the bulk of the fighting

The most familiar image relating to the turning point of World War II in the Western world is the iconic image of American and British forces landing at the beaches in Normandy as they proceeded to liberate France from Nazi oppression, however what they fought through was an already war ravaged Europe, it took them six months to conquer what the German Army did in six weeks!

Not only was that because they had unchallenged air space for most of the way but it was also because only 20% of the German Army was all that was left behind to defend that space, not until the Battle of the Bulge which saw the Germans launch a massive offensive against a larger force of Americans using their big artillery guns.

The bulk of the fighting that had slowly eroded the solidity of the German military might was the war on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, which saw the Russians not only fighting back the invading Nazi Army but also Finns and several other states seeking independence from Stalin's Soviet Russia (most notably Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).



But what the Soviets did do was break the back of the German Army after being besieged in their major cities of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad (which saw 20,000,000 people slaughtered), the Soviet counter offensives broke the back of the German Army which had broken into three divisions (Army Group North, South, Centre) which ended up too widely stretched to defend Germany itself.



Emptying the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland and several other smaller states in Eastern Europe of German forces the Soviets eventually entered Germany itself and captured Berlin meeting the Allies at the Elbe River not long afterwords, they were the biggest single party to contribute to the war effort of ridding Europe of the Nazi's.

Even though they received American equipment from the Lend Lease they gave the manpower logistical support and the practical elements of winning such a huge war, right down to the guns, boots and uniforms that made up their large infantry groups.

While the American effort did help Britain fight out a hefty amount of the war in the European Theater, in the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force cut down hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers and fighters and from 1941 on had proceeded to fly bombing raids against Germany and the occupied countries in Western Europe, this accelerated into the devastating firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg near the closing stages of the war.

However the Lend Lease from the United States which resupplied Britain during the war cost the equivalent of $500 billion today, a loan that literally bankrupted Britain after the war and was only paid off in 2006!