Atlantic Ocean question...

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As to whether the Soviets were grateful, no I do not think they were judging by the poor reception and facilities given/granted to the allied sailors that arrived in the Soviet Union.

I'm no expert on the subject so I may be absolutely wrong here, but couldn't this just be a problem of perception? Even if the Allies sailors received standard Soviet accommodation this would probably be below the standard they are used to in their British/American bases and thus perceived as a 'poor reception'.

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: Borodino
It hasn't happened in this thread, but usually I get some person who has never been to Russia or never attended a Soviet school telling me what I was taught as a student...

I will tell you you were taught Russian

[tocaff]

LL helped the Russians in their struggle against the Germans.  The size of the country, the winters, the manpower and the will to continue the fight at all costs are what defeated the Germans.  The bulk of the German military was employed vs the Russians so would a weary UK and the US have been able to do it without the USSR?  Who knows?  Would an A bomb have been used on Germany?  So many questions and no definitive answers.

[Torplexed]

Of the total German armed forces losses of 13,488,000 in World War II, 80 percent--10,758,00 were suffered on the Eastern Front. However, it came at an staggering cost in Russian lives and property. General Dwight Eisenhower on a post-war trip to the Soviet Union stated, "When we flew into Russia in 1945, I did not see a house standing between the western borders of the country and the region around Moscow. Through this overrun region, Marshal Zhukov told me, so many numbers of women, children and old men had been killed that the Russian Government would never be able to estimate the total."

When the Germans retreated from the Ukraine in late 1943 and early 1944, they conducted a devastating scorched earth policy. In the process they destroyed more than 28,000 villages and 714 cities and towns, leaving over 10,000,000 people without shelter. They also wiped out 16,000 industrial enterprises, more than 200,000 industrial sites, 27,910 collective and 872 state farms, 1,300 machine and tractor stations, and 32,930 schools.

I can see why the war still leaves such a deep impression there to this day. If Japan had done the same to us I'm not sure we have stopped with just two atomic bombs. [:D]

[Borodino]

Just so you know, not all Soviets were Russian.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: Borodino

Just so you know, not all Soviets were Russian.

Only the good ones!![8D]

IMHO, there are two major impacts of LL.

1. The arrival of so many radios, trucks, train engines, strategic materials etc allowed the USSR to concentrate more on the vital military production of the T-34, KV's, Su's etc. Would the Red rmy have been so well equipped at the front if not for so much LL equipment in the rear and in less important zones?

2. The denuding of Empire troops to provide aircraft and AFV to the USSR, whether they liked them or not. Could the results in the Western Desert & FarEast have been different if more/better aircraft were available. Exchange Hurricane IIC's for Buffalo's and add a Tank Brigade equipped with Valentines and see if it makes a difference.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Borodino

The War was a team effort, this whole "Russians wouldn't have won without our help" garbage on Western forums is as ridiculous to me as "We the Great Soviet Union won the entire war by ourselves, if not for the Yankees dropping the atom bombs we would have taken Tokyo by September" that are all over the RUnet.

Salute! to everybody that won that terrible war...

AMEN! Lend-Lease was an aid to the Soviet War effort, but amounted to less that 10% of Soviet production. America spent mostly treasure and resources, while the Russians spent mostly blood. Both were needed, and fortunately, both were available. From what I've read and heard, the single most valuable Lend-Lease item provided may well have been the millions of cans of SPAM that provided Soviet frontline troops with a meal a day in 1944-45.

[Borodino]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

AMEN! Lend-Lease was an aid to the Soviet War effort, but amounted to less that 10% of Soviet production. America spent mostly treasure and resources, while the Russians spent mostly blood. Both were needed, and fortunately, both were available. From what I've read and heard, the single most valuable Lend-Lease item provided may well have been the millions of cans of SPAM that provided Soviet frontline troops with a meal a day in 1944-45.

Indeed, while wargamers and 'equipment obsessives' I think it translates love to focus on P-39s, A-20s, B-25s and Sherman tanks etc. (as well as the trucks and radios) the real real help from LL aid was rations, and not just rations for soldiers, but rations for the citizens producing war material in the Soviet Union. Bacon and beans don't have cool statistics and specifications, or hero stories of operators, but this material was what was most important. The war would have been won without Western Allied planes and tanks, the Soviet Union had the capability to manufacture that equipment. With most of the farms captured or destroyed, farmers dead, behind the lines, or in the Army, it was the food that really helped, but by mid 43 it wasn't as needed but it allowed for more workers to be used to make other war materials.

I have done a lifetime of study on this war both during Soviet Times, and in the past 20 years using many different sources in Russian(Ukrainian, Belorussian), English, German, Finnish(Estonian, Latvian) languages and I feel that the war still would have been won without LL aid although it made the going much easier and I will even admit was probably the reason the RKKA got to Berlin first, though I don't think the help was 'unappreciated' at the time, and even when it was downplayed in the post war time it was still always mentioned as an important piece of the victory puzzel.

[Canoerebel]

Borodino has been most gracious (and accurate) in his handling of this topic. Sometimes it's tough to be in the position of people discussing your country's role in war, even when that discussion is well-mannered and thought provoking. A tip of the cap to him.

One of the most amazing (and little-known, at least in the West) stories of World War II was the vast number of Russians (mostly Ukranians, I think) who allied with Germany against the USSR. These men were led by General Andreij Vlasov, a lieutenant general who received the Order of the Red Banner for his role in the defense of Moscow in 1942. After he was captured by German forces in the Leningrad campaign, Vlasov chose to organize and lead Rusisan troops bent on overthrowing the Stalinist regime in Russia. Estimates of the total number of troops and volunteers involved range from several hundred thousand to two million. Nazi Germany did not welcome the Vlasov Russians until sometime in late 1944. They only fought against the Soviets along the Oder River during the final days of the war.

Vlasov and about a dozen others were eventually captured and executed by the Soviet Union.

Pardon the thread hijack, but I thought you guys might be interested in just how complicated Russian politics (any politics, really) can become during a time of acute crisis.

[Borodino]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Borodino has been most gracious (and accurate) in his handling of this topic. Sometimes it's tough to be in the position of people discussing your country's role in war, even when that discussion is well-mannered and thought provoking. A tip of the cap to him.

One of the most amazing (and little-known, at least in the West) stories of World War II was the vast number of Russians (mostly Ukranians, I think) who allied with Germany against the USSR. These men were led by General Andreij Vlasov, a lieutenant general who received the Order of the Red Banner for his role in the defense of Moscow in 1942. After he was captured by German forces in the Leningrad campaign, Vlasov chose to organize and lead Rusisan troops bent on overthrowing the Stalinist regime in Russia. Estimates of the total number of troops and volunteers involved range from several hundred thousand to two million. Nazi Germany did not welcome the Vlasov Russians until sometime in late 1944. They only fought against the Soviets along the Oder River during the final days of the war.

Vlasov and about a dozen others were eventually captured and executed by the Soviet Union.

Pardon the thread hijack, but I thought you guys might be interested in just how complicated Russian politics (any politics, really) can become during a time of acute crisis.

Thank you for the kind words Canoerebel. Vaslov is an interesting subject, my studies including some documents released around 1998 or 1999, have put me in the school of thought that Vaslov defected to save his own skin. He was an oppertunist. It shows when he ordered his unit to turn on the Germans in an attempt to gain favor with the Western Allies. He has become a bit of a folk hero of the Russian far-right and has had his legend grow because of this. He was a very good general, but he was more of a man in it for himself more than anything, which is probably why he was still in the army in 1941... Different subject though.

Yes there were many that at first supported the German invasion seeing it as a liberation, especially in Ukraine, but as occupation set in, the same people that welcomed the Nazis as liberators started to sing a different tune. In reality the Nazis did what Stalin's 25 years of 5 year plans couldn't do, the invasion united the Soviet Union as one people. If Hitler had not invaded, the USSR would have probably splintered in 10 to 15 years.

[sanch]

ORIGINAL: Borodino

... In reality the Nazis did what Stalin's 25 years of 5 year plans couldn't do, the invasion united the Soviet Union as one people. If Hitler had not invaded, the USSR would have probably splintered in 10 to 15 years.

I had never even considered the possibility of the USSR going under without the war. But it makes perfect sense. I would bet the effect was the same as the Japanese attack on PH was to the United States - instant total support for the war.

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: Borodino

Ahh yes we, the Soviets were only able to defeat the Nazi super soldiers because of Lend Lease and let me guess, the winter?

It was the Western Allies who simply allowed the Soviet Union to hang on, I forgot.

Borodino -

I suspect that anyone who has taken the time to give serious study to the War in the East, has an appreciation for the courage and sheer perseverance of the Russian Soldiers and People, who not only had to deal with a hated invader, but with their own government, a police state that could be just as ruthless and unforgiving as the Germans. It became rapidly evident, to any thinking man or woman in the USSR, that defeat meant not just occupation and exploitation, but the systematic enslavement and possible extermination of a whole nation and it's culture. I am a strong believer in and supporter of our Democratic way of life, but that does not detract or affect in any degree my sincere respect for and appreciation of what Russia endured in the Great Patriotic War.

I spent a few moments with Amazon trying to find a book from 1956 - a study of the German Occupation Policies of the Ukraine. Found one reference that may be it, but am not sure. Anyway, reading the book left an indelible imprint that stays to this day.

OK- that's it.

Mac