America "saved" everyone's ass in WWII

As an American that loves to learn history - I am in *total* agreement with you.

I am actually a great admirer of the courage and skill-at-arms of the Russian soldiers. Ordinary men and not a few women, they saved Europe from the Nazis. The UK and Commonwealth did a lot as well. One of the US's real contributions was the "Arsenal of Democracy", and strangely enough, the Russians got the most use out of Lend-Lease trucks than any of our weapons.

I love American soldiers, and the feats-at-arms of say, the US Airborne in Normandy, and the Army as a whole during the Battle of the Bulge, are things I admire. But yes, "'Merica saver yur ass in teh Big Wun", is false, unfair, and stupid on it's face.

 

I saw this recently in a test. :lol:

I don't know much about history, almost nothing, but I do know that America is not the only one that helped.

 

Stalingrad, while decisive, wasn't the moment that broke Germany. It stopped them temporarily. The make or break moment was, in my opinion, the Battle of Kursk. This was the first time Germany had been halted before breaking the enemy, and failed in it's primary objective: to destroy the approaching Soviet Union's counter attack.

El Alamein, too. But the African Campaign was always secondary, to Hitler and the German High Command. It was under-equipped and under-supplied, so, Rommel being able to do what he did, for as long as he did, is most noteworthy. Throw on top of the fact, Italy was the weakest member of the Axis, and you already see why America decided to begin there, on the European Front.

That said, I do agree with you. The Soviets were a huge part of the victory, but many folks don't realize, they were provided quite a bit of materials, from England and the United States. While I think it would be possible, for the Soviets alone, to fight the Germans, it would have been more costly and bloody, than it actually was.

If we're going to throw in what "saved" everyone's ass in World War II, then we cannot forget the best thing the Allies had going for them...

The Mustachioed One. His taking supreme command of the armed forces in 1941, is just icing on the cake. The moment he let up off of England, is when his decisions became very questionable. Having the Mustachioed One leading Germany, was probably one of the best things that could have happened, if war was to be had.

 

Kursk also broke the German army's ability to go on the offensive. If you look at the casualty figures, it looks like a German victory. But the Russians could replace their tremendous losses in men and materials. The Germans had no hope of replacing theirs.

 

The difference would've been that England would most likely have been occupied for several years. But certainly Russia was the key reason - if Hitler had left that front alone who knows what would have happened.


Not remotely patriotic here but the West would've at the very least had a much longer recovery time had the US not decided to get involved. It also would have dragged the war on longer in that the Nazis would not have been attacked on all fronts. And Japanese nationalists would have kept the Pacific.

 

From what I can see, the US joined the war when it was most convenient for it. The European powers were completely bankrupt and had no choice but to downsize their empires, allowing the US to come out on top when the war ended in 1945.

I wouldn't really call it an act of courageousness.

I don't think a Nazi occupation of Britain was likely either - the Germans needed both naval and air superiority over the English Channel which they never achieved.

 

As a flag-waving American, I've never seen it as a "US comes in and saves everyone's ass" scenario. Maybe we helped out the UK because they were on the receiving end of a continent's worth of German punishment, but it really was a joint operation that would likely have failed without any single contributor.

 

That's not true. The United States was dedicated to neutrality and to isolationism-not getting involved in other countries' affairs-after WWI. In response to WWII, the United States began the Cash-And-Carry program and sold weapons to both sides. We enjoyed a lot of profit from doing this, and if Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor, the US might not have ever gotten involved. Japan got paranoid knowing that the US had a naval base in Hawaii with all those planes and decided to bomb that base figuring if the US was planning to attack Japan, they may as well take out the closest threat first. That was when the United States got involved: simply out of retaliation over the Pearl Harbor attack.

 

I've never thought it as a "we saved you guys in WWII". I just wanted to say that we helped out, but surely someone else would have saved the day as well.

 

Obviously the US did not single handedly win the war, all of the allied countries played a part with Russia having done the most to stop Germany. The US did provide a lot of weapons to britian and Russia as well as fighting in North Africa, Italy, and Japan.

A country like England did more to help stop Germany than we did but they(as well as france) were also partially responsible for the war because of the Treaty of Versailles 20 years earlier

 

The U.S. sided with the allies from the beginning. From running supplies and financial aid. To starving the Japanese of oil. (Which is why they attacked.) If the isolationists of the time had their way. I'd bet things would have been a lot different. Not saying the U.S. won the war single handily; but down playing it's involvement just doesn't feel right to me.

Of course this is coming from a U.S. citizen. Maybe I'm bias; but so are the people downplaying U.S. involvement. It's wrong of people to assume the U.S. won the war by itself, it's also wrong to assume the U.S. was insignificant. It was disgusting war.

 

And who supplied Russia with grain, tanks, trucks, boots (which the Germans had a lack of and subsequently faced massive frostbite casualties crippling some divisions), ammunition, guns in the vital early stages of Barbarossa? Russia lost the most troops, and eventually produced the most war materials for the Eastern Front which lost Germany, but it was not an act they could have done alone.

But it's not as if the situation was unsalvageable without the US. The stupidity of Hitler's actions in Yugoslavia followed by engaging in the Africa campaign, and then the idiocy of trying to take all the Soviet south at once were more significant in losing Hitler the war than American involvement. Russia evacuated so much industry, and Russia had resources the Germans simply couldn't compete with, even with their expanded European empire. America was vital, but America was less significant than Americans learn in history below university levels.

The US was a part of an enormous international effort, but the absence of any one of the partners could have easily led to the defeat of one of the participants (such as how France fell), but I don't believe Hitler could have survived under his own weight. To conquer is one thing, but Nazism required eternal expansion that would have cracked apart an already fragile state and a shallow economy.

America didn't enter the war out of humanitarian concerns, but it did ensure a speedier end to a horrific war. Modern Americans don't own that, nor does anyone else. America's biggest achievement was in hemming in the Soviets, something a war-torn Western Europe was incapable of doing, and ending Japanese control of the Pacific and East Asia. The only thing is, they did so with enormous help from China (both capitalist and communist resistance), and the British empire and the Dutch empire, both of which were not humanitarian states outside of their home countries.

It's normal to feel that the Americans take too much credit, which is arguably correct. It's not correct to suggest that they could have been dispensed with or that the rest of the world was more moral by fighting Hitler "immediately" (as you conveniently ignore appeasement and the deliberate silence over the Holocaust in the rest of the world in the early stages of the war and the 30s)

America reconstructed Western Europe, which is a massive accomplishment with enormous historical significance itself, and that helped shape perceptions of the issue.

 

Is everyone forgetting Australia?

 

Australia was not a significant power in 1939-1945. It was an important land to hold, but Australia's role in the war was only significant in being able to hold and support its allies in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. That wasn't exactly a war-saving feat given its essentially auxiliary part in the war.

 

I had typed out a long post about this but I've had the argument so much in other places I really don't care enough to have it again.

a few points

1. Yes the USSR played a larger role in defeating the Nazis in the eastern theater than the USA did (for good reason because geography)
2. Let's not forget the massive loss of life inside the USSR and be very careful not to glorify them on higher moral ground than any particular agent in the WW2 conflict.
3. Deontology is all fine and good for building individual socities (thanks Rawls) but I'm not totally convinced on its usefulness in international relations.
4. I'm more or less in agreement with Aussie's posts ITT, especially regarding Stalin's appeasement of Hitler in the 30s.

Unfortunately it's hard to defend the USSR's importance in the war without also dipping into apologia for Stalin's actions inside his own country in the form of labour camps. I think you can definitely do it, but you're walking on egg shells and have to be very nuanced to not collapse into utilitarianism and excusing the massive loss of life in the soviet union as necessary to defeat the Nazis and stop the holocaust.

 

Well said. While I do admire the combat record and courage of the Red Army, they served a hideous system. There were *no* Good Guys on the Eastern Front.

 

[throws battered copy of "a people's history of the united states" down onto the teacher's desk] AND FUCK YOU MISS FINLEY YOU IGNORANT COCK, THE OPPRESSION YOU INDUCE ON THE SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM 1806 - 2014 HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH and the whole class room cheered and all became staunch pro-communism agnostic atheists

 

LOL @ axolotl.

 

This is kind of a no-brainer, in my opinion. I mean, even Call of Duty illustrates this. In a way, we ended up fighting a totally different war than everyone else.