Bruce Wilson of Courier Mail says U.S. role in WWII was very small. (Via Drudge)

Drudge Report ^ | July 6 2002 | Bruce Wilson

[mrfixit514]

In response to emails about an article he wrote bashing Bush, Wilson writes:

They ran on two levels: "Come to Texas . . . and we'll show ya." And, "We saved your asses and if you keep this stuff up we won't do it again."

Some were so offensive I replied in kind. Some I tried to tell that the US came very late into World War II and Britain already had fought its two major battles without them.

[section9]

I sent him a reply, too long to post here, which basically deflated his whole theory.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Restorer]

>>The average Brit has no idea, and is crestfallen to learn the U.S. suffered more casualties than Blighty in WW2.

Total British population 1940: appr. 48 million

Total US population 1940: appr. 140 million

Proportionate to population, the Brits lost almost 3 times as many men in WW2 as the US.

[B Knotts]

Anyone notice that Drudge linked to a Free Republic thread in that story?

[bok]

I don't need to boast and diminish the allied forces of WWII or their achievements. The actions and bravery of US soldiers speaks for itself as do the allied forces. People only give this person gasoline for his rhetoric. Pay him no mind, this is a childish tactic used to gain attention. By chance or conspiracy the United States entered the war and i'm glad they aided britain from the nazi invasion.

[VOA]

The Soviets lost over 900,000 offiers, more than twice as many as we did in total!

And what about the purge of the officer corps by Stalin BEFORE WWII!?

[Restorer]

And what about the purge of the officer corps by Stalin BEFORE WWII!?

See post #40.

[FreedomPoster]

I'll have to dig around the Internet, but I once saw a line by line item list of supplies and equipment we sent to Soviet Russia, I'll try to post that, or maybe somebody has better access to that. It's truly staggering.

I actually had it saved off to my local hard drive, and used that to use google to find the link.

The material we provided was enormous, and made a huge difference in the Soviet war effort. Period.

Lend Lease to Russia

SUMMARY

MUNITIONS $4,651,582,000 NON-MUNITIONS 4,826,084,000 ---------------- Total 9,477,666,000 Note: the figure of $11 billion includes services as well as goods furnished.

The U.S. Government has never released detailed reports on what was sent in Lend-Lease, so Major Jordan's data, gleaned from the Russians' own manifests, is the only public record. More than one-third of Lend-Lease sent was illegal under the terms of the act which specifically prohibited "goods furnished for relief and rehabilitation purposes."

It should be kept in mind that Russia was an ally of Japan throughout the war, that it had been the ally of Hitler during the first two years of the war, that its division of Poland with Germany started the war, that it was an agressive imperialist force that attacked Finland and subverted the Baltic states as well, that it had announced that it intended to take over the world and that most of the aid sent in 1945 was sent after Stalin's February speech in which he said he would continue the war but against the United States.

Franklin Roosevelt's alter ego and Lend-Lease administrator Harry L. Hopkins, a KGB agent, declared to Russia before a crowd at Madison Square Garden on June 22, 1942, that: "We are determined that nothing shall stop us from sharing with you all that we have." He was not joking.

[TransOxus]

The boatlift of Dunkirk is one of them and so is capturing the oilfields in North Africa along with others. From what I have read, the failure of the Russian blitzkrieg from primarily winter conditions which was due to Hitler's postponement of Operation Barbarossa, laid the seeds of Hitler's downfall. This failure in 1941 led to Hitler purging his Generals and becoming totally in control of the Army. Whereas before he had still listened to his Generals and allowed them to execute most of the time leading to stunning victories, now he made all the decisions from top to bottom, turning him from a brilliant strategist to a blunderer. Good thing meglomania set in with Hitler at this stage for the Allies. This led to stretching German armies pretty thin and in getting good support late around 1941. Rommel's loss at El-Alamein was the first significant victory by the Allies over the Germans but it could have been otherwise if Hitler had listened and allowed Malta to be taken when they had the chance.

[arm958]

A most interesting thesis - the US was only a minor factor in WWII.

Tell it to the Marines.

Why not Soldiers, Sailors or Airmen?

[TransOxus]

True that most of the Allied army who won the first significant victory at El-Alamein over Germany (supplemented with Italians) were non-British in North Africa and were mostly Indians, Australians, and Kiwis. Read somewhere sometime back, Rommel didn't think too much of the fighting capabilities of the Italians and stated so correctly when he knew Italian divisions were confronting the Indian ones.

The Italians seem to provide some comic relief in the mayhem of WW-2. We have the comic triumvirate of Muscles, Brains, and Stupid which corresponds to the German Army, Hitler, and Mussolini, respectively. The Italian "invasion" of France supporting the German invasion quickly stalled only a few hundred yards in France from the Italian border as the French defenses held on. Meanwhile up north, the Germans were cake-walking it in defeating France easily. Then there was the Italian invasion of Greece which the Duce decided to go at alone to prove he could do something. The Greeks quickly repulsed the Italians and shoved them back to Albania. Later the German Army came in and easily cake-walked over Greece, much to Duce's mortification. Truly a low from the days of the Caesars when Romans were victorious in battles.

[VOA]

See post #40.

Thanks...didn't catch that with my fast scan of the thread.

Maybe 10 years ago, I saw a documentary on PBS (from the U.K.) that said something
to the effect that the Soviet Military had more "casualties" from the
peacetime purge than any single army had suffered during wartime.

Whether that's 100% true, it's a sure deal that Stalin piled up the bodies whether
a war was going or not.

[ozzymandus]

3 times as many by population?? Totally irrelevant! Besides, how many of those "British" casualties were actually Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, Gurkha, or some other "colonial" troops? We didn't force "colonial" nations to do our fighting. I realize that leftist asses like this guy are only trying to be insulting to Americans, but I'd still like to give that sissy the 3 Stooges treatment.

[Polybius]

Some I tried to tell that the US came very late into World War II and Britain already had fought its two major battles without them.

Yes, the Brits had fought two major battles. In the Battle of France the Brits were routed and barely escaped with their lives and in the Battle of Britain the Brits held their own but still barely escaped with their lives. They were both defensive battles.

Barely escaping with your life in defensive battles rarely wins wars no matter how many times the feat is repeated. Offense wins wars and the British had no offensive capabilities and little defensive capabilities without U.S. aid.

If the U.S.A. had stayed neutral during World War II, a red flag, having either a swastika in the middle or a hammer and sickle in the upper left hand corner, would now fly over over Buckingham Palace and the rest of Continental Europe.

[Inkie]

It frustrates me that we even have conversations like this. This idiot just wanted to start a big pissing contest. Britain, the ANZACs and other colonized spots (like the Pacific islander "fuzzy wuzzies"), the Russian people (despite their hideous, self-defeating leaders) and the Americans all made huge sacrifices to win this war. Why get into this "we suffered more than you did" crap. Let's reconstruct our alliance to concentrate on the enemy at hand: militant Islam.

[Polybius]

The Russians could not have defeated the Germans without our alliance, but equally we could not have defeated them without either Russian alliance or a far greater number of casualties.

If Germany had defeated Russia in World War II just as Germany defeated Russia in World War I, Germany would still have lost the war and the U.S. would have still kept casualties relatively low.

The difference is that V.E. day would have been in late 1945 and that Berlin instead of Nagasaki would now be used in the same sentence with Hiroshima.

[moteineye]

nearly 1 million Americans died

[F16Fighter]

One could submit that Bruce (Who?!?) Wilson's brain runneth over it's thimble.