UK and American military action

[undercovers]

Did the USA save the day (from the perspective of the UK) during the Second World War or was their involvement exaggerate by the media, Hollywood and the American people. I do not wish this to be an attack on American people or their past or present military involvement� thanks undercovers

[dinsdale]

No, they just like to think so, the same way they thought during other campaingns

American TV shows hardly any programs which shows what is happening in and around the rest of the world unless the USA has an involment, leaving a high amount of Americans believing that British troops are doing nothing.
It was fact British troops namely the  SAS, who entered a cave in Afghanistan fighting hand to hand combat,( and winning), then went on to lay for some weeks, guiding with laser the American airforce to tagets, The Americans would view this on TV as " American precision bombing of targets", not a mention of the British involment. the

also movies would have us believe that America won wwii on its own, they glorify the blood and guts, brain washing there younger generation.
They make many mistakes in making the movies, one of which of course being U571, thank god the americans captured an enigma machine 4 years later than the british huh? 
Pearl Habour, the wrong mark spitfires etc etc.
There is to be a movie on the Battle of Britian, guess what an American is cast as the hero, yes we are great ful for the American Vols, but i know none that can be casted as a hero over a British pilot, which we had/have many.

We owe so much to all our allies including the USA Canada,Australia, Russia, India, Newzeland, and all.

In short, World war 2 was a tragic event which claimed so many lives, the only thing that lessened the blow was victory for the allied forces.

[delboy3]

I think Britain was on the verge of collapse until the USA finally came along to help. Without their men & materiel [sic] we might now all be speaking German - or Russian...

You can't underestimate the US's involvement but of course Hollywood panders to American audiences who want to think that they are the bees knees in everything they do, and that they saved our asses again (cf WWI - for which they were also late).

So yes, they did save the day but couldn't have done it alone.

[jake-the-peg]

I rather disagree. Hitler had rather given up attempting to invade Britain by the time the Americans got involved.

But Britain certainly didn't have the wherewithall to re-invade Europe on their own. Without Amreican involvement the Russians would have invaded Germany totally and you might well have had an iron curtain that stopped at the channel.

I don't think the Americans saved Britain, I do think they saved France!

[Peter Pedant]

The Brits knew the Allies wouldwin the war once America was in, as there was a huge industry that would enter the conflict and overpower Germany.

Roosevelt supported Churchill for a price - however knew the European War was unpopular and fought the 1940 presidential campaign about keeping out of it - that was why Humpy Bogart in the final scene of the Caine Mutiny rings so false to my father;s generation.

Luckily the Japanese - who you  will notice weren't german bombed Pearl Harbour, and as a result war broke out. Germany was involved because of a treaty with Japan.

The Brits were still losing battles after Dec 1941. It is obvious we could not have won the war without America because we didnt....(win it by 1941)

[goldenboy]

werent we fighting communism in malaya and the americans didnt feel the need to help then, but suddenly felt it necessary to stop communism in vietnam?

[Clanad]

Although most of what has been offered is certainly true, the fact is Britain would have been defeated had it not been for the Lend Lease Act of 1941.  The U.S. was trying desperately to cling to neutrality (caused by the aversion to European wars, especially WW I), but President Roosevelt had the prescience to understand the coming conflict would include the U.S.  He received tremendous criticism for signing the Lend Lease Act, which provided, on credit, unlimited war material to Britain and other allied countries.  In response he stated... "If your neighbors house is on fire, wouldn't you lend them a hose."  England was down to their last farthing of cash when this important Act was signed into law. (By the way, little if any of it was ever repaid).  Additionally, keep in mind that it was Japan that attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.  We could've just declared war on that country alone, but entered the fray whole heartedly.  The outcome, given the near bankruptcy of Britain, would have been quite different had the U.S. not supported our long standing allies, the British...

One has to take all dramatic renditions of the conflict, movies, books, etc., with multiple grains of salt...

[Skids]

The American people did not want to enter a war in a far away place that had little to do with them. Roosevelt wanted to go to war with Germany because they were about to beat the hell out of Russia. Russia was the largest communist/socialist nation and Roosevelt didn't want it beaten as he was a socialist idealist. To get into the war he forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbor by embargoing oil to Japan. The attack, in turn, incited the American people to want to go to war with Japan and her ally, Germany.
Roosevelt and his advisors, and the governments of Britain, Australia, USSR and others all knew the time and place of the impending Japanese attack (fact). Roosevelt even knew how many aircraft carriers the Japanese were going to send there (six). He took several steps to ensure that the Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor knew nothing of the attack and nothing of the formation of the Japanese attack fleet.
The major assets stationed at Pearl Harbor (the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Lexington) were ordered out of Pearl Harbor along with their battle groups and, more importantly, their aircraft. This removed 40% of the island's air defence. The remaining ship's were relics of pre WW1 days. Admiral Bloch (US Navy) said, in his testimony to Congress, after the attack "The Japanese only destroyed a lot of old hardware. In a sense they did us a favour."
The US did bail us, and Europe, out of the WWII to further their own ends. They also screwed us over in the process, ensuring we could only use their equipment, that they could use us a giant airfield for as long as they wanted, etc. There was even a visiting forces act (that still exists) between us and the US that states that if any visiting US serviceman commits a crime in the UK they are not subject to British criminal proceedings.

[El D]

Just as well Germany declared war on the US - or who knows how long we would have been waiting. . . :)

[KebabMeister]

I agree with Clannad to a certain degree regarding the Lend Lease Act.  Many aircraft were received by Britain and distributed to the Commonwealth and also to Russia (who never paid the UK).  Britain provided all aircraft free of charge to the Commonwealth countries (but utilised other things they had to offer of course).  Some Lend Lease aircraft were reclaimed back by the US after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.

However, I disagree that Britain never paid the US for these aircraft and materials.  Britain paid heavily in money, gold, many strategic islands swapped for materials (like they did in WW1 as well and which destroyed the British economy and elevated the US industry) and even top secret designs such as the jet engine and other secrets from Germany.  If anything the US benefitted heavily from its involvement in WW2.  If they had never had entered, or helped, then they would definitely not be the super power they are today because the German scientists and technology advances during war wouldn't have entered into their hands.

I think Britain would have survived WW2 without the US help but they would definitely not have won the war; they simply couldn't sustain any attack and would have had to put everything into defence only.  Germany had suspended Operation Sealion and I think if things did start to get bad then they'd have signed some form of treaty to save Britain (which Germany wanted from the start; it was France and Britain that declared war on Germany).

People forget that if Britain had fallen then the US couldn't have entered WW2 either because they couldn't sustain any attack themselves since they'd have no where to operate from (they can't fly from the US).

So, both materials from both Canada and the US helped tremendously (many pilots would train over there)

[Narolines]

If any one country deserves major credit for the Allied victory in WW2 it must be Russia; like Napoleon before him, Hitler's Russian campaign was disastrous, and it was the Russian T20 tanks that inflicted the greatest damage on the German ground forces. And who were first into Berlin? - yep, the Russians.  Funny that American films, books etc never seem to give Russia the credit it deserves.......

[Clanad]

I fully understand there are differing views on this subject, however, in December of 1941 President Roosevelt received a letter from Winston Churchill, the leader of Great Britain, stating that by June of that year England would no longer be able to pay for the supplies and arms the United States had been providing in the battle against Germany. In 1934 th Johnson Debt-Default Act had forbade the United States from trading with any warring nation except on cash terms. If England was to survive, a way around the Johnson Act had to be found.

Roosevelt devised a plan where the necessary supplies and equipment could be lent and leased to England. Using the analogy of lending a neighbor your garden hose if his house was on fire and thereby keeping the fire from spreading to your own house, he gained support for the concept. The Lend Lease bill (H.R. 1776) gave the president broad powers to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend or otherwise dispose of" items to other countries if he decided they were not vital to national security. In so doing the United State became, as Roosevelt stated, "the great arsenal of democracy."

At its peak the Lend Lease program assisted 38 countries and made $48 billion available. England received the largest share (with Russia next). After the war most of the debts were cancelled. Only about $8 billion was ever actually repaid and most of that came from England and France. The Soviet Union foreshadowed its Cold War hostility towards the United States by refusing to repay its portion. 

 I'm not aware of any "islands" or other land acquired from Britain in repayment. 

As far as German scientists are concerned, the Russian army was less than 100 miles from Berlin when the U.S. Army initiated Operation Paperclip to extract important scientists, including Werner von Braun, from the Russians grasp.

[Chessman]

Clanad has the closest account of what happened, but i'd like to point out as far as Russia is concerned, pre Operation Barbarossa, Russia was supplying Germany with materials and food, after the German invasion of Russia, if America hadn't joined in, (although as we all know, that wasn't the reason), we'ed all be speaking Russian now,.

[Clanad]

Contd.

In 1944 Britain produced the Gloster Meteor which made up the first operational jet fighter squadron in 1944 and which saw limited action in WWII, while the first operational fighter for the U.S. was the F-80C, Shooting Star which wasn't built in any numbers until about 1950 and first saw action in the Korean conflict... long after Britains successful development of the technology. In fact, on January 16, 1930, in England Sir Frank Whittle submitted patents for his own design for a full-scale aircraft engine (granted in 1932.  The engine was built in the U.S. under liscense (and payment) from England in the mid to late 1940's.

As far as not being a Super Power without the aid of German scientists, I'm unaware of any German scientist on the team that developed the first atomic bomb... maybe I'm missing something here...

[jake-the-peg]

There are a lot of what if's about world war II.

De Beers was approached and asked to stop supplying industrial diamonds to Nazi Germany - without them their ability to manufacture armaments would have been crippled.

De Beers refused

[KebabMeister]

Clanad, what I was referring to is that with war comes technology.  If the US didn't help/supply/take part in anyway or form then they wouldn't be the super power they are today.  That's why I said that WW2 was beneficial to the US.  They would have had no reason to develop any military materials if they remained completely isolated.  If Germany had continued to wreak war in WW2 then it would only have been Russia that would have opposed them.  I think they would have made a treaty with them to force a stalemate and then they would be the super power in the post war years (and continue to do so with their scientists and rocket scientists).

I'd did out my lend-lease book, I'm sure it mention payment of gold and islands as well as cash.

[sinbag]

 

 The answer to your question is No they helped along with a lot of others.  Germany  declared war on the states  so they sent troops over here better than fighting on their own turf.   LATE  but better late than never.

[pesky]

Whilst Clanad's arguments are valid he shows a remarkable ignorance of geography.  There are many war memorials in Scotland, Northern Ireland & Wales which testify that it was not just the vociferous and arrogant part of Great Britain that was involved in WWII.

[1rovert]

To Clanad.
And you Americans wonder why you�re not respected by the majority of Europeans. You�re Arrogance is so annoying. Firstly, Yes! We needed your financial aid, and American forces were also welcome. By 1942 we had been fighting the Germans in Greece, North Africa, Norway, Crete and France. And I must add we had American Volunteers who had started the war with us, who we were and are thankful for. We would have gone on until we would have been annihilated, regardless.
As for paying back Lease Lend, I believe most of it was paid back, if not with money, some was in kind (Check with NASA).
I think in hind site you must agree, if your Ambassador had not kept the Japanese Ambassador waiting, Pearl Harbour would not have been such a surprise. Mind you if some of the people at Pearl Harbour had listened to the intelligence they had at the time, things may have been a lot different.
And you did not enter, as you said Whole Heartedly, apart from the aforesaid volunteers, less is to be said (Don�t for get you also had Nazi recruitment going on in America).
You may wonder why I am going on a bit; I was in the London Blitz, and was bombed out five times (which means I lost my home). I like others who have commented before. We are fed up of seeing 95% of films, books and other media that show that America done all the fighting, may give you some idea who else WAS apart from British Forces. There were Southern Irish, French, Belgium�s, Dutch, Greeks, and Norwegians, Indians, Pakistanis, Nepalese, Australians, New Zealanders and many many more other nations. So in contrast America, apart from their money, food and armaments, paid very little. I am sorry for, and thank the Brave Americans who gave their lives, not just for Britain but for Free Europe, which we were all fighting for.