The U.S. Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1937, and 1939 ostensibly codified in law U.S. neutrality in the gathering European conflict. However, each act also incrementally aligned the "neutral" United States with the Allies and against Germany and Italy. Although in its original form the final Neutrality Act (1939) prohibited the arming of merchant vessels, Congress amended the act on November 17, 1941, after encounters with German U-boats and the torpedoing of the U.S. destroyer Reuben James. The amendment authorized the arming of merchant vessels and permitted these ships to transport cargoes directly to the ports of the belligerents. This amendment officially inaugurated a U.S. policy of armed neutrality--which, of course, proved short lived, since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, immediately thrust the United States into the war.

Even before passage of the amendment, the United States had clearly embarked on a de facto policy of armed neutrality, the first major feature of which was passage of the nation's first ever peacetime draft in September 1940. The ABC-1 Staff Agreement, concluded between British and American military and naval officials on March 27, 1941, stipulated that the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet would begin assisting the Royal Navy in Atlantic convoy escort duty as soon as it was able. This may be seen as the effective commencement of armed neutrality. On April 10, 1941, the U.S. destroyer Niblack depth charged a German U-boat while rescuing the crew of a torpedoed Dutch freighter. This was the first hostile U.S. naval action against a vessel of the Axis powers. Between this event and Pearl Harbor, a low-intensity, undeclared naval war existed between the United States and Germany in the Atlantic . . .

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