[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Deschodt

I think the Churchill quote above was re: the battle of britain and the royal air force holding the luftwaffe at bay, NOT D-day. Though that applies too, of course (just less "so few", it was a lot of people)



Both you guys are spot on indeed.. American history books often forget the war started in 1939, not dec 41 - it was *quite* a while before the US decided to join, also with the benefit of being an ocean away with over 2 years to prepare - but once they did, the rest is history...It always annoys me how people single out how France fell (with a common border to Germany and zero time and old equipment), ignore that the rest of europe folded even faster, and have no mockery at all for the countries who joined the wrong side - it's all good Italy and Spain! Lots of interesting stuff to be read, like for instance the French air force was woefully underequipped with antique stuff and yet still managed to blunt the luftwaffe enough that it needed a break and did not succeed carrying on to conquer british skies (I'm paraphrasing the intro of Adolf Galland's book here, general of the luftwaffe, not my opinion).. Also all the weird stuff where the Vichy fleet was sunk by England in the harbor somewhat treacherously (fair enough, in war, but weird how you brush stuff aside after)... and let's not bring up some of the Hitler sympathies all over the world at the time, from Henry Ford to... the duke of windsor in britain (ex king, no less)! It's always interesting to look back with the benefit of knowing how it ends and who wrote the books.. Lots of super interesting less black and white tales if you study history from all sides..

Oh yes, Hitler had many people and countries jump on his bandwagon. The French, even then knew the Germans were building a massive armed forces, and France refused to spend the massive amounts of money to defend themselves. Europe learned many lessons, and promptly forgot most of them. Now NATO is woefully underfunded by the countries that are protected by NATO.