Alternate Histories of WW2- What if?

[SUPERX-M1]

There are many books speculating on ww2 and how it may have developed and ended.

A few variables would be Pearl Harbor, the defeat and invasion of England (the Allied Atlantic aircraft carrier and land base for invading troops), Midway, Russia, Japan...

One book that I liked was fictional novel by Len Deighton: SS-GB. Surprisingly, there was a tv series made. Check your local libraries. Internet.

D-Day was June 6, 1944 in Normandy, France.

[clintonhater]

When FDR cut off shipments of oil & other critical materials to Japan to punish them for invading China, & froze Jap assets in the US, it was described in the US press as the most extreme measures his adm could take against Japan, short of war. All histories of how Japan made the decision to strike Pearl Harbor--when their chief aim was to conclude the war in China, far from finished--recognize that starving the Jap's military machine of oil was the single deciding factor. It panicked the Jap high-command into thinking they must strike quickly before their oil reserves were depleted, & provoked them to widen their war by seizing the oil reserves of the Dutch East Indies.

[jon_norstog]

The US was getting ready for war with Japan long before the strike at Pearl. In 1938 Hap Arnold selected sites and started building a line of bomber fields in the western US, beyond the range of carrier-based aircraft. Moses Lake WA, Mountain Home and Pocatello ID, Great Falls MT, all the way down into Nevada and Arizona, It was a lot of money to spend during the depression, I think the wiser heads could see war coming. In any case the buildup put people to work and gave the President something to back him up if the Japanese took exception to the sanctions.

jn

[jon_norstog]

The only thing I could see changing the outcome of WW II would be a successful invasion of, and a complete surrender by, Britain. I can't see Roosevelt letting that happen - he would have sent US troops with or without Congressional approval. The Blitz in Europe was kind of a successful replay of the Von Schlieffen Plan that failed in the Great War. I don't think the German General Staff had worked out the details of an invasion of Britain; they certainly didn't have the resources to carry one out, even without US involvement in the fight.

There are wars that could have gone either way, but I don't think WW II is one of them.

jn

[sid]

There is no way Germany could have defeated the United States, no matter what they did. Even in a worst case scenario B 29's would have started raining atom bombs on them. The first one on Berlin would have killed Hitler and the heads of his entire war machine. The Germans would then have had a choice between surrender or annihilation.

[Mark in Ottawa]

I suspect that if Hitler had not decided to invade Russia and had held on to the western half of Poland, fortifying it against a possible Russian invasion, the world would have been a totally different place. Without the huge Russian army to contend with, nobody could have taken on Germany and it would be the dominant European military and economic force, even today.

[clintonhater]

I suspect that if Hitler had not decided to invade Russia and had held on to the western half of Poland, fortifying it against a possible Russian invasion, the world would have been a totally different place.

No Iron Curtain, Cold War, Cuban missiles, countless other global aggressions, & most importantly, maybe no Red China, made possible mainly by Stalin's guns & tanks; no Red China would have also meant no Korean War. What about Nazi Germany? Built on the cult of Hitler's personality & charisma, it could not have survived his death for long. The empires created by Alexander, Attila, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, & all others in history created by one "great leader," all faded away after the leader's demise.

[togor]

Having an Atom Bomb is one thing. Delivering it to an enemy capital, through enemy airspace, via a four-engined bomber, is another. Without Britain as an 'unsinkable' aircraft carrier, the allies lack the forward operating base necessary to claim the skies over Europe.

[Vern Humphrey]

The US was getting ready for war with Japan long before the strike at Pearl. In 1938 Hap Arnold selected sites and started building a line of bomber fields in the western US, beyond the range of carrier-based aircraft. Moses Lake WA, Mountain Home and Pocatello ID, Great Falls MT, all the way down into Nevada and Arizona, It was a lot of money to spend during the depression, I think the wiser heads could see war coming. In any case the buildup put people to work and gave the President something to back him up if the Japanese took exception to the sanctions.

jn

In 1921, LTC Earl Ellis, USMC wrote "Advance Base Operations in Micronesia" -- the blue print for the island-hopping campaign we conducted more than 20 years later.