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Originally Posted by SUBMAN1
However, Germany had the power to take on Russia and the British at the same time. Only when the Americans entered the war did things turn.
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That is not strictly true SUBMAN, the tide began to turn as early as late 1941 when Rommel was beginning to lose in Africa, to the British I might add
. Of course, the battle of Stalingrad and the onset of the Russian Winter, that was what stopped the Armies of the Reich dead in their tracks.
Though Lend-Lease cannot be ignored for its usefulness and assistance not to mention American finance. And Kudos where its due the invasion of German controlled territory and Germany itself.
Though, America can pat herself on the back all she wants, fact remains, if Japan had not have attacked Pearl Harbour, America
might have been quite happy to remain neutral and watch Europe and Asia tear itself apart slugging it out to the finish.
Not that I would blame them for doing that. But I think where a lot of this "revisionist" idea is coming from is that America for decades has churned out a variety of films showing themselves to be the hero of the hour and the one that singlehandedly saved the world from the evil of the Reich, oh and Britain and France and the other allies whoever they are lent a hand too. Take U-571 for example, the most recent one, according to that the US Navy got an enigma box before the Royal Navy did.
I think its all to easy to look back and say oh America, without them we'd have been stuffed, end of. The devil is in the detail, maybe this is all being read wrong and perhaps history is focussing on our accomplishments in the war and what the European powers did to fight the Nazis and the successes we made. Thats not to say that the contributions of the USA are overlooked, we know full well you singlehandedly stuffed the Japanese and assisted us at the same time in the final battles with the Reich, and with lend lease and money etc. And yeah, I think most of us know in Europe without America things could have been a LOT more ugly than they were.
To my mind, if you can pat yourselves on the back for what you succeeded in doing in the war, why can't we do the same for our successes in the war? A long time has been spent looking at what Uncle Sam did and being grateful, maybe, people want to know what we did.
That's what I think anyway.
