megatron said:
Yeah, how can we forget that the US Army single-handedly won world war 2 at the last minute! Phew, cheers USA that was close!
If we're going to talk about single events that happened decades ago, shouldn't we be thanking the British for starting GOOD OL' US OF AMERICA!
Yeah, sure, thank you British. I genuinely mean that. You guys founded the original colonies over here in North America that later became the United States. Good Work.
And thank you again, for pushing us into the position, as a result of World War II, of most powerful nation in the world. That's right, the BRITISH were responsible. Let me explain.
Towards the begining of WWII, England and France had this policy of APPEASEMENT. They listened to Hitler's cries of "Lebensraum" and they let him take more and more land. Then, Hitler EASILY invaded Poland. Two days later, England and France ended their pansy-ass policy and finally declared war on Germany. After they took Poland, the German's swept through Western and Northern Europe. Denmark and Norway surrendered, then Belgium, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. When the Germans were invading poland, around 300,000 French, British, and Belgian troops abandoned the country and retreated across the English Channel. Now Great Britain was the only surviving nation in Western Europe. July, 1940 marked the begining of the massive aerial bombardment of Great Britain. The Luftwaffe and their strategy of Blitzkrieg mostly dominated the RAF. The RAF had better planes and pilots, but they were strategically outmatched. Eventually though (mainly due to the RAF), Hitler basically gave up on capturing the Island, and instead just tried to destroy as much of it as possible. Huge V2 and V1 bombardments, Blitzkriegs and the like destroyed a LOT of the British war machine. Meanwhile, the Germans and Italians were seizing even more territory in Northern Africa and Eastern Europe. Because of the War, the British Empire basically ceased to exist. They gave independence to India, as an example, because they just plainly couldn't support the country anymore. Gandhi had a big impact in creating a nationalistic India, but WW2 was the real reason that India gained independence. Oh yeah, and Germany also tried to invade Russia. They almost succeeded, but the harsh winter and the fact that the Russians destroyed their own supplies as they retreated so the Germans couldn't use them turned the tide there. The Russians were severly crippled though. And this is all BEFORE the US entered the war. Up until this point, the US had adopted a position of Isolationism. Congress didn't want to get involved because they were too blind to see that Hitler would stop at nothing to achieve his goal of world domination. Then in Dec. 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and that rocketed the US into WW2. While the US probably focused a good deal of its forces to the Pacific theater, we send an ENOURMOUS amount of support over to Europe. Now the tide of war actually turned in favor of the Allies, mainly as a result of the entrance of the US. The added FORCE was a huge bonus for the Allies, but the STRATEGIC ingenuity was the biggest help. Winston Churchill selected US General Eisenhower as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. The Allies had 3 million men, 16 million tons of weapons and supplies, 9,000 boats of various sizes, and 11,000 aircraft. They then planned the invasion at Normandy, known as D-Day. This US planned and led strategy was the main turning point for the retaking of Europe. The Allied forces, spearheaded by the US, retook France and then more of Europe. Seeing that they couldn't stand up to the might of the Allies with the strength of the US, the Germans surrendured in May 1945.
So, after the war, the British Empire basically ceased to exist. They were extremely hurt by the war. As a result, the US had to take the lead. We spearheaded reconstruction. Our economy was booming. We had only recently become a superpower, and now we were the most powerful superpower in the world, replacing the British. So, without us, the Germans would have killed even more people. Aside from that little thing called the Holocaust, the Germans killed around 20 MILLION (!!!) Russian, 5.5 MILLION Polish, and about half a million British. Those bodycounts would have been a LOT higher had the US not entered the war.
The United States WAS the reason the Allies won World War II. And, thanks to the fall of the British, we became the world's foremost superpower, then surpassed anything the British ever were in terms of power. So, thanks mate. Thanks for letting Germany even start taking land with your appeasement policy. Thanks for opening the door for us to become the most powerful nation in the world.
