[SoDak]

I saw it. It was very interesting. I'm likely wrong, but it seems to me that the moment the nazi's managed a beachhead on Britain, US Soldiers would have been landing to help the Brits throw them off. I know that many in the US were ant-war, but that would have been the final straw in my mind.

[Mr.Clark]

They probably would not have gotten there in time, as we were barely mobilized at the time. It would have been close though.

[Poohbah]

There probably would have been a chilling realization that, if we weren't the very next in line, we would be on the list sooner or later.

[katana]

Sorry to say, but I think your assumption is wrong. There were plenty of Americans at the time, including Joe Kennedy and Charles Lindberg, who firmly believed the British were doomed and that America had no business saving them. Roosevelt was sympathetic to the British plight and did everything he could within (and a bit beyond) what the neutrality laws would allow to help them, but we fought Hitler because he declared war on us.

[Euro-American Scum]

I saw it. It was very interesting.

Has this already aired in the U.S. If not, do you know when?

[SuziQ]

but it seems to me that the moment the nazi's managed a beachhead on Britain, US Soldiers would have been landing to help the Brits throw them off.

Back then, the Nazi's would have had time to get a strong toehold in Britain before we could get there. They didn't have long distances from which to bring supplies, etc. You think supply lines in Iraq were in difficulty? Just imagine what it would have been like for us to maintain a supply line across the Atlantic. We would have have to bring more carriers from the Pacific making that area of operations less efficient and dragging thewar in the Pacific out. We would still have won, but it would have been long, bloody and costly for us and for the Brits.

[Big Horn]

I saw it last night it was very interesting. The Germans and Hitler were so close to winning it is scary.

[Princeliberty]

The US was really unprepared to help,
as bad shape as our military was on December 7,1941
we were much worse off the, we had started to build
our military after Hitler conquered France and
were still had our pants down.
This would have been summer of 1940 and
we very little in the way of army or Air Force,
and if the Germans got into England
small distance form the beach to London,
and England's ground forces were shot,
their defense was their Navy and
if the Germans gained the air and
sunk it the land forces could have
hardly even slowed the Germans down.

Further, the Germans probably made a mistake
by not attacking right away with the full
paratrooper corps and all their guilders
(which they had a ton of)
See Crete operations were 18,000 German
paratroopers defeated about 35,000 British
and allied forces(including an armored division!)

[kms61]

Two points--

The Germans would never have been able to mount a successful cross-channel invasion in the timeframe we're talking about. They simply didn't have the amphibious capablity, and Hitler's attention had already turned back to the East, which was where, in his mind, the Reich's real destiny lay. Thus any German takeover would have to have been political in nature...Say Churchill gets killed in an air raid, or there's a pro Nazi coup deposing him. Britain capitulates, and the Germans walk in unopposed. This would render American military assistance moot.

Second, even if the US did decide to intervene, the American convoys would have had to run a U-Boat gauntlet across the entire Atlantic to get there, and without any British help on that side of the pond. I don't think it could have been done in 1940-41. It took until 1944 for us to get the upper hand against the U-boats, and then only because of improved ASW tactics and technology.

Although it wasn't widely recognized at the time, there was never a serious threat of a German amphibious assault. There was, however, the real possibility Britain being knocked out of the war poltically--with a German occupation or, in my mind the more likely outcome--a quasi-independent puppet regime. The Germans had drawn up plans for such a government, with the reinstalled Edward VIII as it's head.