Were those American Armies sent to the Pacific theatre 2nd rated compared to those of the European Theatre ..?

Question

during WW2?

tks for all sharing and esp. Yun for reminding me on the differences of the terrain between the Pacific and Europe. You got a point on that and I agreed that different troops were trained for differently.

Answer 1

Its hard to compare the two groups. They had to fight in different territory, on different terrain, and with different equipment.

I would not say that one was better than the other. They were just different.

Think about the differences in the type of war being fought. In Europe, it was a lot of crossing land and using mechanized units. In the Pacific it was going from island to island, lots of fast infantry combat.
There were different aircraft requirement, different weapon requirements. Different units were sent places.

Answer 2

the units sent to the Pacific often had harsher conditions, harder fighting- partially due to it was much more difficult to bring the mechanized units to bear on the enemy in the jungles and across the islands & atols which the US invaded. Simply look at the US casualties on Iwo Jima or Okanawa.

What you might be thinking of is the 'Europe first' policy which was adopted by the Allies. The troops we sent to Europe and the Pacific had similar training, had the same rifles, same machine guns; similar planes & support.

Answer 3

I see no reason to believe that they were 2nd rate troops. I know that Europe might have gotten priority in some supplies, but whatever was needed was sent to both Eurpoe and the Pacific. I also know that the 11th Armored Division had troops in both places. While most of the division was in Europe, my grandfather served in the 713th Flame Throwing Tank Battalion of the 11th Armored Division in the Pacific.