TexasJohn,

You may have a point when talking about materials and equipment. However, the soldiers using that hardware came from many more countries than just the US. Since those soldiers are counted in lives (hardware, however vital, merely in dollars), I think you should include that as well.

And you might have forgotten an entire army. Note that I can't vouch for the details (having only been taught by friends, not history books (not that those are flawless of course)) but it appears Yugoslavia, the local resistance, Tito's partisans, "liberated itself". Granted, they only managed to do so after the occupying forcing had been severely weakened by fighting on other fronts, but still, that's rather impressive.
By the way, I have absolutely no idea where they got their weapons. However, "common sense" suggests it probably wasn't airdrops from the allies (such as attempted in occupied Netherlands, during the Englandspiel / Unternehmen Nordpol (yes, those codenames are in German; Google it to understand why)). Instead I suspect it to be almost exclusively captured from occupying forces (guerilla tactics).

has eneyone else noticed in the last few weeks the value of the US dollar plumit compared to the Euro and British Pound?

The Allies communicated with Tito's resistance - they had agents on the ground in occupied Europe, and helped provide him with weapons - one such method was the airdrop, but the U.K navies control of the seas. also made smuggling (gun running) another way to provide arms. Though as you point out there were likely other methods also.

I didn't include partisans in my statement, because they were relatively ineffective in the grand scheme of the war. Tito may have wrested control, but it was the approaching Red hordes who really done the Nazis in the Balkans.

And, RvW, what soldiers are you talking about? That I didn't include? The incredibly weak and ineffective Dutch resistance? I hopes not. If you were talking about the "non-Americans" in the US Army, get over it. You join the Army and fight, you are about as American as it gets.

I think RvW means soldiers with the word soldiers :)
It doesn`t matter from wich country they come, they all fought that war. If it is an American in the Army of the Allies or an "escaped from the nazi`s" Frenchmen in the army of the Allies. They both do the same.

I think RvW wanted to say that you can tell the story correct without that Frenchmen, who escaped from the nazi`s (or any other sordier). They all did their best to make an end to the war (also the Germans, in the beginning but even more at the end)

*can`t tell the story

Innefective resistence? I'm sorry sources needed.

Oh my.
I wanna apologize for my last post in this thread.
Alcohol moved my hands last night. I don't even know at whom that was directed.
Sorry.

the post did look strange and disfunctional

"Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly by some 1 million people, including German occupiers and military."[1]

The quote is from Wikipedia, but don't get angry, it was cited from Dr Loe de Jong, director of the official State Institute for War Documentation.

When I say "ineffective", I don't mean they didn't do anything. Was merely talking about the actual fighting of the war, which the Dutch did very little of.

Skunk, you're a terrible troll, no one is falling for your bait.

I'd just like to state, without causing any further argument hopefully, That I never said the US didn't have problems. Every country in the world has issues of it's own, whether they are big or small. I was simply stating that the United States of America has the largest military in the world. While I may have said it in quite a childish way, which I apologize for, The fact still remains true. Do they spend the most money? Yes. Could they use it in a better way? Maybe, I'm not 100% sure.

I don't want to start another flame war about the United States, I just wanted to clarify my answer. I re-read what I posted and realized it sounded incredibly childish and immature. Once again, I'm sorry.

I didn't include partisans in my statement, because they were relatively ineffective in the grand scheme of the war.

"Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly by some 1 million people, including German occupiers and military."[1]

....

When I say "ineffective", I don't mean they didn't do anything. Was merely talking about the actual fighting of the war, which the Dutch did very little of.

You should avoid sweeping statements when you are commenting on a specific then.

Partisans includes all irregular forces - you are specifically talking only about the Dutch.

WWII was the crucible in which the US Military was forged, and it was a moral and technological high point. Unfortunately, the story of the American military since WWII is a story of decline, the low point of which was the debacle in Vietnam.

@VaporX are you serious about not being "100% sure" whether we could use our money in a better way? I think you must be either very young or living under a rock. The pentagon in the 80s was famous for wasteful spending and nothing has changed. Check out this article about how nearly a million dollars was spent shipping 2 19 cent washers: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ardg6DwCCMFI&refer=home

That's only one example.

I should have said "WWII was the crucible in which the *modern* US Military was forged."

In terms of partisans, my knowledge is nowhere near what I know about the actual fighting in the war. But were any partisan groups, other than the Russian partisans, actually effective? What were their contributions, other than being minor annoyances? Sabotage in weapons factories certainly played some part, judging by the numerous accounts I have read in which Allied soldiers were saved by the increasing unreliability of German munitions, but we were talking about who BEAT the Nazis militarily, and the partisans simply didn't. Were the heroes? Yes. Should we all respect their resistance in the face of extreme persecution and reprisal? Yes. But they didn't BEAT the Nazis, soldiers did.

. . .

. . .

Where to start?

Partisans were active in every theatre and country of world war 2. Which is more than any individual nation can say.

Were they effective? They tied down regular axis forces into a consoldation role, protecting factories and lines of supply means those forces were not actively on the front lines fighting the allies. Which makes it a lot easier for the front line allied armies to overcome the axis on the fronts.

They provided intelligence about all kinds of things, if we take only one of these thigs military disopositions for example that makes it a lot easier for the allies to choose the right places to attack. In warlight terms thats like having infinate spy cards to play.

Sabotage yes of course, expatriating escaped prisoners - helping those that the Nazi's or Japanese would like to take to concentration camps avoid capture.

It's dangerous to view a war so two dimensionally, perhaps a read of Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of America can illuminate for you the dangers of only considering government centric History with it's emphasis on big battles and centralised decision making as opposed to considering both the people and their place in making and forming history alongside the armies and governments.

Fair enough. But what were the actual numbers used in "tying down" Axis forces? I always assumed that, except for the Eastern front, most of the occupation (security) forces were relatively poorly equipped and trained (many of them were essentially forced at gunpoint to serve)and were not present in significant numbers.

So we can argue the smaller and more interesting points of WWII. But let's take a second and look at a simple big picture here. What (relevant armies involved) country fighting Germany and it's allies were actually holding their own until the "Sleeping Giant" got involved? Was there any?

And who outfitted and financed said "Sleeping giant"?

I think the thing a lot of people are missing about WWII is that it was a team effort from the allies.