Unrestricted Submarine Warfare During World War I

How would you feel if one day you were told to leave your whole life behind to live in captivity just because people halfway across the world did something wrong? This horror story was all too true for the thousands of Japanese Americans alive during World War II. Almost overnight, thousands of proud Japanese Americans living on the west coast were forced to leave their homes and give up the life they knew. The United States government was not justified in the creation of Japanese internment camps because it stripped law-abiding American citizens of their rights out of unjustified fear. Furthermore, the United States should do more to compensate the families of those impacted by internment because the recompense provided initially was minimal and should be considered an affront to the memory of the victims.

This period was characterized by heavy sinking on the coast of United States. Japanese ships sank and the country incurred heavy losses. The submarine was responsible for those shipping losses. Major changes were made in the war whereby the battleships were no longer used. This was a result of the attack that happened in Japan in 1941. The U.S entry into the war led to the rapid expansion of the scope of U-boat operations. Additionally, America integrated submarines in her military operations. The submarine was characterized by unique designs and powerful machines. Since German had a large and rapidly increasing U-boat fleet, they were able to launch a full-scale attack against the feebly protected

The RMS Titanic was a luxury steamship sailing from Southampton to France and Ireland then on to New York. The ship could occupy 2,435 passengers and about 900 crew members, which is a total of 3,300 people on board. The ship never made it to its final stop. The Titanic sank on April 15th 1912.

So, in 1914, Europe explodes into war, and Woodrow Wilson has to make a decision about what America is going to do. And his decision is to ask the American public to remain neutral in word as well as deed. And he has domestic reasons for doing this - the American opinion is divided, and he doesn 't really have concerns about American security. The war seems very far ways from American shores. But the big question that he has to answer is "what does it mean to be neutral?" And the path to America, entering the Frist World War, is a path in which that definition of neutrality changes, and finally changes to the point where it provokes a between the United States and Germany. so the first definition of neutrality that Woodrow Wilson tries is the

World War I is often associated with trench Warfare and battles on the land, with very little thought given to the importance of naval warfare. Beginning with the Anglo-German Naval Race (1898-1912), Germany began building up their High Seas Fleet to challenge the Grand Fleet (“Anglo-German Naval Race”). Britain had been the World’s only international naval superpower for well over 100 years until Germany decided to challenge their dominance. Shortly after the start of World War I, the Anglo-French Naval Convention (1914) was signed, which greatly shaped Allied naval strategy. In 1914, Britain put a distant blockade on Germany, which allowed them to control exits from the North Sea and damaged both Germany’s economy and War effort (Roskill 4: 533). Germany attempted to break Britain’s blockade, which resulted in the Battle of Jutland, in 1916. The role that other nations’ navies played was also extremely influential on the outcome of World War I. The role of naval Warfare during World War I, especially the Allied blockade of Germany, proved to be crucial in defeating the Central Powers, which consisted of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire.

Unrestricted submarine warfare outraged many Americans because its application was an attack upon innocent civilian. Unrestricted submarine warfare also breaks an international law which states that the civilians of two warring countries are not targets. Germany not only harmed civilians, but it also broke international law. Through the sinking of the Lusitania, the public’s view of Germany’s unrestricted warfare policy intensified, and more people began to favor American involvement in the war. The sinking of the Lusitania became one of the most important events of the Great War because its reaction is, “the first step towards American involvement in the war.” (Hill

Roosevelt realized the United States could no longer be neutral. The spring of 1940, he assembled the National Defense Research Committee to do military research this included the top-secret development of the atomic bomb after receiving information that the Germans were in the process of making one. Roosevelt negotiated with Churchill an agreement to supply Great Britain with fifty old U.S. destroyers in return the United States was given permission to build a naval airbase in the British Islands. In September of 1940, President Roosevelt authorized the "first peactime conscription in American history, requiring the registration of all 16 million men aged twenty-one to thirty-five" (Tindall and Shi 898). In March of 1941, the lend-lease bill became law and allowed the "president to lend or lease military equipment to 'any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States '" (Tindall and Shi 900). In late 1941, the destroyer 's Kearny and Reuben James were sank loosing 126 seamen. These incidents caused Congress to resend part of the Neutrality Act of 1939 which banned "arming merchant vessels” (Tindall and Shi 901). This also caused the senate to “repealed legislation banning American ships from entering belligerent ports or ‘combat zones’” (The Neutrality Acts). The turning point for the American people was the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor. With the tremendous loss of American lives, the United States could no longer remain

RMS Lusitania, a luxurious British passenger liner, loved by both the British and Americans sank on May 7th, 1915 by two torpedoes sent by a German U-Boat (U-20). The cruise’s sinking was a major turning point for the war and one can see it as an iconic event. This sinking was significant to World War 1 as it brought the Americans into the fight; partnered up with the Allies, it depicted the barbarity and ruthlessness of Germany, and it changed the perspective of which the world saw Germany as. The Lusitania was approximately 32,000 tons, 787 feet long, and 87 feet wide.1 The ship was owned by “Cunard lines,” and was built by “John Brown and Company” in Scotland.1 The ship was acknowledged as the fastest liner at the time; lead people to believe

Dead Wake by Erik Larson was about the Lusitania which was a famous steamship that showed impeccable advancements in shipbuilding. It was a vessel that primarily carried passengers and cargo with no intention to be involved with world war one. Similar to the Titanic, the Lusitania was said to be unsinkable because of its size and craftsmanship. Since this ship was a neutral vessel, there had been an agreement that it was off limits to destruction because of the Great War between Great Britain and Germany. In 1915 a warning was let out claiming that all commercial vessels were fair game to be attacked in waters of the war zone. Britain had a top secret unit called Room 40 that was tracking German U-boats in British waters,

Kamikaze, or divine wind, was part of a Japanese Special Attack Unit that specialized in suicidal attacks during World War II in order to damage and cripple the Allied naval forces. These attacks had started during the Pacific Campaign, a battle fought in the Pacific and East Asia, which was targeted towards warships and aircraft carriers. An estimated 3.862 Japanese pilots had died in these Kamikaze attacks.

On January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson delivered a solemn oration to Congress on the role of peace after the cessation of World War I. During this focal epoch in American history, Wilson—an ardent arbitrator by heart—sets out to establish ‘covenants of justice and law and fair dealing’ amongst the nations of the world; he, moreover, propounds the notion that imperialist adventurism and coercion should hereafter be put aside for a “peace without victory”. This ‘progressive’ speech did not resonate well with the European Allies, who thought little of conferring with Germany and Austria-Hungary to orchestrate a cordial agreement. Instead, the western Allies imposed stringent reparations upon the abashed German Empire, ultimately setting

Germany started out with a lot of good leadership decisions in the beginning when it came to the submarine warfare. They learned from past mistakes in World War 1 and accepted the fact that following restrictions was better for the country in the political sense, and that in the long run would help the war as well. Through the sense of keeping the United States out of the war and keeping the amount of countries they had to fight down to two.

While neither myself, nor my group members, could possibly imagine one another out in the fields of mills working hard to create weapons of mass destruction, it is truly what is represented through our words and pictures. Some may present the argument that we lack creativity within our posters design, my group members and myself will counter that statement, by stating that our posters presents persuasiveness and meets proper advertisement criteria. The point of our poster, is to encourage students in Mills High where it is not much of place to build one’s mind, but more of an environment to build one’s weapons.

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” Within the World Wars’, deaths in the battlegrounds were not the only lives countries lost; World War I and World War II caused the immense loss of souls (Souls Wars) by the productions of deaths in battlefields and in genocides.