Poll: American?s disillusion with WW2

[Soviet Steve]

I think the Americans overrate their own performance on the battlefield, though I don't think that the American economic involvement is given enough praise. The war would still have been won without the US, but it would have been a much more costly conflict without them.

Before someone brings up the pacific I'd like to point to the Soviet contribution, specifically them conquering Manchuria (Roughly western Europe combined in terms of size) and North Korea (reason the dickweed republic of Dear Great Leader and Holy Father, All-Knowing Saviour and Eternal President Kim Il Sung is annoying us today) and without the nukes the Soviets would still just have overrun Japan like they had Manchuria, regardless of losses.

As for why we don't see the whole thing in games anymore; The Allied land-war performance was abysmal from start until end. No need for the depressing mess when you can have superhuman commandos butchering 50 trillion Arabs and Russians with no context and no pretense to realism.

 

[Fumbleumble]

Now it?s a common fact that the American army came to aid the allied forces engaged across Europe.
However Americans believed this meant they single handily turned the tide of the war and ?won it?.

How much do you think Americans are bias about their engagement in World War 2?

Personally being English I feel their involvement was instrumental in ending the war a lot quicker but I think the true praise belongs to British and Canadians, but more so the French, those who faught the war from the bloody begining to the bloody end. Their country is a living memento to the fallen, all over and I mean all over France you can find graveyards and a memorials to all the men whom fought and died in that horrendous war.

I appologise for posting within the incorrect threat catagorey

I'd like to blow your 'common fact' out of the water if I may.

The US didn't come to anyone's aid.. they got involved through self interest.

Had it not been for Pearl Harbour they would have continued to do what they had been doing all all.. sitting on their bloody thumbs, it's already been establish that their administration at the time were quietly considering a non agression pact with the Nazis and that Japan's involvement pretty much fucked it up.

Churchill had already asked the US to become involved siting the obvious worldwide thread, but the US refused stating that it was none of their business... later through intelligence, Churchill found out about the coming attack on Pearl Harbur and had one of two options.. tell the administration of the impending attack which would have resulted in America bolstering it's own defenses and concentrating on nothing but saving it's own ass.. or to keep the information from the US provoking them to enter the war in a vengance situation.. so he kept shtoom. I certaintly wouldn't propose that US's involvement in the war did anything but turn the tide... however it was hardly out of altruism or any high mnded notions of right and wrong.

 

[PoliceBox63]

What! The french surrended within two weeks of being invaded.

The country officially surrendered but the French themselves did not.

 

[Ninjamedic]

we are actually told in the school system that Britian would have eventually been destroied by the Germans if not for America

(Spits out Vimto) Did they even read a history book? ..........eh, I'm not surprised. Guess they can't recognize the war on the eastern front as it would be honoring the ENEMY!!!

 

[Something Amyss]

I believe you have your own illusion that all Americans believe in that illusion. Simple as that.

"Americans" can be used as shorthand for "The American people in general," rather than "each and every last American."

As such, I will agree that Americans significantly inflate their role in the war.

To give you a slight indication as to how I'm not saying "each and every last American," I'm American and I don't significantly inflate America's role in WW2.

The general notion is that we "saved the world," or "saved europe," or "stopped Hitler." History classes generally teach this, glossing over much of what happened before Pearl Harbour. Which, I guess, is to be expected. history tends to center around the folks who write it, and Americans write the story with Americans as the heroes.

Not to mention we had propaganda from the beginning in order to sell us on US involvement. No poster is going to say "We probably don't need to go over there, but it will likely expedite the process of a war that's winding down."

 

[Something Amyss]

(Spits out Vimto) Did they even read a history book?

They read a history book. Unfortunately, it was written in America.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Personally, I don't think it's right to dole out praise based solely on how much of an impact a country made in the war effort. Are you going to tell Polish veterans their sacrifice meant nothing because their country was the first to be knocked out? Are American vets supposed to be looked down upon because the U.S. didn't join the war until 1942? Are German vets supposed to be treated like monsters because they fought on the "wrong" side?

Please stop with the self-righteous chest-pounding, everyone. Instead let's acknowledge the incredible human cost of the war and the sacrifices that were made regardless of nationality.

 

[Judgement101]

Alternative History Time: If America had not join WWII the Japanese would have taken the US, Britian would have to deal with Japan also, and Japan would have gotten the plans to the Manhatten Project and given it to Germany and then Britian would be nuked.

I was just having fun with this, none of this was serious.

 

[Ninjamedic]

(Spits out Vimto) Did they even read a history book?

They read a history book. Unfortunately, it was written in America.

Yeah, why did I even ask.

 

[Judgement101]

(Spits out Vimto) Did they even read a history book?

They read a history book. Unfortunately, it was written in America.

Written in America but made in China

 

[geldonyetich]

Now it?s a common fact that the American army came to aid the allied forces engaged across Europe.
However Americans believed this meant they single handily turned the tide of the war and ?won it?.

Man, what massive sweeping generalizations.

"Now it's a common fact that" - yeah, right, you wish. Humankind is so rife with conflicting opinions that there exists no such thing as a common fact. In America, we've got a few people who aren't completely convinced the Civil War is over, who believe the moon landing was faked, and you actually think there's going to be a common agreement over here that we only "came to the aid of allied forces"? About the only thing we agree about in America is to disagree about everything.

"the American army came to the aid of allied forces" - Is this supposed to be a major revelation? It's not like we came into World War II and said, "okay, all the rest of you stop fighting, we'll do everything now." Initially, we actually were going to completely butt out of this war, but Pearl Harbor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor] rather forced us to participate.

"However Americans believed this meant they single handily turned the tide of the war" - Sounds to me that what you need to prove here is that, if you removed America from the equation of World War II, the allies would have won anyway. Good luck with that, this is something that a Historian wouldn't claim unless they were high as a kite, as it involves massive reimaginings of history. If you want to speculate that hard, lets say that if the allies did win without America, Stalin would have decided the opportunity was ripe to take over the entire land mass.

"and ?won it?" - Exactly how does one "win" war? It's a massive clusterfuck of death and destruction brought about by failed diplomacy. I will say, however, that it sure did wonders for the American economy. WW-II dragged us up out of the second great depression into a massive economic boom. Pity we pissed it all away over the next 50 years.

Like it or not, whether or not America wanted to be part of the war, or was even the largest influence, we did finish the war... with the nuclear weaponry we invented for the occasion. And we've been living with the pall of the potential annihilation of the entire human race hanging over our heads ever since. Still want to underplay American involvement?

 

[RanD00M]

American hate thread move along.

No it isn't. He is merely asking if the US is truly as biased as it seems to be when it comes to topics on WWII.

OT: I blame the British for all the Icelandic fishermen that died in WWII. They were few, but we Icelanders are few as well.

 

[temporalcrux]

I believe you have your own illusion that all Americans believe in that illusion. Simple as that.

Touche, i will admit i'm a heavly jaded person, but i am simply responding in a negative way to a bias representation. Thanks for the input though, you've made me look upon myself in a different way.

However. You yourself haven't stated your stance on the situation, care to share?

Because there's no easy answer to it all. I'm from Louisiana, a state that still prides itself for having had a war camp to keep Germans. My relations that went all came back alive. We are "Cajun", the descendants of the French that were kicked out of Canada by the English, refused land when they tried to go back to France, and ridiculed as stupid by America even up into the 1990's. Yet my grandfather and his 2 brothers went to France, spoke the language of the countryside (which varies a GREAT deal from Parisian French) and saved a ton of time working with the forces there as translators before professional translators even existed. He and his brothers came home alive and whole. We'll never know if his ability to speak low-French saved anyone, or just made the job easier. If you ask him today why he did it, even though he states a hatred for the French and English for denying his ancestors places to live (although he did forgive Canada), he says "I wasn't there for anything but death. Avoiding it, doing it, didn't matter. We lived and they died, or we died and they lived. War ain't something you wanna go do, but you do it when it means living."

My opinion is that my heritage, while not serving to throw the tides of war, certainly served to keep my family alive, if not my country. I pride my bloodline and it's history over a country that changes it's opinion every 4 years. No one country was instrumental in the war. Every last veteran I've gone talk to when visiting my grandfather says that it doesn't matter if they're alive or dead, the war is over. They worked together with the people where they went and buried more than came back most of the time.

So if you want to have some sort of national pride and superiority, go for it. But that you're alive today, that ANY of us are alive today, is evidence that our countries did their best.

 

[Wrists]

the only reason they Soviets got involved was because Hitler was arrogant to enough to believe he could take them on when he broke the pact he and Stalin made not to attack each other.

As a result, once Stalin got over the initial shock of the invasion, the Soviet resistance increased, Hitler was fighting a war on two fronts, amusingly something he wanted to avoid initially. The war without the Soviets would have allowed the Germans to commit more troops to the defence of the western front. The eastern front inflicted huge damage on the Germans during the battle for the Crimean peninsula, the Caucasus oil fields, Moscow and of course Stalingrad followed by Kursk.

I'm not disputing the fact that the Soviets didn't want to fight the war from the start, but once they got involved the split focus of the Nazi leadership and the division of their forces meant that the Western Allies could progress. It works both ways, if it had been a war with only the Soviets and the Nazis then for all I know it could have gone differently. I still think they were the primary reason the war was won, well, in Europe anyway.

 

[RanD00M]

Does Europe not teach about the Pacific Campaign in their schools? Or is it just about the injustices of people like Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielburg investing their own money into stories about certain US forces in WW2, that just happened to be in Europe?

We don't get any teaching on WWII whatsoever here in Iceland. All I know about WWII is self taught.

 

[ninja51]

America has alot of dillusions. According to every Call of Duty and Medal of Honor game, Americans single handedly won every battle ever fought. The Soviets where the ones who won the war, if Germany hadnt turned on them they wouldnt have even come close to losing. Americans helped out, but if masses of German troops wernt being beaten back by the Russians we wouldnt have gotten far at all into France

 

[nomadic_chad]

This does have the underpinnings of an American hate thread, what with the gross generalization and all. Yet, I can see the OP's motivation behind the thread (or I think I do, at least).

Disclaimer, I'm an American and used to be in the military. I also run in several circles, a large portion of the people in those circles don't have any advanced schooling, relying mostly on what public education can bestow and what movies have undoubtedly re-focused.

I do believe that Americans' opinion of their influence, or more importantly the downplaying of other countries' sacrifices, is exaggerated. Yes, the US was a huge influence in terms of resources and manpower, and I wonder if the Russians would have been able to win a war fought on two large fronts (Germans and Japanese). The Russians were able to kick a ton of ass, but only because the average Russian soldier was as afraid of their own government as they were of the German soldiers. I'm postulating here, but I don't think the Russians could have continued the huge losses indefinitely when coupled with the fear of their own superiors.

Likewise, the French and Brits are often depicted as being rolled over by the Germans. Yes, they were fought off mainland Europe, but they never stopped resisting and fighting in one form or another.

I personally hate the image given to the French soldiers. Any soldier, with the proper leadership, can kick ass. The major problem with the French army, especially around the time of the German invasion, was an abundance of incapable leadership. The fact that the French Resistance never stopped fighting cements in my mind, the steadfastness and undying rebellion that is not only the French people, but of any people who are invaded. History has taught us that any people, when invaded and oppressed, will continue to struggle, no matter the cost.

In general, I think the OP's message was lost in generalizing all Americans as uneducated or without world view.

 

[Dangerbean]

To all those interested in england, there is a great docmentry on 4od called apocalypse ww2 (or something similar) which is very informative on the russian side of things. Also, the've digitally coloured in all the black and white footage which somehow makes have a lot more of an impact.

 

[Ninjamedic]

If America had not join WWII the Japanese would have taken the US

Actually they would eventually take on Russia instead preventing them from using their troops on the Asian front to bear against Hitler.

Britian would have to deal with Japan

In the Pacific maybe, but Japan would be too pre-occupied with Russia.

Japan would have gotten the plans to the Manhatten Project and given it to Germany and then Britian would be nuked.

The Japanese had an equivalent to Project Manhattan but they abandoned it. Besides the Manhattan Project was also being worked on woth the british so they would have transferred the research to the UK if the US was attacked.

I was just having fun with this, none of this was serious.

It would make a good premise for a Game. What if Italy assisted the conquest of britain instead of going into North Africa?

 

[R Man]

What! The french surrended within two weeks of being invaded.

The country officially surrendered but the French themselves did not.

Actually, when the French Government surrendered it absolved most Frenchmen of their responsibility to fight. As a result they mostly gave up. The French Resistance was hardly a mass movement, and really only gains credit because France is more 'western' and therefore we are exposed to it, and the stories from other countries are not known about.

If you want to see real resistance see the fighting in Greece and in Poland. The Polish never surrendered!