Top 10 Biggest Misconceptions of World War II

The Russians did too. The Great Purge and Holodomor occurred prior to WWII, but it was still a country on the side of the Allies that committed these acts.

People who study World War II as historians likely already know of the inhumane and vulgar war crimes committed by Japan, including stomach-turning medical experiments, among other things. Thousands of American prisoners of war were tortured and killed.

Even fewer people realize that the Allied powers also committed inhumane, horrendous crimes. Studies show that soldiers from the United States raped about 14,000 women in England, France, and Germany, and an additional 10,000 women in Okinawa. Moreover, 60% of Japanese corpses in the Mariana Islands were missing their skulls, mostly because U.S. soldiers were collecting them. I could go on and on.

There are many reasons why this narrative, which you'll only hear in the United States, is not true. But let's go directly into the biggest reason: When World War II was over, and the Cold War had just begun, the Western world was reluctant to state in history books that the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union deserved due credit.

The ratio of military casualties in Eastern nations versus Western nations was a whopping nine to one, and somewhere around 80% of Germany's armed forces casualties happened in the East. The price for the Soviet Union's casualties was quite high. They lost about 10 million soldiers and maybe 13 million or so ordinary Soviet citizens. In contrast, the United States only lost 400,000 troops.

We honor the anniversary of D-Day in the same way we honor the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, but were we really the leading forces? No, sadly we were not. Although the operation's commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was indeed an American, it was otherwise a British plan.

D-Day's architect, General Frederick Morgan, air commander Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and the naval commander were all from the United Kingdom, not the States. Most of the vehicles used on D-Day were also from the United Kingdom. Britain's warships and landing craft dwarfed America's by a little more than a four to one ratio, and British planes accounted for two-thirds of the bombers and other aircraft used that day.

Perhaps the most baffling revelation of D-Day is that one out of three of the materials used by American troops on D-Day came from Britain. Britain definitely carried the Allied powers on D-Day, despite prior belief.

Until certain documents became declassified and available to the public a couple of years ago, almost nobody was aware that somewhere around nine thousand Nazis and their allies escaped being held accountable for their crimes and took asylum in South American countries such as Peru and China after the war was concluded.

Only 6,945 Nazi war criminals actually attended their trials. All of them were convicted, of course. Many Nazis escaped war crime charges with help from German leaders, Argentinian leaders, and even French leaders. On top of that, the same Nazi scientists carried on and were key players in the space race, working for the Soviet Union or the United States. Really, it's not that different from illegal immigrants in the present day.

The reason that Nazi Germany steamrolled France in about six weeks in early 1940 is because France was not up to date with how they conducted warfare. France was not yet into guerrilla warfare or other technological advances, and old-fashioned warfare couldn't match the Nazis on a tactical level. Germany's newer combat tactics were not going to be bested without effective strategies.

With superior warfare, German units sliced through the French at amazing speed in ways that were unheard of at the time. France doesn't really get much, if any, recognition in the history books because they didn't put up much of a fight, and we kind of assume the French folded when Nazi Germany invaded them.

France put up the best they had, but it was not enough to defeat the Nazis. Hence, we view the Allied powers as Great Britain, the United States, and, towards the end, the Soviet Union.

We don't have the exact details, but there's enough evidence that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a planned action.

Tensions between the United States and Japan had been high for more than ten years before Pearl Harbor was bombed. The United States even established an official war plan against Japan in 1924. By the time peace treaties were being negotiated, a poll taken in 1941, still prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, showed that a vast majority in the States - elected officials and citizens alike - agreed that Japan and the United States were close to a breaking point. A whopping 52% of Americans anticipated a war with Japan. Twenty-seven percent didn't, and the remaining 11% were indecisive. It was not spontaneous. It was premeditated.

It is true that the United States hadn't declared war or deployed any troops until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. However, the United States was involved in the Second World War prior to that fateful day, mostly indirectly.

In June 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor, the United States passed legislation to enact the Lend-Lease program. This program sent the modern equivalent of $659 billion worth of weapons and supplies to France, Great Britain, and other allies fighting the war. The sanctions that the United States had put on Japan also contributed to Pearl Harbor being bombed.

To suggest that the United States was isolated, minding its own business before December 7, 1941, is misleading. Although it is true that this event led to direct involvement, the U.S. was already participating indirectly.

A good percentage of the American narrative that World War II was "the good war" includes the idea that millions of young American men would give up their everyday lives to fight in World War II because they believed it was a justified decision and the right thing to do.

Lots of movies perpetuate this false narrative. Take Captain America: The First Avenger, for example. Steve Rogers and his friend Bucky seemed eager to fight this war. However, according to statistics, during World War II, two-thirds of the United States forces were drafted, not enlisted, which means that only 33.3% of our forces could possibly have been "excited" for this war.

It is true beyond a shadow of a doubt that somewhere around six million Jews were killed in cold blood in concentration camps run by the Nazis. However, this number only makes up a little more than half of the casualties from World War II, and the Nazis killed many more ethnic groups than just the Jews.

The other half of the Holocaust's death toll includes a collective five million people killed in concentration camps. These victims were ordinary civilians who were communists, Romani, Serbian, Polish intelligence, homosexuals, the disabled, and many more. The Nazis killed just about everyone, not just Jews.

Given that Joseph Stalin changed sides after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, we often forget that Stalin was initially helping Hitler in his endeavor in mass genocide. We also forget about the Gulags, which were basically the Soviet equivalent of concentration camps.

Stalin's plans were not to kill an entire group of a certain religion. He started the Gulags as a way to help the Russian economy, but they eventually became places to imprison those Stalin wanted dead. There were fewer deaths in Gulags compared to Nazi concentration camps, but there are no memoirs from Gulag survivors. Given that Russia is still an enemy of the West, we have to wonder if the Kremlin gave us accurate numbers for deaths or if there were any survivors to begin with.

Additionally, the Gulags distributed food based on how much someone worked, whereas concentration camps always made sure prisoners had enough food to keep suffering. It's a disturbing discussion to have regarding which was worse between Gulags and concentration camps.

The Germans were virtually equal to the US in nuclear development through 1944. Only as their war effort fell apart did their advancement stop. If the war had lasted six to eight more months, Hitler would definitely have unleashed a nuke, probably in southern Europe, but possibly in the UK.

Few seem to realize that 400,000 Axis soldiers landed in the U.S. between 1942 and 1945. Thankfully for the Americans, however, those 400,000 were prisoners of war.

Dozens of American prison camps across the country housed the hundreds of thousands of prisoners that the European Allies, namely the British, simply didn't have room for. By all accounts, the conditions in these camps were pretty good. Prisoners were paid for their labor and provided with amenities like theater, games, and books. It was a "golden cage," one prisoner later said.