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Food from the US wouldn't have made much difference the US is not the only country that can farm .I think machine tools and abrasives and general commodities of war like contruction materials would make the difference . Without machine tools or abrasives you haven't got a militaryhere is aqoute from a machinist in Derby UKIt is true that few people in Britain starved but that was with all the food shipped from the US. Without that food form my country, how would they have fared?
In May of 1942, gasoline rationing began on the east coast of the US. In the fall of 1942 it was instituted nation wide. The figure of 7 billion barrels of oil used by the allies and 6 billion supplied by the US was from a website of George Mason Univ. In Yergin's book on page 379, he states that America increased it's production of crude from 3.7 million barrels a day in 1940 to 4.7 million per day in 1945. He further states that between December 1941 and August 1945 the US and it's allies consumed almost 7 billion barrels of oil, of which 6 billion came from the US.
That jibes nicely with the George Mason data. Obviously those numbers include the Pacific war but the oil usage in Europe must have been much greater than in the Pacific.
Not necessarily, the over half use of oil was for ships, of which there was as much use in the Pacific as the Atlantic. In the ETO ships would often stay in port waiting for action (ie Scapa, Trondheim, Kiel, Italy etc), while the Pacific was more of a mobile affair.
I don't know if the 7B # includes any domestic usage.
I am not sure how he arrives at that # perhaps is including all US owned companies production in that total, including the Esso plants in the Caribbean.On page 383 he states that America produced almost 90 % of the total 100 octane used by the allies by 1944. On page 384 he says that in 1940 the US had a production capacity of 40,000 barrels a day of 100 octane, in 1945 the capacity was 514,000 barrels per day.
Yergin is one of the world's leading authorities on world affairs and the oil industry. He is president of the Cambridge Energy Research Assoc. and has a BA from Yale and a PHD from Cambridge Univ. where he was a Marshall scholar. I believe that operation Torch took place in November, 1942, less than a year after Pearl Harbor and it was mostly American troops, AC and ships. To say that it took 12 to 18 months for the US to make a significant contribution is just plain wrong.
Well perhaps I should have said it more correctly, it took 11 months for the US to put troops into action in the ETO, 10 - 18 months to begin deploying air other forces in a major way. Torch was important yes, but it was only 5 US divisions 1 British. The US was not able to supply significant amounts of shipping until mid '43, it they needed to build up, replace '42 losses send troops to the Pacific. The 8th air force also did not have a major impact until after spring '43.To say that the US made no significant contribution in the ETO for 12 to 18 months and to ignore the impact of Torch seems ludicrous to me.
Freebird, the USAAF 12th AF was quite active in North Africa in Nov and Dec 1942. Just read my WW2 65th anniversery threads and you would have known that.
Oh I have read them, very good by the way!
The only reason the AAF wasnt active untill then was the obvious need to secure airbases first.
Yes I did know about the US actions Dec '42 - May '43 in N. Africa
In regards to the shipping for the pacific.... obviously you didnt know that the "Germany First" strategy meant that theater had priority on all navy, air force and army assetts.
True the 8th AF didnt have much impact untill summer 1943. But you ignore the efforts of the 12th and 15th AF's in the med. The AAF had quite a large sized operation going in that theater.
I don't believe that this forum should be about tit for tat. I don't believe UK contributions in the theaters they operated in were meaningless but I think conclusion should be based on reality. To regard Torch in the first days of the operation as insignificant is, I say, ludicrous. If the German High Command was not immediately alarmed by Torch and did not frantically begin to alter previous planning to counter the Allies' next moves playing off Torch then that High Command would have had to be asleep. Just the psychological effect must have been substantial. No country in the history of warfare had ever managed to mount such a successful amphibious invasion from that distance, on that scale and in such a short period of time. I expect that many German commanders realised at that moment that the war was lost.