Always amuses me that Italy and Germany actually declared war on the US, not the other way around. Had they not done so you could argue (I would disagree) that the US would have just focused on Japan and left Europe to Germany.

Can't say I ever heard that the allied forces outfitted and financed the US war effort. Know the US did some questionable support of UK (lend-lease program) that really should have negated their neutrality but not heard it the other way round.

America tried to stay an isolationist country before and during the beginning of the war. Lovers, not fighters. But then the Japanese made the mistake of popping the U.S. in the nose without warning. After that they mass produced better than everyone else and opened a can of woop-azz.

Of course it was a team effort ska, just saying the Americans dominated that's all. Americans got into Europe and the great race was on. Yes?

@ Sharpe the Germans were reluctant to do so and angry with the Japanese at the time - but they had an alliance which had to be honoured.

Ah - I thought you were talking about Russia - as before the Russian front was opened by the Germans it was all one way traffic - the Germans were going through Europe like it was a big Autobahn :O

But y'all forgeting that it was the Russians who entered Berlin?

that was only because the amerricans couldn't be bothered to fight for territory that wasn't in their piece of post war germany

Lol Arun

Thanks for the genuine mirth that your ignorance gives me :)

Let us end thois thread you have all toally derailed from the subject why are the french seen as failures but you seemed to have drifted to american military then war world 2

Conversations move on Ironheart. Get over it.

It is a war site afterall. What better topics to banter with. At least everyone isn't getting after others for uninteresting reasons. :D

Keep this thread alive! I am enjoying it.

TexasJohn:

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.

Every year, when the liberation of Eindhoven is celebrated, some people fly (among other ones) the Polish flag, because a lot of Polish soldiers where involved in the operation which liberated us. If you look at the Wikipedia article for Market Garden (which liberated Eindhoven on its way to the bridges in Arhnem, hoping to end the war before Christmas '44) you'll see the Polish forces are even listed separately.
Besides, I also disagree with your point on another level: why would it make someone American just because they fight with American weapons and under an American officer? Especially if they just took a weapon from the first party which offered one, used it to fight to liberate their home country and then quit again...

Ska2D2:

Innefective resistence? I'm sorry sources needed.

The Dutch (armed) resistance was indeed utterly ineffective. At some point it was infiltrated by the occupying forces which continued radio communications (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel) with England. After a certain date each and every single spy had been captured; new spies (air dropped behind lines) were captured instantly, because the drop was coordinated with German counter-intelligence, instead of with Dutch resistance. Whether this was due to incredible incompetence or to give English intelligence a chance to get falsified information (such as bogus invasion plans) to the Germans (literally in the pockets of the airdropped spies) has never been properly ascertained.
While there were definitely armed resistance groups left, they were the ones operating without any assistance from England at all.

TexasJohn

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.

I barely have any detailed knowledge on the subject myself. However, let's just point out that Yugoslavia did not become a part of the Soviet Union after the war. I'm not sure how many Russian troops were there (I'm not even sure whether there were any) when Germany surrendered, but taken together with the claims I've heard that they liberated themselves, I think they certainly deserve being called "effective".
Maybe more importantly, as has been pointed out before, it's a team effort. Let's say partisans find some important installation (like a munitions depot) which they cannot destroy by themselves. Instead they share the location of that installation with the regular forces who couldn't locate (or didn't even know about) the target, but do have the capability to destroy it. That's likely to go down history on the list of "destroyed by bombardment", but the note "located by resistance" might very well be missing.

@RVW If you won't read then you really should not reply, that I have to copy paste my original reply is a waste of my time - but apparantly not yours as you never bothered to read it the first time.

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.

My apologies to everyone with basic reading skills who don't need to read this again.

Everyone who is not Ska: don't bother reading this, it's utterly pointless.

---

Ska,
First, let's copy-paste that again, but make it a little more clear who said what:

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

TexasJohn wrote (in another post):
"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.

Ska2D2's reply to above quotations:
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.

You'll also note I quoted another post of yours before my reply, not this one. While I did read the one above as well (and it does address your "citation needed"), I felt it would be relevant to (further) clarify why the Dutch resistance was ineffective (or non-violent; both could be valid ways of looking at it).
Since it adds a source, I thought it would be most appropriate to make it a reply to your original request for one. Making it a reply to the post with TexasJohn's second quotation above would also have been valid (the post with his first quotation or your post (which includes them both) seem far less logical choices though).

Either way, in my opinion the reason for including a quotation is to give context and to narrow down which part of the discussion you're replying to. For instance, your last post is unclear in that respect; it's also possible you have a problem with the third part of my previous post (which also mentions partisans), but since the Netherlands are mentioned multiple times in the quote you reposted I'm assuming the problem perceive was with the second part.

---

• I'm unsure why you think I never even read your post.
  
• Furthermore, if you don't feel like copy-pasting (let alone bothering to fix indentation and attribution), you could have just linked (http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=4118&Offset=152) the post instead...
  
• And finally, I'm also unsure why you feel the need to get offensive; a simple "Did you miss my post?" would've worked just as well (and would've allowed me to reply with a far simpler "No I didn't." -- it also would've prevented you from having to read this lengthy reply; after all, (falsely) accusing me of not reading your post, morally obliges you to fully and carefully read mine).

Because as the post made clear I was addresing John's sweeping statement. Then you took the earlier post and quoted it like I was asking for a quote concerning the Dutch resisitence. Which you have just said in this later post that you knew I wasn't. I was never concerning myself with the specifics of the Dutch resistence, But a sweeping statement assuming facts about all Partisans. That's abundantly clear. But like John you are concentrating on only a specific. But you are taking a post asking for a quote about all Partisans and giving posts about a specific that is either misrepresenting my post. Or as I said earlier you are having trouble reading the original one.

here is your dutch resistance :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandsche_SS

RvW, in one of my earlier posts I mentioned the Poles, who actually fought on both sides of the war. On the Western front, they were subordinate to the British, who outfitted them, thus their inclusion in Market Garden with the British Paras.

Also, I think you misinterpreted my point about people fighting for America "being American". I was pointing out that the US Army during the Second World War consisted of pretty high numbers of first- or second-generation Americans, some even escaping Europe before the war and fighting for the US. Whatever some may feel about immigrants, I believe anyone who fights for a country deserves to be counted among it's ranks. As to foreigners being subordinate to American officers, how common was that? I imagine that the newly reconstituted French Army was subordinate to Americans, but at a relatively high number, as I believe the French had an entire army (the Free French Army) by 1944.

@myhandisonfire: That is the dutch Nazi group..... I believe every country in europe had one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_contribution_to_World_War_II

This should give you a fair example of what succesfull partisanship did to the Nazis in Poland. About 0,5-1 mln troops tied down in Poland becouse of those ineffective partisans.

As for resources:

Action type Totals
Damaged locomotives 6,930
Delayed repairs to locomotives 803
Derailed transports 732
Transports set on fire 443
Damage to railway wagons 19,058
Blown up railway bridges 38
Disruptions to electricity supplies in the Warsaw grid 638
Army vehicles damaged or destroyed 4,326
Damaged aeroplanes 28
Fuel tanks destroyed 1,167
Fuel destroyed (in tonnes) 4,674
Blocked oil wells 5
Wagons of wood wool destroyed 150
Military stores burned down 130
Disruptions of production in factories 7
Built-in faults in parts for aircraft engines 4,710
Built-in faults into cannon muzzles 203
Built-in faults into artillery projectiles 92,000
Built-in faults into air traffic radio stations 107
Built-in faults into condensers 70,000
Built-in faults into (electro-industrial) lathes 1,700
Damage to important factory machinery 2,872
Various acts of sabotage performed 25,145
Planned assassinations of Germans 5,733


Also there were about 250 000 polish troops fighteing among various theaters of WW2. Many of which were among the best and most elite units of the Allies. Look up Division 303 - this was a Polish fighter squadron stationed in Britain, which singlehandedly destroyed about 5% of the German forces in Battle of Britain. Look up the Battle of Monte Casino. Look up polish involvment in allied intelligence (most notably the breaking of Enigma code). And many many others, where polish troops prooved to be one of the biggest assets of the allied effort. US did a great deal to fight the Nazi, but stating that it defeated the Nazis by themselves prooves, that you know very little of what actually happened. I dont know Russian or English history as well (which were the other two most notable contibutors to the war effort), so I cant tell you as much about them, but I would bet that they did at least as much.