"Well, OK, whatever the Russians were doing they sure lost a lot of people doing it."
I think we all lost a lot of people, don't you?
"United States industry was focused on supporting them in doing it too. Their tanks were made in Detroit (although they cast their own guns). Their ammunition was manufactured in Louisville. The engines for their trucks were manufactured in Indianapolis. The bread they ate was made from wheat grown in Kansas and Nebraska. The pork in their Spam came from hogs raised in the American Corn Belt. Their clothes were made out of American cotton and wool, and the shoes on their feet were built in small factories all over the American Midwest and South set up for just this purpose, and the leather in those shoes was from American cattle."
Your knowledge of history is vastly superior to mine. I did not know the above details, thanks for the education.
"WWII was a war of total mobilization in the United States. We didn't do it by ourselves."
I would never claim the USA accomplished this victory by itself, but base on the information you provided above, we were obviously instrumental in this victory in more ways than one.
I't just torques me when the Germans or Japanese start whining about what a bad deal they got from the USA. My only response to such whining is "BITE ME".
Just one of my many hot buttons you know...
60%!
Without American industry placed in the service of the Russian war effort the Germans would have acquired the USSR, and with it the natural resources and oil of Siberia.
Some Russian kids died for us you know.
I was taught about that by Joseph Sutton (referenced elsewhere in an earlier post). I grew up about a mile from Naval Ordinance in Indianapolis. That's where they made the Norden Bombsight. They made other stuff there as well. Boy Scouts regularly visited the Allison engine factory where you could see the engines they built for airplanes used against the Germans by the Brits, the Russians and ourselves.
Almost all the adult males in my family (both sides) served in the war, and all the women worked in war industries or government agencies devoted to the war effort.
It was total mobilization of a kind that's almost unimagineable.