I have been told that Britain’s greatest contribution to WW2 was TIME; America’s was MONEY and Russia’s was BLOOD.
Do you agree with this thumb-nail assessment?
I’d say it’s pretty close to the mark.
I would probably change America’s contribution to “resources.” But that is pretty close.
The OP is worded in such a way to make it look like an IMHO (or maybe a Great Debate, if anyone were to disagree stongly enough). Let’s try to keep this in GQ by providing facts and figures, such as the amount of money, and lives, spent by each of the allies.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Okay, why not?
Time:
The United Kingdom was at war from 3 September 1939 to 14 August 1945.
The Soviet Union was at war from 22 June 1941 to 7 May 1945 and from 8 August 1945 to 14 August 1945.
The United States was at war from 7 December 1941 to 14 August 1945.
So the UK put in the most time.
Blood:
The Soviet Union had approximately 28,848,000 people killed. Of this, approximately 10,000,000 were military personnel (including partisans).
The United States had approximately 409,000 people killed, of whom all but approximately 1,000 were military.
The United Kingdom had approximately 363,000 people killed, of whom approximately 258,000 were military.
So the Soviet Union put in the most blood.
Money:
I’ll admit defeat. A half hour searching through my library and another half hour online failed to turn up any figures for British or Soviet WII military spending.
I did find that the United States spent approximately $288,000,000 (in contemporary figures).
I think Britain’s contribution of TIME means that she stood ALONE against Hitler for about a year - not the duration of Britain’s war.
Had Britain succumbed it is likely that Russia would have been defeated and America would have had no springboard from which to launch the crusade to liberate Europe.
That comes as a surprise to Canadians.
Sorry, Rick J. You’re right of course but Canada or the other Commonwealth countries, geographically, could not have been springboards.
Toscar, I understood that the OP was meant in a metaphorical sense.
I see I miswrote one of the facts in my previous post. The figure should $288,000,000,000 not $288,000,000.