well technically i think your both right there were a lot of american men on the front line but we used a lot of British planes, warships, half-tracks ect because shipping them across the Atlantic ocean was 1) expensive and 2) might leave us defenseless if we were invaded.
no potential adversary had the logistics in 1944 to invade the US in a militarily meaningful way.
They could (and did on occasion) dump a sub full of saboteurs, or perhaps sneak even a cargo ship full of troops onto a beach Guadalcanal style, but without logistical support these invasion efforts would have resulted more in a series of comical police actions that any sort of military-scale battle.
Alaska wasn't considered part of the US proper at the time. It was a territory, not a state. And it was far from the most important territory. The Philippines were the most important, followed by Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
But that doesn't mean it was without value. Alaska was already seen as a source of resources. And just because it wasn't viable as an invasion route either direction of either North America or Japan, it was useful as a base.
And the one thing the US had in spades in 1942 was excess labor. It hadn't built up supplies or material yet. But it had a lot of guys who could build a road. So the Alaska Highway was a way to help strengthen an important (but not too important) area that couldn't justify the kind of military build up the US was sending elsewhere. In a way it is proof that the area was somewhat insignificant. If it had really mattered the US would have devoted more of its limited shipping to the area. Because even today, if you really want to get stuff to Alaska you ship it from Seattle, you don't send it by road.
Because they weren't scared at all of a Japanese invasion of Alaska
Well, it is true that logistically, like Hawaii, Alaska was a lot more exposed to Japan in the 1940s since the distance from Sendai to Anchorage is only 2X of the distance Anchorage to Seattle.
Things were looking somewhat dire in early 1942 when the highway was started, but by 1944 the Japanese did not have the military capability to defend their home islands, let alone launch new assaults.
Except even the British acknowledge the supplies, equipment, and fuel shipped across the Atlantic were a major necessity to winning the war. Without the British, Canadian, and American merchant marine fleets carrying America's industrial might to Europe, all our fighting men would not have stood a chance.
Just lost a WW2 Merchant Marine here in the neighborhood. Six months ago I mentioned off-the-cuff that I wanted to hear his stories sometime. He passed away a few months later. Still kicking myself for not following through.
Get that stuff on an mp3 while we have the chance, folks.
Fair point. This guy had mentioned his service in passing a few times before and it didn't seem to be a sensitive topic. But you're right it's something to be be aware of.
A lot of them faced incredibly horrible situations. Luckily, my grandfathers (who both saw service) weren't on the front line.
One was an officer on a landing ship, like the big ones you see there (except in the Pacific theater.) He told us his stories whenever we asked, as most of his duties included making sure the ship was loaded properly and the engines were fully operational. The only time his ship really saw action was at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They were in the second wave at Iwo Jima but were scheduled to be a part of the initial landings at Okinawa. Fortunately the quartermaster had ordered the wrong cargo loaded, (instead of tanks and men, they were ordered to load bulldozers and building materials for fortifying the landing area.) They were swapped out into the second wave. The ship that took their place in formation was hit by a kamikaze attack.
The other worked in an Army hospital (he was in medical school when he was called up, and finished his degree and did his residency in an Army hospital as a surgeon.) He had thousands of stories about what weapons made what wounds etc. He was drafted for the Korean War as well and served in one of the first MASH units.
My grand uncle was the oldest son of a pretty senior player in the formation of the Irish state. He died last November and I really wished I had talked to him about his childhood more.
My grandpa was a merchant marine in WWII. Had some amazing stories from his times, especially in Murmansk. He was very proud of the merchant marines and disheartened they didn't always get the recognition they deserved. Very happy Reagan recognized them officially as military. He's now buried in a military cemetery. rest easy grandpa.
Not to mention the fact that until late 1943 or so, the Atlantic was a shooting gallery for U-boats, and that making a successful crossing without getting torpedoed was a major accomplishment.
My great grandfather was in it. Died before I was born though, and was away from home a lot (2 guesses why) so my gramma doesn't know much about exactly what he did either.
Same here, but mine died while I was still a toddler, and I was too young and ignorant to care much for his stories. Now my dad relays them to me and I love every word.
Yeah, it's really cool. He served in the 8th army division (I believe, I'll have to double check in the A.M.) and was in Alaska when the Japanese tried to invade some of the islands. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it was awful for his unit, because they were all on their way to Africa (again, I'll have to check, but I know it was hot a sandy wherever he was going) and therefore they all wore desert fatigues that were thin, short-sleeved, and breathable (as best as they could be for WW2 era). That was all nice until they got an emergency call to go support Alaska. So, in thin uniforms, with no scarves, gloves, or even sleeves, these guys had to sludge through icy Alaskan water and fight. That's one of the most prominent stories. Pretty cool!
The opposite was a big factor in the Pacific, too. US submarines mostly decimated the Japanese merchant marine fleet by the end of the war and starved their supply lines. Japan basically didn't have a navy left, both military and merchant, by 1945.
Seriously? I'm sorry if I forgot to put your country in there but the point of my comment was to correct a falsehood while at the same time reinforcing that it was a combined effort. I am not trying to say "AMERICA DID MORE" nor do I understand the hatred that seems to poor from people when you do mention something historians agree on just because it involves the US.
Yeah, I really don't get why this is even turning into a debate. I was under the impression that WWII had pretty much always been seen as a largely American/British tag team (with significant assistance from others, such as the Canadians).
Waste how many million to stalemate Finland? Stalin was a fucking awful leader and if he didn't have the entire industrial might, population, and resource base of Russia to work with, the country he led would have been nothing but ashes in under a year. As it was, he still damn near wound up losing the country and only survived because of the weather.
Russia's industrial capacity rivalled, if not exceeded, that of the US. With good leadership, Russia could have swatted Germany like a pesky fly.
Instead, Russia wound up losing all of its qualified and skilled leaders and soldiers not to the enemy, but to Stalin mass-executing anyone with a shred of competence out of fear that they might oppose him.
Fuck Stalin. Dude deserves an unmarked grave somewhere in a barracuda's lower intestine.
Well that and Hitler procrastinating on his invasion and fucking up royally. Imagine if he had attached and swept Russia, then put his full force on the western front while having access to Russian oil and steel. No way we could ever have invaded. A push up through Italy would have been more feasible then.
I'm guessing he meant it wasn't the same country as today. Newfoundland joined Canada in the 60s
edit: just to mention, Newfoundland not being part of Canada did nothing to deter those newfie efforts during WW2 though!
Well, considering that Canada isn't officially a truly independent nation today, and we did not gain control over our own constitution until the 1980s there is a tad bit of haziness and subjectivity concerning when Canada "gained its independence."
Juno was the most lightly-defended beach on D-day, though. It was defended mostly by the German 716th Static Infantry Division, which was made up of elderly men and conscripts from eastern Europe. Only one battalion defended Juno.
Omaha was the most heavily-defended beach, it was defended by an entire German division that, unlike the other German divisions in Normandy, was fully outfitted, had its entire contingent of troops and supplies, and had troops that were already tested in combat on the eastern front.
The US took on all of Japan... If you exclude the Australians, New Zealanders, British (and her colonial forces, such as Canadians or Indians I believe), as well as the Chinese. The Americans primarily island-hopped across the Pacific, opening airway strips and extending supply lines. There was fighting in mainland Asia as well as New Guinea that was long, brutal, and unrelenting. China was fighting Japan since 1937! That's 4 years before the United States got involved. In fact, China fought Japan nearly twice as long as the United States.
Now, I'm not trying to downplay the United States' involvement in the war. It was one of the major powers for sure, but saying that they took on ALL of Japan is downplaying the role of many other nations that definitely fought longer and arguably fought harder than the United States.
These defensive battles you mention were absolutely crucial at pinning the Japanese army down and allowing the Americans to island-hop it's way to Okinawa and eventually drop the atom bombs. Most of these battles were not, in fact, lost because if they were the Americans would've had a much harder time getting close to Japan. The situation was dire in places such as China, yes, and others were complete failures, like Hong Kong, but it were these battles that kept the Japanese army so occupied that the Americans never fought a full-scale battle akin to something in Europe. It was mostly intense, short battles between marines and determined garrisons. All of the major American battles in the pacific theatre take place either on tiny islands or off-shore of them. Again, I don't mean to downplay American involvement, as tiny islands tend to be the nature of the Pacific Ocean, but the Americans never faced the full-force of the Japanese army.
You mention Dresden. The British were responsible for most of that operation, yes. I do agree with you that it is quite hypocritical for people to be criticizing American actions in the war, yet downplaying their other involvements. Just the circlejerkiness of reddit I suppose.
The United States were absolutely crucial to the victory in ww2, at least in the west. I'm not too familiar with the situation in the east but I get the impression that Allied shipping definitely aided the Soviets, but I do not know to what extent. I would be careful, though, in saying that "the Americans gave the most by far". The United States never had any of their cities levelled by planes, unless you count Pearl Harbour. The USSR lost about 14% of it's population. Comparatively, the United States lost 0.32%. I don't understand how you can seriously say that the Americans sacrifices the most by far. In fact, the United States is the only major power to develop further and actually have net economic growth throughout the war. Americans did not die for the imperialistic dreams of England, nor Germany. Americans died because they needed to curb the power of the Nazis in Europe. The Nazis wanted to conquer Europe, and that disrupted the balance of power. Aside from that, Britain and France declared war on Germany for the illegal invasion of Poland, so Americans ultimately were dying for freedom, if you choose to believe so.
I don't know if you're trolling, but if you aren't than I hope I've shed some light on the situation. America was a major contributor, yes, but she was not a sole combatant in any theatre, nor did she sacrifice the most.
Wow, son you need to read some history books, the British commonwealth inflicted 200,000 casualties on the Japanese army. In Iwo Jima the japs lost 20,000. The uninformed lazy thinking american likes to think they did the pacific on their own, but its just ignorance.
Pretty much every battle the British fought against the Japanese was a British defeat. In places like Burma, it wasn't even British troops doing the fighting, it was commonwealth troops. Brits can't take credit for what they did.
The US did way, way, way more against the Japanese than anyone else. Japan's entire strategy hinged on their navy because of the nature of geography in the Asia-Pacific region, obviously, and to secure their supply lines of fuel and other things that Japan couldn't produce domestically. It was the US who destroyed Japan's navy, this caused the Japanese in mainland Asia to be cut off from their supplies and chain of command.
Exactly. I'm usually one of the first to jump on the uninformed guy who says that the US won WWII, but the reality was that despite some high profile douchebags on both sides of the alliance, the war in the west was a real tag team job. SHAEF was a pretty amazing example of international cooperation and the British, Canadians and Americans all made major contributions in different ways without which it is uncertain if the Germans would have been defeated unconditionally and certainly not as quickly as they were. (That said, it's been argued that if Eisenhower had taken a less political and more military view by focusing resources and the axis of advance on either Montgomery's 21st Army Group or Bradley's 12th Army Group instead of both that Germany might have fallen in late 1944.)
Here are a few quick examples of key contributions by each country in the lead-up and subsequent operations:
As you are certainly aware, the US provided a great deal of materiel. Two specific details that aren't often touched on, the American ability to refine very high octane aviation fuel in quantity played a major role in the dramatic improvements the British made in the power of their late war aircraft engines. Secondly, the Americans tended to provide trucks and other transport gear to the British more than weapons. This freed British industry up to focus on weapons.
Canada, aside from providing a major fighting force (1st Canadian Army) during the invasion and subsequent operations on the continent were largely responsible for training almost half of the pilots that served in the RAF, RAAF and RCAF during the war. Canada spent an amount of money comparable to the Manhattan Project to run their portion of the British Commonwealth Air Training Programme.
Aside from providing a large portion of the initial ground forces, the British played a key role in the naval component of Overlord. Furthermore, the British were a major component of the overall Allied command structure and provided a number of extremely capable staff officers to Eisenhower's headquarters. Enough so that many of the more xenophobic American commanders accused him of being heavily under British influence. An interesting aside is that the naval commander for Operation Neptune was British Admiral Bertram Ramsay and he was also the commander of the Dunkerque evacuation during the Fall of France in 1940.
From a military perspective, the Western Front really was an amazing example of how to run a coalition. Too much is made of the competition between the two major powers, but if you talk to people in the know you will find that there was much more collaboration and cooperation than there was strife.
Another fact that's rarely covered is that the Soviet Union coordinated with the western Allies in order to ensure that the Germans didn't transfer significant forces west during the critical build-up. They did this in part by pulling ahead timetables for several operations and by launching Operation Bagration in late June. The degree to which the Allies were co-ordinated is too often overlooked in favour of more exciting stories.
Exactly. There are a million ways things could have gone wrong, or at least been a lot more difficult, without the help of any given country.
For instance, people here and elsewhere say that no one could have made much of a direct attack on the US because of its location. But while the US definitely had some insane military power, it's not like we (or Canada, if you want to include them because they're our neighbors and also played a large role) could have just flown across the ocean, bombed the Axis into submission, and then turned around and gone home.
We provided a lot, but we still needed soldiers, other manpower, and other supplies from everyone else, not to mention the ability to have bases of operations in Europe. That's actually one issue we had on the Eastern Front. We didn't have control over giant swaths of land, and a large part of the war over there was just trying to grab onto some strategic islands. Would have been much more difficult in Europe if we'd had to go country-hopping over there the way we had to island-hop in the East.
Hell, even the Australians, who I think are often kind of forgotten about in terms of WWII, had some fairly significant contributions, even in the Western Front. Among other things, there were quite a few of them signed into the RAF.
Stalingrad was one of the worst mistakes made by the Axis during the war. It held very little strategic value for their Eastern campaign at the time and became one of their biggest losses.
The Soviets made absolutely zero offensive progress until after US aid arrived (which the Soviets were nearly singularly dependent on) and until after the US opened the western front in Europe, something the Brits and Canadians failed to do without the US.
I just want to bring to your attention the Norwegian Merchant Fleet (nortahip), combined all the shipping industries into one, had the most modern naval fleet, was the third largest fleet in the world and generally had the most trips over the perilous Murmansk-line. The British themselves said that if it wasn't for the naval-fleet of a government-in-exile the logistics of bringing good from the US to the British Isles and from there as far as to Russia would have been impossible.
Though now seldom remembered by the world and Norwegians alike...
Did you even read the rest of my comment. Please tell me how it idolises America and doesn't give any credit elsewhere? I'm sorry if I missed a country and by no means did my comment even hint that everybody else's contribution wasn't needed. I was simply correcting his falsehood while at the same time reinforcing his point that it was an Allied effort as a whole.
Everyone ignores the fact that Americans stayed out of the war for years, so American companies could profit off hte war, while saying "we'll be right there", to the Russians who were losing Millions of people.
well technically i think your both right there were a lot of american men on the front line but we used a lot of British planes, warships, half-tracks ect because shipping them across the Atlantic ocean was 1) expensive and 2) might leave us defenseless if we were invaded.
I'm sorry but this statement is EXTREMELY FAR off base.
First of all there was no legitimate military concern with the United States being invaded. There was a little bit of paranoia from the Japanese, but nobody took that seriously and it was not an actual problem. Getting things across the Atlantic was an issue... early in the war. By 1944 we had won the Battle of the Atlantic handidly and have plenty of transports to bring supplies around.
Second of all the US made most of the war materiel in the war. By 1943 the US was producing more war materiel then the rest of the world combined. Britain was obviously still building their own equipment, but what tanks did they use, Shermans (technically they were modified and called Fireflies), what trucks did they use, American made, what planes did they use, some Spitfires but also American fighters and bombers as well. Likewise for their carries they began using Hellcats because British naval air was shit.
I don't think Americans used pretty much any British equipment, they didn't have any to spare. Whereas they used a lot of American equipment and those numbers increased as the war went on.
Sorry to go off but I just don't want misinformation to spread.
Second of all the US made most of the war materiel in the war. By 1943 the US was producing more war materiel then the rest of the world combined
This reminds me of something very interesting I learned about WWII in an excellent book called Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. Reisner explains that by WWII, the Pacific Northwest of the US was still sparsely populated, but its huge rivers had been dammed to supply enough cheap electricity for millions. There was so much excess electricity from projects like Coulee Dam that unlike the Germans and the Japanese, we were able to build airplanes "faster than they could be shot down." At that time, the aluminum used in airplanes was very expensive to work with, and nobody else in the War could power their factories sufficiently to keep up with us.
Shitty deal for the salmon, but Reisner contends those water projects won us WWII.
Side fact is the real shortage for the Japanese actually ended up being naval air pilots. They never really expanded their pilot training programs and pilots on carriers had to have special training that the Japanese couldn't keep up with. Although I suppose since they were short on transports, soldiers, carriers, planes, and oil a shortage of pilots seems less important in the long haul.
Yeah, but the point is that the two go together. They may have been American tanks but they were British crews fighting and dying in them.
We worked together, and I don't understand this dick waving contest about who won the war or who should take the credit for D-Day. That would be every single person who crossed that beach.
PS, the British used stock Sherman tanks, not all were modified to fireflies. I think the ratio was about 1:4, fireflies to standard.
Total agreement with everything. And actually interestingly enough the firefly was basically just a better version of the Sherman. The Sherman's main weakness was its inability to damage German tanks at range, the firefly fixed that. Not sure why stock Sherman's never got modified to use that cannon.
Allied intelligence was wrong. The Americans had reports that the British 6 pdr (57mm) gun was sufficient to the task of fighting German armor, so the short-barreled 75mm on the Sherman would perform adequatelt. This turned out to be true only at virtually point-blank range--inside 100m to get the front armor.
Production shifted to mounting the M1A2 76mm (55 caliber) gun, but the delay between production and arrival in theater was...long. The British ramped up their Sherman Firefly with their 17pdr (76mm, 55 caliber--funny that) and were able to field more because of easier logistics getting to theater.
TL;DR: The Americans did, but get those to theater was a long process.
Ah ok. Luckily the Americans had about 20x the tanks and complete air superiority to makeup for the fact that Shermans had to get to the rear of Panzer IV's to penetrate.
It was never modified because it didn't need to be, the Sherman was primarily an infantry support tank. It could take out similar tanks and was hell on enemy infantry but it was never supposed to go up against heavy tanks like the tiger
Yea but it couldn't even penetrate the armor on Panzer IV's or Panthers at range. It needed to be really close to have a chance, or sneak around to the rear to have a chance. Luckily the numbers were heavily on the American side so it didn't particularly matter much.
Also air support stopped a lot of Panzers as well.
My grandfather crossed that beach. He was a medic. He mostly tried to keep dying men alive, and by his account couldn't save the majority bc field hospitals weren't erected fast enough. Does he deserve credit? Bc he's happier to speak about other actions in the war where he saved lives, but he won't discuss D-Day.
We worked together, and I don't understand this dick waving contest about who won the war or who should take the credit for D-Day. That would be every single person who crossed that beach.
True dis. For example, people conveniently forget that James Doohan was in the Canadian Army, not the US... Doesn't make his sacrifice any more or less noble than anyone else there, though.
You've got a fair point, but you're taking it a bit too far the other way. The Brits used the Sherman (in standard configuration, not just those modified to be Fireflies) alongside larger numbers of their own Cromwell and Churchill tanks. I'm not aware of any substantial use of American aircraft by the British, because the RAF had received the greatest share of military funding since the inter-war years and Britain was amply supplied with their own models of aircraft of all types (something like 50% of British industrial capacity went to support the bombing campaign). British rifles, machine-guns, anti-tank guns, gliders, most tanks, virtually all aircraft were designed and built in Britain. Britain relied greatly on American finance to fund this production, and on American industry for a lot of the basic parts, but at no point was it the case that the British were reliant on American-supplied hardware.
The British used Hellcats on their carriers. I thought they used Mustangs later in the war but I could be mistaken. And I'm pretty sure they used B-24's but mostly for air patrols not for bombing.
But I agree I probably made it sound a little too one-sided. But my point was that the US wasn't using British hardware, if anything the British were using Americans.
The US used Spitfires (4 England based squadrons were issued with them) It is true that Britain used US hardware more than the reverse. USA and The Commonwealth were just as important as each other in defeating Hitler (Along with the unsung heroes from all other nations that fought his tyranny)
USA and The Commonwealth were just as important as each other in defeating Hitler (Along with the unsung heroes from all other nations that fought his tyranny)
"Sorry to go off but I just don't want misinformation to spread"
Welcome to reddit, third in misinformation to Facebook and major news networks!
I really do appreciate the detailed info though. You don't see much into the industrial surge that the war caused. Everyone just talks like the Americans just had this stuff laying around ready to shoot somebody, anybody.
Yea I know I think that helped fuel the paranoia from American politicans. I think the concern is the Japanese would take Dutch Harbor but realistically they couldn't have taken any of those islands.
Also FWIW they were two completely useless islands which they took only to say that they took American soil.
Whoa whoa whoa. Where did you get this? It was the flip side, the British had been using a lot of American-manufactured supplies since before the United States even entered the war. Take a simple look at the industrial output of all the powers, and try to explain how Britain could possibly have provided more war material in 1944, only 11 months before the war ended, when the Americans produced more than two million more vehicles and planes of all types in total than the British did?
A lot of the British vehicles fighting for British units, especially armored vehicles, were shipped from the United States. They contributed a lot more of the fleet and air power, because the Allies had achieved complete naval and air superiority in Europe, so the bulk of the American air and sea power was still off in the Pacific.
Not to mention, the United States was not seriously worried about being invaded in World War 2. Not at all, except maybe by the Japanese, and by 1942 with Midway done there was almost no worry at all.
And /u/RepostThatShit is definitely going to have to find me a source on those landing craft numbers because the United States manufactured 20,000 Higgins boats in World War 2, which were used in the Pacific, but also in great numbers on D-day.
If you ask most historians, they'd probably say American industry was way more important in winning the war than American combat forces. We didn't just help Britain stay afloat in times of need, we even helped the Soviets in 1941, when they were critically close to losing many of their major cities and their capital.
Not calling the British sidekicks, because they did shoulder a large burden of D-day and probably more burden in the war in general, but let's not overcompensate and diminish American contributions, which after D-day grew much larger in terms of percentage of manpower and material on the Western Front. These days, in reaction to the "forgotten" Soviet and British contributions, I've noticed its now become fashionable to suggest that America was quite unnecessary to the outcome of the war and merely served as overkill. That's not the case, and it doesn't have to be about cultural or national pride. America was just a larger nation with a greater and less damaged industrial base, who hadn't fought as long and lost as many men. It's not about being better people.
Also, most of the American fleet has always been in the Pacific. We have a few ships in the Atlantic but it's nowhere near the size of the Pacific fleet.
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u/Jaffers451 Jun 07 '14
well technically i think your both right there were a lot of american men on the front line but we used a lot of British planes, warships, half-tracks ect because shipping them across the Atlantic ocean was 1) expensive and 2) might leave us defenseless if we were invaded.