Franklin D. Roosevelt - A Presidential Message to Soldiers Departing for War, c.1942

ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. To Members of the United States Army Expeditionary Forces. [Washington, D.C.]: The White House, [c.1942].

Wartime printed message issued in the name of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to American soldiers departing for overseas service. Single sheet printed in blue beneath the White House heading, with Roosevelt’s facsimile signature and an unprinted reverse.

A scarce survival of wartime presidential ephemera, carrying a direct appeal to the individual serviceman as America committed its soldiers and resources to a global conflict.

“You are a soldier of the United States Army.” Roosevelt’s opening addresses each reader personally, connecting the coming struggle with the freedom of family, fellow citizens and country. For men leaving familiar lives behind, the message offered an assurance that their service carried the support of an entire nation.

The text was already circulating by March 1942, only months after Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war. Reproduced in the Congressional Record on 31 March, it belongs to the first phase of American wartime mobilisation, when troops were embarking for distant destinations and Allied victory remained uncertain.

The Roosevelt Presidential Library records the message’s distribution to troops before Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942. Conducted under Eisenhower’s command, the operation brought American and British forces together in a major offensive that helped establish the foundations of their subsequent campaigns in Europe.

Roosevelt also acknowledges the obligations of those remaining at home. His promise that soldiers would receive “the whole force and power of this Nation” makes the sheet a statement of shared responsibility between the fighting forces and the home front.

The typewritten appearance and reproduced signature give this widely circulated message the intimacy of a personal letter. Its closing words unite the hopes, gratitude and prayers of family, fellow citizens and “your President”. This example bears no printed date, named recipient or unit identification; Roosevelt’s signature forms part of the printing.