June 22, 1941: The World Will Hold Its Breath

A couple weeks ago on my Facebook page, I made an observation that was not the most popular thing ever.  I put it up on June 6th which is a date celebrated as D-Day, the invasion of Normandy by western Allied forces.  In US history books, this is usually linked to assertions that this led to Hitler’s defeat–that the effort against the Nazis of the West and the Soviets was equal–equal in level, equal in value.  That is nonsense.

This isn’t a commentary on the bravery of the US and British divisions which came ashore or the airborne units which dropped behind German lines that day as part of the assault.  I am not saying there was no value in the invasion.  What I am saying is that the Soviet effort and contributions towards defeating the Nazi menace dwarf those of Britain, the United States, and their minor allies.

Let’s look first at the biggest/most important campaigns from each theater.  Remember also that the USSR was fighting the Germans for nearly three years before the Allies came ashore.  For those who don’t know military history, it is possible to have more casualties than men because of how casualties were replaced in units.  Newly trained/conscripted soldiers would be billeted into slots vacated by KIA/WIA/MIA soldiers.

Barbarossa (June-December 1941): Initial Soviet Forces: 3,000,000 men, 11,000 tanks, 8,000 aircraft Total Casualties: 4,900,000 KIA/WIA/MIA (estimated)

Battle of Moscow (OCT-DEC 1941): Soviet Forces: 1,300,000 men, 2,000 tanks, 500-1000 aircraft Casualties: 1,029,234

Stalingrad Campaign (AUG 1942-FEB 2, 1943) Peak Soviet Forces: 1,140,000 men, 894 tanks, 1,115 aircraft (and 30 divisions of artillery) Casualties: 1,129,619

Operation Citadel (July 5-17, 1943) Soviet Forces: 1,900,000 men, 5,128 tanks, no aircraft data, 25,000 artillery pieces Casualties: 177,847

Operation Bagration (June 23-August 19, 1944) <–coincidental with the Overlord invasion Initial Soviet Forces: 1,650,000 men, 5,818 assault guns/tanks, 7,799 aircraft, 32,718 artillery pieces (which is less impressive than Citadel since Bagration occurs over an entire front and Citadel in the small area around the town of Kursk) Casualties: 770,888

Battle for Berlin (April 16-May 2, 1945) Soviet Forces: 766,000 men, 1,500 assault guns/tanks, 2,224 aircraft, 9,300 artillery pieces Casualties: 360,000 KIA/WIA…and sick (apparently a severe flu went thru the Soviet forces at the time–I had no idea!)

Total KIA in actual fighting (not counting civilian casualties, etc): 8,668,400

Look at the size of these campaigns and specific battles–and that they are coming as early as 1941.  What do we get on the Allied side for the major battles/campaigns?

Operation Neptune/D-Day (June 6, 1944) Allied Forces: 156,000 soldiers, 200,000 naval personnel Casualties: 4,414 confirmed dead, total KIA/WIA estimated at 10,000-12,000 (Of interest, German casualties on June 6 were roughly 1,000 KIA.  3,000 -roughly- civilians were also killed that day)

Operation Cobra (July 25-31, 1944) Allied Forces: 150,000 men, 2,451 tanks/tank destroyers Casualties: 1,800 KIA

D-Day to the Seine (June 6-August 30, 1944) Allied Forces: 1,452,000 men (reinforced to 2,000,000 on the continent by 8/30/44) Casualties: 226,386 KIA/WIA/MIA/POW

Operation Market-Garden “A Bridge Too Far” (SEP 17-25, 1944) Allied Forces: 45,000 regular, 41,000 airborne–>86,000 total Casualties: 15,000-17,000 estimated  (some depends on arguments of whether the casualties count as part of Market-Garden or not–such as something happening on 9/26)

Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944-January 25, 1945) Initial Allied Forces: 228,000 men, 1,000 tanks/tank destroyers Peak Allied Forces: 700,500 men, 4,350 tanks/tank destroyers Casualties: 90,908 (1,408 are Brits…the rest are Americans)

Huertgen Forest (SEP-DEC 1944)  –there was no need for this American attack…it is a decisive German win and considered a ‘meatgrinder’ for the US forces. US Forces: 120,000 men Casualties: 55,000 KIA/WIA/MIA/POW  (If we take the whole series of battles to break the Siegfried Line, the full campaign’s casualties reach nearly 150,000)

Total Allied KIA D-Day until VE-Day: 195,576 (includes all MIA)

Whew.  A lot of examples there.  But ultimately, look at the final tallies of dead over the course of fighting the Nazis.  Soviet combat casualties are over EIGHT MILLION while the Allied total isn’t even at 200,000.  Soviet combat losses are 40x higher than the Allies.  Forty.

There’s a different argument though that is often made to build up Western egos–that the US was the ‘arsenal of democracy’–that the US was doing all the manufacturing to defeat the Nazis.  Well, then we should look at production totals.  AFV is an acronym meaning ‘armored fighting vehicle’.  I’ve eliminated any production totals from before the US entered the war, so 1942-1945 only here!

USSR light AFV production:            25,000 USA light AFV production:              28,300 USSR medium AFV production:     73,000 USA medium AFV production:      67,300 USSR heavy AFV production:         11,900 USA heavy AFV production:            2,200 Soviet total AFV production:        109,900 USA total AFV production:              97,800

So the Soviets build more tanks than the US.  This isn’t fair though because it’s only one category of vehicle.  What about lend-lease vehicles?  This has some validity, but…the Soviets still manufactured 60% of their non-combat vehicles and preferred using Soviet-built vehicles at the front because their reliability was higher than those provided by the USA.  The breakdown is something like 60% Soviet, 25% Lend-Lease, 15% captured German trucks.    Thus the argument that the US did everything for the Soviets doesn’t hold water.

Help?–absolutely!  It’s the same with airpower.  US efforts help, but Soviet manufacturing more than holds its own with percentages of aircraft built.  Ditto with things like ammunition and every other category of vehicle or inventory.  The US is helpful, but it is absolutely the Soviet Union bearing the primary burden of beating the Germans.

As a last thing, you can see this in the German casualties (KIA/MIA).

East Front:                      2,400,000 All Others combined:   1,500,000

That doesn’t look like much of a difference though, right?  Well, remember–that ‘All Others’ category includes German casualties from 1939-41 during their campaigns in Poland, France/Low Countries, Balkans, Africa, and Italy.

None of this has been to denigrate the efforts made by Britain, the United States, or any of the other nations which stood against Nazi Germany.  It is only to point out the flaw of textbooks and the way history is taught and consumed in the United States (elsewhere is no different).  We accept myths without question.  We do not do the research.

This is what gets nations in to trouble.