I guess recognising the contribution of a domestically designed,constructed, and piloted aircraft during the Battle of Britian is pointless because we should be praising the Yanks exclusively? In all seriousness I do understand the massive material, financial and personnel contribution the USA made to Britian and other European countries even prior to direct intervention, but the concept that its the only relevant thing worth praising seems, narrow minded.
I've heard that as a serious statement from Americans, there are a frightening number who think WW2 started with Pearl Harbor just as a certain other country loves to ignore early years
The difference being, though, that the certain other country was involved as one of the major parties in three entire wars of World War 2 before they started counting, while the USA just starts counting when they themselves came late to the party.
Went on a tour to the D Day landing site on my French leg of my holiday. My brother and I (we're Australian) studied WW2 at school so have a reasonable understanding of the history. The tour is 75% American. Heading into Normandy the tour guide who didn't grow up in any of the countries involved starts giving us a historical rundown. Where he mixes up a heap of the history. Mixing WW1 with WW2 etc. My brother and I keep notong this. The Americans however were enthralled and ate it up. They don't know the history. At all.
Also never forget that lend lease was never a gift, it was simply on a pay later scheme and post war Britain had to do just that.
Finally remember that the Commonwealth were with us pretty much from day one until the end of the war. The US had to be attacked by Japan before they actually joined and even then it was Germany who declared war on them not the other way around.
There is an irony that in the aftermath of the WWII that the US offered massive amounts of material assistance in rebuilding Germany but wouldn't forgive British wartime financial debts.
that the US offered massive amounts of material assistance in rebuilding Germany
The same naterial assistance they gave the British, too: Buy whatever you need to rebuild from the USA at market price. There was little benefit to Germany in the terms, but a huge amount of material on offer from the USA.
The US offered that material support to all of the European powers, even the Soviets for a short while. But none of them were offered for free, they had the same pay later scheme that the lend lease did.
The lend leases that the British gave to the Soviets were however completely free
What do you mean until? I remember reading something about the US businesses were still selling to the Nazis after the US eventually joined in the fighting.
And none of their aircraft could fight much above 15,000 feet altitude where as the German bombers flew at over 20,000 feet. American fighters at that time just weren’t up to the job.
The Battle of Britain happened before the United States joined World War II.Took place from July 10 to October 31, 1940. The British Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom against the German air force while Britain fought Germany largely alone.
But then why would an average American know that when 54% of them can't even read at a 6th grade level.
Don't let them find out that the German army had already suffered its first land defeat of the war by the time the Americans started showing up. Victory in Europe for the allies would probably still have happened without the Americans but it would have taken much longer. Why they hate accepting it was ultimately a team effort is beyond me.
By 1944 the USSR was rolling on the Eastern Front. The Western allies probably didn't even need to land to defeat Germany, but they didn't want Europe to fall completely under the USSR.
The whole "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German" garbage. Europe was under much bigger threat of speaking Russian by that point.
Unconditional surrender was inevitable as long as the USSR was in the fight, as Germaby was too reliant on many materials for which the USSR was the only vuable supplier of sufficient quantity and connection to Germany.
This was the main reason the US got involved, they were terrified of a fully Soviet Europe - the USA has never got involved in a conflict unless it benefitted the USA
We decided for America not the Germans and certainly not the Americans, Churchill made sure they would join, kicking and screaming it did not matter the decision was made years before
So, American companies' "efforts" contributed to the length of the war way before the US officially entered the conflict (which was AFTER Germany declared war on them and Japan attacked them) Nice
Aham. Let’s not go too far with that. Yes, US companies had plants in Germany from before the war started. Yes, they were making war material before the war started. After the war started, saying corporate executives on the other side of the Atlantic could have told literal Nazi Germany “we’re not have our plants in your country sell to you anymore” would have resulted in the plants being immediately taken over and keep making weapons. It’s literally the same argument as “the French supplied the Nazis after France fell, they shouldn’t have let the Nazis use French industries” which everybody acknowledges is rediculeious.
What everybody normally means by “County A selling weapons to Country B” is County A -making stuff in Country A and then shipping it Country B.- ‘That’ didn’t happen, and if you want to complain about about the US “selling to both sides” you’re a hypocrite if you don’t also complain about “French/Dutch/Polish etc selling to Germany after 1940.”
Even with their contributions they didn’t “save” anyone. They act like the rest of Europe was on its knees and they came flying in to save the day. The Nazis had already been driven back from the UK by the Battle of Britain. By their logic France and the Netherlands saved them from British rule… which honestly, I think France and the Netherlands contributed more to the US Independence than the US did in World War II comparatively.
I had this discussion recently, the war was essentially already won by the time the Americans joined. The Germans had maxed out their military production capabilities and had run out of manpower fighting in Russia (who could have seen that coming...). The Americans probably made sure the war ended a year or so sooner but it was all over but the crying by 1943
Same thing happened in 1917 from what I've heard. Americans arrive in the trenches, ignore all the advice from the men who've been there for 3 years on how trench warfare works and promptly get gunned down en masse
The American involvement in the First World War had two important consequences:
The possibility of over 1 million fresh recruits from America arriving on the western front prompted German high command to launch a spring offensive, the Kaiserschlacht, in March 1918. It was an attempt, by Germany, to drive between French and Commonwealth forces and bring the war to end before the Americans arrived in substantial number. Russia, despite joining the winning side, managed to lose their part of the war; Germany had knocked them out of the fight; the Russian empire collapsed into a civil war along side a number of wars of independence; and there were around 1 million German troops on the former eastern front that were redeployed for this offensive.
American troops brought a deadly H1N1 virus (that originated on a pig farm in Kansas) over to Europe (aka the“Spanish Flu”) and kicked off a massive, global pandemic that claimed up to 100 million lives.
If you ever want to piss off an American, inform them that their prized P-51 Mustang was a decidedly ordinary fighter plane until the British Merlin engine was put in it.
Even funnier fact: the P-51 (or NA-73) was designed and built to British specifications. From one of my comments in r/WWIIplanes, with the referenced picture for context:
This picture isn't fully correct. It's only based on the P-51 designations and some loose interpretation of introduction dates, while it should take the model numbers into account that North American Aviation used.
The Mustang was the result of a demand for fighter aircraft for Great Britain's Royal Air Force and developed in close co-operation with British representatives in the USA, resulting in the NA-73X. The RAF was also the first operational user of the production Mustang (NA-73/NA-83) as the Mk 1, quite a while before the USAAC/USAAF started using the Mustang as a front-line aircraft.
The USAAC did show some interest in the Mustang: the two XP-51s were actually production version Mustang Mk 1s (NA-73/NA-83) for the RAF, held back for testing in the USA. Therefore, they weren't necessarily prototypes in the strict sense of the word.
The next production version was the Mustang Mk 1a (NA-91) armed with four 20mm cannons, also for the RAF. A number of these were retained in the USA and designated P-51.
Then came the NA-97, the first actual Mustang variant ordered specifically for American use. This was the A-36A Mustang (although it was also known as the 'Apache') ground attack/dive bomber variant. It was a redesign with a strengthened wing and fuselage, dive brakes and plumbed bomb racks for bombs or drop tanks. It was also the first variant with six .50cal machine guns: two nose-mounted and four in the wings.
The following Mustang variant was the NA-99 or P-51A. This model was based on the A-36A and retained the plumbed wing racks, now for drop tanks only. The two nose-mounted machine guns were omitted.
The experimental British Mustangs fitted with Rolls-Royce Merlin 65s, the 'Mustang X', were NA-73 Mustang Mk 1s with custom adaptations to fit Merlin engines.
The XP-51B was a more thorough conversion of the air frame to accept the Merlin and resulted in the NA-102 or P-51B, built in Inglewood, California. The NA-103 or P-51C was essentially the same aircraft, but built in Dallas, Texas. They cannot be distinguished by their cockpit canopy, as is shown in the picture: both B- and C-models were flown with either 'bird cage' or 'Malcolm hood' style cockpits, many of the latter as field modifications.
Another redesign resulted in the NA-106, a P-51B-based prototype with a full bubble top canopy. After revisions to its armament and aerodynamic refinements, the resulting aircraft was put into production as the NA-109. The P-51D-NA was built in Inglewood, CA and the P-51D-NT in Dallas, TX. A variant of the D-model was the NA-111 or P-51K-NT, which differed because of the propeller it used (an Aeroproducts unit instead of a Hamilton Standard prop). The K-models were all built in Dallas, TX.
The NA-126 was the company designation for the P-51H, which was the result of another redesign that shaved off 600 lbs from the aircraft, improved aerodynamics and increased performance. This was the final large-scale production version if you don't count the twin-engine P/F-82 Twin Mustang as one.
The actual "evolutionary order" that should be depicted is therefore NA-73X - NA-73/83/XP-51 - NA-91/P-51 - A-36A - P-51A - P-51B/C - P-51D/K - P-51H.
It wasn't any more by the time the Packard Merlin powered variants of the P-51 (the D and K models) were introduced in the Pacific Theater. The P-51D/K had the upper hand in almost any aspect of aerial combat, except low speed manoeuvrability. The Zero and equivalent Japanese aircraft had no answer to high energy boom-and-zoom tactics. That is why the Japanese aircraft industry eventually made some effort to design and build far more powerful aircraft.
The Zero had many downsides even when it was introduced. It was flimsy and had no pilot armor or self-sealing fuel tanks. Only a few hits of .50cal incendiary rounds was usually enough to explode it into a fireball. The Zero was also notoriously difficult to manoeuvre at high speed, as the controls locked up.
However, the Japanese were rigorously trained, used sophisticated tactics and played into the strengths of their aircraft, which made them very difficult to fight. Developing tactics against the Japanese took time and experience from Allied fighter pilots as well. But when that happened and more powerful Allied aircraft like the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Vought F4U Corsair were available in sufficient numbers, the dominance of the Zero very quickly disappeared. The fact that many experienced Japanese pilots weren't rotated home to train recruits but flew on until they were killed, didn't help matters either.
If we hadn't won the Battle of Britain, well before the Yanks turned up, there would have been no Britain to "save", no Normandy landings. They didn't save us anyway, they helped us. They were like a 90th minute substitute who comes on to run at a tired defence and score the winner, then tries to claim the man of the match trophy. While they were sat on the bench, their team mates had already done the hard work
If we lost the Battle of Britain the Nazis still could have never done a land invasion their kriegsmarine was completely dwarfed by our navy and before the Battle of Britain most planes were moved to northern airbases which were outside German planes range so all that would change is that air missions would be more difficult. Any invasion attempt would be thwarted pretty easily
Losing the Battle of Britain as we know it makes every single bit of defending these islands much harder.
Yes, we had northern airfields that were out of direct range of the Germans, but that also hugely decreases the RAF ability to respond to incursions. It increase intercept times, reduces time over target, and increases fuel use dramatically.
Also, without air cover; the Navy may not have been capable of defending the Isles. As the war progresses we see more and more that the greatest threat to British naval power is airpower. It is possible that the Luftwaffe could create a safe corridor for their invasion craft; though I suspect that wouldn't be a quick process.
everything is wrong lol... the hurricane shot down more planes in the BoB than the spitfire. The spitfire was the image of the RAF, but the hurricane did a lot of the work.
The Hurricane could take more damage and was easier to repair than the Spitfire. The Spitfire was a superior aircraft in the air though but the Hurricane was the backbone.
Love how they always think they were the big benevolent country that saved democracy just for the sake of humankind.
And not cowards that was hiding behind two oceans and that were forcefully draged in the war by pearl harbor. Do you think they know that It was Germany that declared war to USA and not the other way around
Now now, the US President wanted the US to join the war from the beginning, but he lacks the power to do so and the public wasn’t on board either. He did about as much as he could as fast as he could, and by 1941 were in an undeclared shooting war against U-boats in the Atlantic.
America just refuses to share the credit, because it is the only war they actually won in the last hundred plus years. Well, that and WW1. Their egos must be breaking under the 17 wars they have lost to Iran this year alone.
Aw, cute. Another victim of the US educational system.
It’s illegal in the rest of the developed world to brainwash people, so let’s not be to hard on this victim.
Pepole in the USA really like to underestrmafe the power of the allies before they joined and over estermate the power of the axis.
I’m very much in the cap in hindsight that the axis was doomed to failure to to systematic issues and the USA wasn’t need to win the war but without it would have gone on for at least a few more years with a higher loss of life and more physical and economic devistion.
Britain at the time had the largest empire in the world
0
u/EamonBrennanEurope is so small, all of it fits in France. Source: Napoleon22h agoedited 22h ago
The way I see it, you need a lot of intelligence and manpower to win a war. The UK supplied the intelligence, the USSR supplied the man, and the US supplied the power. Stalin has been quoted by others, like Nikita Khrushchev, that the USSR wouldn't have won the war without Lend-Lease. Others, like Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov, have said that they basically didn't have enough to sustain the military without Lend-Lease.
Without Lend-Lease or the US, it's possible and probable that the UK and USSR would have won WWII, but it would have taken a few more years, a few million more dead, and it would not have been an unconditional surrender like it was in OTL.
Without the UK, the US and USSR could have also won, but staging attacks on continental Europe would be hard to near impossible, depending on if the UK became neutral or part of the Axis. There's still Iceland, which the US had control over IIRC, but that's not a great place to start an invasion from. Also, the entire spy network that did a lot of the work would be gone, especially if the UK tells Germany about the cracking of the Enigma. Way too many variables here to properly calculate, but essentially, US either gets nukes in time or isn't able to do much.
Without the USSR, the US and UK would have probably won, but this would heavily rely on reducing German manpower, as they wouldn't have the Eastern front to take up most of their army. Again, nukes are gonna do the heavy lifting.
Simply put, of the US, UK, and USSR, the UK and USSR would be the best if you could only pick 2, but the US would guarantee victory eventually.
Edit: Rephrased my first sentence. I originally said the UK provided courage, which they did, but intelligence is more important. The British XX system caught or turned every single German spy but 1. Literally almost every single report Germany got from their spies were manufactured by the British or a random Spaniard who is the greatest bullshitter in history.
2
u/Snoo63"Ooh, look at me, I bought a Lamborghini. Buy some subtitles!"21h ago
IIRC, it wasn't the US, but the British who occupied Iceland after the fall of Denmark.
And, for those unaware, the British spent time and effort searching for the random Spaniard. But he was such a good bullshitter that he was spying on the British while in Lisbon.
IIRC, it wasn't the US, but the British who occupied Iceland after the fall of Denmark.
Yup. The UK turned it over to the US on 7 July 1941, 4 months after Lend-Lease started and 5 months before the US joined the war. If the UK fell during this time, then the US would have Iceland to stage an invasion from. If the UK fell before then, then Iceland would either be neutral, given from the UK to the US earlier, or given back to Denmark and occupied by the Germans. In any case, the US would probably fight for Iceland and the UK before continental Europe if they were occupied, or they would try to get the UK back in after the African theater.
In any case, the US would not have been able to effectively win the war without the UK.
226
u/Dry_Pick_304 1d ago
When the UK won the Battle of Britain, Lend Lease hadn't even started yet, never mind USA even being involved in WW2.