Return to Battle Streamer index
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
901 M STREET SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
American Defense Service 1939-1941
Two days after the start of World War II in Europe, President Roosevelt
ordered the Navy to organize a neutrality patrol to report and track any
belligerent air, surface, or underwater forces approaching the United States
or the West Indies.
With the fall of France in June 1940, Germany gained valuable U-boat
bases to press the attack against British lifelines, and possibilities were
raised of German occupation of French territories in the Western Hemisphere.
Assigned additional responsibilities in defense of this hemisphere, the
U.S. Navy began the escort of convoys to Iceland. U-boat attacks on the
convoys brought American destroyers into combat.
The Battle of the Atlantic, on which the survival of Great Britain and
the projection of the United States' power overseas depended, continued
until VE-Day, almost four years later.
15 July 1996