"America Saved Britain"

[Bill Mattocks]

I find pre-war sentiment to be a bit of a curiosity. Listening to my dad, he has fondly said that he and his schoolmates really wanted to fight Hitler. Given what he had to do to join the Army, I think he's right...and that's a very different image than the isolationist description I'd later read about. I wonder sometimes about the sentiments before the war and how many people held what view. My dad may not have been in the majority, but I certainly don't think he was alone in his thoughts either. Someday I'll spend some quality time in the library going through some old newspapers. In my copious free time.

Couple of thoughts...

Public opinions change, sometimes overnight. Pearl Harbor changed a lot of perceptions, the same way 9/11 did. US sentiment in 1938 was very different from US sentiment in 1942.

People don't always remember what they remember. They remember what they want most to remember. With no disrespect intended towards your relatives who remembered champing at the bit to go fight Hitler.

1938:

http://books.google.com/books?id=bk...AEwAg#v=onepage&q=america germany war&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=EU...AEwBA#v=onepage&q=america germany war&f=false

1941:

http://books.google.com/books?id=FE...AEwAg#v=onepage&q=america germany war&f=false

1942:

http://books.google.com/books?id=K0...AEwAg#v=onepage&q=america germany war&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=QU...AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=america germany war&f=false

From what I have read, public sentiment was slowly shifting away from isolationism towards approval of going to war on the side of the Allies, then Pearl Harbor happened, Germany declared war on us, and that was pretty much the end of any public sentiment towards peace. In a rather short period of time, people who publicly expressed a desire that America remain neutral were labeled 'traitors', despite the fact that only a few months before, it was the majority of the nation that felt that way.

 

[andy.m]

Here's my 'two-penn'th' .

[h=2]"America Saved Britain"[/h]

And we've never been allowed to forget it ! And you were 'bought and paid for' , as we paid the bill that no one else paid.
You (yanks) , conveniently forget it took Hitler declaring war on you to get you to 'save' us, but you did save us, from STALIN ! Because I think the outcome was already decided by December 1941.

 

[Monroe]

Andy - Did it occur to you to read the thread? You might want to back your cart up.

 

[Ephraim]

So everyone has to remember that the Soviet Union was Germany's biggest, baddest enemy.

The Americans and British were both considered hostile by Germany, but not existential threat. The Germans were most threatened by the Soviets, and for good reason. The Soviets at the time that the Germans attacked them were hugely building up their army and modernizing it. You may assume that this is because the Germans were threatening them but in fact, it was the Soviets who were the real threat to the Germans. There is a lot of evidence that Operation: Barbarossa was a preemptive strike against a potential Soviet invasion of Germany. The Soviets would have attempted to conquer Germany and bring most, if not all, of Europe under their control.

So the Germans attacked first, and they STILL lost. That is because no matter what, the Soviets were superior to the Germans. Despite incompetent handling of the war initially and a lack of manpower near the frontline, the Soviets beat back Germamy and it's allies. And Stalin could have lost more, he was prepared to fight past Moscow, all the way back to the Urals. The Germans were unable to sustain conflict in Russia, let alone with the Western powers. Why? Because the Soviet Union was much more powerful than Germany, and that was always the case. America was too, but they were far away across the Atlantic.

So did America save Britain? No, the Soviet Union saved Britain, though for self-centred reasons. America and Britain worked together to compliment the Soviets and distract the Germans with another front.

In fact, the Germans were surprisingly lucky that they managed to do what they did in the first place. Too bad luck always runs out.

 

[Xue Sheng]

THis post died October 07, 2011 and it should have been left to rest in peace... but you brought it back.... This will not end well

 

[elder999]

We have won the war!-Churchill's first thought on hearing of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor,in anticipation of U.S. help- James L. Stokesbury(1980). A Short History of WWII.

.

 

[oftheherd1]

Well, since it has been brought back, I'll add my two cents. First, I find it strange that no one has mentioned that France also declared war on Germany, and paid for it, before they got any help as a nation as far as I know. Pretty much all of the Commonwealth nations also declared war when England did. That included Canada, who entered according to a Wiki post I read, in Sep 39.

From what I recall of history discussed immediately after the war, and what I learned in high school, is that indeed many in the USA in the 30s did not want to be involved in war anywhere, including Europe and Asia. We were selling scrap metal to Japan until some time just before Japan attacked. Some think that may have made it easier for them to attack. Japan had taken over much of the Pacific that suited them, especially where raw material was, such as Dutch holdings.

At any rate, Americans didn't want to go to war due to remembrances of WWI, and being embroiled in their own depression. Also, not a well remembered fact is that there were a lot of communists, although they began to loose favor. They were lobbying against Germany, as Stalin didn't much like them and felt threatened by them. There was also a surprising amount of sentiment for the Germans, due to a lot of Americans having ancestry back to Germany. Also, they had brought themselves out of their depression. Those were complex times.

Even so, many felt sympathy for England, and her stand against Germany. Roosevelt and others wanted to help, but not violate neutrality. That was what lend-lease was all about. We weren't giving them war materials, we were lending and/or leasing things. Rather a thin line, but it worked for a while. Germany was getting tired of it, and might have begun heavily preying on our convoys themselves sooner had not Japan pushed us into the war when they did. I seem to recall there were some instances even so.

When Japan attacked us, they did us great harm at the beginning of the war. They destroyed and damaged a lot of our warships. As an aside, there have been many conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories pop up all the time, but most just don't seem to get validated, but they sound neat to some people, so they get repeated a lot. If our leaders knew what was going to happen, why in the world would anyone think they would take such a chance? The Japanese had us on our knees for a while, and could have taken Hawaii without too much trouble, probably meaning the rest of our fleet. As to the earlier mention of it strange our best ships were not there? Our best ships were the battleships. The Navy hadn't strongly committed to carriers yet, and in fact, the "Old Navy" still considered battleship command the top choice. They happened to be out on training. Period. They were not considered the 'best' ships at the time.

As others have pointed out, when America entered the war, it had access to a fairly large manufacturing base, and a lot of raw material available in all the Americas. That made it easier for them to supply not only themselves, but all their allies. Doing so prevented them from being reduced to the only ones fighting the war. Even so, we had a lot to do to be able to fight a global war. It wasn't something we started doing on December 8, 1941. Had it not been for lend-lease, it would have probably taken longer. It helped us build up industry, and train our armed forces. Not well known, is that we did have State Guard units, even though they were very poorly trained and equiped. But it was a start.

So, as to Monroe's original question, what if England didn't go to war? I have to also say, who knows? War had already been started by Japan, Germany, and Italy. At some point, the USA and other North and South American countries would have had to make a decision to cowtow to the Axis, or fight them. Even when Americans have been most inclined not to fight over whatever issues, there is a point beyond which they will not go.

I suspect it is the same with England and Canada, and even other Commonwealth nations. Somebody correct me if I am wrong.

So I suspect that England would eventually have had to fight or be totally subdued by Germany and Italy. Would they have done so in time to have suffered less than they did? I don't know. Glad it didn't happen that way, but I can imagine a possibility such that those who wished to remain free would have had to relocate and set up a government in exile. Like some other countries had to do. Would have been a totally different war.

One final thing regarding English and other countries' debt. At the end of WWII, I don't think Churchhill or Truman had a lot of trust for Stalin. That may be part of the reason it was easy to begin aid to England and Europe right after the war. Within about 3 years, that aid was formalized as the Marshall plan. Beside just being a good thing to do (which we always like to think we do), it was a good way to build up Europe against the Communists. But even they were offered a chance to participate in that. Reasonably, how much debt could we expect them to take on and still begin to recover? And England wasn't the only one to repay debt.

Some of the smaller countries continued to repay the WWI debt after WWII as I recall. So getting a 21 cents on the dollar deal and bragging about that? Well, we like to brag about things that perhaps we shouldn't, so I'm not going to throw stones. Besides, on my mother's side, I have English heritage. ;-)

As I said, just my two cents.