Destroyers-For-Bases Agreement

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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 assurances that Churchill would never surrender the Royal Navy, even if Hitler occupied the British Isles.

Not until intelligence in August 1940 during the air Battle of Britain indicated that Britain had better than a fifty‐fifty chance of defeating a German invasion did Roosevelt finally act. By obtaining valuable bases in exchange, he persuaded a reluctant chief of naval operations, Adm. Harold R. Stark, to certify, as required by law, that the destroyers were no longer essential to national defense. The President bypassed Congress by concluding the arrangement through an executive agreement, an action challenged by isolationists but justified legally by Attorney General Robert Jackson. Because most of the old vessels needed extensive repairs and refitting, the actual military value of the Destroyers‐for‐Bases‐Agreement proved less important than the diplomatic implications. What Roosevelt called the most important “reinforcement of our defense … since the Louisiana Purchase,” Churchill considered “a decidedly unneutral act” that inaugurated the Anglo‐American alliance of World War II.
[See also Lend‐Lease Act and Agreements; World War II, U.S. Naval Operations in: The North Atlantic.]

Bibliography

David Reynolds , The Creation of the Anglo‐American Alliance, 1937–1941, 1981.
Robert Shogan , Hard Bargain, 1995.

J. Garry Clifford

destroyers-for-bases agreement. On 15 May 1940 Churchill, in a personal message to Roosevelt, made clear the desperate situation in which the UK found itself. Amongst other requests he suggested the USA lend Britain 40 or 50 destroyers as a stopgap until warships under construction in the UK were completed. Roosevelt's reply was negative, saying that Congress, whose approval would have to be sought, would probably be unwilling to circumvent the Neutrality Acts. However, Churchill continued to press for the destroyers and once Roosevelt had been nominated for a third term as president in July 1940, as well as being assured of the UK's determination to continue the war (for example, see Britain, battle of, and Mers-el-Kébir), he became more positive. There was considerable negotiation as Churchill was reluctant to link leasing bases with receiving the destroyers, while Roosevelt wanted some kind of guarantee that the British fleet would not be surrendered or scuttled. He also insisted on a formula which did not need the permission of Congress. The question was eventually resolved on 2 September when the British ambassador, Lord Lothian (1882–1940), and Cordell Hull, the US secretary of state, exchanged letters. Lothian's did not mention the destroyers, and Hull's only mentioned them in passing. As a result of this exchange, the USA acquired 99-year leases on bases in the British West Indies (in the Bahamas, Jamaica, St Lucia, Trinidad, Antigua, and British Guiana). They were also given two more, in Newfoundland and Bermuda, but the terms of all the leases were not settled until March 1941 and by the end of 1940 the British had acquired only 9 of the promised 50 destroyers.

Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement an agreement negotiated between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to replenish British losses in World War II. Announced by Roosevelt on September 3, 1940, it transferred fifty U.S. destroyers of World War I vintage to England, in exchange for ninety-nine-year leases to seven British air and naval bases in the Western Hemisphere. It established the Anglo-American alliance of World War II.