The US wasn’t in the war per se until Pearl Harbor, and after the Japanese attacked, people were lined up around the block to enlist.
Lend-Lease helped both the UK and the USSR, but actually fighting the Germans (even through Churchill’s “soft underbelly”) helped tip the scale. Hitler went to direct Zitadelle (Kursk) in person, and shifted three divisions out of the preparations for the battle line to shore up Italian defenses. Boneheaded.
The terrain of Italy was the defense. And after those dozen or so airfields in southern Italy were in allied hands, the US finally put its foot down with the British and said, we’re done trying to fight our way up this BS, we have our objectives in hand.
Not to mention, the full industrial mobilization happened, and would not have otherwise, leading to overwhelming firepower from us and our allies.
Compared to the Germans, the Japanese were midget rodeo clowns (no ethnic slur intended, but I stand by the midget thing), and we had to do most of that on our own, while still making Germany-first our priority.
Hitler’s mistake vs the USSR was just one of a series of errors, the largest one. Obviously he should have cut loose and bagged the British army at Dunkirk. Failing that, should not have started Barbarossa until putting adequate resources to finish off the British in North Africa, there’s no doubt they could have prevailed if he had. Imagine that, the Med a German lake, control of the Suez Canal, plenty of oil from Arabia, and still no new front to worry about.
Instead, he fought the war like it was a bus schedule, and fretted that they couldn’t possibly keep the timetable if he had to stop to pick up passengers. Didn’t grasp strategy or tactics.
Compared with Pearl Harbor, well, nothing compares to it.
Nice, Sunkenciv. Appreciated your intelligent ramblings across the theaters of war. You make a good point about securing Middle East oil.
In that respect, both Germany and Japan were similarly handicapped from the start — relatively scarce sources for fuel.