ORIGINAL: USSMaine
Can we UN-hijack Mr.Laurent's thread - and take the who one WW2 rhetoric elsewhere - someplace useful like usenet or another forum [:-]
I said not to start this, because I knew this would result.
just cuz britain beat hitler in the battle of britain doesnt mean they would have won the war by themselves
Nope. Never said they would. The Russians would have.
and britain would not have beat germany in the battle of britain if the luftwaffe had free reign, and a better commander
Not strictly true. Churchill knew how to play Hitler, and did it on several occassions. He was very good at jerking Hitler's chain, and getting him to make stupid decisions.
In this case, the Germans stopped bombing the RAF airfields beause they thought they weren't being very effective, and Britain bombed German cities so Hitler wanted revenge.
The reason the Germans thought they weren't being very effective was because of 3 things.
1. The Luftwaffe Enigma codes had very sloppy operational security. Making them very easy for the code breakers to crack (the naval Enigma was the toughest of the three service Enigmas in use to crack). So the code breakers knew what the Germans were going to do before they did it (of course hey had to be careful not to use that too obviously, Coventry is an example of a decision not to immediately act on Enigma information).
2. British Radar and tracking was much more effective than the Germans could even imagine. Thus it was fairly easy for the RAF to react in force to a Luftwaffe attack.
3. They made a point of always having their Spitfires attack in large concentration. Even if it meant showing up late for the battle, they attacked in force.
The net effect of these was to make the Germans think the RAF had far more aircraft, and more functional airfields, than they really did. Thus they concluded that they weren't doing significant damage to the RAF, and basically at that point conceeded the BoB.
But really, what Germany could have done in the BoB is irrelivant. They didn't, and it had nothing to do with the US. So what?
in fact we lost 2 usn destroyers and over 150 men wile we were NEUTRAL
That doesn't make the US a contributor. That simply means the Germans shot at everything they saw on the ocean.
and we didnt contribute cuz we didnt want to get involved with another idiotic european war
As opposed to another stupid Middle Eastern war?
That again is not a point in your favour. Many beleive that if Germany had not declared war on the US, the US would bever have gotten involved in Europe. And it could be argued that if the Japanese hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour, the US would have slowly withdrawn from the Pacific and let the Japanese do as they will.
The US policy up until WW2 was complete isolationism. There was no interest in helping or 'saving' anyone.
and yes we were profiting sumwat, cuz we needed to get wat was left of r industry in gear to save UR BUTTS
Quick Geography lesson. Canada is in North America. We're that big country nort of the United States. We were never in any danger here.
As for getting the industry in gear to 'save anyone'. See earlier comments about never intending to get involved in the war in the first place. The US did not really start ramping up their industry for war until after Pearl Harbour, because they hadn't planned on being in a war.
There was money to be made selling stuff to the Commonwealth, Russians, Germans, and Japanese though.
the battle of atlantic was decided in MAY OF 43 NOT in 42
Interesting date... I'd like to see what you base that on.
At any rate, the USN did not do much convoy duty. The RCN and RN were the ones doing the convoy duty.
britain would have been starved if we hadnt come into it
alot of times britain was down to about 2 WEEKS worth of food and fuel
No... Britain would have starved if Canada hadn't been contriuting food and materials. A lot of aircraft and other equipment for the UK was also built in Canada.
That is not to say that the US didn't contribute when they finally did get involved, but to say they 'saved' Britain and Europe is nothing but hubris.
and there HAD BEEN a realistic chance of pulling off sea lion, if hitler and the luftwaffe hadnt screwed up so badly
and britain certainly wouldve fallen if that IDIOT hadnt invaded russia
Irrelivant. I'm talking about what did happen, not what might have happened.
and the air raids DID have a decent effect on germany
killing rail lines
bridges
communications
air defenses
Again, no.
They had an effect, yes. But not a crippling effect. More of an irritation than anything else.
D-Day actually showed that, they had a huge bombardment before the attack. Which did almost nothing, except wake up the Germans.
Close support aircraft flying low level attacks strafing the hell out of anything that moved, and blowing up bridges and so on, had a much more significant impact than the Strategic Bombing did.
that is why monty was NOT named supreme commander, cuz he was too in love with his own self image
Agreed. Monty was a complete ass.
And he certainly was not very good at playing with the other generals.
He did however understand that the inital notion of the invasion (too few troops on the first day on too narow a front with way too many troops following up in the next couple weeks) was not going to work.
He did understand the concept of logistics - as was pointed out to me elsewhere - and that was one of his strengths as a land comnmander.
So he suggested the broader front, with more troops (on the first day), and indicated how crucial it was to get a real port as soon as possble, and the temporary ports until then. As it was, there were problems with too many troops stuck in a traffic jam on the beaches within a few days, but it could have been worse.
and patton wasn't
Patton was just a big an ass as Monty. He very much pissed off his own people, which is why he wasn't involved in the initial landings. Instead they used him as a decoy - which was a good idea to be sure, but he wanted to be on the front lines.
Pattn was a very good general, he knew the businsess of war. His failing was he did not understand how to deal with people very well.
And I won't bother dealing with the rest of that crap. It is pure American arrogance, nothing more.
But you call me arogant, while sitting there insulting the nations and soldiers who fought and died for years before the US were finally dragged kicking and screaming into the war. And then have the audacity to think that they saved the entire bloody world all by their lonesome.
It is not hollywood fed, and it is NOT ego
it is HISTORICAL FACT!
No, 'fraid not. Sorry.
Case in point of Hollywood propoganda, U-571. They went off and had Americans getting the Unterseeboot version of the Enigma codes. In actual fact, and as listed at the end of the film, almost all cases of the U-Engima being captured was by the Royal Navy. But unless you made a point of reading that, a casual viewer would hink it was the american navy that usually did that.
I've already said my piece. Bobthehatchit, added to it. Any more would be pointless. You want to beleive the Hollywood version of WW2 where the US did everything all by themselves, fine, go ahead, no skin off my butt. The US has made a point of beleiving the world revolves around them since their inception, you can just be one more.
And you can continue to be all shocked when they get nothing but scorn from many Europeans and Asians, and hatred from most Arabs.
I'm sure you'll come back with some trite like 'the truth hurts' or some such B.S. But what do you know about he truth? Apparently nothing from what you've said here.
