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Quote:

Originally posted by Colin

Supplies.

Entering the war, the US was already the world's number one economic power in the world and became far and away the largest industrial power. Considering the vast number of supplies sent to Russia and Britain during the war, it can safely be said the outcome would have been in severe jeopardy and delayed for years if it could be won at all. How would Russian troops have made it to Berlin without 400,000 American trucks? The US supplied Russia with millions of tons of food, thousands of railway cars, half a million rails, vast amounts of copper, millions of tons of oil and gas, hundreds of ships, thousands of fighter planes and bombers, hundreds of thousands of machine guns, millions of tons of steels (enough to produce 70,000 tanks!), hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum, and much more than that. ["The Second World War", Keegan]

The US sent even more to Britain, three times as much in dollar volume. By the end of the war 29% of British supplies were coming to the US.

Also important is that Britain sent much of her supplies to Russia.

Without US supplies, Russian troops would have been starving, fighting without ammunition after not too long and walking to Berlin.

That being said, your point is valid. Without an Eastern front there would have been a greater concentration of troops in the Atlantic coastal region and D Day might not have succeeded.

I think that the popular American view is as correct as yours. The Americans probably won the war by supplying everyone and the end of the war would have been delayed for many years without an Eastern front and eliminating the Japanese.

My own view is that Hitler would have lost eventually anyway. He made so many strategic errors as the war went on that he sealed his fate. That was Hitler. He would become obsessed with non-standard military views such as "never retreat" and hold to them even though it hurt his over-all position. His great generals
time and time again were overruled on what were probable winning strategies.

Good critique.