U.S. Declarations of War on Germany and Italy

The U.S. Declarations of War on Germany and Italy extended the United States’ entry into the global conflict beyond its war with Japan. In Harry S. Truman’s account, the action appears as a terse turning point in a difficult trip to the Senate: after attending a joint session, he noted that on the 11th the country had to answer Germany and Italy as well.

Background and Journey

Bess Wallace Truman informed Truman that the Senate secretary had called him to attend a joint session on Monday. Without a car or driver, he contacted an airport in Columbia, Missouri, and flew to St. Louis. The 130-mile flight took forty minutes; onward travel proved more difficult, and he eventually boarded an 11 p.m. flight to Pittsburgh, where he spent the night listening to the radio.

The Declarations

Truman returned home at 5:30 in the morning, found Bess Wallace Truman preparing breakfast, slept for a few hours, and then went to the Senate. He described the joint session as a major occasion. The following action came on the 11th, when the United States declared war on Germany and Italy, adding those countries to the enemies against which it was fighting.

Truman’s Response

The account gives no extended discussion of the declarations themselves; its emphasis falls on the speed with which events were carrying the country into a wider war and on Truman’s own exhaustion. After noting that the United States had accepted Germany and Italy’s challenge, he wished he were thirty again and commanding an artillery battery, a role he considered easier than the burdens of public life.