American Contribution

WW1:
In 1917 and 1918, the French Army, went through several mutinies, some of which were only resolved at the promise that there would be no more offensive actions. While the British did not the mutiny problems of the French, which I attribute to their excellent sense of duty and honor, they had hundreds of thousands of casualties and were bled severely. The huge efforts made by the French, British and Russians, are what kept France from falling up to this time. America did enter the war in 1917, but troops only started arriving in late 1917 early 1918 and started to fill the lines. When Ludendorff began his offensives he gained more ground than had been gained since 1914. Only the counter attacks by the French and Americans brought these offensives to a halt. Had the Americans not been there, who would have held their lines? Who would have had extra men to launch counter offensives? When the German Generals saw so many American troops arriving they ended the war because they knew that they could not hold out against three major nations. Judge for your self whose efforts were greater, those who held the line or those who made offensive action possible again. Either way you need both to win. Oh and it might have helped the British if they could have found a BEF commander who understood that cavalry had no place in trench warfare.

WW2:
Without the efforts before Dec 1941 and after, the world would be a different place today, Russia might have conquered Europe, Germany might have conquered Russia and England but one thing that is for sure is that England wasn't going anywhere on their own. The US was the nation that replaced the ships lost to U-boat attacks, the US fed Britain, the US was the arsenal of Democracy and Communism, I would hesitate to write off the American support as luxury vs need.

Otto Carius made that comment after his limited encounter with Americans in the Ruhr Pocket (April 45), The Americans wanted to live to see home again, and at that stage there was no need to crush the pocket any faster than a slow crawl. If the American fighting spirit is called into question, I would refer them to the fighting that took place in Italy, and France, and a minor look at Bastogne. These were places where Germans tried to defeat Americans and lost in them all.

I think Seadog is correct in his approach. A team is a team, and it takes everyone to do the job the right way. One contribution is not less or greater than another.

 

Both wars were certainly team efforts, there is NO doubt to that. But it would be foolish to say that America's involvement was not critical, or in fact, DECISIVE. Stefan, your date of the British offensive in August, 1918, being months ahead of any American attacks, is simply false. Meuse-Argonne was not our first, or only action in that war. The main reason American involvement is hyped up on the silverscreen is because the American film industry is the biggest in the world, and the target audience of most films is an AMERICAN one, hence the focus on American stories. (But for the record, I about gagged seeing Ben Affleck fighting for the RAF in Pearl Harbor, and Im sure I am as pissed off about the inaccuracies of U-571 as you all are)

 

Utah was by far the easest beach landing in Normandy with total casualties of less than 200

 

Going back to the original thread primise:

I don't think this is true. Part of the problem here is that Britain did not widely publish histories (yes, they did publish an official one et. al. but these did not get the wide distribution US and seemingly German histories did) after these wars. Certainly, in 1918 the British had only equal billing in the size and effort put into offensives that ended the war. Cambiari for example ranks second to Soissions as a tank battle in numbers where the US and French (primarily colonial units) led the offensive.

Britain in both wars, but in WW 2 in particular, lacked the resources on their own to win. At some points earlier in the war it is likely they lacked the resources to even hold their enemys at bay. For example, it is likely that lacking US materials shipped to North Africa and Burma / India to support the British both would have been defeats for Britain.
Without US participation the best Britain could have hoped for on their own was to continue the war as a low intensity conflict sniping at the vulnerable edges of a German empire. Britain alone was very likely incapable of mounting a major invasion of the continent against Germany. In the strategic bombing campaign the British could have continued this against Germany at a much higher, and likely eventually prohibitive, cost against Germany. Certainly, on their own the British could not have brought the Luftwaffe to bay the way the combined US - British offensive eventually did.
In both wars Britain chose to persue collation warfare on land as is historically typical of a sea power. Britain lacked the economic base to be both a sea power and a land power. Their having to build a major army in two world wars was the major impetus for their decline as a world power. It simply sapped their economy beyond its limits.

The US, if you count materials supplied by lend lease, fielded equipment for about 200 divisions (105 Army / Marine, about 12 French, about 12 British mostly armored, about 20 Chinese, about 12 Soviet again armored / mechanized, etc.) This is more than double the British contribution. The US built a navy that was literally about 2 1/2 times as large as the Royal Navy and fought a true global sea war. Until late 1944 the British contribution in the Pacific (including Commonwealth) was small, if not often significant for its size and primarily Australian.
Yes, the Soviets provided the primary land power but, they were not saddled with having to have a navy of any significance nor did they have to move their forces via shipping over vast distances.
The US was, and remains the only world power that is both a sea power and a land power.

But, the down side to this is that the US as a colonial partner of the British would have had a fraction of the manufacturing potential that it had as a seperate nation.

True enough but this is because Germany was not a sea power. Had the US not provided Britain with material support through this thin time and had Germany decided to reduce the island as a end strategy there was little to stop them from out producing the British in naval units and air power until they possessed sufficent strenght to invade.
Just in the Battle of the Atlantic the British were only having to provide convoy escort for a bit more than half the trip while the US provided the balance (prior to their war entry) meeting at the MOMP mid-Atlantic. Given that the British took about twice the time to build shipping as the US did and the net loss of shipping that they were sustaining alone they were eventually going to be badly hurt in the U-boat guerre de course on their own.