Roosevelt - ‘the American spirit aroused’

27th October 1941: The President tells the American people “America has been attacked, the shooting has started”

The destroyer USS Kearny at Reykjavik, Iceland, 19th October 1941, two days after being torpedoed by U-568; the destroyer USS Monssen is alongside (behind in this image). Eleven US Navy sailors had been killed.

On 17th October, a series of increasingly tense encounters in the North Atlantic between the US Navy (escorting merchant ships bound for Britain) and Nazi U-boats culminated in an attack on the USS Kearney. This came over a month after the USS Greer tried to depth-charge a U-boat.

Speaking at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, President Roosevelt’s ‘Navy Day’ address was heard by millions as it was broadcast across the nation.