[Colin Glassey 12 midnight] Could the U.S. have lost W.W.II?
The historian Michael Beschloss has a new book out (The Conquerors) and I heard him speaking on KQED this morning. Twice in the first 15 minutes he made that claim that if xxx hadn't happened, "we would have lost the war". The first time he was talking about what would have happened if Roosevelt had lost the presidential election in 1936, the second time he was talking about what would have happened if Stalin had made peace with Hitler sometime before the end of the war.
Frankly, this is wrong, in my opinion. There are very few scenarios which result in us losing World War II, and none of them take place after 1942. Even if Stalin had signed a peace treaty with Hitler in late 1943 (after Operation Zitidel had failed) we still would have beaten the Nazis. It would have taken longer, more people would have died, and one or more German cities would have been nuked but we would have won.
The truth is, we beat the Germans with some margin to spare. We invaded France in June of 1944 and less than a year later we had shattered their western army and were well on our way to capturing every city west of Berlin. We didn't suffer a serious reverse during the entire campaign. And yes, I know about the Battle of the Bulge.
In the Ardense offensive, the Germans threw every available panzer unit they had at the weakest, most thinly defended portion of our front, and succeeded in advancing a measly 55 miles at their farthest. They attacked with their 12 best divisions and they succeeded in shattering two of our weakest infantry divisions. They couldn't even take the one city we defended in force (Bastogne, held by the 101 Airborn division). Our counter attack ground down their panzers and at the end of the campaign, the Germans were right back where they started but their armored units had suffered 90% losses. They never attacked on the Western front for the remainder of the war.
If Stalin had signed a peace treaty, Hitler would have been free to reallocate maybe 20% of the East front forces to the West. To move more would have left German territory too exposed to the dangerous and very angry Russian army. We could have handled an additional 20% stronger Germany army. Yes it would have been tougher, but we still would have won. So, we are pleased that the Russians didn't just give up the fight when they recovered all their territory, thanks Russia! But once Hitler attacked Russia and was beaten at Stalingrad, their defeat was all but certain.
As to us losing the war if Roosevelt wasn't elected President in 1936 (or 1940), I'm sorry but I don't see it. I have great respect for Roosevelt and I think he made good choices but the United States is more than just one man. Would General Marshall and Admiral King not be in command in 1941 if Roosevelt wasn't president? Would Eisenhower, Patton, Nimitz and Spruance have somehow disappeared if Roosevelt hadn't been re-elected? Would the huge industrial base of the United States have gone missing if Roosevelt wasn't in the White House?
Yes, Roosevelt invested political capital to get the United States preparing for war before December 7, 1941, but the truth is, we didn't do that much before the Japanese attacked, and we did a hell of a lot after the attack. The same things that protected us in 1942 (the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans) would have been protecting us under any other president. The aircraft carriers that won the war in the Pacific were not built during Roosevelts 2nd or 3rd administrations, they had been built already.
Bottom line: Hitler was doomed the day Stalingrad surrendered, February 2, 1943. The Japanese were doomed from the start of the war (really) but it was certain when on June 4th, 1942, they lost their four fleet carriers at Midway. Even if luck was against us and the Germans were still holding out in the fall of 1945, we were going to build the atomic bomb and we would have been all too pleased to use it against the Nazis. So Mr. Bechloss, how exactly could the United States have lost World War II?
12:11:12 AM 
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