Why do people say that the British didn't do a thing in WW2?

[Daipire]

Considering the brits did shitloads in both world wars, compared to america, who came in late in the second...

The french get alot of shit too, and i'm guessing he's american

 

[Claymorez]

Britain did do alot, but the americans and russians did most of the work according to my american-based education

Cut out the 'American' part. Wherever you get your education is one of the countries that helped, I of-course got the 'BRITAIN DID EVERYTHING!' speech from my teacher, although the Russians are the only ones who deserve this whole hype.

cut out the american part!? was it not the americans that for the most part liberated North Africa, Italy, and France!? How can you possibly claim that america did not have a substantial effect on the war. Not to mention the fact that we supplied the Brits when we were neutral, so therefore, America did come in and save the day.

As for the Russians, it was the RUSSIAN WINTER and Hitler's tactical blunders that saved Russia, not the disgrace of an army that was the Red Army. The Red Army only had manpower and Stalin to keep it running.

The axis forces took 77% of their casualties on the Eastern front.

Yes, cut out the American part.


Everything you just said to me was also told to me by my History teacher, with America replaced by 'Britain' and was probably told by the Polish History teacher.

its fact though, Hitler made the same mistake as Napoleon: invade Russia during the winter. They ran out of supplies and were ill-suited to the conditions. All im saying is that Russia lost ALOT of men and outside factors, not russian military superiority, was what decided the outcome on the Eastern Front. Had AMERICA not re-opened the western front, Russia would have gotten bent over.

Whenever I hear the word Napoleon I laugh as it was my great-great-great-great-grand father Rostopchine who burnt Moscow to the Ground: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Rostopchin

 

[EuanMack]

wait what? thats ridiculous, the first half of the war was mainly russians and british..... the americans only joined when they thought the shit was going to hit the fan for them....

 

[Totenkopf]

I usually summarize the whole American, British and free French forces as "western allies", so no one gets left out.

canadians and polish are not going to like that!
my country fought valiantly till the end! for about 3 days XD then some of us teamed up with the germans to kill russians... oh glory that is WWII

edit: prolly somebody already told the above so i make no usefull contribution!!! yay for me

Never mind. Compared to that what my country did back then, fighting for 3 days against Nazi Germany is heroic. But as said before, I don't want to exclude anyone, I appreciate every Nation and every man who helped bringing the Reich down.

They also cracked the ENIGMA code, which was one of the most significant turning points of the war.

What pisses me off about this is what happened to Alan Turing afterwards. Underecognition much?

Worse than that, the man who helped crack the code, and pretty much invented what we know as the computer, was bullied, and threatened with jail time for his homosexuality, so much so that he committed suicide.

A horrible end for a national hero.

Seriously, wtf? How can you treat a man like that so badly just for his sexuality?
Reminds me of Rommel, one of the few good man Germany had by that time.
The Nazis thought he was involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler and forced him to commit suicide. Fucking asses.

 

[beddo]

Simple question in fact I was in history today learning about WW2 and my teacher said that the british didn't do a thing and that the americans oh the bloody americans held up everything defending the land.
For when I read the book then it was mostly in Russia and the russians did most of the killing and the biggest sacrifices.
So guys I'm thinking what did the british do?

P.s.I'm a british patriot (16) who lives in Iceland so the education here for history isn't exactly great.

I'm afraid your teacher is factually inaccurate and should not be considered a decent educator as he is denying the truth of events in history.

Britain declared war on Germany and with the allies fought and won. The US did join but not until 1942 which is quite a while after the war had begun in 1939, naturally they had not been engaged in full warfare so of course their addition to the Allies was a great help.

Britain led most of the war effort from planning and tactics to invasions. Britain was at war with Germany, Italy and Japan, most of the neutral states were overrun by Germany, followed by the Scandinavian countries and eventually France. It' amazing the Britain managed to hold out against Germany which had been rearming for years while the Allied states wanted to do everything to avoid a return to war of the nature of the Great War.

In the Infamous Battle of Britain we fought off Germany air invasion attempts. Russia was an effective ally of Britain and did a lot. However, their sacrifice was more one of being horrendously ill equipped. To suggest that Britain didn't sacrifice would be an insult, we sacrificed loads while others surrendered. I get that's not what you're saying.

The US provided a lot and undoubtedly helped us win, of course, we would have never given up, we would have fought tooth and nail till the bitter end. We provided the US with knowledge and tactics, something that they would have been lost without. They would have been invaded sooner or later and we helped each other destroy the Axis.

 

[historybuff]

Simple question in fact I was in history today learning about WW2 and my teacher said that the british didn't do a thing and that the americans oh the bloody americans held up everything defending the land.
For when I read the book then it was mostly in Russia and the russians did most of the killing and the biggest sacrifices.
So guys I'm thinking what did the british do?

P.s.I'm a british patriot (16) who lives in Iceland so the education here for history isn't exactly great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, only stupid ignorant people say the Brits didn't do anything in WW2. I thought that was obvious? The same kind of people say the Chinese didn't do anything. The Americans didn't do anything. The French didn't do anything. And it's all wrong. So just let it go.

Yes, everyone will blame the American teachers--so it makes me laugh that you're from Iceland. Can't blame us for that one! Although...people probably still will. It's very fashionable to blame and hate America for everything.

The Russians certainly didn't do all the killing but Russia and China did lose the largest numbers.

If you are actually interested in what the Brits did, it basically comes down to this:

The Russians were on Hitler's side first. China was a second front because they were dealing with the horrific things that the Japanese were doing. America wasn't involved yet because that's pre-1941 Pearl Harbor--but was beginning to freeze resources from the Japanese because they wouldn't stop fucking around in the South Pacific.

France falls in 1940. So, basically, it's just England (and Commonwealth kids) versus the Nazis.

And that is certainly impressive in and of itself. After the Blitz, the Brits got back up, dusted themselves off, put on their top hats and told Hitler to fuck himself.

On D-Day, the Brits took three beaches (one by themselves, one with some awesome Canadians and one with the French) while the Americans dealt with the other beaches. Brits (and Commonwealth kids) did loads in North Africa and it was the English and the Americans who started to take Italy from the south and heading north.


So...instead of just starting a little flamebait--because everyone loves to blame Americans--why don't you do a little research yourself?

 

[Guvnorium]

With so many people agreeing, how did this thread get to be four pages big?

Thank you, Canada for getting my town out of German hands btw.

As a Canadian I greatly appreciate the comment and although most of our veterans are gone now I'm sure they would do it again in a heartbeat. Are you from the Netherlands or France if I may ask?

Don't forget the contribution of the Canadian merchant marines, what with their braving U-Boat attacks and helping to supply Britain (with American equipment, hurray Lend-Lease!) while America was trying to stay out of the war. Heck, I learned that from an ultra-pro-american-oh-my-god-we-are-awesome film from the fifties, so they must have been cool.

Funny you should mention that because about two weeks ago an old man who was in the Canadian merchant maries came into the office to get his taxes on and we had a long discussion about that part of the war. Since canada didnt really have a navy they had to make the first half of the trips unprotected untill the british navy and airforce could meet them halfway.

Its silly to agrue who did more in the war since every country did some really important stuff. Also the only reason russia lost so many troops because they would sent 100,000 men at a line of german machine guns and if any tried to retreat they would shoot them themselves. The russian generals didnt really have any value on the lives of their men so their casualties were so high.

Yeah, I was watching the old school archival footage "documentary" knonw as "Victory at Sea" whihc starts off by talking about the Candian merchant marines. Brave dudes. Who sound even cooler when described by a typical old school news reel announcer.

Considering the brits did shitloads in both world wars, compared to america, who came in late in the second...

The french get alot of shit too, and i'm guessing he's american

Funny you should say late to the second. We actually came in during the last year of world war one, whereas we came in during the third(ish) year of world war two, about halfway through. Far later any way you look at it.

Yeah, us Yanks didn't do much during world war one, but the dough boys were instrumental in breaking the stalemate. Of course, we still had the smallest contribution of manpower to the war. We did help keep the Entente from starving though.

World War Two on the other hand, is a much tricker trout to filet. (Just made up an expression! Sweet!) You can't discount our contribution in the Pacific. Or the benefit of American equpiment in Britain.

So don't say that the British did "shitloads compared to the Americans" in world war two. Of course, its probably true when talking about world war one...

 

[Twad]

THe Brits did a whole bunch of things.

So are the Chinese, Americans, Russians, Canadians, Japanese, French, Poland, Germans, Italians ect ect ect. It was World War 2.

Russia did the vast majority of the fighting, but didnt get much of the spotlight.

 

[Claymorez]

I usually summarize the whole American, British and free French forces as "western allies", so no one gets left out.

canadians and polish are not going to like that!
my country fought valiantly till the end! for about 3 days XD then some of us teamed up with the germans to kill russians... oh glory that is WWII

edit: prolly somebody already told the above so i make no usefull contribution!!! yay for me

Never mind. Compared to that what my country did back then, fighting for 3 days against Nazi Germany is heroic. But as said before, I don't want to exclude anyone, I appreciate every Nation and every man who helped bringing the Reich down.

They also cracked the ENIGMA code, which was one of the most significant turning points of the war.

What pisses me off about this is what happened to Alan Turing afterwards. Underecognition much?

Worse than that, the man who helped crack the code, and pretty much invented what we know as the computer, was bullied, and threatened with jail time for his homosexuality, so much so that he committed suicide.

A horrible end for a national hero.

Seriously, wtf? How can you treat a man like that so badly just for his sexuality?
Reminds me of Rommel, one of the few good man Germany had by that time.
The Nazis thought he was involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler and forced him to commit suicide. Fucking asses.

As a Germany - I would be interested in asking what you have been taught? Who do German historians paint as the main influence in their defeat? - if need a reference point go back 2 pages and see my "Summary" of the entire war which is about 30 word pages long.

 

[ntw3001]

No, we didn't do anything apart from pretty much holding back everyone in North Africa, being the only nation in Europe who remained standing and fighting while the Americans remained isolationist and we had to withstand the might of the Nazi war machine alone, cracking the ENIGMA code, contributing heavily to D-Day, Overlord, and in fact every operation apart from the Americans offensive on Japan.

Nope, Britain was useless in World War II

To be fair, the British only had to deal with the Luftwaffe- had the Third Reich actually invaded Britain like they had the rest of mainland Europe, I think you guys would have been in some serious trouble. You probably also wouldn't have done too well if the Americans hadn't been sending you weapons, ammo and equipment secretly.

Yes, we only had to deal with the Luftwaffe bombing our cities to rubble night after night, causing horrific death by fire as hundreds perished. Man, I'm glad that that was only the Luftwaffe, they were a non-threat.

Nevermind that Hitler never wanted to engage us in open naval warfare because he was scared of the Royal Navy, nevermind that he basically halted Operation Sealion twice, on the basis that the RAF managed to stop him at the Battle of Britain.

(Yeah, my family has a tradition of serving the Royal Air Force since its inception, so I'm not going to back down on the incredible job the RAF did during the War.)

Also, please try and be a little more respectful. I know it wouldn't bother most people, but to have it laid out as 'had they actually invaded Britain... you guys would have been in serious trouble.' It sounds patronising, which I know you weren't going for, but it still rankles a little.

Yah, I don't quite get the 'if the Nazis had invaded' thing. It's not like they just happened not to invade. They didn't because they couldn't. Not because of any exceptional valour on the part of the UK forces compared to those of the rest of Europe, but because of the advantages of being an island nation. But then 'if you weren't an island, things would be different'... uh, yeah. A lot of things would be different if they were different.

But then I guess every country plays up its own part. Around here we don't hear a lot about Russia's contribution to the war. I don't think it's because of any real prejudice in education though; myself, the only WW2-related topic I learned was about pre-war Germany; the rise of the Nazis and such. I was never taught about the war itself. But I suppose the Battle of Britain is more deeply entrenched in our culture than, say, Russia or North Africa, because it was here. Folks tend to remember the stuff that happened to them.

I'm not sure why it would be actively claimed that any power did very little in the war, though. I suspect that's the odd kind of everyone-else-sucks patriotism that seems to come from America in spades. I remember being very clearly informed of the excellent performance of the Belgians in holding off the Nazi war machine for much longer than could reasonably be expected from, well, Belgium. Not quite a fair match. Also, the American view of the war in Europe seems to consist largely of the part in which the USA army sallied forth in their allies' time of need to save the day. The 'time of need' would have been before mainland Europe was ploughed into the ground. I don't like saying that because it seems like I'm doing a disservice to the American soldiers who fought and died in Europe, which of course isn't my intention. But it seems rather offensive to claim that American policy was in some way terribly heroic and self-sacrificing. The USA took a direct hand when it became evident that it was their problem as well. Which, of course, is entirely fair. It would be wrong to commit soldiers to a war in which one's own country's welfare is not at stake.

 

[TheTim]

I've honestly never heard that in any of my history lessons or in any of the numerous ww2 books i've read up on.

 

[GL2814E]

Simple question in fact I was in history today learning about WW2 and my teacher said that the british didn't do a thing and that the americans oh the bloody americans held up everything defending the land.
For when I read the book then it was mostly in Russia and the russians did most of the killing and the biggest sacrifices.
So guys I'm thinking what did the british do?

P.s.I'm a british patriot (16) who lives in Iceland so the education here for history isn't exactly great.

I really don't know why you would learn that in Iceland.

I went to public school in Colorado, and they never made the claim that America single handedly won the war. They did focus on America's part, but they never made that claim.

I do know from my 20th Century Russian History class that Russia had over 85% of the Krauts pushing down on top of them, but the winter helped the Russians out immensely.

And Britain did a ton in WWII. Between them and the French Resistance, they more or less kept Germany from winning on the Western front. And they lost a lot of guys doing it. So I salute them.

On the Pacific Front, that was America, China, and Australia having to go up against the Japanese war machine. And we all, (including the Japanese) lost gargantuan amounts of troops.

Everyone played a part in WW2, just not in the same fronts always.

 

[FightThePower]

Well, considering we held out under the Blitz, won the battle of Britain and the vast majority of people involved in the D-Day landings were British, I'd say we did a fair fucking bit, thank you.

But the Soviets did the most. 90% of the German casualties were on the Eastern front. America helped, certainly, but sorry chaps, you didn't 'save our asses', the USSR did.

 

[Project_Omega]

Simple question in fact I was in history today learning about WW2 and my teacher said that the british didn't do a thing and that the americans oh the bloody americans held up everything defending the land.
For when I read the book then it was mostly in Russia and the russians did most of the killing and the biggest sacrifices.
So guys I'm thinking what did the british do?

P.s.I'm a british patriot (16) who lives in Iceland so the education here for history isn't exactly great.

Well Churchill kinda sold poland to the USSR, but thats because Stalin was a greedy evil bastard and he was too afraid to oppose him (I dont blame him for that). But they did fight quite a lot hands in hands with us (I am polish), especially in the RAF.

Americans say they did this and they did that, but they only joined after THEIR arses became endangered and did not even moved a finger when millions of Jews died in the Aushwitz concentration camp (extermination camp tbh, and I went there - its grim dead silence and just so terrifying).

Also, monte casino, the battle of monte casino. British and polish fighting back to back and hand to hand agaisnt the germans stationed on top of the hill in a castle I believe. one of the generals said that the polish fought with so much devotion, and zealotry.

So dont worry my british companion, yor teacher is just prejudiced and a dumbwit!

 

[blacklab]

We say that about the French, whether or not it was true.

 

[MrBirdy]

Simple question in fact I was in history today learning about WW2 and my teacher said that the british didn't do a thing and that the americans oh the bloody americans held up everything defending the land.
For when I read the book then it was mostly in Russia and the russians did most of the killing and the biggest sacrifices.
So guys I'm thinking what did the british do?

P.s.I'm a british patriot (16) who lives in Iceland so the education here for history isn't exactly great.

I'm afraid your teacher is factually inaccurate and should not be considered a decent educator as he is denying the truth of events in history.

Britain declared war on Germany and with the allies fought and won. The US did join but not until 1942 which is quite a while after the war had begun in 1939, naturally they had not been engaged in full warfare so of course their addition to the Allies was a great help.

Britain led most of the war effort from planning and tactics to invasions. Britain was at war with Germany, Italy and Japan, most of the neutral states were overrun by Germany, followed by the Scandinavian countries and eventually France. It' amazing the Britain managed to hold out against Germany which had been rearming for years while the Allied states wanted to do everything to avoid a return to war of the nature of the Great War.

In the Infamous Battle of Britain we fought off Germany air invasion attempts. Russia was an effective ally of Britain and did a lot. However, their sacrifice was more one of being horrendously ill equipped. To suggest that Britain didn't sacrifice would be an insult, we sacrificed loads while others surrendered. I get that's not what you're saying.

The US provided a lot and undoubtedly helped us win, of course, we would have never given up, we would have fought tooth and nail till the bitter end. We provided the US with knowledge and tactics, something that they would have been lost without. They would have been invaded sooner or later and we helped each other destroy the Axis.

The Americans came late in my opinion. Ofcourse every country has to look at the pros and cons of joining a war. And the americans did do a large part of the liberation of the nazi's, but I hate how people think that americans were the sole saviors. They only joined in their own interest, because they were next after Europe! They did not do so for the sake of morality or to help their european allies... or at least that was only a slight motivation.

France had a huge resistance group, and they HAD to surrender or be somehwat exterminated. The germans just had superior blitzkrieg warfare that suprised every mainland european nation.

And england has done the biggest part in the entire war, by providing a place where the planes would be able to get off to support "d-day", and they have paid probably the biggest price considering the full bombardment of England for several months.

And you already stated that Russia everything about russia =).


On a side-note I'm suprised how much of the World Wars is wrongly presented in at least Canada ( after being there on an exchange). The people of Germany had many reasons to hate ( this does not justify everything) and it was generally from a canadian perspective which left out many of the details.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Simple question in fact I was in history today learning about WW2 and my teacher said that the british didn't do a thing and that the americans oh the bloody americans held up everything defending the land.
For when I read the book then it was mostly in Russia and the russians did most of the killing and the biggest sacrifices.
So guys I'm thinking what did the british do?

P.s.I'm a british patriot (16) who lives in Iceland so the education here for history isn't exactly great.

Well Churchill kinda sold poland to the USSR, but thats because Stalin was a greedy evil bastard and he was too afraid to oppose him (I dont blame him for that). But they did fight quite a lot hands in hands with us (I am polish), especially in the RAF.

Americans say they did this and they did that, but they only joined after THEIR arses became endangered and did not even moved a finger when millions of Jews died in the Aushwitz concentration camp (extermination camp tbh, and I went there - its grim dead silence and just so terrifying).

Also, monte casino, the battle of monte casino. British and polish fighting back to back and hand to hand agaisnt the germans stationed on top of the hill in a castle I believe. one of the generals said that the polish fought with so much devotion, and zealotry.

So dont worry my british companion, yor teacher is just prejudiced and a dumbwit!

Churchhill didnt come to power before Norway fell. And as Poland was the first to fall it is obvious that Norway fell afterwards and if Churchhill came into power when Norway fell he would come into power after Poland was taken. Also he said he was from Iceland.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

My history professor was really awesome. He loved presenting the facts and made it pretty clear that everyone-yes, even the French, contributed to the eventual victory over Germany and Japan (and Italy, I guess). Oh yeah, and those so-called surrendering french had a pretty strong resistance movement considering how mistreated they are today. Not to mention how they helped us win our independence way back when. So yeah, not sure where all the French hate comes from.

The Russians I can understand. We teamed up, but we were obviously enemies and Stalin kept bargaining with the Allies for everything he could possibly get. He knew that once this war was over, there was a very good chance he'd be starting another one. Not to say the Americans did nothing to egg him on, or that we didn't get ready either. Maybe part of what kept the cold war cold was how crushed Russia was in general after the eventual victory of the Allies.

In an unrelated note, I'll be stepping into the Brothers in Arms series soon for the first time ever. I'm looking forward to a not completely slanted representation of the war. You know, if you take all the cliched video game crap out of your idea of what the war was and actually research it, Word War 2 was fascinating. For everything Hitler did wrong, it was kind of amazing how he led a resource-poor country still ringing from all the costs heaped on its back from the Great War (a war where Germany was NOT necessarily the "bad guy") to victory over larger foes with larger populations and armies.

 

[Guvnorium]

No, we didn't do anything apart from pretty much holding back everyone in North Africa, being the only nation in Europe who remained standing and fighting while the Americans remained isolationist and we had to withstand the might of the Nazi war machine alone, cracking the ENIGMA code, contributing heavily to D-Day, Overlord, and in fact every operation apart from the Americans offensive on Japan.

Nope, Britain was useless in World War II

To be fair, the British only had to deal with the Luftwaffe- had the Third Reich actually invaded Britain like they had the rest of mainland Europe, I think you guys would have been in some serious trouble. You probably also wouldn't have done too well if the Americans hadn't been sending you weapons, ammo and equipment secretly.

Yes, we only had to deal with the Luftwaffe bombing our cities to rubble night after night, causing horrific death by fire as hundreds perished. Man, I'm glad that that was only the Luftwaffe, they were a non-threat.

Nevermind that Hitler never wanted to engage us in open naval warfare because he was scared of the Royal Navy, nevermind that he basically halted Operation Sealion twice, on the basis that the RAF managed to stop him at the Battle of Britain.

(Yeah, my family has a tradition of serving the Royal Air Force since its inception, so I'm not going to back down on the incredible job the RAF did during the War.)

Also, please try and be a little more respectful. I know it wouldn't bother most people, but to have it laid out as 'had they actually invaded Britain... you guys would have been in serious trouble.' It sounds patronising, which I know you weren't going for, but it still rankles a little.

Yah, I don't quite get the 'if the Nazis had invaded' thing. It's not like they just happened not to invade. They didn't because they couldn't. Not because of any exceptional valour on the part of the UK forces compared to those of the rest of Europe, but because of the advantages of being an island nation. But then 'if you weren't an island, things would be different'... uh, yeah. A lot of things would be different if they were different.

But then I guess every country plays up its own part. Around here we don't hear a lot about Russia's contribution to the war. I don't think it's because of any real prejudice in education though; myself, the only WW2-related topic I learned was about pre-war Germany; the rise of the Nazis and such. I was never taught about the war itself. But I suppose the Battle of Britain is more deeply entrenched in our culture than, say, Russia or North Africa, because it was here. Folks tend to remember the stuff that happened to them.

I'm not sure why it would be actively claimed that any power did very little in the war, though. I suspect that's the odd kind of everyone-else-sucks patriotism that seems to come from America in spades. I remember being very clearly informed of the excellent performance of the Belgians in holding off the Nazi war machine for much longer than could reasonably be expected from, well, Belgium. Not quite a fair match. Also, the American view of the war in Europe seems to consist largely of the part in which the USA army sallied forth in their allies' time of need to save the day. The 'time of need' would have been before mainland Europe was ploughed into the ground. I don't like saying that because it seems like I'm doing a disservice to the American soldiers who fought and died in Europe, which of course isn't my intention. But it seems rather offensive to claim that American policy was in some way terribly heroic and self-sacrificing. The USA took a direct hand when it became evident that it was their problem as well. Which, of course, is entirely fair. It would be wrong to commit soldiers to a war in which one's own country's welfare is not at stake.

Seems level headed. I can even agree with the part about "everyone-else-sucks" patriotism. While I don't personally feel that way, I actually know a couple of people who feel that way. Granted, they are a minority, and an incredibly small minority, but they are out there. Although I haven't heard them diss the British before. Just the Canadians, the French, the Iraquis, the Afgani's, the Mexican's and the entire continent of Africa. They seem to have reasons why America is better then all of them. Oh, and within America, there is an "everyone-else-sucks" thing that some Texans have about the rest of America. It doesn't help the steryotype that our last president was Texan. Oh, but we're not here to discuss modern politics, are we?

There is a fine line between loving your country and hating all of the other ones.

 

[Totenkopf]

As a Germany - I would be interested in asking what you have been taught? Who do German historians paint as the main influence in their defeat? - if need a reference point go back 2 pages and see my "Summary" of the entire war which is about 30 word pages long.

(Hope you don't want me to read the whole essay...)
So I'll quote this from a history lesson:

"As America joined the war back in 1941, the war was lost. A fight against the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the USA at the same time is unwinnable from a military point of view."

In a nutshell: Don't be a megalomaniac genocidal Nazi and don't take on many enemies at once.

Are you already in the usergroup "World War 2" hier at the escapist?

The body guard of Hitler, Rochus Misch, member of the Waffen SS stated that about 43/44 no one was still believing in the Endsieg/final victory.