Quote:

D. McDonagh said:
Quote:

MisterJLA said:
Good lord, you are a fucking idiot. Eject now.



Prove me wrong, then.



"Despite deep-seated mistrust and hostility between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 created an instant alliance between the Soviets and the two greatest powers in what the Soviet leaders had long called the "imperialist camp": Britain and the United States. Three months after the invasion, the United States extended assistance to the Soviet Union through its Lend-Lease Act of March 1941. Before September 1941, trade between the United States and the Soviet Union had been conducted primarily through the Soviet Buying Commission in the United States.

Lend-Lease was the most visible sign of wartime cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union. About $11 billion in war matériel was sent to the Soviet Union under that program. Additional assistance came from U.S. Russian War Relief (a private, nonprofit organization) and the Red Cross. About seventy percent of the aid reached the Soviet Union via the Persian Gulf through Iran; the remainder went across the Pacific to Vladivostok and across the North Atlantic to Murmansk. Lend- Lease to the Soviet Union officially ended in September 1945. Joseph Stalin never revealed to his own people the full contributions of Lend-Lease to their country's survival, but he referred to the program at the 1945 Yalta Conference saying, "Lend-Lease is one of Franklin Roosevelt's most remarkable and vital achievements in the formation of the anti-Hitler alliance."

Lend-Lease matériel was welcomed by the Soviet Union, and President Roosevelt attached the highest priority to using it to keep the Soviet Union in the war against Germany. Nevertheless, the program did not prevent friction from developing between the Soviet Union and the other members of the anti-Hitler alliance. The Soviet Union was annoyed at what seemed to it to be a long delay by the allies in opening a "second front" of the Allied offensive against Germany. As the war in the east turned in favor of the Soviet Union, and despite the successful Allied landings in Normandy in 1944, the earlier friction intensified over irreconcilable differences about postwar aims within the anti-Axis coalition. Lend-Lease helped the Soviet Union push the Germans out of its territory and Eastern Europe, thus accelerating the end of the war. With Stalin's takeover of Eastern Europe, the wartime alliance ended, and the Cold War began. "

http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/worw.html

...


"North and South Atlantic Routes - During WWII, the Soviet Union received almost 15,000 U.S. built aircraft under the Lend-Lease program. About half of these were delivered by sea via the North Atlantic or were flown across the South Atlantic Ocean to the U.S.S.R. via North Africa. Each method was difficult.

The North Atlantic route was subject to attack by German submarines and aircraft and the African route suffered from exposure to desert sand which reduced the life of engines and other aircraft components. Eventually aircraft deliveries shifted to a more direct course via Alaska to Siberia, the ALSIB route.

ALSIB Route - Almost 8,000 aircraft were ferried over the ALSIB route, usually by Air Transport Command pilots, through Great Falls, Montana to Fairbanks, Alaska. There, Soviet pilots took over and flew the aircraft to Nome, Alaska and then to Siberia.

Winter ground temperatures of minus 50º Fahrenheit, the threat of being forced down in remote wilderness, hazardous flying weather, spartan living conditions, and a lack of sufficient hangar space which sometimes forced mechanics to work outside under cruel winter conditions made life difficult for personnel assigned to duty along the ALSIB route.

Neither the Red Army Museum in Moscow nor the Soviet Air Force Museum makes any mention of Soviet use of American aircraft during WWII or that the Western Allies even participated in that war. This is even more interesting when comparing a P-63 flight manual page from the Soviet version and the American original."


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http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/ce39.htm

11 billion dollars, 15,000 aircraft and a second front didn't help the Soviets? If you say so.

By the way, many French only collaberated with the Germans.

"Although plausible as a theory, it doesn't stand up against the evidence. Firstly, protecting France against the full barbarity of Nazi rule implies an awareness on the part of Vichy of Nazi policy. It is possible to argue that Vichy's understanding of Nazi policy was limited. The actions of Vichy, predicated on the victory of Germany in an essentially European war, expresses a blinkered view of the dynamics of Nazism. The Germany of 1940, thought many in Vichy, was little different to the Germay with whom they had agreed an armistice in 1918.

Moreover, the argument that Vichy collaboration prevented France from becoming another Poland is similarly unfounded. The `polonization' of certain sections of the French community took place, and took place, more importantly, with the complicity of the French authorities. The deportation of 75,000-80,000 Jews, the forced dispatch of 750,000 Frenchmen and Frenchwomen to work in Germany, the trials of 135,000 French people, the internment of 70,000 `enemies of the state', the complicity of the French police and the Milice in suppressing resistance are all examples of this. There was no shielding or moderating influence here.

Comparisons with other occupied countries in Europe underline the specificity of the French experience. In the Netherlands, for example, civil servants were only expected to ensure the proper functionning of essential services and not to provide any other assistance to the occupying forces.

Vichy not only facilitated and assisted in Nazi atrocities, but it also exploited France's military defeat to construct its own internal political revolution. This makes Vichy France, with the possible exception of Croatia and Slovakia, newly created states, a specific case in occupied Europe."




http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0tmc/occupied/collab.htm




Try opening a book once in while.