Military actions

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The advantage gained in these areas thus allowed the Allied to gradually but surely assess themselves in this area against German and Japanese opposition. Supported by industrial production and technological development, the belief that the war the Allies were fighting was just, in order to stop Axis aggression from spreading further, sustained Allied resolve in major battles such as Stalingrad. This meant in the long term that none of the Axis powers were able to keep up with the rate at which the Allies could replace their losses sustained in the different theaters. In all cases the Allies sent as replacements newer models that possessed some or all of these characteristics that ranged from increasingly superior firepower, quick to build and were cheap, compared to their Axis counterparts, the Hellcat fighter a particular example which outclassed the Zero fighter in the later stages of the Pacific theater. This ability to rapidly replace losses sustained Allied counteroffensives in the USSR and the Pacific. Rapid industrial production allowed Zhukov to amass over a million men supported by 3444 tanks and 2900 aircraft amongst other weapons for the Battle of Kursk, A key reason for the USSR winning this battle and so continuing the push of Nazi Germany out of Russia. More importantly, the understanding reached between the leaders of each Allied nation about defeating Germany first then Japan help coordinate all Allied military action for the rest of the war. Hence the built up of military forces for the opening of the Second Front in Europe through Operation Overlord in order to relieve the pressure on the USSR in the Eastern Front. The USSR would then declare war against Japan once Germany’s defeat had been made certain.

Moral justification

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The Allies gradually garnered popular and moral support from their societies to persecute the war against the Axis powers. In the USSR’s case, Stalin painted the USSR as victims of German aggression in order to mobilize the entire society for the war effort to encourage Russian citizens to unite and fight against the invaders. This was achieved through the dual employment of brute force in the form of the NKVD, and relentless propaganda highlighting the atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht in occupied Soviet territory and the heavy attacks against Soviet cities, which left much of them in rubble as a result. The figures evidently highlight the success of this policy: By 1944 the Soviets had nearly 12 million soldiers serving in various capacities. Though the coerciveness of Stalin’s regime was also crucial in producing such a large number of soldiers, many also joined in order to fight and protect the “Motherland” against further German aggression. Likewise, amongst other initiatives, the US government invoked the disaster at Pearl Harbor to rally ordinary Americans to the war effort, be it in war production or the armed forces. Ultimately, gaining the support of their societies in the war effort through moral means was to prove crucial in sustaining the Allies in their grand strategy of total war; in particular it made the transition of economies from consumer to war production all the more easier, as the increased production of armaments and other war materials by all sectors of society helped ensured total Allied victory.

Political Unity

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The Tehran Conference of 1943, where all three met for the first time was significant for several reasons. Though cooperation between all three powers had begun earlier with moments such as the provision of Lend- Lease Aid to Britain and the Soviet Union by the US, meetings between Churchill and Stalin in July 1941 where Churchill agreed to Stalin’s request to take the pressure off Russia by promising to bomb Germany, and the first meeting between both Churchill and Roosevelt in 1941 to discuss the war, Tehran was crucial as the three leaders agreed on the placing aside of their differences in political views and ideology, and focus instead on one common alignment of aims: the defeat and destruction of the Axis powers. No doubt other factors such as American industrial might was crucial, the channeling of such material into Russian and British hands in order to sustain them through crucial periods of the early stages of the War, where the Axis powers continued to advance, were the “fruits” of such meetings throughout the course of the war. These constituted the frameworks and basis of cooperation and discussion between all three sides, past Tehran, till the end and destruction of the Axis powers were confirmed in both Europe and the Pacific.

Bridging the technological gaps

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The Allies gained the upper hand in technology in several ways. Whereas Germany produced many models of weapons for the same purpose, such as for instance 150 models of motorcycles for military uses, the Allies limited production to one or a few, that were cheap and quick to be produced. This was particularly evident in the USSR, where production of tanks rested on a few but in particular on one main battle tank the T-34, which was mass produced and deployed in great numbers on the battlefield to overwhelm Germany, in accordance with Soviet tactical doctrine. To protect Allied bombers on the raids to Germany, the US developed newer fighters such as the P-51 Mustangs that boasted superior firepower and was able to travel the long range together with the bombers and engage Luffwaffe fighters over Germany. In addition, the UK and the US developed radar and sonar to detect German aircraft and U-Boats as they approached, and so guide RAF fighters or naval destroyers to defend accordingly. Such technological developments were crucial to the Allies gaining the overall advantage in this technological area and therefore, instrumental in them emerging victorious in the Battle of Britain and in the Atlantic amongst the other theaters of war.

Industry

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The Allies adopted a variety of responses to overcome the difficulties they encountered in each of these areas. In industry, the Allies response took on a dual nature. Firstly, by attacking factories, sources of raw materials and supply lines that brought these raw materials back home. As King noted in his entry in the Pacific section of the blog, the US enforced a “submarine blockade” of Japan; a blockade which strangled Japan by preventing supplies of raw materials and food from entering. Dick O’Kane of the US Wahoo highlighted in his entry in the blog that in one patrol alone, the US Wahoo managed to destroy 14 Japanese merchant ships. Placed within the context that Japanese industry could not keep up with the losses of naval, let alone merchant shipping, a lost of 14 merchant ships went a long way in severing the lifelines to Japan, as O’Kane entitled his post. Though not covered by the blog, British and American bombers also destroyed German factories in locations such as the Ruhr in massive bombing campaigns. Though costly, by 1945, US bombers and fighters numbering 7000 plus another 1500 RAF bombers were available to bomb Germany and her factories; partly explaining therefore why German production of material such as tanks fell from 22100 in 1944 to 4400 in 1945.

At the same time, the Allies, in particular the USSR and USA, mobilized their economies into the production of vital war materiel to equip their armies to defend against the Axis menace. As noted by Yakovlev, the USSR shifted many of its vital factories away from the cities to the interior of Siberia in order to protect them from the German advance. Such a shift preserved the Soviet’s industrial abilities to rapidly produce in particular the T-34 tank, which spearheaded the beginnings of Zhukov’s counteroffensive against the Wehrmacht in the USSR. In conjunction, a central planning agency the Stavka was set up to coordinate overall industrial production, ensuring therefore factories worked overtime to meet the production targets set by this body. The conversion of American industries was more “straightforward”. Once Roosevelt had convinced Congress of the need to rearm, the bosses of large corporations turned their factories to produce armaments rather than consumer goods. With the ability to plan efficient production, the economy was geared up for war. At the conclusion of the war in 1945, US production included 297000 aircraft and 86000 tanks, figures which amounted to two- thirds of overall Allied production of armaments such as these vital to win the war.