Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "D.M. Giangreco on the Invasion of Japan, Lend Lease \u0026 much more" video.

  1. US war aid to the USSR was only 6% of their needs. They produced mainly their own. The major contribution was trucks and boots. In 1942 the USSR outproduced the USA.
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  2. "In fact, Halder continued to underestimate the scale of the challenge facing the Wehrmacht in Russia. By the end of 1941 the Red Army had fielded not 360 divisions, but a total of 600" -Prof Adam Tooze
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  3. Fundamentally, the Germans assumed that the Soviet leadership was so weak and incompetent that it would be incapable of using its superior manpower and considerable military equipment to suck them into a war of attrition. The huge gains made in the first weeks of the campaign seemed initially to vindicate this arrogance. On 3 July, army chief of staff Franz Halder famously concluded that the battle had been won. -Prof Adam Tooze Only a few weeks later, this bubble had burst. By the end of July 1941, all three German army groups had reached the feasible limit of their supply system and had halted their advance. The Red Army, though it had suffered devastating casualties, had not been destroyed. It was still fighting and inflicting serious losses. -Prof Adam Tooze
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  4. Charles Lathrop Take the stars & striped sunglasses off. The USA did not supply the British and USSR with materials to the point the USA was decisive in WW2. 10% to Britain and 6% to the USSR which most was raw materials, is not earth shattering. Also Britain was importing wheat and other raw materials prior to WW2, but when the war broke out, the USA said it was supplying the British war effort. Even fighting the Japanese the British and USSR both fielded more boots on the ground than the USA. Both combined put more Japanese out of action than the USA. The British had 2.6 million march into Burma alone, besides the manpower of the the Eastern and Pacific Fleets engaging the Japanese. Sorry sunshine the Yanks were not key. The reality is they were pretty poor fighters. In Europe: the Omaha beach debacle, Hurtgen Forest defeat, the Lorraine crawl and the Bulge retreat (in which the British bailed the Yanks out). All which suffered 184,000 casualties. Besides the other operations. Amateurs. Read the books I gave. I am not interested in Internet historynet nonsense, where you get your information.
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  5. Ohlourdes Padua The critical lend lease was by the British prior to the USA entering the war, that aiding the vital Battle of Moscow. US lend lease never really started to flow until 1943. Its worth at shortening the war? Probably by about 6 months.
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  6. "the Soviet Union in 1942 managed to out-produce Germany in virtually every category of weapons. The margin for small arms and artillery was 3:1. For tanks it was a staggering 4:1, a differential compounded by the superior quality of the T34 tank. Even in combat aircraft the margin was 2:1. It was this industrial superiority, contrary to every expectation, that allowed the Red Army, first to absorb the Wehrmacht's second great onslaught and then in November 1942 to launch a whole series of devastating counterattacks." -Prof Adam Tooze
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  7. "The exceptional performer was the Soviet Union, which in 1942 produced twice as many infantry weapons, as many artillery pieces and almost as many combat aircraft and tanks as the United States, the undisputed manufacturing champion of the world. The Soviet miracle was not due to Western assistance. Lend-lease did not begin to affect the balance on the Eastern Front until 1943." -Prof Adam Tooze
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  8. Charles Lathrop You are right. You are boring.
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  9. Charles Lathrop 6% is not earth shattering.
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  10. Charles Lathrop wrote: "the British bailed the Americans out of the Bulge? Again... wut?" I will let the Germans have a say on the Bulge: Genral Hasso von Manteuffel: ‘The operations of the American First Army had developed into a series of individual holding actions. Montgomery's contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough’. By November 1944, British SHEAF officer, Strong, noted that there was a possibility of a German counter-offensive in the Ardennes or the Vosges. Strong went to personally warn Bradley at his HQ, who said, "let 'em come". Montgomery on hearing of the attack immediately took British forces to the Meuse to prevent any German forces from making a bridgehead, securing the rear. He was prepared to halt their advance and attack them. This was while Eisenhower and Bradley were doing nothing. even by 19 December, three days into the offensive, no overall plan had emerged from 12th Army Group or SHAEF, other than the decision to send Patton’s forces north to Bastogne. Overall, the Ardennes battle was in urgent need of grip. General Hodges had yet to see Bradley or receive more than the sketchiest orders from his Army Group commander. - Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944 On 20 December, Montgomery had sent a signal to Alanbrooke regarding the US forces: "Not good... definite lack of grip and control. I have heard nothing from Ike or Bradley and had no orders or requests of any sort. My own opinion is that the American forces have been cut in half and the Germans can reach the Meuse at Namur without opposition." Omar Bradley, commander of the 12th Army Group, did very little: 16 Dec, the first day, for 12 hours did nothing. 16 Dec, after 12 hours, he sent two armoured divisions from the flanking Ninth and Third Armies. 17 Dec, after 24 Hours, he then called in two US airborne divisions from Champagne. 18 Dec, he ordered Patton to halt his pending offensive in the Saar. 18 Dec, he had still not established contact with the First Army, while Monty had. 19 Dec, he withdrew divisions from the Aachen front to shore up the Ardennes. 19 Dec, he had still not produced an overall defensive plan. 19 Dec, the Supreme Commander intervened directly late in the day. 20 Dec, Eisenhower telephoned Montgomery telling him to take command of the US First and Ninth Armies While all this dillying by Bradley was going on, German armies were pounding forward into his lines. British SHEAF officers Whiteley (British) & Betts (US) visited the U.S. First Army HQ seeing the shambles. Strong, Whiteley, and Betts recommended that command of the armies north of the Ardennes be transferred from Bradley to Montgomery. Unfortunately only two British officers approached Beddel Smith of their recommendations, who immediately fired the pair, claiming it was nationalistic. The next morning, Beddel Smith apologized seeing the three were right, recommending to Eisenhower to bring in Monty. During the Battle of the Bulge Eisenhower was stuck self imprisoned in his HQ in des-res Versailles near Paris in fear of German troops wearing US uniforms attempting to kill allied generals. He had remained locked up more than 30 days without sending a single message or order to Montgomery, and that is when he thought he was doing ground control of the campaign, when in effect Montgomery was in control as two US armies were put under his command after the German attack, the US First and Ninth. Coningham of the RAF had to take control of US air force units. The Ninth stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war, just about. And yet biased American authors such as Stephen Ambrose said that Eisenhower took control of the Bulge and made the battle his veneering it as an all American victory. Ambrose completely falsified history. The only thing Eisenhower did was tell Monty to get control of two out of control US armies, tell the US 101st to go to Bastogne (who were in northern France after the buffer Market Garden was created) and men under Bradley to counterattack. That is it.
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  11.  Peter Michalski  Wages of Destruction - The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Prof Adam Tooze.
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  12.  Peter Michalski  Two American Airforce Generals, Brereton, in command of the First Allied Airborne Army, and Williams, USAAF, were the reason why the Market Garden plan was flawed. Nevertheless, despite their failings, the operation failed to be a 100% success by a whisker. It was Brereton and Williams who: ♦ Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy; ♦ Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps; ♦ Who rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-Day on the Pegasus bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet; ♦ Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges; ♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports and thereby not hindering the German reinforcements. Ground attack fighters were devastating in Normandy; ♦ Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that prevented the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of "possible flak". The job of the Airborne was to capture the bridges with as Brereton said 'thunderclap surprise'. Only one bridge, at Grave, was planned and executed using Airborne tactics of surprise, speed and aggression - land as close to the objectives as possible and attack the bridge simultaneously from both ends. General Gavin of the 82nd decided to lower the priority of the the biggest road bridge in Europe, the Nijmegen road bridge, going against orders compromising the operation. To compound his error, lack of judgement or refusal to carry out an order, he totally ignored the adjacent Nijmegen rail bridge, which the Germans had installed wooden planks between the rails for light vehicles to move on. At the time of the landings by the 82nd there were only 20 Germans guarding both bridges with a few troops in the town. There were no bridge defences such as ditches and barbed wire. This has been confirmed by German archives. Gavin sent only two companies of the 508 seven hours after they had landed to capture the bridges. They arrived at 2200, eight hours after being ready to march. Company A moved towards the bridge while Company B got lost. In the interim eight hours the 19 guards had been replaced by Kampfgruppe Henke with 750 men and then a brigade of the 10th SS Panzer Division (infantry) setting up shop in the park adjacent to the south side of the road bridge at 1900 hours, five hours after the jump. The Germans occupied the town, which was good defensive territory being rubble in the centre as the USAAF had previously bombed the town in March 1944 by mistake thinking they were in Germany, killing 800. XXX Corps Guards Division's aim was to reach Arnhem at 15.00 on D-Day+2. They arrived at Nijmegen in the morning of D-Day+2, with only 8 miles to go to Arnhem. Expecting to cross the road bridge they found it in German hands with Germans fighting 82nd men in the town, seeing something seriously had gone wrong. The 82nd had not captured either of the bridges or cleared out the Germans from Nijmegen town itself. XXX Corps then had to seize both bridges and clear the Germans from the town, using some 82nd men in clearing the town, seizing the bridge themselves. What you see in the film 'A Bridge Too Far' is fiction. It was the Grenadier Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry who seized the Nijmegen road bridge. If the 82nd had seized the road bridge, immediately on landing, as ordered, the Guards Division would have reached Arnhem well within time relieving the British 1st Airborne men on the north side of Arnhem bridge. The German archives state quite clearly that failure to capture the Nijmegen bridge on d-day was the reason for XXX Corps not making a bridgehead north of the Rhine. A failure made possible by General Gavin. Even the US Official War record confirms this. Charles B. MacDonald wrote the US Official history on Market Garden: https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_19.htm
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  13.  Peter Michalski  No national bias, just say it as it is, factual. From official archives. You have been slaughtered. Do not get your history from Hollywood or poor History Channel docs.
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