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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Politics: Rock the vote!!!
« on: November 08, 2014, 01:07:01 PM »But the allies were already on the offensive against the Germans in the second world war before the Americans joined the fight. To say that America saved Europe is wrong. Without US intervention, the USSR would have been enough to crush Germany but we'd have had a totally different map of Europe. American intervention shortened WW2 and also put constraints on Soviet expansionism, who went from ally to enemy within a minute of the retaking of Germany.
Well yes and no. While America's role in WWI is not that significant in comparison to what Britain and France did, WWII is a different matter. Germany had beaten back the Allies. France and many other European nations had fallen and Britain had been driven off of the continent at Dunkirk only to face being pounded by the Blitz. True They eventually broke the Blitz, but in no small part by being supplied by the US and those Merchant ships did face the threat of the U-boats. This is not at all to diminish the heroic role of the Spitfire pilots in this part of the war.
The US also was heavily supplying China (the Flying Tigers) and as mentioned, the Soviet Union (one small quibble, the Warsaw Pact was and artifact of the Cold War and was not formed until 1954). And this was before America's official entry into the war after Pearl Harbor. Then on D-Day, the Americans faced the brunt of the German forces and by that suffered the heaviest casualties.
Again, I am not saying that the rest of Allies did little or paid no costs, just that it is as inaccurate to diminish America's role as it is to disregard that of Britain's. Every nation involved paid a terribly heavy price.