Outbreak of WWII

[Paul K]

The USA may not have joined in until 2 years after we declared war on Hitler, but can you imagine how much longer it would have gone on without them ?

For example, the Soviets received 148,664 1.5-ton trucks and 182,938 2.5 ton trucks from the USA, largely freeing up their own industrial capacity to concentrate on tanks and self-propelled artillery. Given the huge distances on the eastern front, could the Russians have been in Berlin by April of 1945 without adequate transport to move their armies across so many miles ?

That's just one example, though there are many more. Okay, you can't compare the donation of a Studebaker truck to the sacrifice of a Red Army soldier at Stalingrad, but ultimately WW2 was won as much by out-producing the enemy as out-fighting him, and I really believe that without the Americans, we'd still have been at it in 1948, a lot longer time period than it took for them to come in.

Americans are often accused of only being interested in the world history that they had a part in, and with some justification I think...but we here can be equally dismissive of the vital contribution they made, beyond direct military involvement.

[forthbridge]

I didnt Google or Wiki things - I learnt by being 1/. Educated by people who lived world war 2
2/. Living in a countryside still littered with little things , like airraid shelters, pillbox's, tank traps and the occasional unexploded 1000kg German bomb.


Leif

Totally agree Leif. And to be fair it is not an American only problem. Samantha had big brother on a while back, ( I know :roll: ) and they had a world map up, with a 'woman' being asked to place a sticker appropriate to a mentioned country. She assumed japan was in Africa, Germany was Libya, and various other displays of utter stupidity. When given her score, we had the inane giggle and 'really, i thought it was....'..... I really cannot understand how people cannot understand (or have not been taught) such simple things!

(And for the record, I do not regularly watch BB, but I happened past as the map was on and had to look)

[forthbridge]

The USA may not have joined in until 2 years after we declared war on Hitler, but can you imagine how much longer it would have gone on without them ?

Americans are often accused of only being interested in the world history that they had a part in, and with some justification I think...but we here can be equally dismissive of the vital contribution they made, beyond direct military involvement.

Certainly agree there. The American industrial base was pivotal to the outcome once it got into full swing, and I doubt anyone thinks otherwise.

[AllanL]

It did cross my mind that a gentle wind-up would trigger some response from beyond the pond.

The comments above actually mirror much of the discussion that I saw about the Soviet pact with Germany and the consequences, and hence on to whose war was it anyway and who won it with or without who......

There's little doubt in my mind that, having started two world wars we needed the industrial might of America to supply the armaments to end them successfully - well from our point of view. I also saw a discussion somewhere that, had Hitler not triggered the war in the West and ultimately drawn the US in and led to the formation of NATO, we could have ended up under a Stalinist European Empire. The premise was that Russia would have gained sufficient strength through to the '60s that Europe would have been powerless to stave off an invasion without the presence of US troops in NATO bases in Germany. So there you go, Hitler saved Europe from communism after all. Discuss. :roll:

Talking of educational shortcomings, it has recently been reported that most people in the UK think Churchill is the name of a stuffed toy dog in an insurance advert.

[DaveB]

I don't think the Americans were supplying us with stuff gratis.. it was called lend-lease in which they supplied us with out of date crap they didn't want themselves. We've only recently finished paying them off for it too! :roll:

EDIT.. Just checked out Wiki and it says there that it took the UK until 2006 to pay the 'debt' back.. a debt they 'demanded' had to be paid :roll:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Nigel H-J]

EDIT.. Just checked out Wiki and it says there that it took the UK until 2006 to pay the 'debt' back.. a debt they 'demanded' had to be paid

Now that debt has been finally cleared this crappy Government has just made another one which will have to be paid back by................... US!!!
Nigel.

[DaveB]

Let's not go blaming the U.S. this time. After all.. they only started the ball rolling by lending too much money to home buyers which in turn caused major financial institutions to go under which in turn caused a partial collapse of the world economy ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[sketchy74]

Let's not go blaming the U.S. this time. After all.. they only started the ball rolling by lending too much money to home buyers which in turn caused major financial institutions to go under which in turn caused a partial collapse of the world economy ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Sound Economic practice that in my book, lending money to people that had no way of paying it back.......isn't that what Loan Sharks do?! LOL.

I guess the difference is the US Banks don't send the heavies around to your house to break your knee caps, they just come around and take the house! LOL

OFFTOPIC

[nigelb]

Geez, I really did light a fire here! To be fair, The Colonists did contribute a lot of material prior to their entry into the war. Actually as pointed out, contributed may not be the correct term. "Give us the tools and we will finish the job" Lend-Lease was really the only way Roosevelt could pull off helping Britain, since the majority of Americans were isolationists and opposed to US involvement.

I read somewhere (maybe one of the Ultra Secret/Enigma books) that British intelligence had warned the US that Pearl Harbour would be attacked well ahead of 7 December but the information was apparently ignored. I surmise that was not the case. Roosevelt knew that an attack on the Hawaii, even though not a state at that time, would coalesce public opinion to enter the war. Just a theory on my part. A huge sacrifice, but not dissimilar to the one Churchill had to make regarding Coventry.

Hawaii is a far away distant place (at least to us on the East Coast) and until 9/11, Americans had scant idea of war's effect on civilian life. I was born a couple of years after the war and can vividly remember street upon street of bombed out buildings in parts of London, not a comforting site to a little nipper. We went on Holiday to a little place called Eccles on Sea in the late fifties and the beach still had the old pilboxes present. I remember rationing, which I think only ended in 1954. Of course, both my parents told stories about the war, my dad was torpedoed, my mother was a nurse and when she had ambulance duty she was riding down Liverpool streets with unexploded bombs present. They both recall lying in bed and hearing the buzz bombs overhead. Americans experienced nothing like that. Their somewhat insular view of the world is shaped by the educational system and the media, which pays scant attention to events outside the US unless Americans are directly affected. It also irks me that Americans think they invented freedom and democracy and that this is the only country in the world where someone from a poor background can "make it".

While America obviously was a big help to Britain (even though it was mostly loans of outdated equipment) there is no doubt in my mind that had Britain been conquored, America was on the agenda, perhaps after Russia. I recently watched a documentary about German spies landing from a U-Boat on Long Island. Their mission was sabotage and terrorism acts such as placing bombs in New York department stores owned by Jews. Fortunatly they were caught by a Coast Guardsman patrolling the beach and one spilt the beans to the FBI in the hopes of getting political asylum.

Apologies for rambling on but i found a bigger soapbox.

Nigel²

[DispatchDragon]

Nigel

Nice way to round it out -- In fairiness to the US - The only physical reminders of World War 2 I have seen (besides the obvious training airfields dotted all over the country) is the very poignant Arizona Memorial at Pearl......its very spooky to stand on that white bridge to nowhere and know there are 1800 bodies directly below you. Also on Maui one can see the Bunkers and shelters for NAS Pu'unene and there are pillbox's still to be found on all the islands.......I guess the whole controvesy over the attack on Pearl Harbor is open to debate --


leif