World War 2, how close did we really come to loosing?

Originally Posted by Trampie

The Russians beat the Germans. We just helped somewhat!

You obviously read different history books to me then..

What finally broke Germany ?? The continual bombardment of "The Fatherland". Night & day major city's were systematically brought to their knees. No manufacturing, no logistics and no food... The German people just gave up in the end. Once Germany lost air supremacy in Europe the writing was on the wall.

And I agree about Churchill, he truly was a great man and he saved this nation, but without the war to fight he was a political bafoon, which is why he fell from power soon after the war, but he did have another session in the 50's too, which a number of people tend to forget.

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[Biker Biggles]

We haven't started on the Battle of the Atlantic yet,which,if lost,would have led to the starvation and collapse of this country.One of those new weapons developed by the Germans(The U boat)was taken on and beaten by the Navy and Air Force.As mentioned code breaking played a big part in this and shows a common trend in why the Germans did not win the war.We had better intelligence and counter intelligence than they did.We had a pretty good idea what they were up to most of the time,and therefore,despite them having greater military capacity,we were often able to score major hits at times and places where it did most damage.
It's not always what you got,but how you use it.

My Grandfather flew Spitfires and Hurricanes fighting in the Far East. Was even shot down once. He hated the Japs with a passion.

And let's not forget the Ulster contribution in North Africa

Originally Posted by philipMac

(Slight diversion, but I honestly think Bush Jr sees himself as a bit of a Churchill himself. He probably should have followed Churchill's example and stayed on the drink.)

IMHO there is quite a difference between the two. Bush is a puppet for the various departments in the Whitehouse/Pentagon whereas Churchill was making real decisions.

Not only that, Churchill helped us win the war, Bush? well...

Pete

Originally Posted by Jelster

You obviously read different history books to me then..

What finally broke Germany ?? The continual bombardment of "The Fatherland".
.

No one can doubt that the bombing campaigns contributed greatly to the outcome. However, on the battle field, the Soviet contribution was far greater than that of the Western powers. My memory is a little hazy as it is some time since I studied modern world history - I believe the combined loses of the UK and USA totaled close to a million. Whereas the Soviets lost well over 10 million, some estimates suggest a number closer to 20 million.

Re: the history books. It is only in recent times that the political climate has been such that the significance of the Soviet contribution has been given due credit.

Originally Posted by UlsterSV

My Grandfather flew Spitfires and Hurricanes fighting in the Far East. Was even shot down once. He hated the Japs with a passion.

And let's not forget the Ulster contribution in North Africa

Lets not forget all of Ireland's contribution to WWII if we are not forgetting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/n...nd/3749629.stm

Fair enough, Dev wouldn't officially fight a war alongside the English, but plenty of Irish people fought and died in WWII.

IMHO there is quite a difference between the two. Bush is a puppet for the various departments in the Whitehouse/Pentagon whereas Churchill was making real decisions.

Not only that, Churchill helped us win the war, Bush? well...

Pete

Oh Jesus yeah. I am not for a second saying that he *is* a modern day Churchill.
I mean, what goes on in Bush's head, and what actually goes on in reality are fairly far removed. I think he has a Churchill-esque image of himeslf though.

[Biker Biggles]

Ulster---Did you know Churchill offered Ulster to the Republic if they would join in the war against Germany?And Germany bombed Dublin to persuade them not to?

Originally Posted by Biker Biggles

Ulster---Did you know Churchill offered Ulster to the Republic if they would join in the war against Germany?And Germany bombed Dublin to persuade them not to?

They could have probably saved themselves the bomb.
If you could look up Total Abhorrent Hatred Of the English in the dictionary, you would see Eamon De Valera
Dev didnt care about people dieing. He cared not fighting alongside the English.
Fairly shameful behavior by the then Irish Govt.

One of the bombs landed and went off in the back of my Grandad's garden, in Dundrum, and he slept through it. Sound sleeper was my grandad.

I was over at his place a while back, and there was this furore about Dev's questionable parentage in the press. My Grandad was sitting there, chuckling to himself. "I always knew that guy was a b@stard".

Class.

Edit... the Nazis were courting Dev Et al quite strongly before and during the war. They thought a properly armed IRA could inflict serious damage on the UK. In fairness to Dev, he told them where to go on this one.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Jelster

You obviously read different history books to me then..

Quite possibly... Even when I was at school, a lot of what was in the history books we had was basically complete nonsense, you'd have thought the Russians did nothing. The history books do change. We had some that depicted Dunkirk as a mighty victory, instead of an 11th hour save, others that quietly forgot about US support, or the French resistance (still others that forgot about the vichy...)

By the time we got into continental europe, it wasn't so much about beating the germans- it was about beating the germans before the russians did, since stalin with most of europe under his belt wasn't a welcome thought. Damn right too... The red army was getting set up to march all the way to the english channel, as most see it now, and then we'd just have a different enemy/rival over the water, one with the biggest fighting force the world's ever seen and the willingness to grind it to a pulp to win.

As for "cheese eating surrender monkeys"... If we'd had our heads handed to us like the French did, I reckon we'd be just as fast to surrender. It's relatively easy to have a blitz spirit when there's not a thousand tanks in the streets. It was geography that stopped it from being us, not indomitable british courage and a stiff upper lip.

Total deaths for UK : 450,400 (382,600 military).
Total deaths for Soviet Union : 23,200,000 (10,700,000 military).

If Hitler and Stalin hadn't killed each other neither of them would have had much problem with dealing with the UK.