where did we contribute the most?

[oakranger]

I have a question. As you all should know, U.S. had a two front war, Pacific theater and Europe theater. Between them two, where did U.S. contribute the most?  I am talking in troops, bombers, artillery, ships ect.  Just put everything together, where did we contribute the most?  It is obvious that we had more of the navy in the Pacific and most of the vehicles in the Europe.   I am trying to find information on this and not sure if there is any way to compare between them two to justify the question. 

[Delirium]

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if you factor in 'lend-lease' and don't factor in the cost of researching/building the atom bomb, the European Theater had to have the most money spent on it. This is mostly due to the 'Germany first' strategy of the Allies.

[Ghosth]

Pacific theater took a definite back seat to the European side. At least until after Normandy was taken and we were well on our way to mopping up over there. I'm sure in part due to promises we made to England and Russia.

Japan after it bungled Pearl Harbor really did not have a chance of keeping us bottled up on the West Coast.

England on the other hand, if it had fallen, we'd of been looking at trying to land troops with the nearest friendly land being iceland or Newfoundland. We really didn't have a choice, we HAD to prevent England from falling.

[Excel1]

it helped, but the u.s didn't save britain from germany. the raf did that before germany declared war on the u.s.

it might not be relevant to the original question but trying to quantify contribution by crunching raw numbers of troops and materials doesn't take into account that x factor that wins wars. the bob raf and the u.s navy in the pto had it in spades. both were outstanding.


a slightly differant slant..europe may have been the no1 priority for the u.s which was fair enough, but imo the importance of, and the significance of u.s efforts in the pacific thearte have been underrated too much in comparison with the european theatre. difficult logistics and brutal fighting in one far flung watermelon hole after another against a competent and fanatical enemy is sometimes overlooked.

[Rich46yo]

Its widely accepted by historians, and by tacticians of the era, that Germany was the more dangerous of the two. Things is the Pacific ocean gave us a lot of security and allowed us to play a waiting game. We knew from the beginning it was going to be almost strictly a naval war and that much of Japans land forces were garrisoned on strategically irrelevant locations. Japan just didn't have the Industrial base like Germany had. They had virtually no modern armor, no parachute regiments, a very limited convoy ability, and far less technical expertise, "radar"...ect

I would say the European war saw more Yank involvement. And that's across the board from resupply to lend lease to troops actually fighting. And don't forget that after Midway in 1942 the IJN lost much of its long range striking power and it did so in the one area it was fairly strong in.

I don't have the exact figures in front of me but I'd say Europe without a doubt. Europe was a three front Continental land war that also had a terrible air war raging as well as the convoy war.