Professor Maclay]

The whole fury and might of the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

enemy must very soon be turned on us.

[Professor Maclay]

Hitler knows he will have to break

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

us in this island or lose the war.

[Professor Maclay]

If we can stand up to him, all Europe may yet be freed, and the life of the world may move

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

forward into broad sunlit uplands.

[Professor Maclay]

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

duties and so bear ourselves that if

[Professor Maclay]

the British Empire and its Commonwealth last

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

4000 years, men will still say this was their finest hour.

[Professor Maclay]

Hitler understood that an amphibious assault on

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Britain would be foolish so long as the Royal Navy, which was immensely superior to any navy in the world, including his own, was not in some way

[Professor Maclay]

neutralized, and certainly not until air power,

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

air supremacy, or at least air superiority was gained. Over the skies above Britain.

[Professor Maclay]

So what we face here is one of those moments, one of those hinges of history where

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the outcome can go either way. And ultimately the outcome depended on a few stalwart men, pilots, skilled pilots in the royal air Force, who were able to defeat a superior German Luftwaffe and thwart their effort to gain control over the skies of Britain.

[Professor Maclay]

This victory is really the first serious

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

reversal of Hitler to take place since September 1st of 1939.

[Professor Maclay]

And it bought some time for Roosevelt

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to continue his campaign of changing the

[Professor Maclay]

American people's minds and finding ways to within the political structure as it was

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to aid the Allies.

[Professor Maclay]

Reversing that tide was not going to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

be an easy thing. And he had to be very careful and tentative about the ways in which he supplied the British with concrete help and materiel. Not men, but materiel.

[Professor Maclay]

And by the way, he had to run for reelection in 1940 for an unprecedented third term. That third term, which was, as I

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

say, unprecedented, Even George Washington had not served three terms, and everyone had followed his example subsequently.

[Professor Maclay]

Strangely, it didn't become as much of an issue as you might think, because the notion of not changing horses in the middle of the stream appealed to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

a lot of Americans during a time of crisis.

[Professor Maclay]

So R.A. roosevelt won not by quite

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

as great a margin as he had in 1936, but a sizable margin.

[Professor Maclay]

So he took the election as an

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

endorsement of his policies.

[Professor Maclay]

In December of 1940, just after the election, he gave a fireside chat in which he tried to lay out to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the country his philosophy of how to move forward.

[Professor Maclay]

He proposed that America be seen as the great arsenal of democracy, the chief supplier, provider of material support to the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

allies without being directly involved in the struggle.

[Professor Maclay]

It was a way of keeping neutrality

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

and not keeping neutrality at the same time and keeping our young men out of uniform and out of harm's way.

[Professor Maclay]

He went on to further elaborate the notion that there was an ideological or

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

spiritual commonality between the United States and particularly Great Britain. His speech, January 6, 1941, on the Four Freedoms was attempt to give shape to the war effort, to articulate it in ideological terms rather than merely national ones, and state the commonality of the United States and the other democracies, the other allies.

[Professor Maclay]

He proposed, and Congress passed the Lend Lease bill, which some conservatives, like Robert Taft, thought was a blank check to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Roosevelt to do whatever he wanted in

[Professor Maclay]

carrying on undeclared wars and aiding allies

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

all over the world. And that he had a point in that, as would become clear a number of years later, that this kind of thing could lead the nation into trouble.

[Professor Maclay]

But it was very helpful at the time.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

It allowed the nation to become much

[Professor Maclay]

stronger in convoying ships across the Atlantic

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

and blunting the effects of German submarine warfare.

[Professor Maclay]

Nevertheless, the United States was walking a

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

knife's edge between helping Britain in ways

[Professor Maclay]

that really mattered without becoming a belligerent

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

party and without incurring the sharp division of public opinion that would ensue in a still reluctant, a still isolationist country.

[Professor Maclay]

In fact, the United States, through much

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

of 1941, was carrying on what in effect was a secret war, a naval war in the Atlantic involving attempts to resist German submarine warfare against Allied convoys. But most of this was kept out of the newspapers, kept out of the news and kept out of the public mind.

[Professor Maclay]

How long that could have gone on like that, we won't know, because something else intervened a world away to change

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the entire calculus of the war, and that was the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.

[Scott Bertram]

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Boy, do we have a big show for you this week. Eric Metaxas joins us, New York Times best selling author, host of Socrates and the City. He's got a brand new book, the Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World. And in case you need the specification, he is talking about the United States. And Batya Ungar Sargon joins us. She's columnist for the Free Press, host of Batya on News Nation. And she tells us why Jews became devoted Democrats and why Democrats turned on them. Her book, the Jews and the Left. You'll want to hear this week's edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you get your audio.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

The Japanese had been provoked by the American decision to withhold to embargo American oil from the Japanese in response to Japanese occupation of French Indochina. This was something that there was an expectation in Washington that this might provoke a Japanese response because the United States was the dominant oil producer of the world.

[Professor Maclay]

To have a cut off from American oil for a country like Japan that

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

had to import almost all of its natural resources was a pretty crippling blow to their imperial aspirations.

[Professor Maclay]

What was not known is where such

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

a response would take place.

[Professor Maclay]

But even in November 26, even as

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Japanese diplomats were in Washington attempting to

[Professor Maclay]

negotiate the Indochina situation, American intelligence, which

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

had broken Japanese diplomatic codes, knew that some kind of attack was coming. But they didn't know.

[Professor Maclay]

So the Japanese hoped that striking Pearl

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

harbor, the main naval base of the Americans in the Pacific the home of the American Pacific fleet would be so

[Professor Maclay]

destructive, so demoralizing, and put the Americans so far back in terms of recovering

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the ability to fight effectively that it

[Professor Maclay]

would be, in effect, a knockout blow. And they looked at American public opinion

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

as Hitler looked at American public opinion

[Professor Maclay]

and thought they saw an America that

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

would be easily cowed, that would be easily persuaded that there was no point in fighting. And after all, an attack on Pearl

[Professor Maclay]

harbor was not an attack on the American mainland. It was a devastatingly effective assault. The Japanese did miss a couple things. They missed the three American aircraft carriers

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that happened to be at sea, and they missed the oil tanks that supplied

[Professor Maclay]

the ability to get the fleet up and running rapidly, as opposed to having

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to retire to the west coast, which would have greatly lengthened the time involved in restoring the fleet to combat efficiency.

[Professor Maclay]

It was effective, but not effective enough, and more than anything else, because it misjudged the American people.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

The response of the American people to the attack on Pearl harbor was that

[Professor Maclay]

overnight the country went from furious disagreement to furious agreement over the need to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

respond to this violation of American integrity. Territorial integrity.

[Professor Maclay]

One awkward thing. After the United States and Japan declared war on one another and Germany declared

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

war on the United States, and vice versa, and the entire world was at

[Professor Maclay]

war, in effect, with a few minor

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

exceptions, the Soviet Union had switched sides.

[Professor Maclay]

Soviet Union had signed a non aggression treaty with Germany just before the invasion of Poland. And for various reasons, Stalin thought this

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

was going to be a workable arrangement.

[Professor Maclay]

Well, Hitler turned around and attacked the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. And of course, that made the Soviet

[Professor Maclay]

Union switch sides and come over with the Allies. But it was, as I say, an awkward arrangement to try to incorporate the thuggish totalitarian regime of Stalin into the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

ranks of the allied democracies. It made the job of presenting a

[Professor Maclay]

unified ideological front a little more difficult. And yet all were agreed that the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

assistance of the Soviet Union would be needed to defeat Hitler. Churchill, who has wonderful rhetorical flourishes, said to one of his aides, if Hitler

[Professor Maclay]

invaded, hell, I would consider making a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. So there you have it. Hitler was the enemy, the principal enemy. So as Roosevelt shifted from, as he put it being Dr. New Deal to Dr. Win the War, he had to consider which of these two sets of enemies in the Pacific, in Europe he had

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to deal with first.

[Professor Maclay]

Very quickly, the Allies came to the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

conclusion that it had to be Hitler first and the Pacific could wait.

[Professor Maclay]

The main thing that America had to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

do was to Gear up its productive

[Professor Maclay]

economy to supply not just troops, but

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to supply the weapons, the weapons systems, the ships, the tanks, all the other

[Professor Maclay]

things that went with the task of warfare. Nobody in the world had the military

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

industrial capacity of the United States. This is something that Admiral Yamamoto, who planned the Pearl harbor invasion but had spent time in the United States, was well aware of, the unmatched industrial capacity of the United States.

[Professor Maclay]

The gloom and frustration of the Depression went away rather rapidly and the American economy was humming in no time flat.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Just a few statistics.

[Professor Maclay]

By the first year, the end of the first year of the American involvement in the war, American arms production was already at the same level as that

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

of Germany, Italy and Japan combined.

[Professor Maclay]

By 1944, it was double that combination.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

And I could give you a long list of, of impressive numbers, the numbers of tanks, numbers of ships produced.

[Professor Maclay]

But it was arguably that American industrial

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

productivity above all else that ensured the victory of the Allies in the end.

[Professor Maclay]

But the war had to be fought. Conduct of war in the field depends

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

on intangibles and contingencies that statistics about productivity can't entirely cover.

[Professor Maclay]

But as I said, the Allies decided

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that defeating Hitler was the first priority.

[Professor Maclay]

To do this, first of all, the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

shipping in the Atlantic had to be secured.

[Professor Maclay]

Then the Germans had to be moved out of North Africa and an attack at what Churchill called, actually, quite wrongly, the soft underbelly of Europe, that is Sicily, and then up the Italian peninsula

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to the mid section of Europe would be undertaken. All those things were done successfully,

[Professor Maclay]

but the effort had not yet achieved a

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

decisive blow against Hitler.

[Professor Maclay]

In the meantime, the Soviet Union was getting impatient. They were bearing the brunt of the casualties in the Eastern front, had been

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

increasingly impatient to see a Western front opened up against Hitler.

[Professor Maclay]

And the Italian front was helpful in

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

some ways, but did not quite do the job that needed being done to relieve their burden in the East. So the necessity for the invasion that we've now come to call D Day. D Day, the greatest amphibious invasion of its kind still today in military history.

[Professor Maclay]

It landed in a matter of a

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

week, 326,000 men, 50,000 vehicles and 100,000 tons of supplies.

[Professor Maclay]

It was an overwhelming success. So many things could have gone wrong

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that didn't, although in a few cases it did.

[Professor Maclay]

But D Day was one of the great success stories and the dramatic breakthrough

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that the Allies had been needing against Hitler.

[Professor Maclay]

With the success of D Day, there was still a lot of fighting ahead, of course, but attention began to turn

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to the question of the post war settlement. And in particular, Churchill advised Roosevelt that

[Professor Maclay]

it was terribly important, vitally important for the Americans to get to Berlin, the German capital first. General Eisenhower disagreed, however. General Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower, being Supreme Allied Commander, he thought the capture of

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Berlin was a merely symbolic target and it was not worth the lives of American soldiers to be the first to get there.

[Professor Maclay]

So he was perfectly willing to let

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the Russians proceed and take Berlin first, assuming that the post war settlement agreements would take care of the disposition of the dividing up of Germany and the plans for occupation.

[Professor Maclay]

Churchill disagreed with this.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

He did not trust Stalin and thought

[Professor Maclay]

that the Russian control of the German

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

capital might present a great danger in the post war settlement. He turned out to be right about that.

[Professor Maclay]

Meanwhile, in the Pacific again. In retrospect, we tend to forget how effective the Japanese were in knocking both

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the Americans and the British back on their heels with not just Pearl harbor, but there was a whole series of Japanese assaults almost simultaneously with Pearl harbor across the Pacific. All of them devastatingly effective.

[Professor Maclay]

And the Japanese appeared unstoppable in their own right. It wasn't until the Americans had a

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

couple of carrier battles in the Pacific and in particular the battle of Midway, which was a turning point in the Pacific war. Midway was fought June 4th to 7th, 1942, and it led to the loss by the Japanese of four of their most important carriers, carriers that had been

[Professor Maclay]

active in the Pearl harbor invasion as it happened, and, and just as importantly,

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the skilled pilots who manned the planes that flew from those carriers.

[Professor Maclay]

So John Keegan, the great historian of

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

warfare, said that this was the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare, the battle of Midway. And it's certainly a hinge of history turning point as well.

[Archival or historical voice (possibly a documentary narrator)]

Then suddenly the trap is sprung. Navy planes roared from the decks of our carriers. Army bombers, Marines thundered destruction over a 300 mile battle area. The invasion forces were hit and hit and hit again.

[Professor Maclay]

From that point on, the Japanese were

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

never able to launch a major offensive in the Pacific or they were on the defensive.

[Professor Maclay]

So to again skip over a whole lot of fighting.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

A two pronged assault against Japan was devised by Admiral Chester nimitz and Douglas MacArthur.

[Professor Maclay]

General Douglas MacArthur MacArthur converging on the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Philippines and then contemplating an invasion of the Japanese homeland.

[Professor Maclay]

This became more and more of a

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

frightening prospect, this Japanese invasion.

[Professor Maclay]

The more that it was clear that

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the war would be lost by the Japanese because the Japanese put up more and more fierce resistance to Allied incursions.

[Professor Maclay]

In fact, in Okinawa, which was really

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

like the doorstep of Japan, an 82 day battle was held at Okinawa lasting

[Professor Maclay]

from April to June of 1945, it was called the typhoon of steel because of the number 1500 Kamikaze sorties.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

This was a new weapon, suicide weapon, by Japanese pilots directed against American ships primarily.

[Professor Maclay]

And this was a battle that resulted

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

in the deaths of over. This is a staggering number, a quarter

[Professor Maclay]

of a million people, many of them

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Okinawans, who were used as human shields by the Japanese. So this was just a taste in the minds of military planners of what an invasion of the Japanese mainland could look like.

[Professor Maclay]

In the meantime, the war in Europe

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

had been brought to a conclusion.

[Professor Maclay]

And Franklin Roosevelt, after winning a fourth

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

term in office in 1944, died in April of 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

[Professor Maclay]

Alas, unable to experience the final fruition of his efforts in Europe, dying just

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

ahead of a VE Day on May 8th of 1945. This news was accompanied by the discovery and the revelation of the German death camps that had been involved in the process of systematically exterminating the Jewish people in Europe. A shudder of horror went through the

[Professor Maclay]

ranks of the military and the ranks of the American people. Eisenhower, who turned white as a sheet

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

at some of the sights that he saw, the bodies piled up, the torture devices that were used.

[Professor Maclay]

He said, we're told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for, but now at least he can

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

know what he's fighting against.

[Professor Maclay]

So back to the Japanese for a moment. The military planners were coming to conclusion that an invasion of the Japanese mainland could result in half a million, maybe even as many as a million deaths. And that's not including the 100,000 or

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

so allied prisoners of war held in Japan who would almost certainly have been executed. So it's at this moment that the

[Professor Maclay]

new president, Harry Truman, a fairly small

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

time politician from Missouri whom Roosevelt had elevated to the president, but who really

[Professor Maclay]

didn't know a lot of what was going on, found out about a secret

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

weapon that had been in development, the atomic bomb, the result of the top secret Manhattan project.

[Professor Maclay]

Truman now was faced not only with finding out about this weapon, but deciding

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

whether or not it should ever be used and if so, how. This has been and remained controversy because it was a weapon that inevitably resulted in and had to be in large

[Professor Maclay]

measure targeted towards civilian targets. So civilians were going to die in

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

enormous numbers as a result of this bombing.

[Professor Maclay]

Truman had to think all this over.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

And being a bluff, decisive man, it

[Professor Maclay]

didn't take him long to come to

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the conclusion that to fail to use

[Professor Maclay]

this weapon and condemn countless Americans and

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Japanese to a death that might otherwise be Avoided by a master stroke that would convince the Japanese and convince the emperor in particular. To surrender would be a dereliction of duty on his part. So what he did was, it was

[Professor Maclay]

a problem with a test shot on

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

an uninhabited island because the weapon was

[Professor Maclay]

so new that nobody knew for sure that a demonstration shot would work. If you gave a demonstration shot and it didn't work, you'd be worse off than if you had said nothing at all. So in the end, logistically speaking, the

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

dropping the bomb in the manner that

[Professor Maclay]

was done, with a warning, a nonspecific

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

warning several days in advance, was the route that Truman chose to take. The bomb was as destructive as expected. 80,000 people estimated died instantly, and 4 square miles of the city of Hiroshima was flattened. Three days later, the city of Nagasaki was similarly bombed.

[Professor Maclay]

And the second bomb convinced the emperor

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

that it was time to surrender. And so The Japanese did.

[Professor Maclay]

September 2, 1945, six years and one

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

day after the beginning of the war with the German invasion of Poland, and eight years after the Japanese invasion of China.

[Professor Maclay]

Thus ended the most destructive war in

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

human history, A conflict whose repercussions and just sheer destruction are almost too much to contemplate and hold in your mind.

[Professor Maclay]

But one result of the war too, and you could call it a casualty if you like, was that the United

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

States status in the world was permanently altered.

[Professor Maclay]

It was no longer going to be

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

possible for the United States to withdraw from the world, to return to anything like the remote status and the remote

[Professor Maclay]

decentralized nation that the nation had been before.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

World responsibilities demanded a large, sprawling American government, a defense establishment, a standing army,

[Professor Maclay]

which is one of the things that

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

the founders, particularly the anti federalist inclined ones, thought was inimical to republican virtue to have a standing army.

[Professor Maclay]

But the mantle of world leadership had

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

passed to the United States, and it could not refuse it.

[Professor Maclay]

So the question was, would this be an alteration that the American traditions, American

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

institutions, American ideals could accommodate?

[Professor Maclay]

Could we somehow balance, as the framers sought to do, the advantages of centralization?

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

In this case, the imperatives of centralization, with the benefits of more localized, more small scale forms of governance.

[Professor Maclay]

Here's another way to think about it.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

In the post war world, the concept of America as a land of hope

[Professor Maclay]

acquired a new meaning, new layers of meaning. No longer merely a refuge.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Well, it didn't cease to be that,

[Professor Maclay]

or a frontier, although it didn't cease

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to be that either, or an example to the world. The United States now had thrust upon it a new role as a self conscious leader for the world.

[Professor Maclay]

It was an unaccustomed role.

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

It was one that didn't rest easily with a great many elements of the American past.

[Professor Maclay]

Would it represent a departure from that past?

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

Would it represent a departure from everything

[Professor Maclay]

that the nation had been and aspired

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

to be from its earliest days as a people self consciously apart? Or would it be a logical continuation

[Professor Maclay]

of the American idea, a form of

[Narrator/Commentator (possibly a historian or lecturer)]

organic growth that was in continuity with the American past, that didn't negate it, that perhaps, in a sense, fulfilled it, fulfilled a destiny? All those questions remained to be answered. Thank you

[Juan Davalos]

thank you for listening to this episode of the Hillsdale College Online Course. If you want to continue learning, please visit hillsdale.edu course. There you will find over 40 free online courses, including Ancient Christianity, the Genesis Story, Classic Children's Literature, and many more. The courses include additional readings, study guides, fully produced videos, and you can chat with your fellow students on a dedicated forum. Upon completing a course, you will also get a certificate. All our courses are free because we believe that what you'll learn will enrich your life and and that a virtuous citizen is the best defense for liberty. So pursue the education necessary for freedom and Happiness at Hillsdale. Edu CourseToday. That's Hillsdale. Edu Course. Thanks for listening.