Why do people say that the British didn't do a thing in WW2?

[SadakoMoose]

Most historical inaccuracies about the war can be traced to Cold War era historical revisionism and nationalist philosophical tendencies. For years it was impossible for Americans to say that Russia helped defeat the Nazis, as it was not convenient for propaganda purposes. Also, the 50's paranoia and propaganda machine resulted in the Americans ending up with this odd belief that they "saved" everyone during the war. While American forces were a great help to the allies, they certainly weren't the big action heroes that their fiction likes to promote.

It doesn't help the French that even before WW2 had ended, people had ripping on them for years as a result of old British perceptions of the French culture. This is why some of the hawkish morons tend to forget the French Resistance altogether and focus on the surrender of the government. SOMEHOW, even homophobia was brought up in this mess. Isn't it strange any time we see french stereotypes they're almost always catty and effeminate?
Blame Cold War era homophobia.

In the US, it somehow worked it's way into the popular subconscious that we "saved Britain" from the Nazis, and thus proved that we were better or some nonsense. It really goes back to Revolutionary War era hostilities that never quite left the fiction or the history books. Something about having to "rescue" our old, eccentric and holier than thou, colonial boss is appealing to American psyche.

 

[Duskwaith]

To be honest Hitler could have annilated the British at Dunkirk had he not wanted to play "fair" to a degree.

Everyone played there part in the war with the Brits and Russians takeing most of the beatings.

I always wonder what if Franko had off joined Hitler

 

[Rachel317]

Man, we had a major impact in WWI AND WWII! I think...it's the countries that actually didn't do a thing that say we didn't do anything; the French, for example. Iceland didn't send any troops, neither did anyone else in NATO, for that matter, and they're MEANT to have our backs.
It's up for debate whether America's involvement actually impacted the outcome of the war, as they came in at a very late stage when the Germans were about to be pushed back anyway.

As many people have mentioned, Russia were a massive fighting force but...I'd like to bring it back to my main outraged point and say that THE FRENCH SURRENDERED IMMEDIATELY. So did the Italians. And just about every other bloody European country (I can understand the immediate surrounding of Germany, those poor buggers had no time to do anything).

Edit: I think that what your teacher may have been alluding to...is that Germany tried to get us on-side at the start of the war, thus assumed we were in cahoots with them or something. Then again, the teacher might have just been an asshole. You'd have to ask.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Man, we had a major impact in WWI AND WWII! I think...it's the countries that actually didn't do a thing that say we didn't do anything; the French, for example. Iceland didn't send any troops, neither did anyone else in NATO, for that matter, and they're MEANT to have our backs.
It's up for debate whether America's involvement actually impacted the outcome of the war, as they came in at a very late stage when the Germans were about to be pushed back anyway.

As many people have mentioned, Russia were a massive fighting force but...I'd like to bring it back to my main outraged point and say that THE FRENCH SURRENDERED IMMEDIATELY. So did the Italians. And just about every other bloody European country (I can understand the immediate surrounding of Germany, those poor buggers had no time to do anything).

NATO wasn't set up until after WWII

It took 45 days for the French to surrender. That's 6 weeks.
50,000 German dead, 100,000 wounded, over 1000 airplanes lost and nearly 1000 tanks. It wasn't the pushover people make it out to be.
If the US/UK lost those sorts of numbers taking Iraq or Afghanistan it would have been declared a huge disaster and we'd be calling the Iraqi's dogged defenders and our generals incompetant. Slightly different situation, granted, but you see what I'm getting at?

Italy didn't surrender to the Germans, they were allies.

 

[ejb626]

Though someone's probably already said this "some people" are idiots. How the hell is this person a teacher? The British we're part of the Big Three for god's sake! The British helped us land in France and if it wasn't for them supporting us we probably wouldn't have been so successful and the Russians were the ones who took the brunt of German forces.

 

[Rachel317]

-Snip-

I do apologise for my retarded NATO comment, I totally knew that and still said it...*facepalm* Thanks for the correction!!

And, er...the France situation is still an issue because we had lost many men in WWI, were still getting over that in terms of damage to economy and resources, yet we still managed to pull our finger out of our ass and join the war effort.

And that's my point, the Italians (and Japanese) were on the side they thought were the biggest bad asses. Fair enough, you don't want your country to become the target of the "bully", but some goddamn integrity on their part wouldn't have gone amiss. Genocide of the Jews? Is that really a moral action, Italy?? I think not...

 

[chstens]

It's pretty simple, really, brits and Icelanders hate eachother.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

-Snip-

And, er...the France situation is still an issue because we had lost many men in WWI, were still getting over that in terms of damage to economy and resources, yet we still managed to pull our finger out of our ass and join the war effort.

And that's my point, the Italians (and Japanese) were on the side they thought were the biggest bad asses. Fair enough, you don't want your country to become the target of the "bully", but some goddamn integrity on their part wouldn't have gone amiss. Genocide of the Jews? Is that really a moral action, Italy?? I think not...

Er, what? The French lost far more men and resources than we did in WWI.
Secondly, we ran for the hills at Dunkirk and left them on their own. They were then defeated. You think we would have done any better were it not for the English channel? I don't see how they didn't "pull their fingers out and join the war effort". They were the war. They just got beaten. As did we. It's just that we had an island to run back to and continue the fight.

No, The Italians were fascists too (or at least Mussolini was), they had been onside with Hitler for years. The Japs were simply allied with Germany by virtue of being enemies of the Colonial powers in the Pacific. Enemy of my enemy is my friend etc.

 

[not_the_dm]

No, we didn't do anything apart from pretty much holding back everyone in North Africa, being the only nation in Europe who remained standing and fighting while the Americans remained isolationist and we had to withstand the might of the Nazi war machine alone, cracking the ENIGMA code, contributing heavily to D-Day, Overlord, and in fact every operation apart from the Americans offensive on Japan.

Nope, Britain was useless in World War II

To be fair, the British only had to deal with the Luftwaffe- had the Third Reich actually invaded Britain like they had the rest of mainland Europe, I think you guys would have been in some serious trouble. You probably also wouldn't have done too well if the Americans hadn't been sending you weapons, ammo and equipment secretly.

But to say the British were a 'non-factor' in World War II is just silly. Field Marshal Montgomery pushed Rommel and the Wermacht out of North Africa almost single-handedly. They were also major factors in Operation Overlord, battling up through Sicily and Italy, the (failed) invasion of Holland and, as someone said, cracking the ENIGMA code.

But Britain wasn't invaded because the Luftwaffe didn't achieve air superiority, so they couldn't attack the royal navy, so they couldn't invade because the troop ships would've been blown out of the water. So its not a case of didn't invade more couldn't invade because e halted their first stage of attack.

Having said all of that; i don't think the absences of Britain or the US would of changed the outcome in Europe, we (and by that i mean America as well) saved some countries from the USSR not the nazi's.

Hussar for The Few. Where'd we be without 'em.