ira

Interesting discussion.

I think that I'll just continue to lurk.

j_999_9

So, the impression I'm getting is that most Brits think the US loan was a good thing, and not an attempt to take advantage of an ally.

I think there's a quote from Roosevelt regarding the easy terms of the loan, which we in the US were led to believe greatly favored the UK: "When your neighbor's house is on fire, you don't haggle over the price of a hose."

Audere: Disregard Hollywood. It's overrated and I suspect its effect is greater on non-Americans than on those of us in the US. Anyone in the US with any sense of history is well aware of the suffering that took place in the UK.

As for "the moral high ground" that could have been taken by entering the war before Pearl Harbor: Political realities pretty much prohibit entry into a war before a country is attacked (or, at least its doorstep is attacked). Donald Rumsfeld had it right when he said that without Sep. 11, there would never have been an invasion of Iraq.

Dukey

Mucky...where was I when those "peace" accords were signed....watching the nation of shopkeepers heave a sigh of relief and pulling the covers back up over their heads.

samting

My Grandchildren are currently studying the WWII with great interest and I encourage that..had the Allies not won the war, their lives, even if they were allowed to live, would be markedly differently. I am still moved to tears when I see the fields of stones or crosses in European cemetaries, and I thank these boys (mostly) whose life was cut short in their prime to save the world. Let us never forget...and the British soldiers are part of one of the most efficient armies in the world. Let's never forget our allies...on both sides.

nona1

This is an interesting site on the roles played by different countries during WW2, both Allied and Axis. The map shows how it truly was a world war, with very few countries remaining 'neutral' and it's interesting to read about the contributions made by the countries that we tend to forget were involved.

I think that the 'US couldn't enter the war officially until attacked' idea is a little generous, seeing as Australia and Canada were two of the very first countries to declare war on Germany. However, the US did support the Allies in other ways, particularly supplies, before entering with their troops. So they were certainly an important part of the war-effort from early on.

nona1

opps here's the link http://www.century-of-flight.freeola...2/involved.htm

chartley

Wikipaedia has an interesting table showing Second World War casualties in different countries at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties. The United States lost 0.32% of its population, compared with 0.94% for the United Kingdom, 1.35% for France, 10.82% for Germany and 16.09% for Poland.
Because France surrenedered, it suffered less damage from bombing than other Allied countries. The really serious damage was done by the Allies during the liberation, and the 1950s appearance of towns like Caen, Brest, Cherbourg and Le Havre is because they were Allied military targets and were largely destroyed in 1944.
The United States was the winner of the Second World War. It suffered little damage to its infrastructure or population, and was able to return to a peacetime economy very quickly and successfully. The war reduced the power and authority of the British Empire, and it is sometimes thought to have been one of the American objectives in the conflict.

logos999

Thanks for the link to the statistics.
Army personnel killed:
Germany 30.9%
Soviet Union 25.1%
Japan 24.22%
USA 2.8%
In the end, there's no difference.

caroline_edinburgh

"Army personnel killed:
Germany 30.9%
Soviet Union 25.1%
Japan 24.22%
USA 2.8%
In the end, there's no difference."

I don't know if these figures are reliable or not, but there's quite a lot of difference if you look at it in actual total numbers of people killed :-

Germany7,500,000
Soviet Union 23,200,000
Japan 2,600,000
USA 418,500

And UK (weren't we worth mentioning ?) 450,400

In the end, there's no difference.

Mucky

Just a note of caution when quoting stats from Wikipedia.
It should never be relied upon for accurate academic reference.

Dukey are you really that old??
;-)

Muck

j_999_9

>>The war reduced the power and authority of the British Empire, and it is sometimes thought to have been one of the American objectives in the conflict.<<

That's irresponsible and inflammatory. You have no more grounds for saying that than I do for saying Churchill knew about Pearl Harbor in advance but withheld the info in order to make sure the US was drawn into the war.

Both statement are baseless and ridiculous. And it's dishonest to use the fig leaf "it is sometimes thought ..." By whom? At what times?

bennyb

I didn't know countries actually re-paid debts! I thought they just keep track of those things on paper, but the money never really changes hands.

Was it part of Great Britain's budget? Is there a line item, "$50 million pounds to the U.S. treasury"? I admit, I am woefully ignorant sometimes (a lot of times).

2Italy

Can't we all just get along?
OK the Americans are proud, the Brits are proud, the French are Proud, the Canadians are proud, the Australians are proud, and on, and on, and on. SOOOOOOOOO?

sheila

I actually thought the basis of 9's question was really interesting. I'm not really interested in the "who said what to whom and why" stuff.

But I think the US must have changed its views about not entering into a war before it's attacked based on its track record the last 60 years.

And what on earth did 9/11 have to do with Iraq- are we back to Churchhill knowing about Pearl Harbour again?

walkinaround

>>>>>
And what on earth did 9/11 have to do with Iraq- are we back to Churchhill knowing about Pearl Harbour again?
>>>>>

'Pearl HARBOUR' ....now you're just having a laugh aren't you.

xyz123

I do not believe anybody has ever claimed that Churchill knew anything about Pearl Harbor or Japanese intentions in the Pacific (they certainly did little to strengthen the defenses in Malaysia and Singapore_...

Strong evidence does suggest that Roosevelt knew some sort of Japanese attach was coming that Sunday morning...remember the USA had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code and was reading the traffic going into the Japanese Embassy and they knew the Japanese ambassador Nomura and the special envoy Kurusu were instructed early on that Sunday morning Washington time to set up an appointment for 1 PM to deliver the Japanese rejection of the American initiatives to avoid war....but Roosevelt had received through Magic the note the night before and after reading it, turned to his advisor Hopkins and said, "This means war." Incompetence and inter-service rivalries between the Army and the Navy kept proper warnings from being delivered to Pearl Harbor.

The evidence strongly suggests Roosevelt felt he needed the unprovoked attack by Japan to sell isolatonists on the necessity of entering the War. It is interesting to note that the US did not declare war on Germany, the Germans foolishly declared war on the USA on December 10...Churchill visited Washington DC later in the month and it was agreed then that the prime war would be fought on the European front.

As far as the British Empire, it was not the intention of the USA to enter the war in exchange for a promise to dismantle the Empire...however Roosevelt made clear to all who would listen that the purpose of entering the war was not to perpetuate the British Empire; after all (ha! ha!) the USA was not an imperialistic power.

Did the Soviets make the greatest contribution to winning the war? Yes of course...it took several years for them to get going but with the number of troops they were able to throw into the war their march from the East was inevitable and of course without the Anglo American landings in Normandy on D Day were quite capable of marching through the whole continent and establishing Soviet satelite states in Germany, France, Belgium and Holland...essentially this is what D Day ultimately prevented although Stalin did want the 2nd Front to take some of the pressure off the Soviets.

Neil_Oz

I think Roosevelt's distaste for the European powers' remaining colonial empires is well known. This makes it all the sadder that Indo-China was handed back to its French masters, with British complicity, after FDR's death. Had the Vietnamese been given the independence they felt their part in fighting Japanese aggression warranted, there'd have been no Vietnam War.

ira

>Did the Soviets make the greatest contribution to winning the war? Yes of course...it took several years for them to get going but with the number of troops they were able to throw into the war their march from the East was inevitable <

An excellent example of "because it happened that way, it was inevitable".

On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the USSR.

Stalin disappeared from Moscow.

A few days later, the leading members of the Politburo found him at his dacha.

He thought that they had come to arrest him.

They had come to ask him to lead them or else they would have to sign a peace treaty with Hitler.

What if Stalin had gone to his dacha and committed suicide?

What if Churchill had been killed by the taxi that hit him in Dec, 1931, and England had made peace with Germany in 1940?

What if Tojo had listened to Yamamoto and not attacked the US?

What if?........

xyz123

And had Hitler not had to bail out the Italians in a silly war Mussolini started (forget was it in Ethiopia) his attack on the Soviet Union would have started 6 weeks earlier and he might well have captured Leningrad and Moscow before winter set in and things might have been very different...all is agreed.

But looking at it sixty three years later, by 1944, all this was no longer important....the Soviets had begun their inevitable march through Eastern Europe and Stalin was determined to make sure there would never be a threat against the Soviet Union from the west again and they clearly had the numbers and the upper hand.

Failure of the Anglo-Americans to start the 2nd front, we can now see, would have had disastrous results.

Of course, we are all left to wonder, more what ifs, what would have happened if FDR had not been so ill at Yalta or had lived long enough to see the victory. Would things have been different?

I suppose we will never know....

ira

Hi xy,

>And had Hitler not had to bail out the Italians in a silly war Mussolini started (forget was it in Ethiopia)

It was the invasion of Greece, but that's of little matter. <

>But looking at it sixty three years later, by 1944, all this was no longer important....the Soviets had begun their inevitable march through Eastern Europe...<

Supplied by the US and Britain.

>Failure of the Anglo-Americans to start the 2nd front, we can now see, would have had disastrous results. <

So why did Uncle Joe keep complaining about how the Wastern Allies were so slow to open the Western front?

My point is that it was _not_ inevitable.

Eisenhower could have taken Berlin, but he thought that the loss of Allied troops was not worth the prize.

Stalin insisted on taking Berlin, although it cost 100,000 Russian casualties.

Was it inevitable that the USSR would take Berlin?