“A Reasonable Amount of Fleas…” (August 22, 1941)
By Bert Thomas (1883-1966)
12 x 16 in, ink on board
Coppola Collection

Bert Thomas was a wonderful British cartoonist and longtime contributor to Punch magazine (1905-1935). Thomas gained his initial popularity during WWI, with a well-known cartoon that raised 250,000 pounds sterling in aid for British soldiers.

There is only a relatively short period of time when the Soviets were aligned with the Allies and the US was still on the sidelines of WW2, driven by the lingering isolationist policy prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As Europe moved closer to war in the late 1930s, the US Congress continued to demand American neutrality, even though FDR, at this point, was leaning towards the responsibility that the US might have. By 1937, Congress had passed the Neutrality Acts (for example, Americans could not sail on ships flying the flag of a belligerent nation or trade arms with warring nations).

Things were changing by 1941. In early 1941, FDR managed to get the Lend-Lease Act, which enabled the US to provide arms and munitions to the Allies. American public opinion supported Roosevelt’s actions. The Russians, who had been aligned with the Germans from just before the 1939 invasion of Poland, became a target of Hilter’s interest with a June 22, 1941 invasion of Russia, and a quick turnaround in Stalin’s belief that the Allies could, in fact, prevail.

The US involvement and general sympathies were shifting quickly. Attacks on the US were harder to ignore. On October 31, the USS Reuben James, for example, was torpedoed and sunk near Iceland. By late 1941, 72% of Americans agreed that “the biggest job facing this country today is to help defeat the Nazi Government,” and 70% thought that defeating Germany was more important than staying out of the war. And in December: Pearl Harbor.