Lol,, all the metrosexual country music lately is overbearing. I will stick with Johnny, willie, hank, the possum and Conway thank you very much. Oh,, Steve Earl too , lol
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Lol,, all the metrosexual country music lately is overbearing. I will stick with Johnny, willie, hank, the possum and Conway thank you very much. Oh,, Steve Earl too , lol
^^^^ what he said!
Initially I was loath to wade into this discussion given that I am not anti-American and I have some fairly strong ties with our cousins to the south.
Let's be clear, the American public was unwilling to support WWII until 7 Dec 1941. Prior to this US companies made $$millions selling to war materials to Great Britain as it stood alone defending the world. When Churchill stated that Britain was on its knees, he really meant that it had drained the coffers, there was no money left while the US stood by safe from harm and soaked up the profits from the war. Following WWII, the UK continued to impose rationing into the mid-50s while it slowly rebuilt the infrastructure of the country devastated by the bombings. Meanwhile, the US propped up both Japan and Germany to rebuild factories and infrastructure which of course meant more money for American companies. So, yes there is really no question that the USA emerged as the new superpower following WWII given $$$ harvested during and after.
Now let's look at the A-bomb. As I recall history the Manhattan Project had the support of both Canada and the Great Britain. The team members were no solely American, in fact many were imported since the US did not possess the knowledge base to develop nuclear technology on its own. An inconvenient truth that Hollywood tends to skip the part where considerable support was given by the Montreal Labs. Canada went on to have the first self sustaining nuclear reactor in Sept 1945 (outside the one in the US that was the prototype).
I find it interesting that the US version of history is so smug about the Cold War given that the US stood idle in a secret deal to allow the USSR to annex half of Europe. One could make the observation that Europe was saved by the US from German rule only to be handed over to the USSR in the decade that followed. If the US had used the A-bomb there was potential for countless millions in Europe to have been spared the loss of freedom under the Communists.
You know I actually brought a case of beer up with me the last time we had the BOQ get together - somehow you wasn't there - so we all drank it - but whenever we get together again I'll bring up another case of Yuengling - I have to laugh when I read about those people going to Cuba and bragging about the beer down there - only goes to show you that they must be used to drinking P___ and don't have a clue what good beer taste like - Cuba may be known for having some good things but it surely ain't beer -
There is a military channel on TV that I watch a lot - it is like the history channel but restricts itself to military topics - and one thing that is shown is how England was fighting for its life and without the aide that was being sent by the US early in the war England would have gone down - Churchill even told Roosevelt that if the US didn't enter the war England was lost - we were sending aide before we entered the war - but as you say - it was our industrial might that was a big factor in defeating Germany - as the war went on we were manufacturing better and better weapons - our fighter planes took over the sky - our bombers grew bigger and bigger - like so many subsequent wars - air power was the predominate force to be dealt with -
Don't forget the German Jewish brain drain, without the exodus of German scientists the Allies would never have had nuclear fission Leo Szilard, Albert Einstein, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, they all left from various German and Austro-Hungarian lands and moved to work on the building of the A-Bomb and in turn nuclear power as a whole. Here is a link to some Canadian info, http://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resou...evelopment.cfm , we actually mined and supplied the raw material from the north west territories, but again our tiny army could do nothing.
Watch some documentaries that were not produced by Americans and see how things differ.
Here is one on the Spitfire, one of the easiest to build and best defense aircraft of the war, it did not have the range to reach Germany but it did not have to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDzZnCkbxgs
Here is one on the Canadian Navy, the third largest navy in the world at the end of the world with 90000 personnel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHQHF34ORQ
If you want to talk about the reason for the failure of the German war effort you can look East, the eastern front was a major contributor to the downfall of the German army. If Hitler kept his pact with Stalin the outcome of the war would have been much different.
If anyone else is interested check out this movie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_of_the_Few
It is a movie based on the design of the spitfire, it was released in 42, not in the 60s like many of the war movies.
These types of movies were part of my growing up, grandpa was too young to fly in the war but bought a trainer post war and learned aerobatics out of Waterloo Wellington airport.