1941.06.10 “’Twould be a different story if this happened”
by Roy E. Aymond (1895-1961)
11.5 x 14.5 in., pencil/crayon on paper
Coppola Collection
A native of Bunkie, Louisiana, Mr. Aymond was graduated from Bunkie High School and studied cartooning in New York. At the age of 15 he joined a syndicate as one of the youngest cartoonists in America. During World War I he was an aviator and served with Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker in France. He worked for a short while with the New York Sun but soon returned home to New Orleans and worked at the New Orleans States, retiring in 1945.
The cartoon is a wistful what if. If only more munitions had been available, perhaps these guys would not have been so successful, and things would have turned out differently.
The Axis racked up its fast, early victories, against nothing much more than appeasement as a reply. When the war started in earnest, in less than a year a great swath of Europe was taken over, and the first major setback for the Nazis was British resistance in the Battle of Britain (July–Oct 1940).
Controversy in the US was high. Isolationism was rampant, and there was no general taste for supplying the British with weapons. By late 1940, FDR was pressing for a way to help, Lend-Lease and the rhetoric for the “Arsenal of Democracy” to protect national security.
The First Report under the Lend‑Lease Act (June 10, 1941) declared “Lend‑lease deliveries are now flowing fast—airplanes, explosives, firearms, munitions, and more—multiples over last year.” The report highlighted how Allied aircraft, tanks, and munitions were arriving “in larger quantities day by day,” presumably tipping the scale.
“Look what we’ve finally sent—and imagine what might have been different if this had happened earlier.”
