Today in History

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

...

There is a lot of truth behind this and even when the American and Russian troops met up in Germany there was that uneasy feeling between the two idiologies. In fact if memory serves me correct there were a large number of German soldiers who were proponants of joining forces with the American soldiers to fight the Russians.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Fireball

You know what? No. I'm not going to even try and dignify that with an answer.

Ha ha. Okey dokey.

[Vulcan]

From what i know of WW2, Roosevelt wanted to get in but Congress wouldn't go along until Pearl Harbour. It may even be rumoured that he ignored Japanese threats in order to have an excuse to join in.
As far as American propoganda goes, it sucks and I'm surprised when some Canadians like Fireball buy into it.

[JohnnyFlame]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

There is a lot of truth behind this and even when the American and Russian troops met up in Germany there was that uneasy feeling between the two idiologies. In fact if memory serves me correct there were a large number of German soldiers who were proponants of joining forces with the American soldiers to fight the Russians.

Allies scooped up a whole lot of Germans after the war to keep the Russians in check including all kinds of their intellegence operatives.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by JohnnyFlame

Allies scooped up a whole lot of Germans after the war to keep the Russians in check including all kinds of their intellegence operatives.

The Russians got the technology, the Americans the scientists.

[Fireball]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

From what i know of WW2, Roosevelt wanted to get in but Congress wouldn't go along until Pearl Harbour. It may even be rumoured that he ignored Japanese threats in order to have an excuse to join in. As far as American propoganda goes, it sucks and I'm surprised when some Canadians like Fireball buy into it.

Buy into what? Fact? Wow. Everything I've stated is stuff I saw with my own eyes and read in the same history books that you did. You know what else sucks? When people rant on about 'American propoganda' on a day when a lot of American soldiers lost their lives to bail us out of a war we were inevitably going to lose otherwise. And the reason they don't often refer to the war as being from 1939-1945, is because it wasn't technically a World War until American and Japan got involved. Prior to that, it was just a conflict in Eastern Europe. Every American I talked to on that tour acknowledged it as starting in 1939, and yes, they do acknowledge they hesitated on joining in the first place.

Pretty sure Germany was knocking on London's door with a few dozens bombs before then.

Why does being supportive of America and American history mean I'm buying into American propoganda?

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by Fireball

When people rant on about 'American propoganda' on a day when a lot of American soldiers lost their lives to bail us out of a war we were inevitably going to lose otherwise.

I don't think that "bail us out" nor "going to lose otherwise" are accurate representations of the outcome if the US didn't get involved.

I won't hesitate to say the US helped in the war, and were most likely the reason the war ended (well, obviously the bombs, but their involvement in general).

England seemed to be doing well protecting their homeland, and their tenacity to fight the germans was amazing (with the help of the canadians of course).

Its easy for the US to get lots of credit for the "war machine economy" and the output of supplies, munitions, and tanks etc when their entire country wasn't being bombarded day in, day out.

I'm not taking anything away for the US or Pearl Harbour, but the US couldn't of "won" the war by themselves.

Edit:

Sorry, didn't mean to derail your thread TimSJ, but it does get some discussions going!

[Fireball]

Originally Posted by Jayems

I'm not taking anything away for the US or Pearl Harbour, but the US couldn't of "won" the war by themselves.

Nor could have we. That's the point I'm trying to make.

[Vulcan]

Look Fireball, they didn't lose their lives in Pearl Harbour 'to bail us out'. They didn't want any part of the war until they were forced into it. They got into the war because they had no choice. Their was no higher motive but of course they lay it on thick now. Canada's involvement was much more altruistic as we entered before we were attacked in defence of others but even in Canada we get drowned out by the American version.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by Fireball

Nor could have we. That's the point I'm trying to make.

I would agree, but its interesting to think about.

England & her cronies/commonwealth
China
Russia
Australia
France
Mexico
Brazil
Italy*
Nepal, South Africa, Canada, New Zeland, norwar, luxembourg, netherlands, greece, yugoslavia, ethiopia, Iraq, bolivia, Iran, Columbia

VS

Germany
Japan
Italy*
Hungary
Bulgaria
Romania
Finland
Croatia
Slovakia
Thailand

[fanforever1986]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Look Fireball, they didn't lose their lives in Pearl Harbour 'to bail us out'. They didn't want any part of the war until they were forced into it. They got into the war because they had no choice. Their was no higher motive but of course they lay it on thick now. Canada's involvement was much more altruistic as we entered before we were attacked in defence of others but even in Canada we get drowned out by the American version.

Who's to say they wouldn't have entered the war regardless? I'm not saying they would have, I'm saying you can't say they wouldn't have.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Fireball

Why does being supportive of America and American history mean I'm buying into American propoganda?

Being supportive of America doesn't mean you are buying into American propaganda.

Saying things like "we'd all be speaking German now without them" and "those soldiers in Pearl Harbor died to bail us out" means you are buying in to American propaganda.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by fanforever1986

Who's to say they wouldn't have entered the war regardless? I'm not saying they would have, I'm saying you can't say they wouldn't have.

Many saw the USA's involvement in WWI as a mistake that the public did not want to repeat. At the time, they saw no threat from Japan of Germany, and the war was across the world.

There is also no way to say we wouldn't have won the war if the US didn't get involved.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Jayems

Many saw the USA's involvement in WWI as a mistake that the public did not want to repeat. At the time, they saw no threat from Japan of Germany, and the war was across the world.

There is also no way to say we wouldn't have won the war if the US didn't get involved.

Also coporate America was making big money off Hitler. Here's a review of what was happening in the US.

http://www.historycooperative.org/jo...1/pauwels.html

[Fireball]

Let's pretend for a minute that America decided to turn it's back on getting involved in Europe, then, and focus soley on Japan.

A) We would have never been able to penetrate the beaches of Normandy and France in order to reattain our foothold in Europe. Hitler would have controlled pretty much everything from Poland to the shores of France, meaning he could sit back and barrage the heck out of Britain - who was his only real form of resistance in Europe to begin with, as Canada, New Zealand, Australia were all serving under Brittish command anyway. This would have let him develop his nuclear program and his jet fighers that he was -this- close to deploying before America dropped a their own nukes on Japan, which would have never happened if they didn't steal the technology from Germany in the first place. London wouldn't exist today otherwise.

B) Russia was just as guilty of being about-faced back then as America. When Hitler first started the war, Russia was on his side. If the US didn't get involved in Europe, Hitler would have had full access to slowly blitzkreig just about every morsel of resistance that the Russians had left to the close of the war. They probably would have surrendered prior to that, though. The Russians didn't get rich until after the war ended, and they pretty much devoured every resource that the Nazis were able to accumulate.

C) America would have inevitably lost against Japan as well, because if the US had not came to reinforce us in Europe, we would have been landlocked on the island of Britain, while Nazi U-Boats pretty much ate and devoured everything come to and from the Atlantic. Meaning every Canadian, or Australian soldier hoping to fight for freedom would have been sent to the bottom of the ocean by Germany's vastly superior navy.

D) When I said "We'd all be speaking German," I meant we would have lost the War. Not that we'd actually be speaking German. I realize there would have been other alternate endings to how we'd be living today.

E) The only reason we never hear anything about anyone else's involvement in the War when it comes from the US, is for the same reason we only learn about Canada and Britain's involvement in WWII from anyone here. They acknowledge that the war started in 1939. But, they also acknowledge that it didn't start for them until 1941. So, who'se wrong here? Nobody. They have their history just as we have ours.

So if all that means I'm buying into American propoganda, for being able to sit here and freely type what I just wrote without fear of being executed or trialed as a traitor or heretic - which I very likely would have, if Facism or Communism (just look at China right now, and how supressed they've become) prevailed over what we have now - then so be it.

That's not going to stop me for being thankful for what the Americans did for us during WWII.

[CaptainCrunch]

My gut feeling was that the mistake that the German's made in changing thier bombing tactics over England to Civilian terror bombing campaigns, combined with the invasion of the Soviet Union and Hitler's unhealthy obsession with Stalingrad had doomed the German's. However, it would have been a different D-Day invasion with the Allies splitting into smaller beach heads. Hitler would have dug in on the Western front and sent the majority of his armor to the east as the American's army at the time was armor intensive. We would have seen a long drawn out version of WW1 trench war fare in the East and the West and probably an additional 5 years worth of war.

In the Pacific, without the American's there just weren't alot of allied assets to slow the Japanese down, and if the American's hadn't entered the war, the Allies would have been too worn down to confront the Japanese in any kind of land conflict. Combine that with the hideously long supply lines that they would have needed and its likely that the Japanese would have won major concessions in any kind of peace process, and would have kept some of thier Chinese conquests. They would have likely been stopped by the Australian's but that would have left the Aussies fairly isolated from the rest of the war.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by JohnnyFlame

Allies scooped up a whole lot of Germans after the war to keep the Russians in check including all kinds of their intellegence operatives.

It is actually interesting that if you go to Russia and into the Moscow War Museum they have a huge number of old Nazi flags (the ones one sticks that they marched with) and apparently the reason was that after the war what happened was all of the German soldiers were marched through Moscow and marched through the red square but they did so in what I guess would be dress uniform with all of their medals and the story is that the sound of the feet marching and the metals clanging together was so much so that people had to cover their ears.

Then they killed the Germans'......

[CaptainCrunch]

I find this analysis to be very interesting and would love to go through it with your opinion

Originally Posted by Fireball

Let's pretend for a minute that America decided to turn it's back on getting involved in Europe, then, and focus soley on Japan.

A) We would have never been able to penetrate the beaches of Normandy and France in order to reattain our foothold in Europe. Hitler would have controlled pretty much everything from Poland to the shores of France, meaning he could sit back and barrage the heck out of Britain - who was his only real form of resistance in Europe to begin with, as Canada, New Zealand, Australia were all serving under Brittish command anyway. This would have let him develop his nuclear program and his jet fighers that he was -this- close to deploying before America dropped a their own nukes on Japan, which would have never happened if they didn't steal the technology from Germany in the first place. London wouldn't exist today otherwise.

I think the Allies would have eventually established at least a couple of beach heads in Normandy and France. Now we know that as successful as the D-Day invasion is considered, there were some struggles and a lot of the Allies fell behind the inital and probably over-optimistic time tables. Now by this time German Air Power had been sevely crippled, so the Allies could have used thier now superior airpower to continue to cripple the German arms industry. The German long range artillary would have been based around thier V1, V2 and long range train based long guns, but its likely that the RAF would have crippled thier ability to both manufacture these weapons and deploy them. It would have also been difficult for the German's to continue thier atomic arms experiments with the pressure that was being put on the German's on both fronts. Its also a given that even though the American Airforce including the bomber groups would have made its way into the war, but the American's would have continued thier advanced weapons development and superior aircraft like the B-24 would have made thier way into the British inventory.

Originally Posted by Fireball

B) Russia was just as guilty of being about-faced back then as America. When Hitler first started the war, Russia was on his side. If the US didn't get involved in Europe, Hitler would have had full access to slowly blitzkreig just about every morsel of resistance that the Russians had left to the close of the war. They probably would have surrendered prior to that, though. The Russians didn't get rich until after the war ended, and they pretty much devoured every resource that the Nazis were able to accumulate.

There's a funny story about German troops passing Russian trains heading to Germany loaded with grain and oil, this was how surprised Stalin was over the speed of Hitler's betrayal. The Russian's had already gained a lot of Armament's from the American's by 1941 including the chasis for the greatest tank ever made in the T-34, combine that with the fact that Marshall's Zhukov and Bukarin (I think) had taken the German Strategy of Blitzkrieg and perfected it into the combined arms art that the Russian's continued to perfect until the late 80's. At the time of the turnaround at Stalingrad, the Russians had a massive advantage in men, tanks, tubed artillary and aircraft. Its likely that the German's might have made the smart move and withdrawn thier troops from Russian soil and dig in on the German borders and made any invasion even more bloody. Hitler's pride and lack of Military intelligence (both personally and institutionally) doomed the German offensive from day one of the invasion.

Originally Posted by Fireball

C) America would have inevitably lost against Japan as well, because if the US had not came to reinforce us in Europe, we would have been landlocked on the island of Britain, while Nazi U-Boats pretty much ate and devoured everything come to and from the Atlantic. Meaning every Canadian, or Australian soldier hoping to fight for freedom would have been sent to the bottom of the ocean by Germany's vastly superior navy.

German U-boat losses even before the American involvement in the war were murderous, and the interception of the Enigma code by the remnants of Polish intelligence really screwed over the German's hopes of strangling the British off. The german blockade was only suppossed to last for so long while it waited for the British surrender, but the British resolution and thier ability to forestall Hitler's land invasion of Britain effectively ended the Submarine threat in the Atlantic.

Originally Posted by Fireball

D) When I said "We'd all be speaking German," I meant we would have lost the War. Not that we'd actually be speaking German. I realize there would have been other alternate endings to how we'd be living today.

Without American assistance, the German's would have still lost, the correllation of German Forces to Ally forces would have still ensured that. However I still think the war would have become even more of a war of attrition where Allied forces were forced to throw themselves against a well prepared German trench network. I figured the War would have taken 5 years longer, the Japanese would not have had a counter in the East and would have probably seen the success of thier Co-prosperity sphere. The American's would have probably emerged as an even stronger economic force, and the Soviets would have been unoppossed in Europe since nobody would have wanted to continue the war against a strong Soviet Army.

Originally Posted by Fireball

E) The only reason we never hear anything about anyone else's involvement in the War when it comes from the US, is for the same reason we only learn about Canada and Britain's involvement in WWII from anyone here. They acknowledge that the war started in 1939. But, they also acknowledge that it didn't start for them until 1941. So, who'se wrong here? Nobody. They have their history just as we have ours.

One of the things that causes the Canadian's to be somewhat ignored was that we were part of the Commonwealth command structure so for all intensive purposes especially to the American's we get labeled as British Forces.

Originally Posted by Fireball

So if all that means I'm buying into American propoganda, for being able to sit here and freely type what I just wrote without fear of being executed or trialed as a traitor or heretic - which I very likely would have, if Facism or Communism (just look at China right now, and how supressed they've become) prevailed over what we have now - then so be it.

That's not going to stop me for being thankful for what the Americans did for us during WWII.

Hey I'm completely thankful for American involvement especially since there wasn't alot of depth of Defense on our West Coast, and the Japanese were a carrier force so they could have projected power into our backyard. Its likely that we would have seen a much larger Soviet Empire unless the Japanese decided to attack through thier chinese holdings in an effort to seize the Eastern Soviet Union. But the Soviet Navy was in its infancy at that point and couldn't have countered a strong Japanese threat. Combine that with the fact that the Soviet far east command had been drained to the Western front, and we might be seeing three strong empires at the end of the Second World War.

An American Empire with its younger generation largely unharmed, but with an awesome production facitlity.

A resurgant Japanese Empire that controlled the majority of the Pacific Ocean, the Eastern half of China, and as far north as Siberia.

A Russian Empire that rolled through all of Europe and had set up an Iron Curtain through the French Coastlines. That had gained nuclear weapons before the Yanks, and the rocket technology to deploy them. And under Stalin.



Tough to Predict.

[habernac]

hijack? Maybe it's time to start a new Pearl Harbor thread mods, and leave the "this day in history" thread alone.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Fireball

B) Russia was just as guilty of being about-faced back then as America. When Hitler first started the war, Russia was on his side. If the US didn't get involved in Europe, Hitler would have had full access to slowly blitzkreig just about every morsel of resistance that the Russians had left to the close of the war. They probably would have surrendered prior to that, though. The Russians didn't get rich until after the war ended, and they pretty much devoured every resource that the Nazis were able to accumulate.

This is the one thing that I really disagree with - go to St. Petersburg (or what was then known as Leningrad) and you will know that the Russian people would never surrender. They did blitzkrieg everything in the city which was starved for months at a time leading to people starving to death in the streets and having their bodies used as food for the living. Say what you will about the Russians but make no mistake they are a very proud people who are extremely proud of their military past and knowing that I can't see how Russia would ever surrender in a war.

Stalin as was mentioned by Captain Crunch was completely baffled by the actions of Hitler after the pact was broken. He wasn't prepared for a war and that was evident from the moment the war started in Russia and the Russians were pushed back. THe purges has left them with no generals with the ability to put together a battle. The supplies just were not there. When Russia was able to get back on it's feet after the betrayal by Hitler that is when the war began to end (in my opinion of course)