United States color-coded war plans facts for kids

The U.S. military had a special group called the Joint Army and Navy Board. In the 1920s and 1930s, this group created many color-coded war plans. These plans were secret strategies for different imaginary war situations. The Joint Planning Committee, which later became the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made these plans.

However, when World War II began in 1939, these color plans were stopped. New plans called "Rainbow Plans" were created instead. These new plans were designed to help the U.S. fight a war in two oceans at the same time, against many enemies.

Why Colors? Secret War Plans Explained

The U.S. military started using colors for its war plans so that the Army and Navy could easily understand each other's ideas. This system began in 1904. Each country was given a special color, symbol, or short name. Many war plans became known by the color of the country they were about. This idea continued all the way through World War II.

Sometimes, colors were used again for different plans. For example, "Grey" first meant Italy. But later, it was used for a plan to take over the Portuguese Azores islands.

In all the plans, the United States always called itself "Blue".

War Plan Orange: Facing Japan

The plan that was thought about the most was War Plan Orange. This was a set of plans for fighting a war only against Japan. It was first thought of in 1919 and officially written down in 1924.

War Plan Orange helped guide the real fight against Japan in World War II. It included ideas like stopping trade from mainland China. It also had plans for moving Japanese-American people to special camps.

War Plan Red: Against the British Empire

War Plan Red was a plan for a war against the British Empire. Different parts of the British Empire had their own shades of red:

• The United Kingdom was "Red".
• Canada was "Crimson".
• India was "Ruby".
• Australia was "Scarlet".
• New Zealand was "Garnet".
• Ireland, which was a free state in the British Empire at the time, was called "Emerald".

War Plan Black: Germany and the Caribbean

War Plan Black was a plan for a war with Germany. The most famous version of this plan was made during World War I. It was a backup plan in case France was defeated. The plan worried that Germans might try to take French lands in the Caribbean Sea. It also considered an attack on the U.S. East Coast.

Planning for the Americas

War Plan Green: Dealing with Mexico

In the 1910s, the relationship between Mexico and the United States was often difficult. In 1912, U.S. President William Howard Taft thought about sending troops to Mexico. This was to protect property owned by foreigners during the Mexican Revolution. So, War Plan Green was created.

Later, in 1916, U.S. troops led by General John J. Pershing went into Mexico. They were looking for Pancho Villa, whose army had attacked Columbus, New Mexico. Before that, American naval forces had attacked and taken over the Mexican port of Veracruz. This forced the Mexican president, Victoriano Huerta, to step down.

In 1917, British spies found a secret message. It was a telegram from Germany to its embassy in Mexico. Germany offered to team up with Mexico against the U.S. and help Mexico get back land in the Southwest. This message, called the Zimmermann Telegram, helped turn American public opinion against Germany. It also made things worse between the U.S. and Mexico. Relations with Mexico stayed tense into the 1920s and 1930s.

War Plan Red-Orange: A Two-Front Challenge

Some plans were made for wars against a group of enemy countries. The most detailed of these was War Plan Red-Orange. This plan looked at a two-front war against both Britain and Japan. This was a big worry for U.S. war planners. It meant fighting a war in two oceans against two powerful navies.

Even though the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance ended in 1921, American generals still thought Britain might team up with Japan again if war started. The ideas from War Plan Red-Orange were very helpful during World War II. At that time, the United States fought the Axis powers in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the same time.

Rainbow Plans: New Strategies for a Changing World

After World War I, Japan became a major power in the Pacific Ocean. Many American officials thought a war with Japan was very likely. This fear lessened for a while when Japan's government stopped its military growth. But this growth started again in 1931. War Plan Orange was the longest and most detailed of the old color plans.

However, events in Europe and Asia between 1937 and 1940 changed everything. These included the Anschluss (Germany taking over Austria), the Munich Agreement, Germany taking over Czechoslovakia, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (a deal between Germany and the Soviet Union). Also, Germany invaded Poland and Western Europe.

Because of these events, American war planners realized the U.S. might have to fight wars on many fronts against several enemies. So, the Joint Planning Board created a new set of war plans called the "Rainbow" plans. The name was a play on the many "color" plans that came before.

Here are the Rainbow Plans:

• Rainbow 1 was a plan for defending the United States and the Western Hemisphere (North and South America) north of 10 degrees south latitude. In this plan, the U.S. would have no major allies.
• Rainbow 2 was like Rainbow 1, but it assumed the U.S. would be allied with France and the United Kingdom.
• Rainbow 3 was a repeat of the Orange plan. It also included the defense of the hemisphere, as in Rainbow 1.
• Rainbow 4 was based on the same ideas as Rainbow 1. But it expanded the American mission to defend the entire Western Hemisphere.
• Rainbow 5 became the main plan for American strategy in World War II. It assumed the U.S. was allied with Britain and France. It also planned for American forces to launch attacks in Europe, Africa, or both.

The ideas for Rainbow 5 were discussed a lot in the Plan Dog memo. This memo decided that the United States would focus on Europe first in World War II.

Rainbow 5 Plan Leaked!

On December 4, 1941, just three days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Chicago Tribune newspaper published the Rainbow 5 plan. The headline was "F.D.R.’s War Plans!" The The Times Herald in Washington, D.C., also published it.

These articles showed plans to build a 10-million-man Army. Five million of these soldiers would be sent to Europe in 1943 to defeat Nazi Germany. This news caused a big stir in the U.S. Some politicians who wanted the U.S. to stay out of the European war said President Roosevelt was breaking his promise. The Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, said the newspapers were acting against their country. He also said it was the War Department's duty to plan for every possible situation.

Germany publicly made fun of the plan the next day. They doubted if there were enough ships in the world to move 5 million troops to Europe, let alone supply them there. But secretly, the German military leaders saw the leaked plans as very useful information. They used the threat of a 5-million-man U.S. force in 1943 to argue for stopping their failing invasion of Russia for a while. They wanted to focus German forces in the west. However, Hitler strongly disagreed with this idea.

No one ever found out who leaked the plan. Some people thought it was unhappy military officers, or even President Roosevelt himself.

List of Color Plans

Here are some of the known color-coded war plans:

• Black: A plan for war with Germany. The most famous version was a backup plan during World War I. It was for if France fell and Germans tried to take French islands in the Caribbean Sea. Or if they attacked the U.S. East Coast.
• Gray: There were two War Plans named Gray. The first was about Central America and the Caribbean. The second was about invading the Portuguese Azores islands.
• Brown: Dealt with a rebellion in the Philippines.
• Blue: The United States itself.
• Crimson: A plan for war with Canada.
• Green: Involved war with Mexico. Or what was called "Mexican Domestic Intervention" to defeat rebel forces and set up a pro-American government. War Plan Green was officially stopped in 1946.
• Indigo: Involved taking over Iceland. In 1941, when Denmark was under German occupation, the U.S. actually did occupy Iceland. This helped British units during the Battle of the Atlantic.
• Orange: A plan for war with Japan.
• Purple: Covered Latin America.
• Red: A plan for the British Empire. It had sub-plans for British lands like Canada (Crimson), India (Ruby), Australia (Scarlet), New Zealand (Garnet), and the Irish Free State (Emerald).
• Red-Orange: Looked at a two-front war where the U.S. (Blue) fought both Japan (Orange) and the British Empire (Red) at the same time. This plan showed that the U.S. did not have enough resources to fight a two-front war. So, it was decided that one front should be for attacking, and the other for defending. This led to the Plan Dog memo during World War II.
• White: Dealt with a rebellion inside the U.S. It later became Operation Garden Plot, the general U.S. military plan for civil unrest and peaceful protests. Parts of War Plan White were used to deal with the Bonus Expeditionary Force in 1932. The people who wrote War Plan White thought Communist rebels were the most likely threat.
• Yellow: Dealt with war in China. Specifically, it expected another Boxer Uprising (1899–1901). War Plan Yellow would send the U.S. Army with other foreign forces to stop local unrest in Shanghai International Settlement and Beijing Legation Quarter. It even considered using chemical weapons if needed.

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