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Northern Sold
12:01 Thu May 7
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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The simple fact is without the US's industrial might we was not going anywhere... in the lend-lease scheme from the US we was given...
14,000 Sherman Tanks
1000;s of Lee tanks
1000's of Sturat tanks
50 Destroyers
100's of Liberty Ships
1000's of Higgins landing Crafts
1000s of Dakotas
1000;s of Willy Jeeps
1000;s of trucks
1000's of half tracks
1000's of self propelled guns
1000's of DUKW's
10000;s of Thompson Sub machine guns
10000's of Browning heavy machine guns
Along with 1000;s of B17;s Flying Fortresses & Mustangs flying from the UK with the 8th USAF
10000's of Browning heavy machine guns
Also the lend to lease from the US to USSR
In total, the US deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[25] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[26] 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which were Bell P-39 Airacobras)[27] and 1.75 million tons of food.[28]
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.[29][30]
The United States gave to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941 to May 31, 1945 the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil), 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,900 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR.
I believe without the inclusion of the US industrial might the war would not have been won..
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charleyfarley
11:53 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Why we are on conspiracies, one of the mysteries that has never been explained, even after 60 years papers have not been released is 'Englandspiel' - the game against England
Sixty years ago in Nazi-occupied Holland, Huub Lauwers was the centrepiece of a German intelligence operation which eventually ensnared almost the entire network of Dutch agents working for the British.
On his capture in March 1942, Huub Lauwers was forced to continue transmitting as normal back to London, pretending that he was still free.
As a result of his and others' messages, more than 50 of the Special Operation Executive (SOE) agents were captured. Most of them were executed in Nazi death camps.
Double-bluff?
In the past year or so, the British Government has released more of its secret files on what the Germans called the "Englandspiel" - the game against England.
But historians remain deeply divided over whether this was merely a tragic series of blunders by the SOE, or part of an elaborate strategy of deception by London - a "double-bluff".
Using his own radio set, Huub Lauwers managed to insert coded signals into his messages back to London warning the SOE that he was in German hands. The messages appeared to fall on deaf ears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel
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Far Cough
11:51 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Agreed that it was a strategic decision to keep the USA out of the Pacific but if they never attacked Pearl Harbor, they would have had free reign in attacking the Soviets
Obviously they made the decision to attack Pearl but even their commander Yamamoto said, I can run riot for a year but after that who knows and with the massive US industrial base behind them, he was right
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Hammer and Pickle
11:50 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Exactly, the Japanese did not get involved in a continental war in Siberia for strategic reasons. They believed that would sort itself out if they could master the Pacific trade system.
Their massive mistake was hitting the US.
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BRANDED
11:47 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Whats interesting is that all the big nations in WW2 are still big nations. Like nothing happened.
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neilalex
11:44 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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I think the idea partly was to keep the US occupied in the Pacific and therefore out of the war in Europe. The japs had built up a very sizable Navy and I think, not that I know but that's what it looked like, fancied a UK style Empire in the East based on sea power.
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Far Cough
11:39 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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I never understood why the Japs never attacked the USSR in the east, I know Georgiy Zhukov gave the Japs a bloody nose earlier before the war started in the west but with the Germans attacking from the west and the Japs from the east, Stalingrad might never have happened and the drive to Moscow by the Germans would have had a much different ending as Stalin wouldn't have had his Siberian troops to call on.
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BRANDED
11:39 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Shermans would be speaking French if it wasnt fir the English
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neilalex
11:33 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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The greatest contribution the US made was to halt the Red Army in Europe through deploying the atom bomb in Japan. The impact of this on post war Europe cannot be underestimated.
They played little part in defeating Germany in Europe. The Soviet army was already on an unstoppable roll that would have overwhelmed Germany regardless of whether they had to fight on another front or not. It may have taken a few more months, but Germany would have fallen, and all of Europe. This is Stalin we're talking about.
I believe the Soviets would have fallen to the Germans had it not been for the battle of Britain, For a short while we successfully stood alone, and that is a quite magnificent chapter of our history. It was certainly a multi national air force but it was still overwhelmingly British, much as we have to acknowledge the bravery of the Poles, Czechs, Canadians, Aus/nz etc. As an example 2334 aircrew were British and 145 were Poles. Had we lost, Hitler would have sued for a peace which left him in control of mainland Europe, and in my view would certainly have defeated the Russians with a subsequent invasion. The German Army utterly pissed all over the Soviet opposition and was only halted by Hitler's lack of decisiveness and the onset of winter. Without the distraction of a Western Front they would not have failed to reach Moscow.
As I said before, nobody won it on their own.
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kylay
11:33 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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ironsofcanada 10:39 Wed May 6
I take your point
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Gavros
11:01 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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"If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
"well, if it wasn't for us you'd be speaking Germanic"
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charleyfarley
11:00 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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yes rubble operation tiger
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rubble
10:52 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Stomper
Wasn't that an Allied training exercise that went wrong, hence the need for secrecy?
Or am I getting confused (again).
I did work with a UCLA medical student and self-confessed 'military-buff' who asked if the English took part in D-Day? He and his family watch 'The Patriot' every 4th of July.
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ironsofcanada
10:39 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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kylay 10:12 Wed May 6
Never spend any decent length of time in the South, so I can't comment on that. Though the people I personally have met from there are not ignorant but that is a skewed sample.
Americans are, like the rest of us, generally ignorant about the things they don't care about. Unfortunately for many that is the rest of the world. They have not needed to care about the rest of the world for a number of generations. They did enough other things very well to sustain and prosper themselves. So their education system does not bother making many ignorant (which is different from stupid.)
However, I see the same kind of stereotyping and ignorance working when people talk about Americans on here that they accuse Americans, sometimes correctly, of displaying.
I have a met my share of ignorant people in Oxford, as I did on the Navajo reservation, as I did at home.
stomper 10:02 Wed May 6
On your first point, that was a lot more prevalent in WWI though it remained in WWII as Dieppe showed.
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Hammer and Pickle
10:38 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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There is no way any serious attempt at an invasion of the UK could have been covered up.
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Far Cough
10:36 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Oh and they occupied the channel islands as well
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Far Cough
10:35 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Loads of Germans set foot in Britain, spies and downed pilots
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stomper
10:30 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Hammer and Pickle
To maintain the myth that no German ever set foot on British soil I guess.
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stomper
10:29 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Something did. The story I was told started to leak out around 2000. As a practice that went wrong or a landing barge that got lost at sea, but its far too big for that.
Seems too small for an invasion tho'
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Hammer and Pickle
10:28 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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What was the point of keeping it secret stomp?
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Far Cough
10:23 Wed May 6
Re: "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German"
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Sealion never took place
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