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Serger, read Georg Grossjohan’s book “Five Years, Four Fronts”. It’s the memoirs of a German officer who survived the entire war serving on four different parts of the war. He gives credit to American supplies and the Ford 2 1/2 ton truck as the reason the Russians prevailed in their battle. So while patrolling the seas all around the world, manufacturing and transporting war materials to the allies and fighting the Japanese which was a much tougher battle than a European ground war, the Americans accomplished what no other nation could.
It’s ridiculous to suggest the US would have fought battles like the Soviets did. We had complete air superiority so there would have been no German tanks. Also there was no hatred between Germany and the US. Most of us have German ancestry. It would have been over quickly, especially after the Marines finished with the Japanese.
You mean like during the (unnecessary) destruction of Dresden, sure, however that was 1945, not 41.
BTW, Soviets gained air superiority some time late 1942 during Stalingrad.
It was the Great Purge of 1936-38 that removed over half of the Red Army's most experienced and capable officer corps.
Indeed, and did they ever pay for that. Look at the Winter War. However - after the first grim fiascos, the Red Army started realizing that winning battles was pretty damn important. And towards the end of the war, the Soviet Army was filled with people who'd been exposed to the worst that the Wehrmacht could hurl at them, taken it on, and emerged victorious. Learning along the way what worked and what didn't. If anyone had been foolish enough to take up Patton's idea of pushing East, it would not have ended well.
Last edited by Dane_in_LA; 05-15-2018 at 04:00 PM..
The Royal Air Force, for another, was busily flying hundreds of strafing/bombing missions in the far east against Japanese held territory.
The RAF and the XIVth Army in Burma developed tactical air support to a very fine art - to the point where they could coordinate the last run at Japanese positions as a "dry run" - no weapons fired - because the Allied ground troops were so close. (This is not a trivial thing to do. It speaks to extreme professionalism.)
But it was just that - tactical. For the RAF to carry out a ground attack not in direct support of the troops, it would have to be on a soft, immobile and very valuable target. (Slim writes in hos book on the Burma campaign that the RAF had intel on a Japanese division HQ. He jokingly asked them not to attack, as that specific general was remarkably incompetent and he'd much prefer to keep him in charge.)
Of course, that campaign had its own specific and rather unique conditions.
I would say Russia. The battle of Stalingrad is considered the most brutal and bloodiest battles ever fought.
But the British certainly did their share, especially the RAF.
I'm siding with the Brits on this one. Yea, Russia lost a lot of people, they did throw the scrap on, but I can't bring myself to give Stalin any real credit. He was Hitlers buddy till Hitler turned on him, and he had to threaten his forces with death by their own countries hand to motivate them. If I were in a Russian soldiers shoes at Stalingrad I would be thinking maybe German governance couldn't be worse than Stalin. IMHO Stalin WAS worse than Hitler. Yea Hitler did murder millions in most aggregeous ways, but numbers wise Stalin killed as many of his own as the Germans did on the battlefield.
The Brits fought because the love their country, and were actually devoted. The Russian fought because they had a better chance of survival by fighting. Death was certain if they didn't. Nah, I can't bring myself to giving the frickin' Russians much. Besides, they were our enemy then and still are.
Well if we really want to get down to it. England and France as well as a few others didn't honor their treaties and ignored Germany's many violations and allowed them to grow into the war machine that was almost unstoppable.
England and France then ignored their mutual defense treaties with countries like Poland and watched as Germany crushed them.
Then you had the USSR sign treaties with Germany and watched as Germany did what it was doing.
Then you had the USA which pretty much didn't want anything to do with another European war. Our Politicians skillfully maneuvered us into the war anyway.
The war really began with the treaty of Versailles. A very punitive action that pretty much ensured a future war, but absolutely made some people very wealthy.
So who did the most to defeat Hitler?
The soviets sure gave the Germans more targets than they could shoot.
The English and American partnership although not as perfect as Hollywood made it out to be, absolutely was a game changer.
I think we all can agree, of the major players the ones who did the least was France.
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