US won WWII and saved the world?

Question

Here in the UK, we are aware of some derogotary feeling from the US, having to win WW2 for us, the British.

This is my hypothesis: If the UK had rolled over and been defeated in 1939-42, hitler would have held all of europe, and our teritories including india, austrailia, a lot of Africa etc. With the Japs winning in Burma and asia, with no australian or british resistance, Germany and Japan would have help the whole world outside the US. Hitler would not have been fighting on 2 fronts against russia, russia would have japs and germans on each side and would have folded.

No matter how strong the US is, it could not have resisted the rest of the world, german and Japan on each side. SO if we hadnt resisted carpet bombing of civilians, if we had collaborated at first, the US has us to thank their not talking japaneese! But we DID need your financial support, and we probably wouldnt have won without you.
Just had to point out we won the war too!

PS Must add what a brilliant thing is that we won!! If you want to hear something truely inspirational typein winston churchil speech 1939 on youtube. Im 25 and this was a long time ago, but Im choking back the tears when I think of what we all went through to win the fight for democracy and good.

NB Amanda ann - Churchil was NOT for a treaty. Neville Chamberlin and his government were all for apeasment. Churchill was the only man with the bottle to stand up and look Hiltler straight in the eye and say - "NEIN"!!

Answer 1

yep, it's unlikely the US alone could have beaten Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.........in fact it boarders on not bloody likely.

History unfortunately gets watered down, and what gets taught it sometimes specific to a country and filtered by current events......you had to look long and hard in the 50's and 60's to find any reference in the West that the Soviets deserve a major share of credit in beating Hitler........

and as far as Winston and a tear to the eye: this from an American historian, probably our best, William Manchester:


THE French had collapsed. The Dutch had been overwhelmed. The Belgians had surrendered. The British army, trapped, fought free and fell back toward the Channel ports, converging on a fishing town whose name was then spelled Dunkerque.
Behind them lay the sea.
It was England’s greatest crisis since the Norman conquest, vaster than those precipitated by Philip II’s Spanish Armada, Louis XIV’s triumphant armies, or Napoleon’s invasion barges massed at Boulogne. This time Britain stood alone. If the Germans crossed the Channel and established uncontested beachheads, all would be lost, for it is a peculiarity of England’s island that its southern weald is indefensible against disciplined troops. Now the 220,000 Tommies at Dunkirk, Britain’s only hope, seemed doomed. On the Flanders beaches they stood around in angular, existential attitudes, like dim purgatorial souls awaiting disposition. There appeared to be no way to bring more than a handful of them home. The Royal Navy’s vessels were inadequate. King George VI has been told that they would be lucky to save 17,000. The House of Commons was warned to prepare for “hard and heavy tidings.” Then, from the streams and estuaries of Kent and Dover, a strange fleet appeared: trawlers and tugs, scows and fishing sloops, lifeboats and pleasure craft, smacks and coasters; the island ferry Grade Fields; Tom Sopwith’s America’s Cup challenger Endeavour; even the London fire brigade’s fire-float Massey Shaw — all of them manned by civilian volunteers:

English fathers, sailing to rescue England’s exhausted, bleeding sons.

Even today what followed seems miraculous. Not only were Britain’s soldiers delivered; so were French support troops: a total of 338,682 men. But wars are not won by fleeing from the enemy. And British morale was still unequal to the imminent challenge. These were the same people who, less than a year earlier, had rejoiced in the fake peace bought by the betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich. Most of their leaders and most of the press remained craven.

It had been over a thousand years since Alfred the Great had made himself and his countrymen one and sent them into battle transformed. Now in this new exigency, confronted by the mightiest conqueror Europe had ever known, England looked for another Alfred, a figure cast in a mold which, by the time of the Dunkirk deliverance, seemed to have been forever lost.
England’s new leader, were he to prevail, would have to stand for everything England’s decent, civilized Establishment had rejected. They viewed Adolf Hitler as the product of complex social and historical forces. Their successor would have to be a passionate Manichaean who saw the world as a medieval struggle to the death between the powers of good and the powers of evil, who held that individuals are responsible for their actions and that the German dictator was therefore wicked.
A believer in martial glory was required, one who saw splendor in the ancient parades of victorious legions through Persepolis and could rally the nation to brave the coming German fury.

An embodiment of fading Victorian standards was wanted: a tribune for honor, loyalty, duty, and the supreme virtue of action; one who would never compromise with iniquity, who could create a sublime mood and thus give men heroic visions of what they were and might become. Like Adolf Hitler he would have to be a leader of intuitive genius, a born demagogue in the original sense of the word, a believer in the supremacy of his race and his national destiny, an artist who knew how to gather the blazing light of history into his prism and then distort it to his ends, an embodiment of inflexible resolution who could impose his will and his imagination on his people — a great tragedian who understood the appeal of martyrdom and could tell his followers the worst, hurling it to them like great hunks of bleeding meat, persuading them that the year of Dunkirk would be one in which it was “equally good to live or to die” — who could if necessary be just as cruel, just as cunning, and just as ruthless as Hitler but who could win victories without enslaving populations, or preaching supernaturalism, or foisting off myths of his infallibility, or destroying, or even warping, the libertarian institutions he had sworn to preserve.

Such a man, if he existed, would be England’s last chance.

In London there was such a man.

Answer 2

The US did not "win the war". They were important to the war effort. You could even say they were the single most important player for the Allies. However, if they had remained neutral they would likely have faced a cold war against Germany and Japan. Now, as you hint it's not likely they could have withstood alone. However, given the geography involved it's very unlikely that either of the Axis powers would have been capable of invading the US for several years. By then I'm sure the US economy and military would have been up to the task of repelling an invasion. So it's possible that eventually the same nuclear deterrent would have come into play as in real life.

But no, the US didn't win the war alone.

Answer 3

As a red-blooded American, I can confidently say that your statement is nonsense, but not for the reasons you probably are going to assume.

America was not the clear winner of the war. Neither was Britain. The Soviet Union, by far, made out like a bandit after World War II. Not only did the USSR's invasions of Poland and Scandinavia go unpunished (almost as if the West had forgotten about those "little mishaps") but after the war, virtually half of Europe was completely under the rule of the Soviets, without so much as a peep from the other allies, which were dutifully returning autonomy to the countries they liberated. Heck, the USSR demanded that Japan be split in half, despite the fact that it had only declared war on Japan 2 weeks before its complete capitulation.

To give you an idea as to the scope of the war; the allies invasion of Europe consisted of roughly 30 divisions. the Russian invasion of Europe consisted of over 300 divisions! Hitler was reluctant to counter the forces at D-day, insisting that such a small force had to be a diversion! The country that won WWII, both militarily and diplomaticaly, was the USSR.

Winston Churchill, in his memoirs, lamented on how easily Stalin manipulated Roosevelt, playing him like a fiddle. Roosevelt was suckered into new concessions again and again, and it was this conciliatory attitude that led to much of the horrors visited upon the world by the communists, a regime whose behavior was just as apalling as the Nazis, themselves.

I tend to agree with your sentiment that Chruchill was the modern day Cicero of Oratation, even though he too, was suseptible to the guile of Stalin.

If Britain had been knocked out of the war, it is likely that America may never have even gotten involved in the European theater. This would have been bad news for Japan, who would have faced the full, unbridled fury of the American military, while in Europe the Nazis and Soviets would have torn savagly into each other. The Soviets most likely would have won, due to the steady stream of supplies coming in from the United States, among its other strategic advantages, only instead of stopping at East Germany, it's likely that the Soviets probably would have claimed complete dominion over the Entire European continent. The importance of the stubbornness of the British can not be understated.

In closing, I would say that the valor and bravery of the Allied troops played a critical role, not only in stopping the Nazis, but from preventing an equally monstrous regime from turning the entire European continent red. For an American to deny the valor of the British troops, or for a British to deny the valor of the American troops, is simply a nationalist bromide, it's patriotic grandstanding, and shouldn't be tolerated.

Answer 4

No, it was the combination of the UK, the USSR and the USA that defeated Germany. In the Pacific though the USSR didn't do much, they came into the Pacific war after it was pretty much over. The UK lost their bases, and really didn't have much presence until 1944, after which the Japanese advance had been stopped and pushed back.

In Europe the UK had already won the Battle of Britain, but required help to help win the Battle of the Atlantic. That was where the industrial power of the US helped out greatly. The industrial power of the US building the liberty ships and escorts greatly helped defeat the U-boats.

As an American I don't think Britain would have fallen to Germany, but I also don't think Britain had the capacity alone to invade Europe by themselves.

Answer 5

I don t understand how anybody on this feed hasn t heard of the Marshall plan, where the United States helped rebuild Europe. The only regime that had refused was the soviets ( which they should have, as well as all other countiries involved should ve{including the USA}). The Soviets should have agreed to help rebuild the countries that we helped destroy(seeing as their counterpart had done so), which is why America is the sole superpower in the world. Never has there been a governing body on this earth that possessed so much power and abused it less than the governing body of the United States of America.

Answer 6

I've always held that if it weren't for the British hanging on in 1940-41 all by her lonesome against Hitler, then the results of WWII might all have been different. If Hitler had been able to re-deploy all the forces he was using to beat Britain against the Russians on the Eastern Front, he would have, in my opinion, taken Russia out of the war, and completely conquered Europe. Who knows what would have happened then? I do believe that the U.S. eventually joining the Allies irrevocably swung the momentum of WWII to Germany's ultimate defeat, and that Russia stopping Hilter then crushing him, was the primary military reason he lost, but Britain standing alone against him for all that time saved the cause, regardless of what any other Americans might think. I know that I hold the British in the highest regard for their continued defiance.

Answer 7

No, USA didn't save the world in WW2. The Allies could have won the war without America's Military. Yes, USA won WW2 with their Allies, including USSR who played the main role in that victory.

Answer 8

The attitude you speak of is related to US psychology and the unique nature of their national myths. All countries have national mythologies and this is the US version.

There is no point countering a myth with historical facts- any Americans who know anything much about WW2 know the true nature of their role, and factual arguments are lost on those who only know the myth that has been fed to them.

The British also have their mythologies and (we) Australians do too. But certainly I think too few understand the true value of the British contribution to WW2- especially their refusal to surrender or even negotiate when they had no prospect of winning- from June 1940 to December 1941, or even late 1943. Few countries have ever shown such willingness to suffer for a cause.

Answer 9

Yeah it was a team effort, but in my humble opinion, the fate of the second world war was decided by the outcome of Operation Barbarossa.....

A decisive role was played by the USSR, USA, and Britain. THE decisive roll was played by the USSR, go ask its 20 million dead.....

Just to give you an idea of battle deaths on both sides check these out:
EASTERN FRONT:
Stalingrad: 1.8 million
Siege of Leningrad: 1.5 million
Moscow 1941-42: 700,000
Smolensk 1941: 500,000
Kiev 1941: 400,000
Vorenesh 1942: 370,000
Belarus 1941: 370,000
2nd Rzhev-Sychevka: 270,000
Caucasus 1942: 260,000
Kursk: 230,000
Lower Dnieper: 170,000
Kongsberg: 170,000
Rostov: 150,000
Budapest: 130,000
and others with less killed

Whereas on the Western Front
Battle of France 180,000
Normandy: 132,000
El Alamein: 70,000
Battle of the Bulge: 38,000



Not even on the same scale....do the math....

Answer 10

if you look at the us history you will see that us has always been the last to enter wars for that they have always had a better state than the other countries whether allies or enemies.
The fresh blood that they've always been capable of bringing in at war times indeed changed outcomes of very important wars such as WWII but that doesnt mean that none of the wars that they have been a part of has been won because of them.
,So yeah you guys def. won the war too.

Answer 11

No becuase the us would have need the uk becuae of where it is pleaceed