Posted on 08/08/2007 6:06:01 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
The Russians soaked up much of the German threat which the UK and US would have had to confront later. It was a different time.
And, why does the US ship to the USSR, in the Spring of 1943, tens of tons of nuclear materials - including enriched uranium?
If the Soviets didn’t start the war with Hitler then we wouldn’t have even been in that situation in the first place.
I don’t think Hitler invades Poland without signing the Non-Aggresion Pact with Stalin.
I didn’t know that.
“And, why does the US ship to the USSR, in the Spring of 1943, tens of tons of nuclear materials - including enriched uranium?”
Interesting, I had never heard that! Where did your read about that?
I know that the FDR administration had its traitors like Harry Hopkins and Alger Hiss, but would allowed that to happen?
“I don’t think Hitler invades Poland without signing the Non-Aggresion Pact with Stalin.”
Exactly. And after Russia stabs the civilized world in the back, in the Poland split, we were expected to do everything in our power to save them from the Germans. I would like to think our leaders were just stupid, but that is very difficult. I guess you could ask the East Germans, as well as several other Eastern European nations, if our slowing down on the Western-front and allowing the Russians to take Berlin, was a good thing. The Russians profited hugely in Germany, absconding with German technology as well as German nuclear and rocket scientists.
I would dare say, without our “assistance”, Russia would have remained the same festering, relatively powerless, s#!+hole it was before the war.
In fact, had Hitler not started the war, Stalin was going to attack Europe by 1943, when he built his armed forces back up after the 1938 purges. The Non-Aggression Pact was meant to buy time, but Hitler beat him to the punch in 1941.
They never mention how the Japanese army was already in retreat.
This along with the A-bomb was also a factor in the surrender.
Yup. Stalin didn’t count on France falling in six weeks.
And yet there were those in Japan who still didn’t want to give up.
If he had tried there’s a good chance the plotters would have moved against him.
Yeah, I have some acquaitenances in Georgia who are still ready to continue where their great great grandfathers left off.
Harry "The Hop" Hopkins, FDR's alter ego, was the director of the Lend-Lease program at the time (from VENONA Project and other sources - Hopkins was USSR "Agent No. 19").
The US stance of "unconditional surrender" and what its "varying" - they changed - parameters meant to the status of the Emperor were in question.
So, the Japanese continued to fight on; it was only when the Emperor ordered an end of the fighting that the killing stopped.
There was just one more atomic bomb (in transient to Tinian) available ... they were "hand made" at the time. Had the Emperor not ordered the end ... unconditional surrender was not an option in the Japanese mind-set ... no matter how many atomic bombs were dropped.
Recommend George Crocker's Roosevelt's Road to Russia for more information ...
The **** the Japanese would have been looking at in another six or seven weeks would have been considerably worse than more atomic bombs. That would have included 100 US carriers with no further invasion protection duties, i.e. nearly immune to kamikaze attacks, Midway carriers with armored flight decks and compliments of tigercats and bearcats on board, LeMay resupplied with incindiaries which he’d run out of in July of 45 and operating from Okinawa 350 miles away instead of the Marianas 1400 miles away, i.e. as if the number of B29s had been tripled, and about 20,000,000 people who used to live in cities walking around in the forests, and their entire merchant marine on the bottom of the ocean.
The Soviets controlling Manchuria gave a safe haven to Mao’s army at the very least. I would call that a strategic gain.
What did you miss about Japanese "mind-set?"
Similarly, ever heard of Masada?
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