UK was "junior partner" in WW2 against Germany in 1940
 

How to totally disrespect the men who lost their lives in 1940 (before the Americans joined us!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10719739

Prick!

To be fair to DC, I htink it's a slip over timelines more than diminishing their loss.

Of course, prior to December 1941, the US were not in the war, but in the overall context of the effort to defeat Germany, the UK was a junior partner.

Even that is not disrespectful to the people who lost their lives, anymore than admitting that Poles who lost their lives were part of a much smaller effort than us, for example.

Geezer

I heard recently that it wasn't until the Autumn of '44 that US forces outnumbered British fighting in Europe

Well, as there were no Allied forces fighting in Europe until June 1944, that's not really a great deal :D

Although the UK played a major part in WWII, basically it was won by the Americans in the Pacific and the Russians in Europe (or you could argue that it was lost by the Germans and Japanese for the strategically bad decisions they made).

If Hitler had not decided to turn towards the Soviet Union, our position would have been untenable and we would have had to make peace or the Germans simply would have defeated us (or possinly only survived with the help of yes, you guessed it, the US).

Geezer

The Americans liked our "Junior Radar" and "Junior Jet Engines", and not forgetting the junior efforts of Alan Turing... :rolleyes:


Idiot Cameron

Does it really matter? :rolleyes:

The fact is that the USA had statistically more manpower and hardware in WW2 than we did. Hardly suprising when there's 5x more of them to start with. That fact doesn't diminish any other country's sacrifice in the War.

It's not as if he called some old woman he'd just met on camera a "bigot" on his microphone now is it? ;)

We fought longer and harder and then got screwed over by the 'Senior partner'.

Sounds about right if you ask me.

Double post

Yes it does.

Insult one opinionated woman or insult war heroes?

But there is no insult in this case.

The word "junior" is not an insult.

The word "bigot" is an insult.

The End.

16 million US servicemen in WWII
5.9 million British..

that does make us a junior partner by anyone's definition

Doesn't matter whether we were or were not junior partners.
It just seems he's willing to carry on the recent tradition of cow-towing to the Americans. Best not say anything to upset them.

And you'd rather they publicly disagreed on world TV?

Giving the terrorists more fuel to fight their holy war on the West?..

It's called keeping your actual agenda's behind closed doors...while portraying a strong union.

No it's not, it's called, "Help, my tongue is caught between Obama's buttocks." :rolleyes:

Italy/Sicily in 1943 ;) then we had Malta, Gibraltar, both of which we held through WW2.
Your nearly as bad as DC :lol1:;)

But DC should get his facts right :mad: and I wouldnt call us the junior partner in WW2, it took us 50+ years to pay the yanks back for all that equipment they sent us....

Tony:D

Always thought Hitler won the war for the Allies

Junior partner in 1944 maybe But definitely not in 1940

Geezer, Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour in the first place (genuine question btw)? dl

Isn't Italy also in Europe? ;)

There were plenty of politician who wanted us to surrender after the fall of France - they were wrong. Certainly the US was the big player, but we still made up one third of the troops in France in 1944. One other point, everyone always bangs on about the US contribtion, but the Russians had smashed the backbone of the Bundeswehr in their victories at Stanlingrad and Kursk well before D Day. The Americans would have liked to have launched D Day in 1943but were persuaded not to by the British - interesting to think whether it would have been successful at that point.

Anyway, steps off high horse. :D

Andy TJ

:oh, yes - and Cameron - what an eejit! :lol1:

This is true I believe.

Poor choice of words by DC but factually correct. However, lets not let silly things like facts get in the way of sensationalist journalisim.

They had been involved in a long war (ie invasion) against China. They were involved in all sorts of atrocities, such as Nanking where they murdered some 300,000 civilians (having competetions on who could behead the most people in ad ay, etc). The USA and the UK introduced a rather effective oil imbargo - Japan not having oil of it's own. They were left the choice of either pulling out of China or attacking the West. Of course the vicious wee buggers did pretty well at first but never had a chance once the US "geared up" - they had thought that the Americans simply wouldn't have the stomach to fight if they were given a bloody nose - woops!

Thanks Andy, I didn't know all that (much to my embarrassment). Oil again eh?

David

Yup, I guess it's no surprise that countries are willing to go to war over natural resources!

To those who correctly pointed out that Italy is in Europe, my apologies, of course, very remiss of me :freak3:

Still doesn't get away from the fact that we were the junior partner, probably even in 1940. The UK would have starved and been unable to fuel it's Spitfires had it not been for US support (even though our Merchant ships were the ones sinking, they still had US goods on board).

I really have no time for the US, so it's not as if I am some fan, just a realist!

Geezer

+1, pointless clarification of events and equally pointless insult to a generation of heros regardless of factuality, cnut !:brickwall

Partners right :rolleyes: Lend Lease took till 2006 to repay the US and the Marshall Plan Hmmm:rolleyes: Besides we fought as a Commonwealth dopey !:hjtwofing:lol1:

They also hoped to catch nearly all the Pacific US aircraft carriers in PH at the time as well though and seriously reduce the US ability to fight in the region. Unfortunately for them, the majority had left by the time they attacked. The film Tora! Tora! Tora! is pretty good and explains that aspect.

Indeed. It's a good film init?!

Forgot to say, they were of course empire building, happy to take the British, American & Dutch assets in the "name of the Asian people". However, those same Asian people found them to be far more malicious imperialists that their Western predecessors.

As for numbers of troops tanks etc, did the Russians not outnumber both UK and USA?

not sure in terms of equipment -- the US's industrial muscle meant that by the end of the war the industrial output was just phenomenal – B24 Liberator bombers were coming of the production line at the rate of one every 63 minutes


Shipyards turned out tonnage so fast that by the autumn of 1943 all Allied shipping sunk since 1939 had been replaced.


but men (and Tanks - just) -- yes by a massive margin, the US lost men in the hundreds of thousands, the soviets in the millions


in context, during the first day of the Somme the british army suffered 60,000 casualties (20,000 dead)