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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
You were the one that brought up the ability of European countries left to decide their own future not me. Giving aid to one side in a civil conflict isn't allowing a country to decide its own fate, you are helping to choose for them.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Ahhh..we get to the root of America's "sin" it has a name and it is called..."enlightened self-interest".The dirty bastards how dare they lend a hand and at the same time find  economic trading partners.Your right Meatcleaver America is evil  !!!!!!!!
Just a thought Meatcleaver,do you think that after watching the two preceding generations of young American men go off to Europe to get involved in that continents seemingly never-ending wars America's best and brightest might have decided a more stable Europe was in every ones best interest...and let me ask you how thats working out right now ,what with a European Union and all that.Tell me this, when in the entirety of Europe's history has the continent ever enjoyed such peace...Yes America meddles,but from an American point of view it is called self interest.Now you go back to that bar in Brussels and you and all your enlightened friends can lift a pint and hoot and holler all you want about American Evils....personally I don't care, but take a drive most anywhere in Europe and you are likely to run into a cemetary along your path...check out the headstones...I understand there is a really nice one in Flanders .These would be American dead...you and your fellow pub drinkers might once in a while care to raise a pint to them ...you know just to balance things out a bit

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn
 
Obviously the United States gave aid to anti-communists ... and those other guys gave aid to communists.

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You entered WWII when you were attacked by Japan and you enetered the European war because Germany declared war on you, not to save Europe.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

So, giving aid to someone fighting our enemies, is a dirty trick?

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

You have got to be kidding with this last post.You have shown yourself to be someone not worth discussing any historical subject with.Your grasp of history is a little loose to say the least and at worst completely delusional....you might want to spend less time in a pub and a little more in a library or something

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

You have got to be kidding with this last post.You have shown yourself to be someone not worth discussing any historical subject with.Your grasp of history is a little loose to say the least and at worst completely delusional....you might want to spend less time in a pub and a little more in a library or something

Pearl Harbour was on the 7th December 1941. WWII started in August/September 1939. Where was the US in the intervening two years if you saved us?

The Battle of Britain was won and Britain had began to push back the Germans in N Africa. The most important battle in WWII was Stalingrad. It was Russia that ripped the guts out of the German army, it was Russia that made the war in the west so much easier.

America entered WWI in April 1917. The war started in June 1914. Where were you in the previous three years if you were saving us?

You entered the war in your own interests, one wouldn't expect anything else but give me abreak about saving us.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

You have got to be kidding with this last post.You have shown yourself to be someone not worth discussing any historical subject with.Your grasp of history is a little loose to say the least and at worst completely delusional....you might want to spend less time in a pub and a little more in a library or something

Pearl Harbour was on the 7th December 1941. WWII started in August/September 1939. Where was the US in the intervening two years if you saved us?

The Battle of Britain was won and Britain had began to push back the Germans in N Africa. The most important battle in WWII was Stalingrad. It was Russia that ripped the guts out of the German army, it was Russia that made the war in the west so much easier.

America entered WWI in April 1917. The war started in June 1914. Where were you in the previous three years if you were saving us? American entry raised the moral of the alies and disheartened the Germans.

You entered the war in your own interests, one wouldn't expect anything else but give me abreak about saving us.

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mike, your schoolboy memories are letting you down. Lend Lease never started until after the Battle of Britain ("the end of the beginning"). Once it was clear that the Germans were never going to effect an invasion of Britain, the Americans did indeed start to augment supplies - ships, transport planes etc.

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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mike, your schoolboy memories are letting you down. Lend Lease never started until after the Battle of Britain ("the end of the beginning"). Once it was clear that the Germans were never going to effect an invasion of Britain, the Americans did indeed start to augment supplies - ships, transport planes etc.

That's not entirely accurate either.

On June 1, 1940, at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, President Roosevelt declared substantial quantities of ammunition and arms as "surplus", bypassing the Neutrality Act to ship them to Great Britain.

On September 2, 1940, the Destroyers for Bases Agreement was signed, whereby the UK received 50 destroyers to augment its Navy (facing a challenge in the Battle of the Atlantic equal if not greater than the one the RAF faced during the Battle of Britain).

The Lend-Lease Act, signed on March 11, 1941, was the most significant military aid effort of the US prior to its entry into WWII, but it was hardly the United States' only effort.

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

mike, your schoolboy memories are letting you down.  Lend Lease never started until after the Battle of Britain ("the end of the beginning").  Once it was clear that the Germans were never going to effect an invasion of Britain, the Americans did indeed start to augment supplies - ships, transport planes etc. 

I'm not sure how to link your statement that American neutrality was the democratic choice of the US people (which was undermined by Roosevelt) with your insistence that meatcleaver eschews a night out in favour of paying homage to the US fallen at Flanders field.  Huh? One minute you don't want to aid your ally, the next you want to be thanked as though America joining the war meant everyone else got to go home early for tea and crumpets.  The valour of an individual serviceman should not be measured by the size of the economy backing him up and there were fighting men from the world over in that conflict - volunteers, as well as draftees.

The bottom line is: its futile to try to fathom some of the wartime decisions but it would be a shame if money was to be the sole currency in which belligerents were measured.  It's the fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight.  Maybe you should just be happy that Americans are usually viewed and treated as friends in Europe, regardless of these dusty arguments -- but that we simply don't consider you our saviours.  That still leaves plenty to celebrate and I'm off to raise a glass to the gallant war dead right now.

Peace. 

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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mike, your schoolboy memories are letting you down. Lend Lease never started until after the Battle of Britain ("the end of the beginning"). Once it was clear that the Germans were never going to effect an invasion of Britain, the Americans did indeed start to augment supplies - ships, transport planes etc.

That's not entirely accurate either.

On June 1, 1940, at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, President Roosevelt declared substantial quantities of ammunition and arms as "surplus", bypassing the Neutrality Act to ship them to Great Britain.

On September 2, 1940, the Destroyers for Bases Agreement was signed, whereby the UK received 50 destroyers to augment its Navy (facing a challenge in the Battle of the Atlantic equal if not greater than the one the RAF faced during the Battle of Britain).

The Lend-Lease Act, signed on March 11, 1941, was the most significant military aid effort of the US prior to its entry into WWII, but it was hardly the United States' only effort.

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ORIGINAL: kdsub
...not the British...a small back world country even then..

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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mike, your schoolboy memories are letting you down. Lend Lease never started until after the Battle of Britain ("the end of the beginning"). Once it was clear that the Germans were never going to effect an invasion of Britain, the Americans did indeed start to augment supplies - ships, transport planes etc.

That's not entirely accurate either.

On June 1, 1940, at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, President Roosevelt declared substantial quantities of ammunition and arms as "surplus", bypassing the Neutrality Act to ship them to Great Britain.

On September 2, 1940, the Destroyers for Bases Agreement was signed, whereby the UK received 50 destroyers to augment its Navy (facing a challenge in the Battle of the Atlantic equal if not greater than the one the RAF faced during the Battle of Britain).

The Lend-Lease Act, signed on March 11, 1941, was the most significant military aid effort of the US prior to its entry into WWII, but it was hardly the United States' only effort.

This is broadly correct CL, The destroyers were not all fit for action, some were, while others needed minor refits and the odd few major refits. Most of these destroyers had been mothballed for ten years, and the main benefit was that these could be used mainly for convoy escort work, freeing up modern RN destroyers for other tasks.

im not sure American aid was crucial during the battle of Britain itself, as for some reason the Luftwaffe failed to concentrate on manufaturing plants. They spent more time bombing airfields and cities, as the hoped to destroy the RAF, and force Churchill into negotiations. Even so there is no doubt that the lend lease programme and aid prior to that was crucial in the overall context of things. People also forget that prior to the US entering the war, they were secretly using carriers to transport RAF planes to the med, as well as helping repair Royal Navy ships in American ports.

Mike, would it be fair to say Roosevelt had to be careful with aid prior to being elected in 1940, so as not to aid his critics ?