'War Plan Red' : America's plan to take on Great Britain

[Story]

An old topic revisited by The Daily Mail.

War on the 'Red Empire': How America planned for an attack on BRITAIN in 1930 with bombing raids and chemical weapons
Emerging world power feared British reaction to its ambitions
Plan Red was code for massive war with British Empire
Top-secret document once regarded as 'most sensitive on Earth'
$57m allocated for building secret airfields on Canadian border - to launch attack on British land forces based there


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ing-raids-chemical-weapons.html#ixzz1YbsAEAWX

See also
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901412.html

And to put things in context,

The Business Plot (also the Plot Against FDR and the White House Putsch) was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler as leader of that organization. In 1934 Butler testified to the McCormack–Dickstein Congressional committee on these claims.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can't_Happen_Here

 

[Deco-Doll-1928]

Thank you for sharing. It was an interesting read. I wasn't able to read the first article you posted because it said "item not found" when I clicked on the link. I read the article Raiding the Icebox and the other two links found below.

I guess Manifest Destiny dies hard, huh?

I have no problem with Canada. I like Canada (even though I have never been there and really want to!).

I also have no problem with Great Britain either. I've always thought of myself as British at heart. Although don't tell my Irish ancestors that. lol

BTW, thanks for getting that song "Blame Canada" stuck in my head again! AHHHHH!!! lol!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

On the same token, up until the 1930s and the rise of Hitler, British war plans were based on the assumption that France would be the main enemy. Though one legacy of War Plan Red was the strong anglophobia of American military leaders such as Marshall even during WWII. He opposed the invasion of North Africa and American participation in the Mediterranean theatre believing that it only served to further British aims.

 

[MPicciotto]

Was "War Plan Red" in the same file box as "War Plan Orange" for fighting the Japanese? I believe at that time the US War Dept had made up plans for pretty much every viable war scenario.

Matt

 

[Atterbury Dodd]

I think this paragraph sums up the importance of the plans: "All governments make 'worst case scenario' contingency plans which are kept under wraps from the public." You never know what might happen so you have to be ready. I hope the discovery of these plans will not lead to wild conspiracy theories and such.

By the way, Lindbergh was not exactly a "known" Nazi sympathiser was he? I was more of the opinion that like most mortals, he was not able to see into the future

 

[Chasseur]

The war plans against single countries were given a color: Red-UK, Orange-Japan, Black-Germany, etc. The Joint Planning Board even gave war plans directed against British Dominions/Territories "shades of Red" colors like Scarlett (Australia), Crimson (Canada), etc. In the 1930s as wars against multiple opponents became thought to be more likely the US moved to "Rainbow War Plans".

In terms of the Pacific George Baer's 100 Years of Seapower, and Brian Linn's Guardians of Empire, are great reads for all the diliemmas of the US trying to plan two ocean strategies (which ocean should get the battle fleet and which one the cruiser squadron?, does having two battle fleets violate Mahanian principles?, etc.), and then even in the Pacific try to fashion a "joint" Army-Navy plan in particular given the exposed position of the Philippines.

The Anglo-phobia in many circles in the US military, both Army and particularly the Navy, in WWII is one of those great forgetten aspects of history. Admiral King and Gen. Stillwell in the Pacific and Southeast Asia theatres in particular stand out.

 

[dhermann1]

I read an interesting article in a magazine from about 1909 about the American fleet. They assumed right out front that the hypothetical enemy would be Great Britain. In the real world of international politics, your friends can become your enemies and vice versa very easily.
Regarding Col. Lindbergh, the sad truth is that he was very much a Nazi sympathizer for a long time. He was also a pretty bad racist. His eyes were finally opened by the outbreak of war, but by that time his standing among many Americans was irretrievably diminished. FDR flatly and adamently refused to let him participate in the was effort in any way because of the aid and comfort he had given to Germany. It was only via the back door, as a consultant to Lockheed, that he was able to do anything to help the war effort.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Lindy's views on the Nazis -- and his views on racial matters -- were profoundly influenced by his association with Dr. Alexis Carrel, who was one of the leading eugenicists of the time, and who viewed Aryan supremacy as the "wave of the future." Lindbergh himself was not especially sophisticated in his thinking apart from technological matters and was very very easily led by a man like Carrel, who wrapped his ideas in a veil of technological futurism.

 

[Fletch]

$57mm - in 1930 money - strictly for airfields? Did this include planes?

We were so short on planes, especially bombers, that many squadrons were at half strength or less. Even then the mainstay of the bombing fleet was the Keystone Panther, a big wooden biplane barely capable of 100mph.

What effect did the depression have on war plans like these? I know the effect it had on the military at large - it cut bone off an already skeleton force. It got to the point that in 1932 the annual war games were cancelled entirely.

 

[Stearmen]

Admiral King gets a bit of a bum wrap as being an ardent Anglo-phobia. He did not like a lot of his English counter parts, but he did learn the hard won lessons of the Royal Navy. The most important was, a poorly escorted convoy was actually worse then no convoy at all! He did not have the ships to put up big escort screens like the RN wanted him to. They mistook this for Anglo-phobia.

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

... He did not like a lot of his English counter parts...

There were a lot of people Admiral King didn't like. It may be apocryphal, but his own daughter said he was the most even-tempered man in the navy. He's always in a rage!

 

[Stearmen]

There were a lot of people Admiral King didn't like. It may be apocryphal, but his own daughter said he was the most even-tempered man in the navy. He's always in a rage!

:roll::roll::roll:

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

$57mm - in 1930 money - strictly for airfields? Did this include planes?

We were so short on planes, especially bombers, that many squadrons were at half strength or less. Even then the mainstay of the bombing fleet was the Keystone Panther, a big wooden biplane barely capable of 100mph.

What effect did the depression have on war plans like these? I know the effect it had on the military at large - it cut bone off an already skeleton force. It got to the point that in 1932 the annual war games were cancelled entirely.

Another effect of the Depression on the military was that only the top half of the Naval Academy's graduating classes were commissioned. The rest were put on Inactive Reserve. Many of that group would not be commissioned until the US entered the war several years later. Also during the war the military had to reject up to a quarter of those who were called up for induction because they were such physical wrecks from years of malnutrition -- and these were generally young men!

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

I remember reading about that, I think in a biography of Slade Cutter. He recalled that he and his classmates were happy to have a job, and he was relieved to make the cutoff. Of course, he almost got booted out for marrying without permission.

Didn't the army train with fake rifles, and jeeps with "tank" signs on them. I believe at one point, Patton was ordering equipment and parts with his own money. Fortunately he was rich.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Similarly as a young captain during WWI Eisenhower was in charge of a tank training school near Gettysburg and had to order engine parts for the tanks from Sears.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Didn't the army train with fake rifles, and jeeps with "tank" signs on them. I believe at one point, Patton was ordering equipment and parts with his own money. Fortunately he was rich.

Notorious photos were widely published durign the "preparedness" period of 1940-41 showing just how unprepared the Army was to deal with the new selectees as the draft was starting up. Opponents of the Roosevelt Administration and America Firsters jumped all over these pictures, which led to pressure to provide the proper equipment as quickly as possible.

 

[cbrunt]

Fascinating story. But reading the comments to the story (on the web site) is annoying. Must try to not read them...

 

[Fletch]

Another effect of the Depression on the military was that only the top half of the Naval Academy's graduating classes were commissioned. The rest were put on Inactive Reserve. Many of that group would not be commissioned until the US entered the war several years later. Also during the war the military had to reject up to a quarter of those who were called up for induction because they were such physical wrecks from years of malnutrition -- and these were generally young men!

ISTR that the peacetime, volunteer Army had a very high percentage of foreign-born soldiers, despite almost no immigration. The quotas after 1924 were very tight, and the loyalty questions the military had during WW1 were no longer considered important.

I don't know how many people you need for an efficient spy ring, but there were enough loyal Nazis stationed in the NYC area to spy on the Army in the mid '30s. Army Intelligence at the time was limited to codebreaking, with no counter-espionage at all, so the Germans were left to do their work undisturbed.

 

[esteban68]

It's all a case of what could have been but wasn't...I remember seeing some where of Hitler's plans to attack America using the UK as a base to do so...it makes you think if the RAF hadn't been able to hold off the Luftwaffe in 1940 and operation Sealion had gone ahead and Germany occupied the UK given that some members of the UK government and monarchy in self imposed exile were pro Nazi, would Hitler had been left to work on his 'Wunder'(terror) weapons could he have used the UK as an air base to set forth the Horten flying wing to drop his projected Atomic bombs on the US before 1950?
As i say all if's and maybe's.

 

[Chasseur]

Gerhard Weinberg, one of the leading historians of WWII, has a fascinating book called Visions of Victory. He looks at the visions of eight of the leaders in the war and what they thought the world should look like after they won. Some of the plans seen today seem rather scary or just strange, like the Axis idea of giving Japan control of Cuba after victory over the Allies...