Posted on 06/05/2019 6:24:22 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Russia told the West on Wednesday the Normandy landings on D-Day in 1944 did not play a decisive role in ending World War II and that the Allied war effort should not be exaggerated.
Moscow's comments might irk war veterans in Britain where the 75th anniversary on Wednesday of the largest seaborne invasion in history was marked at a ceremony in Portsmouth attended by Queen Elizabeth and world leaders including Donald Trump and Angela Merkel.
Speaking at a weekly news conference in Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova offered a tribute to those who died on the western front of World War II and said Moscow appreciated the Allied war effort.
"It should of course not be exaggerated. And especially not at the same time as diminishing the Soviet Union's titanic efforts, without which this victory simply would not have happened," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
But this is really just a parlor game 4 idiots that want to beat their chest 75 years later and had nothing to do with it. The truth of it is, it took America’s Manufacturing and Technical prowess and the complete mobilization and professionalizing of our military, and it took the Russian people suffering brutally in terms of blood to beat down those Nazi bastards.
Nobody had a walk in the park. I can understand why Stalin was pressuring us and the Brits to open a second front. They were in desperation mode, in a fight for survival. And I understand why we didn’t do it, by 1944, our army was a very different animal than it was in the Summer of 42. And we spent a good solid 18 months to 2 years wrecking the luftwaffe which had to be accomplished.
Despite the Parlor game of today, there was plenty of suffering, and plenty of hard work that happened on both sides.
They aren’t wrong....
While there were several “Turning points” in the Second World War, the point can be argued that the most “Significant” turning point was the Allied Invasion of Sicily and Italy.
The Italian Invasion forced the Germans to redirect several of their strongest divisions, several equipped with the very latest and best of German tanks and Arty, to the Italian Theater, that were enroute to be the Anvil of follow on forces smashing exhausted Russian forces during and after the 4th Battle of Kursk, including 1200+ of the latest aircraft. Without those forces at Kursk, the Germans were not able to exploit the gains that they did make, at great expense.
The King Tigers, King Panthers, Hummels, Wespe’s, jagdTigers, etc, of these divisions are a large part of why the fighting in Italy was such a slog.
After Kursk, the Germans were never again able to regain the initiative anywhere in Europe.
The germans would disagree.
I am currently listening to Victor Davis Hanson’s book “The World Wars” and it is pretty good. It was pretty much the USA and England fighting all over the globe...but mostly us.
There were lots of reasons for that.
Once the Germans fell at Stalingrad, it was only a matter of time before the Russians kicked the Germans out of the Soviet Union. Without the D-Day invasion, the Russians would probably have defeated the Nazis by early 1946.
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
I remember reading somewhere the first thing Stalin wanted from us was five thousand jeeps/trucks.
The Russian army survived on Spam and long underwear sent by us......among millions of other items.
True - the Russians withstood the brunt of the eastern land fighting and suffered terribly. Perhaps if ‘Uncle Joe’ hadn’t made a pact w/ Hitler, and hadn’t ordered 40,000+ of his Russian military officers executed the eventual victory could have happened much sooner.
June 1944 there were 66 German divisions in the western European theater of operations (www.axishistory.com). Perhaps Putie-poot should reflect on what may have transpired if the lions share of these divisions had been available for the Eastern front!
Not only was the US feeding, clothing & equipping our multiple allies (hello Russia) we also had to feed, cloth & equip our own forces against Hitler & the Japanese Empire simultaneously.....AND cross the oceans to do it.
We sure as hell did not order the death our officer corps for the task.
I never read about the Russian navy kicking anyone’s ass either.
I don’t think a lot of those Russian soldiers trusted their government. I think a lot of them had no choice, and no say in the matter. Here, a draft Dodger would face jail. There, they would have faced summary execution. Also, I think the average Russian probably had a mindset that would be hard for us to understand. You passionately hate your government, and at the same time you have to set that aside for the Nazis who you hate even more. I think that explains a lot of the desperation and bitterness on the Eastern Front.
The landing in Normandy launched the Western Front of WW II that the German army dreaded and within six weeks they attempted to assassinate Hitler because he refused to sue for peace.
Also, the Russian article ignores the land lease supplies sent at great cost by the Allies to Russia that included everything needed to defeat the Nazis - especially important was the food and four wheel drive trucks/ jeeps that gave the formerly horse and foot Red Army infantry an edge over the German military.
The articles ignores the air war in the West that tied down upwards of 75% of the German air force and the bombing campaign that did great damage to German industry and transportation.
Yes, 75% of the German ground forces were deployed on the Eastern Front - and its questionable whether the Allied landing would have been successful against this massive ground force of over 100 well trained, equipped and experienced divisions in a Western campaign.
So I think fair to say the Western Allies would have been forced to the peace table and WW II ended as a draw - but likewise the same thing would have happened to Russia without the Western Front.
And all the while we were also fighting a separate war in the Pacific - thanks for all the help out there, Uncle Joe.
Eisenhower halted any American advance on Berlin for good reason. He understood it was going to be a meat grinder of epic proportions.....better to let the Russkies have at it.
http://ww2f.com/threads/tigers-in-italy.62527/
No King Tigers made it to Italy with the possible exception of 15 at the very bitter end of the war. And only about 120 tiger I’s made it. Italy was a meat grinder mostly because of artillery.
A few people doing something over Hiroshima and Nagasaki may had had an impact.
It is well documented that Stalin was crying for a second front from the first day he was attacked by Hitler. And while the Soviet contribution was critical in terms of casualties and occupation of German strength in the East, without Allied materiel delivered to Murmansk at great cost by Allied merchant marine the Soviets would have been overrun in 1943.
I agree completely with your post.
One of the most powerful and influential books I ever read was “The Gulag Archipelago” that described the brutality of the government in great depth, and you definitely understand the power of the police state and the power it holds over individual citizens with no rights.
How’d the Soviets get to Germany? They were riding in 150,000 Studebaker trucks.
commie fag
“... gradually pushing them back from early 1943...”
Emphasis on the word “gradually.” They had slow going until the D Day landings and the constant pressure put on the Nazi forces through US and allied land force advances and pounding by the Air Forces of allied nations, mostly US. The US held up to allow the Russians to take Berlin whereupon the Ruskies raped every German woman there between 8 and 80, according to their own press.
Well, um, thanks. Better you than us.
But, Stalin got his second front and we got France, Denmark, Norway and most of Germany.
That’s another astonishing fact. When the Nazi army invaded the USSR, almost everything was horse-drawn. That Army moved on horseflesh more than anything else, more than most people realize.
Our Jeeps and 4x4 trucks performed incalculable service. We also kept a steady stream of aircraft flowing in across Alaska and through Siberia. Hey twenties, b-25s, p-40s, P39, p63, c-47.
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