What if WWII didn't happen

[Harp]

Great D and WWII

The Great Depression would have lasted a lot longer.

Most probably, revisionist economists notwithstanding.

As Pearl Harbor forcibly kicked the US Navy "upstairs," so too did the
Second World War push back the frontiers of western Europe where
Churchill's famed "Iron Curtain" descended, necessitating the creation
of NATO, leading to the USSR economic defense expenditure collapse.

Technological advances during the war also produced the first atomic
detonation, pennicillin antibiotics, and Axis jet propulsion.

Perhaps all of this and more would have resulted eventually,
conflict or no war, but the immediate effect helped propel human
knowledge forward. And it is probable that man would not have
stepped foot on the Moon before 1970 had WWII not occurred.

 

[Lincsong]

Sony wouldn't have been around to dump all their televisions on the U.S. in the 1970's.

 

[Spitfire]

If WWII didn't happen, Paddy would not have had his gallery of loungemembers in WWII uniforms.
And - come to think of it - we would not have had this part of the lounge to meet in.

 

[Spitfire]

I admit that this existential question is interesting to contemplate, but an even more interesting question in my mind is what would have happened had the *Fighter Boys* in the RAF not prevailed during the Battle of Britian? I have been doing a lot of research on that particular part of the conflict and I am astounded at how close the outcome really was. Had just a couple of days gone differently... the U.K. could have fallen. Where would we have been then?

Zemke Fan, what is your comment then, to the ongoing debate in UK, that it was The Royal navy and not the Few, who saved England and won the Battle of Britain?
Personally I think its only half of the thuth. Or less.
The nazis would propably think twice before embarking in an invasion, with the strong british navy in the neighbourhood. BUT they also had to be dominant in the air before they could even think of it.
They did not reach that target - The few prevailed. So we'll never know how strong the navy were. OIr if the nazis could have done it.
To me the RAF won the first round - and the second never started.

 

[PADDY]

If Great Britain had been invaded by the Germans in 1940...

I admit that this existential question is interesting to contemplate, but an even more interesting question in my mind is what would have happened had the *Fighter Boys* in the RAF not prevailed during the Battle of Britian? I have been doing a lot of research on that particular part of the conflict and I am astounded at how close the outcome really was. Had just a couple of days gone differently... the U.K. could have fallen. Where would we have been then?

If Britain had been invaded and the likes of the Royal Family and UK Govt taken to the safety of Canada (as was the plan), then there would have been no place to feasibly launch an invasion of Europe from (D-Day). It would have bought the Germans time to develop atomic weapons. Trans-Atlantic bombers would have had time to be developed so that East Coast US cities might have been bombed. Intercontinental weapons might have been developed with atomic capabilities.
The holocaust would have been successful and then all evidence of it covered up and conveniently ignored by the US..(?)
The three main superpowers of today could be Japan, Greater German, and the US.
The US might have sued for peace with the Axis Powers in 41 following the fall of the UK (Remember US didn't enter the war until 1941, so after Pearl Harbor, they might have reached an agreement with the Axis alliance and not have gone to war??? who knows...and it goes on and on.

Interesting one, and I'm sure there is a recent book on such a WHAT IF scenario.

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

My Austrian mother and my English father would never have met in the United States, and I'd never have been born.

 

[Matthew Dalton]

I think it's practically impossible to answer this question with any kind of accuracy. Consider the Butterfly Effect and the full scope of WW2.

 

[John in Covina]

Only if the Nazis had gained power and controlled Europe, here I think the "what if" does not have that as the scenario resulting in the "final solution" genocide.

No more Europen Jews, Gypsys, Homosexuals, mentally challanged people, communists, and the other persicuted groups. Also, no computers, better use of raw materials, nylon, plastics, and other revelutionary materials.

 

[Elaina]

We also wouldn't have had video games, microwaves or the Pope John Paul.

I'll have to come back and talk. Feel free to groan. Now I have to act like I'm stuck in the 40's and feed males here.

 

[matei]

I admit that this existential question is interesting to contemplate, but an even more interesting question in my mind is what would have happened had the *Fighter Boys* in the RAF not prevailed during the Battle of Britian? I have been doing a lot of research on that particular part of the conflict and I am astounded at how close the outcome really was. Had just a couple of days gone differently... the U.K. could have fallen. Where would we have been then?

I'd be a guest worker here in the German satellite nation of Great Britain.

Hmmm... interestingly enough, in spite of the war I am still foreigner working here in Great Britain, however I don't need to speak German to get a job!

 

[Haversack]

I agree with Comrade Berkov that the pivotal "what if" of the 20th C. was "What if the First World War had not occurred?" This was the event that turned the world upside down. Consider the collapse of multiple empires. The establishment of the Soviet Union. The death of a generation in the concentrated meatgrinder of industrial warfare. The coming of age of the USA and of Australia. (It was only after WWI when Britain revealed to the US government that they had been enforcing the Monroe Doctrine through the 19th C.) Also, consider the continued insularity of US society. There would have been no need to ask. "How're you gonna keep em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?" The realization in India that the British were not all-powerful...

A case can be made that international tensions were such before both world wars that each war was inevitable. The outbreak of a great war in Europe had been expected pretty much since Queen Victoria died and there had been several incidents, (Panther, et. al.), which could have set it off. However, Europe might have continued to lurch from one crisis to the next without the vast machinery of inter-locking alliances being activated. Lenin could have ended up dying in the Zurich Main Library. Hitler would have been a minor Austrian bureaucrat who dabbled in watercolours. The term "unrestricted submarine warfare" would never have been invented. And red poppies would be just another roadside flower in Flanders.

Haversack.

 

[Twitch]

Speaking for aviation the war accelerated at least warplane advances probably 2 decades ahead of what would have happened in peacetime.

But the jet engine was already invented in the 30s and the German aircraft designers had plenty of layouts for advanced airliners. They would have led the way with jet airliners perhaps earlier than it happened. In any case their aerospace engineers were far ahead in their thinking for applicable vehicles.

 

[Alan Eardley]

Battle of the Barges

I admit that this existential question is interesting to contemplate, but an even more interesting question in my mind is what would have happened had the *Fighter Boys* in the RAF not prevailed during the Battle of Britian? I have been doing a lot of research on that particular part of the conflict and I am astounded at how close the outcome really was. Had just a couple of days gone differently... the U.K. could have fallen. Where would we have been then?

The Battle of Britain was undoubtedly important in denying any subsequent German invasion air superiority, but according to many at the time (including W/C Guy Gibson in his autobiography) what also contributed much to preventing the invasion from actually taking place was the so called 'Battle of the Barges' in which Bomber Command inflicted heavy damage on the German invasion fleet then assembling in several Channel ports. Then there was the weather, which may have also been a factor. As publicity and propaganda, the BoB was priceless however, irrespective of its actual strategic importance. Remember that Fighter Command had a very poor reputation at the due to its alleged ineffectiveness in covering the Dunkerque evacuation.

Alan

 

[Twitch]

The Germans were never foreseeing invading GB. They had no inventory of craft to facilitate a landing even if they had air superiority. Hitler always figured they'd sue for peace.

That said, IF Hilter had so decreed in 1937-38 German industry certainly could have produced what was needed.

Though logistics and geographics were quite different the Japanese had a fine array of craft for that purpose by the late 30s

 

[carebear]

The Germans were never foreseeing invading GB. They had no inventory of craft to facilitate a landing even if they had air superiority. Hitler always figured they'd sue for peace.

That said, IF Hilter had so decreed in 1937-38 German industry certainly could have produced what was needed.

Though logistics and geographics were quite different the Japanese had a fine array of craft for that purpose by the late 30s

Nah, Hitler would have pushed all the production resources into giant, tank carrying tracked submarines that could crawl under the Channel safe from any air attack and undetected by Britain's surface fleet. Designed to link up with the personal heli-pack wearing assault troops who would fly over at wave top height while the new jet fighters cleared the skies of British fighters.

Or something equally wasteful and ridiculous.

 

[chippler]

women's liberation would not have happened so quickly. With the war they HAD to work men's jobs. If the war had not happened we may have had more housewives (which I would have no problem with). Maybe guys would give up their seats more often...

Funnily enough I disagree with you. Yes, women did work men's jobs but when the men came back from war they felt threatened by women in men's jobs plus men who returned from war wanted their old jobs and they did get them back.

The women were relegated back to servitude as the men put the women "back in their places."... if you read any 1950's magazines you will see women portrayed as the good housewife and not the factory worker of WW2.

During the war there is no talk of women's rights. There is only talk of the war.

If anything war sets women's liberation backwards.

- Chris

 

[Wild Root]

It's interesting to think "What if WWII didn't happen"... well, it did and we have what we have because of it.

WWII was really a good thing in some regards... it helped us get out of the depression, gave many jobs... and the economy got a major boost! When the men came home after the war, money was given them by the GI Bill.

War is hell, it's sad and lots of families lost loved ones... however, with out that war fought, who would know how our lives would have been effected by it today? It needed to be fought and I'm glad my Grandfathers and many others took part in it. Freedom must come at any cost!

Never forget, we must fight to keep our rights! Evil is real and it must be stopped by force when no other alternative is at hand.

I fear for this world if another conflict as large as that should ever arise... the way people think today and act is very different to that of the WWII generation.

=WR=

 

[Marc Chevalier]

If WWII hadn't existed, someone would have had to invent it. (That doesn't make any sense, does it?)



.

 

[Fletch]

Never forget, we must fight to keep our rights! Evil is real and it must be stopped by force when no other alternative is at hand.

Evil is real. The problem is, it's very easy to do evil in the name of good. Especially where force is involved.

I fear for this world if another conflict as large as that should ever arise... the way people think today and act is very different to that of the WWII generation.

Yes. What if they gave a war and nobody came? :eusa_doh:

 

[Wild Root]

So you might be saying that Hitler and the rest of the Axis were just miss understood people? That they didn't really want to take over the world, that the ovens of the camps were just there to bake bread and maybe a Jew fell in by chance?

I'm talking WWII here, that war HAD to be fought... as I've studded history, it turns out that a large majority of the US didn't want a second world war! They wanted to sit this one out, and why not? There were plenty of vets from the first one and another one wasn't sounding any better then the first! Soon as Dec. 7th came, it was put into a whole different light... what the Empire of Japan did on that day was sneaky and underhanded... do you think that we could have just slapped them on the wrists and say: Noughty boys, you take that back or, or, we'll stamp our feet and hold our breath! No, the only way those guys were going to settle down was with a real conflict.

War is horrible, not saying it's not but, when you're dealing with powerful governments who want to take over your country with Guns and Bombs, you have two choices to make; One is to open the door and let the roaches in or, two, you can take a stand and fight for your rights! For Democracy and the sacred freedoms your fathers and the fathers before them fought for!

That's what happened in 1941... FDR said NO! And the rest of the American people aided England and Russia and China in defending against the Axis Powers.

=WR=