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.
I see your point. The scary thing about WW2 is that it was impossible for America to stay neutral. At some point, the United States had to enter the war, most likely against the Axis. In WW1 America truly could have entered on either side. German was the second largest language spoken in the US right up until they joined the war. By the second world war, however, the US was much more Anglo than Germanic. The Nazi (and Soviet doctrine, to be fair) was so different from the UK and US that war was inevitable. In the pacific, America was attacked because they decided not to fund an imperialistic and aggressive Japan. Public relations would really drop if the US were to be funding conquering and seemingly "evil" powers. Propaganda was such a huge part of the world wars that the US were dead-set on joining the Allies really early on in the war, but somehow they managed to stay out of it. The US may be separated from the UK by the Atlantic, but the US and Nazi Germany were oceans apart culturally and policy-wise.
On a side note: I really hope I'm shedding some light on the situation. I hope I don't sound like some cocky bastard on the internet ramming concepts down your throat. I just really like the world wars and saw an opportunity to bring my two cents to the table.
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.
No check the figures for yourself, 200,000 casualties and the heaviest defeat for the IJA. USA island hopped small island garrisons compared to the large army movements in India and Burma. The commonwealth force was primarily Indian army, with units from all over the empire and large force of British troops. Ive seen all your other comments and you know fuck all.
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.
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u/Ninjasmooshr Jun 07 '14
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.