The German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 began hostilities in Europe and President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately declared the United States’ neutrality.
The Neutrality Patrol, organized in September 1939 as a response to the war in Europe, was ordered to track and report the movements of any warlike operations of belligerents in the waters of the Western Hemisphere. To augment the fleet units already engaged in the Neutrality Patrol which President Roosevelt had placed around the eastern seaboard and Gulf ports, the Navy recommissioned 77 destroyers and light minelayers which had lain in reserve at either Philadelphia or San Diego.
