Did the US save Europe in WW2?

[rogthedodge]

Damned vista update ate my brilliant post so here's the short version;

BOB - american pilots recognised in the chapel at Biggin Hill

US sportsmen sent 000's of rifles over after Dunkirk to arm the Home Guard (LDV)

A lawyer I knew for many years (by phone only) was the typical British barrister type - nice chap, died a few years ago and we were all stunned to find out that he was a New York Jew who came over in '39 to join the British Army, served all the way through (with us) and was decorated at least twice. I'm sure there are many other examples of 'unseen' help from our cousins across the ocean.

Can we kill this thread now?

Or at least be a bit nicer to the sceptics

[FLYBOYJ]

It is simply this. Without the United States economy an Allied victory was not possible. A stalemate maybe but no victory. The same thing happened with Japan as with Germany. When the experienced pilots were killed they were gone, the replacments just couldn't measure up with almost no fuel and very little reserves Germany was doomed. They spread themselves too thin. If they hadn't turned on Russia they may still be in control of Europe. The U.S won the war. Japan and Germany truely did wake a sleeping giant.

I suggest you go through this forum and read some other threads about the amount of Experten that were still around in 1945. Germany had PLENTY of excellent pilots left and if not for the lack of fuel the war would of lasted a lot longer...

You're quoting a myth with regards to Germany....

[FLYBOYJ]

Damned vista update ate my brilliant post so here's the short version;

BOB - american pilots recognised in the chapel at Biggin Hill

US sportsmen sent 000's of rifles over after Dunkirk to arm the Home Guard (LDV)

A lawyer I knew for many years (by phone only) was the typical British barrister type - nice chap, died a few years ago and we were all stunned to find out that he was a New York Jew who came over in '39 to join the British Army, served all the way through (with us) and was decorated at least twice. I'm sure there are many other examples of 'unseen' help from our cousins across the ocean.

Can we kill this thread now?

Or at least be a bit nicer to the sceptics

Very cool Rog!!!

[plan_D]

The fact of the matter is, syscom, you're basing your whole argument on this idea that the war on the Eastern Front would be decided in 1944 - and there's no evidence to back that assumption up.

The Commonwealth had the industrial capability to defeat Germany in a war of attrition. From day one, you should have realised that the Commonwealth didn't gear up to maximum because we let the U.S do it.
Without the U.S, Australia would have been building Lancasters like Wildcat said - but with the U.S they just used the B-24s that were already built.

To think it would have taken decades for the Commonwealth to produce enough to beat Germany in a war of attrition is bizarre. After all, the U.K alone was out-producing Germany !

[bomber]

And why should the US have done that? It was not the United State's war. .

It was not a commonwealth war either untill we made it our business to be one...

The USA should have done it because like us they new what was going on, but unlike us they considered it not a good enough reason to object.

Did England stand up and join the US in Vietnam? No because it was not there fight....

After WWII The USA sponsored and secretly trained North Vietnamise terrorists to kill British personel who were providing temporary governance of this region untill hand over to the French...
The best the British governement could do was quietly ask for troops from the commonwealth.

Get over it, that is such bullshit that one would say such a thing.

I'd like to debate with you some more but I don't think I will

[FLYBOYJ]

After WWII The USA sponsored and secretly trained North Vietnamise terrorists to kill British personel who were providing temporary governance of this region untill hand over to the French...
The best the British governement could do was quietly ask for troops from the commonwealth.

Show us that please....

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It was not a commonwealth war either untill we made it our business to be one...

The USA should have done it because like us they new what was going on, but unlike us they considered it not a good enough reason to object.

No a neutral nation does not get involved with international conflicts just for the hell of it. It was not our war, what do you not understand about it. If I had been the US president I would not have jumped to conclusions and just sent men off to die on another continent in war that at that point had nothing to do with us.

After WWII The USA sponsored and secretly trained North Vietnamise terrorists to kill British personel who were providing temporary governance of this region untill hand over to the French...
The best the British governement could do was quietly ask for troops from the commonwealth.

Please state sources for you facts. I have never heard of that....

I'd like to debate with you some more but I don't think I will

Why because you realize that what you said was not very smart but you just dont want to admit to it.

[bomber]

Eugene Quimby "Red" Tobin, Andrew Mamedoff and Vernon "Shorty" Keough, all with 609 Squadron fought in the Battle of Britain and were the first members of 71 Squadron (Eagle) formed after the B of B. 10 Americans fought in the B of B, see for your self...

The Battle of Britain - Home Page

I think you proved my point did you not that the Eagle squadrons was formed after the BoB.

Still as you see we honour them as American... even if they didn't have the nationality

Simon

[FLYBOYJ]

I think you proved my point did you not that the Eagle squadrons was formed after the BoB.

Still as you see we honour them as American... even if they didn't have the nationality

Simon

The point is they never LOST their nationality, that was idle threat that was quickly swept under the rug....

And no one ever said the Eagle Squadron fought in the B of B.

[syscom3]

The fact of the matter is, syscom, you're basing your whole argument on this idea that the war on the Eastern Front would be decided in 1944 - and there's no evidence to back that assumption up.

My point is that without the US involved in the war in Europe, the commonwealth in 1943 and 1944 would have no capability to invade Europe. That would free up lots of German air and groud units to go east. In 1944, the war in the east was going to be decided regardless of what the commonwealth could do. Either by stalemate or victory by Germany or Russia, the course of the war would be decided.

The Commonwealth had the industrial capability to defeat Germany in a war of attrition. From day one, you should have realised that the Commonwealth didn't gear up to maximum because we let the U.S do it.
Without the U.S, Australia would have been building Lancasters like Wildcat said - but with the U.S they just used the B-24s that were already built.

You had a hard enough time to build enough Lancasters to keep up the campaign at night. You had zero capability of building the thousands of bombers needed to begin a daylight campaign. And again, the lack of manpower impacts you. In actuality, if you had enough aircrews and ground personell, then you wouldhave joined with the 8th and 15th AF's in the daylight raids. But you didnt for that very reason.

Now come on, lets hear about all these aircraft plants you were going to build in Canada and Australia.

And major shipyards cranking out the warships, merchant vessels and landing craft? Hahahahahahah!!!!!!!

To think it would have taken decades for the Commonwealth to produce enough to beat Germany in a war of attrition is bizarre. After all, the U.K alone was out-producing Germany !

But you still didnt have the capability to build the factories, staff them and then raise the armies large enough to offset the qualitative superiority of the GA within several years.

You keep talking in "would have, could have". I'm dealing with actual reality and what transpired in the 2nd WW.

[trackend]

Some of what you say may be true sys as I am not that up on some of your figures but as for the LC production it was very big in the UK,not all landing craft where Higgins boats there was a very large number of LCA's and LCT's produced in the UK, some of the slips are still down in Dartmouth all along the river bank.

[m kenny]

No manpower or equipment shortages in the US Army?.....................

US Army in World War II
Manpower and Segregation
by Rich Anderson

Manpower, Replacements, and the Segregated Army

In late 1944 a severe problem in the U.S. Army in general was the manpower shortage. Plans to expand the Army to 213 divisions were never met and it was proving difficult to maintain the 89 divisions then in existence - even though almost one-quarter of them had yet to see combat. Furthermore, the prewar planning for replacements was found to be totally inadequate. The causes were manifold: U.S. industrial and agricultural demands could only be partially met by bringing women into the workforce; the Army was fighting a two-front war; fear of the blitzkrieg had resulted in an over-expansion of the antiaircraft and tank destroyer arms; the requirements of the massive expansion of the U.S. Armed Forces in general had reduced the manpower pool; and, perhaps worst of all, segregation meant that a large percentage o the available manpower, African-Americans, were restricted to service support organization and a few separate combat units.


Unfortunately, the poor initial planning Army-wide was exacerbated by the general replacement policy in effect. Simply put, once a soldier was separated from his unit by wounds or illness, there was little chance of him returning to that unit. Instead, he was sent to a replacement depot, a repple-depple in Army slang. From the depot he would then be reassigned as needed to whatever unit had a shortfall in his particular MOS (military occupation specialty). This meant that a soldier could spend months of training, forming close bonds with comrades, the basis for unit cohesion, and then in his first day of combat could be separated from them, never to fight with them again. This system of individual replacement caused many soldiers to disguise illness and wounds so they could stay with their units. Other soldiers, in hospital, went AWOL (absent-without-leave) so as to rejoin their units. It wasn't until 1945 that the individual replacement system was modified to allow a majority of sick and wounded soldiers to rejoin their unit after recovering.

At the other end of the replacement pipeline, replacements were trained by replacement centers (or stripped from divisions), shipped as anonymous replacement increments to a theater of war, and held at the repple-depple until needed by units. These men were military orphans with little esprit de corps and no cohesion. Many thought of themselves as replaceable parts in the giant army "machine," or as rounds of ammunition. The sole virtue of this system was that it allowed divisions to stay in near continuous combat for days on end, theoretically without eroding their numerical strength. As casualties left, replacements came in. However, the reality became that replacements came in, and with no combat experience and no one in their new unit looking out for them (the "I don't know him and don't want to know him, he's only gonna be a casualty" syndrome), they quickly became casualties.

Worse, the planning factors for replacements by branch were badly out of kilter. The original War Department replacement-planning factor for infantry was 64.3 percent of total casualties. Following continued pleas from Europe the factor was raised to 70.3 percent in April 1944. However, the fighting in Normandy soon showed that this was still much too low. By mid July the ETO estimate was that 90 percent of total casualties occurred in the infantry. Infantry divisions saw 100 percent losses in rifle strength in the two months after D-Day. The lack of Infantry replacements soon approached near disastrous proportions. For example, on 8 December 1944 the Third Army was short 11,000 infantrymen. This was only about four percent of the Third Army's total strength, but was the equivalent of fifty-five rifle companies - the rifle strength of two infantry divisions - or close to fifteen percent of the infantry combat power of the Third Army.

The Infantry further suffered from the Army's personnel policy, which allocated the most highly qualified and intelligent people to specialist arms (Airborne, Ranger, Artillery, Armor, and Engineers). The Infantry was filled with men who had scored lowest on the AGCT (the Army General Classification Test) - an intelligence and aptitude test and those who had not held a skilled job in civilian life. The elimination of the ASTP (the Army Specialized Training program), which allowed selected enlisted men to gain a college education while deferring induction into the Army and the reduction of specialized troop units (especially antiaircraft) had remedied matters to some degree by the end of 1944. Nevertheless, mediocre motivation and low intelligence continued to plague the Infantry.

Intense combat and heavy losses in 1943 meant that in 1944 many divisions still in the United States were stripped of trained men to build up the replacement pool. Some divisions were stripped of available manpower a second time later in 1944. This in turn affected the training cycle of the divisions, causing some to deploy late and requiring most to have some problems with their initial combat deployment. Four armor, one airborne, and seventeen infantry divisions (nearly one-quarter of the total formed) were eventually subject to large scale stripping of men (nearly all of the other divisions in training also had smaller numbers of personnel stripped out prior to deployment). Fourteen of the seventeen infantry divisions were stripped twice. The aggregate affect was tremendous the 69th Infantry Division lost 1,336 officers and 22,235 men, nearly enough personnel to form two divisions.

Doctrine and Training

U.S. Army doctrine, as developed during the prewar and early-war Army expansion, emphasized mobility and combined-arms in both attack and defense. Mobility was achieved by developing reliable, robust armored and soft-skin vehicles. Unfortunately, in the case of tanks and tank destroyers, thickness of armor was sacrificed in the interest of mobility to the detriment of U.S. Army armored vehicles in tank-versus-tank-combat. This flaw was exacerbated by one of General McNair's fundamental beliefs (later proved to have been fundamentally unsound) that the armored division would not be required to engage and destroy enemy armored formations since that would be the task of the tank destroyers. Rather he visualized the armor divisions as a cavalry force to exploit gaps opened in the enemy lines by the tank-supported infantry divisions. The major flaw in this concept was that the lightly armored tank destroyers proved regularly that they were unable to engage and destroy enemy armor when it attacked in mass, even when the tank destroyers were deployed in concealed defensive positions. While the tank destroyers on defense were often able to delay or blunt an armored attack, they could rarely defeat them. Thus, instead of operating in an independent antiarmor role, the tank destroyers were semi-permanently attached to infantry and armored divisions, while armored divisions were forced to take up defensive as well as offensive missions, a role for which they were not well designed (since they lacked sufficient infantry).

Another fundamental doctrinal belief espoused by General McNair was that pooling and standardization in the organization of the combat arms would facilitate the cross-attachment of units into combined-arms teams. Here too the realities of wartime experience proved to be somewhat different. It was discovered that the close cooperation required of combined-arms teams required extensive training and combat experience to be effective. Unfortunately, the infantry division training program involved extensive practice in infantry-artillery coordination, but no training in armor-infantry-artillery coordination. In most cases the first armor-infantry-artillery combined arms operation for an infantry division was conducted in combat and not in training. Furthermore, pooling meant that most of the infantry divisions did not have tank or tank destroyer battalions attached until after they had entered combat. The result was predictable; the introduction of "green" infantry divisions into combat often resulted in disaster rather than success. Eventually combat experience and unnecessary casualties forced changes in the emphasis in the training regimen, but problems continued to persist until the end of the war.

Finally, the basic tenant of U.S. Army Infantry doctrine was based on fire and maneuver at the squad level. The M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle and the BAR provided firepower at the squad level. However, in the ETO it was found that these were unequal to the job of suppressing the firepower of the German squad, which was equipped with the formidable MG42 light machine gun. Over and over the advance of American infantry faltered when encountering this German weapon which was capable of firing up to 1,100 round-per-minute (the distinctive sustained roar of this machine gun gave rise to common GI epithet applied to it, "burp gun"). Worse, German small arms utilized ammunition which gave off little flash or smoke. American ammunition had a pronounced signature, giving off a distinctive puff of blue smoke and an intense flash. The result was that German infantry could fire with a good chance of not revealing their position, American infantry could not. All American ammunition had this characteristic to a degree; tank and artillery rounds also gave off a prominent flash.

Oddities

[syscom3]

Some of what you say may be true sys as I am not that up on some of your figures but as for the LC production it was very big in the UK,not all landing craft where Higgins boats there was a very large number of LCA's and LCT's produced in the UK, some of the slips are still down in Dartmouth all along the river bank.

Remember the arguments in the thread about the German logistical problems with "Sealion" due to their lack of large amphib vessels?

The same thing here would apply to the Commonwealth. Untill you had large numbers of LST's and LCI's, then a hypothetical invasion of France was going to fail or flounder.

And also rememer that it took a direct order from Admiral King and General Marshall to order the US shipyards to begin concentrating their resources on building the tens of thousands of amphib and supply vessels. If this hadnt been ordered in 1943, then the Normandy invasion in 1944 wouldnt have occured at all.

[syscom3]

No manpower or equipment shortages in the US Army?.....................

US Army in World War II
Manpower and Segregation
by Rich Anderson
.....

Since the US supplied a majority of the divisions for the fight for western Europe, then imagine the manpower problems the Commonwealth countries faced.

[m kenny]

Since the US supplied a majority of the divisions for the fight for western Europe, then imagine the manpower problems the Commonwealth countries faced.

Oh I know the manpower problems and I know every nation faced them. You seem to believe the US could do anything when plainly they struggled like all the other Armies..
It seems to me you simply are trying to claim the credit for everything.
You constantly say the US had 'more' of everything. Well if your population is larger then obviously you have more resources. However if you were not building on the foundations laid by the same Commonwealth Forces then it is very doubtful that the US alone could have defeated Germany.
I find this type of 'you owe it all to us' argument rather distasteful anfd totaly unnecessary.
Anyway now you know that there were severe manpower shortages in the US Military you can stop highlighting the UK problems- or admit that the US shortfall was as crippling to them as you say the UK shortage was to their effort.