And I’m sure Russia scoffs at any mention of Lend/Lease.
Perhaps if Stalin wouldn’t have sided with Hitler at the outset, there would have been no need for the “Great Patriotic War”.
They also forget the pounding the Krauts got from day and night bombing. That helped them out a lot. And if the Krauts didn’t have to fight the allies on the West they might have crushed Russia.
Bingo.
The US produced and provided about 30% of the trucks and warplanes to the Soviet war machine during WWII. The trucks alone were critical prime movers for their supporting infantry to ride in and keep up with their armored forces as they pushed back the Nazis- and that’s while we were simultaneously providing wartime equipment to Great Britain and equipping ourselves for fighting around the globe.
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.
Both the western and the eastern fronts were essential to the defeat of Germany, so there’s no need for hair-splitting arguments over who did the most. Of course, that’s not to say that the Soviets did not deserve the damage that was inflicted on them by their self-destructive alliance with Germany after Hitler started the war.
Russia seems to forget that they couldn’t move their troops and supplies without our 8,000 train engines and cars, plus thousands of planes, bombs, chemical, metals, food, etc.
The Germans had destroyed a lot of the Soviet’s production capabilities west of the Urals which was where Stalin was establishing his new war industries.
The Soviet women fliers known as the “Black Widows” flew a lot of U.S. P-39 Airacorbras, which, with heavy fuselage armor, enabled them to wreak havoc among German armored forces.
The Red Army sacrificed so many men in poorly coordinated offensives, using ski troops to sacrifice themselves as human landmine clearing machines. They also used tens of thousands, if not more, of their invaded European countries captives, esp. Poland, in nearly unarmed “penal battalions”.
A late friend of mine, Red Army Major Avram Shifrin, was put into a “Jewish penal battalion”. The first wave had weapons. When they were wiped out, the second wave had to get their weapons to fight the Germans until they were wiped out. Then came the third wave. Few Jews and Poles, etc. survived any Soviet “penal battalion”.
The Russian soldiers were brave, but too often they had to fight at the point of a commissar’s gun/rifle, not out of any great love to save Stalin.
Remember, Stalin wiped out most of his top Red Army generals and senior officers in the “Great Terror” of the 1930’s (See Robert Conquest’s book of the same title). When the Germans attacked, and Moscow knew when and where, Stalin’s forces were significantly unprepared for it.
“Perhaps if Stalin wouldn’t have sided with Hitler at the outset, there would have been no need for the “Great Patriotic War”.
No kidding. Commies are @**holes.
And I’m sure Russia scoffs at any mention of Lend/Lease. ........................ Yes, it was canned “Spam” that won the war on the eastern front. We helped a little with the massive supply of equipment sent to our allies. By the time we hit the beaches, the Germans were pretty much ground down. Not to say they didn’t fight, but what good are mechanized forces without fuel and little food. They lacked the man power they had in 39-41’, by the time we got to France we already had a good portion of their army 10+(?) divisions in PW camps. The Volk Divisions we had to fight weren’t the Waffen SS. Germany was running out of warriors, and was sending the 4F’s in by the time we got there. (This was told to me many years ago by a German WW II veteran. If they could surrender without being shot On the western front), many did so. Once the Allies (Americans) landed he said most knew the war was over.) 43 to 45 also resulted in bad crops in Germany, and the Russians were busy grinding down the best German divisions after Stalingrad, thanks to a huge amount of made in the USA equipment and their endless supply of conscripts. The worst fighting was on the eastern front, neither side was willing to give quarter. We took losses too, most were USAAF casualties. Our greatest contribution to victory was material and the bombing of the communications and industry. I’m not poo-pooing the ground troops, you don’t take the land with without the fighting men.
By the time we landed in Normandy we were drafting High school kids, that tells you what kind of shape we were in, when we were only fighting 42-44. What shape were the Germans in after 39-44, all one had to do is look at the 14 yr olds in the PW camps in 45. We get there in time, had we waited another year, the USSR could have had all of Europe. Makes one wonder about iffy history.
The USSR couldn’t have been successful without material, munitions, and other aspects of the lease.