Why do a lot of americans make out that they won ww11 alone?
A lot of Americans want to feel proud of their past historical accomplishments – and sometimes blow their accomplishments out of proportion. While they did contribute greatly to both World Wars -they certainly did not win the First World War, or the Second World War alone. Yes, the American film entertainment industry profits from telling tales to its viewers – myth (or propaganda) set in a historical context – and the viewers walk away with some feeling of pride about the “American Way of Life.” I think pride in one’s own accomplishements is fine – as long as it is not at the expense of others who also made their contributions too.
Most Americans have no idea that 75% of Germany’s armed forces were committed to the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, and that 70% or so of the casualties suffered by the Germans occurred on this front. America was certainly the driving force in the Pacific, but lets not forget the contribution of the Anzacs, particularly in new Guinea, or the Brits and their colonial troops in the China-India-burma theatre. I think the reason most American’s believe THEY won the war alone is that they came out the most ahead, economically and politically, and with the atom bomb, some would say militarly as well. Germany and Japan were utterly crushed, Europe was in ruins, the Soviets had the largest conventional army but had lost 25 million people and most of their western industry. So I think it was really the fact that the US came out a superpower, in combination with wartime propoganda.
Most Americans know that it wasn’t either the US or Britain that primarily won WWII. It was the Russians that destroyed the German army. (And, incidentally, something the Russians won’t admit even today – they couldn’t have stayed in the war without American supplies, food, fuel, and equipment, conveyed mostly by ship. In particular, without the 600,000 American 2 1/2 ton trucks, the Red Army would have had a terrible time sustaining an advance across the largely railroadless plains of Central Europe. And even if they had managed to produce the trucks, they couldn’t have fueled them, or their tanks, or fed their army, on what Russia was producing.) But, even beside that, I’d like to point out a few things. First, while it’s certainly true that Britain was staunch in the face of German aggression, standing alone against Hitler for a time before the US and USSR were brought in to the war, it’s also true that Britain would have lost the Battle of the Atlantic without American warships, ai
Perhaps for the same reason that a lot of Europeans like to “make out” that the presence of millions of American soldiers and the turning of the whole of North America into one gigantic munitions and equipment factory for 4 years didn’t help in the least, that they had Hitler and the Japanese just where they wanted them and it’s only coincidence that when America entered the war western Europe was occupied by Nazis or else struggling not to be, and that after America joined the tide turned. But, nobody who has more than 21 functioning neurons or has read a book not written by a Fox News commentator or Ann Coulter thinks that America singlehandedly won WW2 or that American involvement in WW2 didn’t end it a lot faster than it would have ended otherwise. That’s why they call it the second WORLD war- it involved more than a hundred nations.
