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We didn't. None the less, we sent our men to Europe to do the right thing -- true

I guess the saturation bombing of German forces and factories across Europe into Berlin wasn't really necessary then. -- no, I didn't say that -- on the contrary it WAS necessary -- I said "the Soviets broke the back" -- if we hadn't done saturation bombing and fought in Italy, etc. then the Soviets would have been controlling all of Germany and probably France as well

Western Europe, in particular the French were horrendously slimy -- France was protected from the USSR by a mass of nations, hence they thought they could withdraw from NATO as they didn't directly face a threat.....

The USSR destroyed German armies in the East. This leeched off men and weapons from the West. In the West, the Germans had absolute control of the Atlantic coast. By reducing their manpower, America and Britain had a chance to liberate western Europe. I appreciate the point. I do think the U.S. has plenty to offer up to support the idea that it was no slouch in the war effort. I view your point to be something like a coach saying he could have won the game with just his third baseman on the field. It doesn't work that way. The war effort required a lot of team members. Which one was most important, is something I'm not prepared to argue, because you can't aruge an issue like this without denegrating someone's efforts. I don't think it's a worthy argument to involve ones self in.

We could just as easily say that we drew in more troops to the West to relieve the USSR. To a certain extent, it would be true. Italy and points north, and the French Atlantic coast and points east covers a lot of territory. It took a lot of German and it's allies' troops to administer these regions. In late 1942, the U. S. entered the war in Europe with it's military campaigns in Northern Africa and Italy. We put over one million troops on the ground around the Mediteranian. By the end of the war, we had over four million in other parts of Europe. And that's just our troops. With all these forces on the ground, it still took over 2.5 years for the allied forces to bring the war to Berlin.

We didn't. None the less, we sent our men to Europe to do the right thing -- true

Okay then, the U. S. S. R. broke the back of the Germans in Western Europe? -- as I described above, yes, the actions on the Eastern front (which, let me remind me couldn't have been done without American military supplies) is what broke the back of the Germans. The losses suffered on the Eastern front meant that they had to understaff the Western. And Germany and it's allies losses from Northern Africa to Italy, to Northern Europe required Germany to expend men, munitions, and equipment there also. We had over four million (just our) men on the European continent, and yet it took eleven months to move to Berlin. Take a look at a map of Europe, look where the D-Day forces landed, and how far that was from Berlin. After you've done that, I think it's going to dawn on you that the German forces in Western Europe were no empty threat due to operations elsewhere. There was fierce fighting in Western Europe. And at the same time, the U. S. was mired in a touch and go war in the Western Pacific as well.

Russian forces were fighting on their own continent. We were moving our men and logistics about 3,000 miles in opposite directions around the planet. Please don't try to tell me how easy the U. S. S. R. made things on us. It's going to be lost on me.

Cronos, you're losing me here. When you break someone's back, the fight is over. Was the fight over when Europe was invaded by the allies on D-Day? No.

Yes, that's true. It was an inhumane way to reward people who had pulled the French's bacon out of the fire in two world wars in the 20th Century.