VE DAY

[George Hannah]

just caught BBC coverage of a local VE Day parade in Heaviley - with customary respect being shown by the sofa lifters in the background

 

[KS55]

The Soviet Union lost an estimated 20 million people or more, most of them civilians (no thanks to Joe Stalin of course, who bears a major part of responsibility as well). That can never be repeated often enough. The Russians refer to it as the Great Patriotic War, rather than the Second World War.

Read an amazing statistic once. Of all the Russian men born in 1917, 93% were dead by 1945.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

The Soviets would have stopped that from happening. The Soviets DID stop that from happening. And they did so a lot earlier than Johnny Yank. And didnt charge us billions on top of billions as well as demand all of our technological advancement for the privilege.

There is little doubt in my mind that a Germany which had conquered the Soviet Union would have been able to fight on for years longer than it did and there is no guarantee the yanks wouldnt have turned tail and sailed back across the Atlantic leaving us to our own devices eventually, once we were bled dry.

Our blessed Navy might well have staved off an invasion, helped mightily be the airforce, army, and the dogged stubbornness of the british people never to succumb. For sure, D-Day wouldnt have happened when or how it did if we were facing a Germany with millions more men and supplies across the channel.

Who knows what would have happened, we would likely have had a totally different sort of cold war.

This country DOES owe america a debt for their help in ww2, only a blinkered fool would say otherwise, but that debt has been literally and figuratively paid off now. The debt we owe to the Soviets is rarely even acknowledged, never mind paid off. May god bless them.

Spot on. WW2 was won with a Soviet (and Chinese) willingness to commit sheer numbers of their own people to be slaughtered by and to slaughter the Axis forces. Of course we should never forget what that generation of British and US people did, but I think the Soviet/Chinese contribution has become buried in the post WW2 Cold-War rhetoric.

Country, Military Deaths, Total Civilian and Military Deaths
Albania 30,000 30,200
Australia 39,800 40,500
Austria 261,000 384,700
Belgium 12,100 86,100
Brazil 1,000 2,000
Bulgaria 22,000 25,000
Canada 45,400 45,400
China 3-4,000,000 20,000,000
Czechoslovakia 25,000 345,000
Denmark 2,100 3,200
Dutch East Indies -- 3-4,000,000
Estonia -- 51,000
Ethiopia 5,000 100,000
Finland 95,000 97,000
France 217,600 567,600
French Indochina -- 1-1,500,000
Germany 5,533,000 6,600,000-8,800,000
Greece 20,000-35,000 300,000-800,000
Hungary 300,000 580,000
India 87,000 1,500,000-2,500,000
Italy 301,400 457,000
Japan 2,120,000 2,600,000-3,100,000
Korea -- 378,000-473,000
Latvia -- 227,000
Lithuania -- 353,000
Luxembourg -- 2,000
Malaya -- 100,000
Netherlands 17,000 301,000
New Zealand 11,900 11,900
Norway 3,000 9,500
Papua New Guinea -- 15,000
Philippines 57,000 500,000-1,000,000
Poland 240,000 5,600,000
Romania 300,000 833,000
Singapore -- 50,000
South Africa 11,900 11,900
Soviet Union 8,800,000-10,700,000 24,000,000
United Kingdom 383,600 450,700
United States 416,800 418,500
Yugoslavia 446,000 1,000,000

 

[Mike Cledford]

On the dot of 11 a bugler somewhere near blew the Last Post and shortly after blew Reveille.
I must admit l don't like it much when he joins in with the clapping etc on a Thursday night but to hear his bugle as l stood in my garden in memory of those who fought and died was touching and emotional.

 

[KS55]

You're kidding right...

You can argue with his post, but:
1.The day after VJ day, US president signed an executive order converting all lend lease to debt. That debt was finally paid off in 2006. Truman later claimed he didn't understand what he was signing.
2. The key technological transfer was the fast acting magnatron which was the basis for radar and is the basis of mobile phones, and microwave technology for comms and cooking!
Obvs, we gave it for free.

 

[KS55]

it is often overlooked in this country just what an enormous debt we owe to the Soviet Union. God bless them. Without them we wouldnt have been able to win the war. We in Britain may have been able to hold off a german invasion due to the Navy and airforce primarily, and would likely have been able to hold out for a long time, but without the sacrifice of the soviets, and their indefatigability in resisiting German fascism, it would have been impssible to actually win the war as Hitler would have had millions of extra men to fight agaist us and millions of tonnes of heavy equipment to go with them.

Much is made of american help, and true the yanks did help us to win it, but they weren't needed to help us not lose it. That honour goes to ourselves and our greatest generation,ably and selflessly aided by millions of commonwealth troops, and to our greatest allies and true friends, the Soviet Union. I've never understood why we don't have statues of Stalin alongside every cenotaph.

Well, ok up to the last sentence and a half. Soviets were crucial allies; the war on land could not have been won without them but they are not our friends. As for erecting statues of a mass murderer...

 

[The perfect fumble]

The Soviets would have stopped that from happening. The Soviets DID stop that from happening. And they did so a lot earlier than Johnny Yank. And didnt charge us billions on top of billions as well as demand all of our technological advancement for the privilege.

There is little doubt in my mind that a Germany which had conquered the Soviet Union would have been able to fight on for years longer than it did and there is no guarantee the yanks wouldnt have turned tail and sailed back across the Atlantic leaving us to our own devices eventually, once we were bled dry.

Our blessed Navy might well have staved off an invasion, helped mightily be the airforce, army, and the dogged stubbornness of the british people never to succumb. For sure, D-Day wouldnt have happened when or how it did if we were facing a Germany with millions more men and supplies across the channel.

Who knows what would have happened, we would likely have had a totally different sort of cold war.

This country DOES owe america a debt for their help in ww2, only a blinkered fool would say otherwise, but that debt has been literally and figuratively paid off now. The debt we owe to the Soviets is rarely even acknowledged, never mind paid off. May god bless them.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but you have to remember that Nazi Germany declared war on the USA on the 11th December 1941.

So when you state....

"This country DOES owe america a debt for their help in ww2"

It was their war too.

 

[Metal Biker]

You can argue with his post, but:
1.The day after VJ day, US president signed an executive order converting all lend lease to debt. That debt was finally paid off in 2006. Truman later claimed he didn't understand what he was signing.
2. The key technological transfer was the fast acting magnatron which was the basis for radar and is the basis of mobile phones, and microwave technology for comms and cooking!
Obvs, we gave it for free.

It's more the ignoring the rape of Poland during 1944-45 (and the fact they also invaded it in 1939 starting off the whole mess), Soviet soldiers treatment of German civilians especially women, Latvia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine occupations and the horrific treatment of civilians in those nations that make me roll my eyes.

The Soviet "allies" were essentially a necessary, useful evil at the time, but were in no way fighting for the same cause. Regarding them in the same manner, ethos and sacrifices of Commonwealth, American and other allied forces?

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

It's more the ignoring the rape of Poland during 1944-45 (and the fact they also invaded it in 1939 starting off the whole mess), Soviet soldiers treatment of German civilians especially women, Latvia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine occupations and the horrific treatment of civilians in those nations that make me roll my eyes.

The Soviet "allies" were essentially a necessary, useful evil at the time, but were in no way fighting for the same cause. Regarding them in the same manner, ethos and sacrifices of Commonwealth, American and other allied forces?

Indeed a necessary evil. Perhaps the greatest military achievement of the US/UK was using Hiroshima and our post D-Day advance to persuade 'Uncle' Joe Stalin to stop the tanks rolling much past Berlin? If Hitler hadn't decided to piss Stalin off by invading Russia and bringing the red army down on the Wehrmacht I'm not sure the Yanks would have been in Europe in sufficient time or numbers to do anything and the British defiance would have been little more than an annoyance. Lets not to detract though from the effort /sacrifice of ours in WW2, and the appreciation that Germany were cunts.

 

[Metal Biker]

Indeed a necessary evil. Perhaps the greatest military achievement of the US/UK was using Hiroshima and our post D-Day advance to persuade 'Uncle' Joe Stalin to stop the tanks rolling much past Berlin? If Hitler hadn't decided to piss Stalin off by invading Russia and bringing the red army down on the Wehrmacht I'm not sure the Yanks would have been in Europe in sufficient time or numbers to do anything and the British defiance would have been little more than an annoyance. Lets not to detract though from the effort /sacrifice of ours in WW2, and the appreciation that Germany were cunts.

I merely regard the 1940's era Soviets and Nazi Germany to be cunts of equal measure, and whilst we benefitted by them duking it out for a few years, Soviet Command and the actions of their troops, especially in the final and post war years, were in no way applaudable, imo.
"Hooray for the Soviets!"
"Their soldiers raped women repeatedly, en masse, in every Soviet occupied nation during the end war years..."
"....."

It's no secret that Roosevelt and Churchill both hoped Stalin and Hitler would wipe each other out.