I'm familiar with Dieppe.  It was a raid not meant to establish a foothold on the continent.  Concur that if the Commonwealth went it alone, it . would have been a slaughter.   Rommel would be receiving diamonds for his Knight's Cross with Oakleaf and Swords (if he wasn't snuffed already).

Rommel spent a lot of lives and resources the Axis didn't have, capturing lots of desert. He got lucky a couple times that the entire Africa corp wasn't encircled and destroyed. The Germans way of war worked okay in Western Europe, because they could force the culmination point quickly. In the Desert and Russian Steppe, there was always room for the Allies to fall back and the Germans would end up at the end of the supply line.

Europe had been lost.

Britain would have lost.

The USSR would have lost without strong US supply (with the British only able to give anything because of US supply as well). Before and after 'Lend Lease Act' stuff officially began.

Churchill: 'That night (after US joined) I slept the sleep of the saved.' 'So we have won after all.' 'We will fight them [everywhere on the island] (before US joined).'

High ranking Soviet officer during interview: 'Stalin said many times we would have collapsed without the western supply.'

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'Anti-Americanism' has been in control of history revision for a longgg time now.

Yep.  The B-32 was the back-up program, and Plan C was reverse Lend-Lease Lancasters.

It's worse than that.  The Summer and Fall of 1941 was a disaster for the Brits.  Losses off Crete (Staff studies considered it a major fleet action in that respect without engaging another fleet), Italian aerial torpedoes knocking out Nelson for 6 months in late Sep 41, the U-boats getting into the Med and sinking Ark Royal and Barnham and the Italian special forces attacks in Alexandria knocking out Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, all but eliminated the Mediterranean Fleet in the Fall of 1941.  Coupled with the disappointment of Crusader and the Brit performance in the desert in general, and the redeployment of a German Air Fleet (Luftfotte X) to the Med, the British were on their heels.  The Brits also took heavy losses off Malta in the minefields, and had the Germans and Italians been able to take the island, the Med would have been lost.  With the Japanese getting frosty in the Pacific, the Aussies were pulling back their trained troops and naval forces from the Med as well.  The CV situation was also dismal in that Illustrious was still repairing after Med convoy action and Indominable, the proposed air support for Force Z (PoW and Repulse) ran aground in the Caribbean during work ups.

Say what you will with regards to FDR and the burdensome social programs and precedents that he was the architect for, but his clairvoyance and choice of a bipartisan cabinet (Sec War and Navy were Republicans), the political machinations in becoming the arsenal of democracy, the publics eventual change from isolationism, and finally, the forcefulness of Congress (Vinson and Stennis) rearming and eventually building the two ocean navy from the late 1930's onward, were the deciding foundations for victory in WW2.  Britain could only hold on until we got in, and we could not get in until we were forced in, or forced to see the light.  Once that occurred, we just needed to keep the Russians from collapse so they could bleed the Wehrmacht dry and attrite the German war effort on the ground while the Anglo-American bomber offensive could do the same to industry and the Luftwaffe.  This grand strategy was pretty much decided in the Winter of 1941 with the ABC-1 staff conversations which was the result of secret, and close, staff cooperation between the Brits and US in the Fall of 1940 and finally Adm. Stark's "Plan Dog" memo.  Barbarossa just helped clarify things a little better; the plan was always to nip around the periphery and build up bases to eventually invade Western Europe when the time was right.

Churchill in Vol 2 of The Second World War points out the Brit effort until the US became fully involved.  This is probably the best book of the series and illustrates how important it was for the defeat of Hitler's Germany that the Brits just hang on, stay in the war and not make a separate peace.   https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.4388/page/n23

"One night, after a fruitless patrol to engage the Germans, a small group of junior officers got together in a large tent.  Six of us sat on the ground drinking local wine and bullshitting.  I was the only American.  We had no electricity, no fire, only one small kerosene lamp that spread a dim glow, the light dying before it reached the corners of the tent.

We sat there giving coarse opinions on the war. We cursed the enemy and we cursed Roosevelt for not sending enough supplies to the Brits.  I cursed British food, which consisted primarily of tinned bully beef beer and inedible biscuits.   We gave everybody hell - Patton, Eisenhower, Churchill, Montgomery, Alexander - we didn't miss anybody except ourselves. We were the only good guys in the war, serving at the mercy of fools.

As we talked, it became obvious that these officers still thought they would never make it home.  They thought the war would not get better, because it wasn't getting any better for them at that particular moment, and hadn't since 1939, when they first got into it.  They felt the Germans dominated the air space over Africa and the Mediterranean.  Their vehicles could move at all in the daytime without Stukas or Messerschmitts attacking them.

But to the south, where I had been, the Allies had already started to gain control of the air.  I saw more and more Allied planes overhead in southern Tunisia.

So I said, "I think we've got air superiority now, and I think we whipped the Germans down where I came from."

But the Brits, sitting at the tail end of their supply lines, felt beaten by their long struggle with the enemy.

I tried to cheer them up.  "From what I hear," I said, "the Russians are doing better on their front, and it looks like we're starting to turn the war in the Pacific.  And I can tell you folks that when I left the States, American factories were producing everything we need. It's only a matter of getting it to us."

We'd been drinking and talking for two hours when the entrance spread open.  A trim, uniformed man stepped into the light, closed the flaps, and stood just inside the tent.

The other men got up and saluted.  I was in an American combat uniform; I didn't have to salute this guy.  A lieutenant nudged me with his foot.  I stood, looked closer, and recognized General Alexander from pictures I'd seen. As commander of the British 18th Army Group, he reported directly to General Eisenhower.  I saluted smartly.

The general said, "You're an American?"

"Yes sir.  Oklahoma."

"I've been to Fort Still," he said, and made a slight motion with his hand.  "Sit down, gentlemen."

We offered him a drink.  Sitting cross-legged before us, in a tent close enough to the enemy to get hit by their artillery, General Alexander took a small swing from our bottle and looked at each of the young officers gathered around him.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I've been standing outside your tent for several minutes, and I'e hard you lace into the entire Allied command. I can understand it.  I was a young officer myself at one time."  Then he looked at me and said, "Young man, you're really the only optimistic one in this group."

And he sat and discussed the war with us. He stayed for half an hour, an extraordinary time for a general to stop and talk with a bunch of junior officers. That's what makes a good general, I think.  Listening and having experienced what we were dealing wit.

The general stood, "I want you to remember this," he said.  "If you other men think it's bad on this side, and the American lieutenant here thinks it's getting better, then it is getting better on our side.  Gentlemen, the Boche are beginning to lose this war.  If you think it's bad on our side, just be glad you're not on theirs."

I never forgot what General Alexander told us that night.  I gave my men the same pep talk during hard combat later, when some of them doubted the outcome of a battle or the war. "Well, look," I'd say,"If you think it's bad over here, look how much more artillery we're firing at them than they are firing at us.  Look at how many more airplanes we've got.

So I had great respect for Alexander and he turned out to be, I think, one of the better generals of the war.  Maybe my meeting him had something to do with that opinion.  Every general made mistakes during the war.  Every commander, every platoon leader - we all made mistakes. But General Alexander inspired me, and I know I was a better officer for having met him."

Pgs 69-71 of Capt. Charlie Scheffel's Crack! and Thump.

Neat excerpt! Thanks!

I seem to recall Japan being 'out of bomber range' as well. Both early on during the Doolittle Raid, and during the constant bombing leading to the end.

It's only out of range until you win enough to be in range. It's hard to get into range when you can only fall back and attempt to defend. That's what the US provided, instant reversing force and even skill.

Actually, the side shows were critical at the times they came.

Like North Africa... which very suddenly and at a crucial time diverted half of the German airlift aircraft to supply North Africa instead of specifically Stalingrad, which is likely what changed the outcome of Stalingrad; which the Germans only lost (surrendered and were executed or killed in gulags) because they were mostly starving to death. Yes, they had taken heavy casualties, but no way they would have surrendered if not already about to die without food.

Even the side shows were very strategically done to keep the Soviets from collapsing.