Replies

RE :”I've always thought of a scenario in which the defeat of both Germany and Japan carry out as they did. Then the Allies (minus the Soviets) unite and using the defeated Nazis as the spearhead, Russia is attacked from the West. Toss in a second front from the East (after Japan is dispatched) and the Soviets would have been in the same scenario the Nazis were in - a war on two fronts. With no one to supply them and the US having “the bomb”, Soviet Communism could have been defeated right then and there.”

The 1980s movie Patton's Last Days was replayed on cable last week where he get’s slapped down for suggesting such a thing.

Politically it was not possible at the time. The US had spent much political capital for years both making out the USSR as heroes and Nazi Germany as demons. The Katyn Forest massacre by the USSR had been played down in the US and the US factories had been arming the USSR for years. The US government under Roosevelt was loaded with American communists sympathetic to the USSR.

Hollywood made a US movie The North Star 1943 that depicted USSR socialist small town peasants overrun by Nazi's as patriotic heroes fighting them as the resistance behind the lines. Later during the Cold War this movie became unpopular.(I found a free copy on the internet and watched it again the past year.)

So with all of the above the American voter would not understood that all their relatives in the military, many of them who sacrificed greatly, were suddenly going to attack those they were told were helping us all those years. They wanted the troops home in 1945, VE and VJ. The wake-up day was when the USSR announced that had the bomb, which they stole from us,

“The 1980s movie Patton's Last Days was replayed on cable last week where he get’s slapped down for suggesting such a thing.”

I've long suspected that Patton was killed for wanting to take on the USSR. Call me a tinfoil wearer, but it's what I believe.

“Politically it was not possible at the time.”

I completely agree. I think of a line from the Orson Welles film “The Stranger” where a Nazi is described as “still having the stench of burnt bodies” on his clothes; no way would those types be fighting along side (or in front of) the Stars and Stripes (at least not openly). Although, Nuremburg could have been effectively canceled if those ghouls were thrown back in against the Soviets - I highly doubt they would have survived a second time against them. "Herr Hess, you have two choices: take this Mauser and attack the East or you get hung in five minutes."

“They wanted the troops home in 1945, VE and VJ. The wake-up day was when the USSR announced that had the bomb, which they stole from us,”

Of course! And since we don't have the luxury of a crystal ball, I doubt most folks saw Korea and Vietman on the horizon, which cost us another 110,000+ American lives and countless more casualties.

In the end, Patton was right in a military sense - we should have fought them then why we had the troops there (and were the sole owners of “the bomb”). Politically, it couldn't happen.