George Hannah
Well-Known Member
just caught BBC coverage of a local VE Day parade in Heaviley - with customary respect being shown by the sofa lifters in the background
Read an amazing statistic once. Of all the Russian men born in 1917, 93% were dead by 1945.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.
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.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.
You can argue with his post, but:You're kidding right...
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...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.
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.
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.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.
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.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?
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.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.