President Donald Trump has again demonstrated his less than impressive grasp of history with a statement on his Truth Social site on the 80th anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe – claiming that the US ‘did more than any other country by far’ to win the global conflict.
In terms of cold statistics, it was the Soviet Union that did most to defeat Nazi Germany, suffering the colossal loss of 24 million military and civilian lives before the Red Army entered the ruins of Berlin to end the Third Reich.
The US lost a total of 418,500 dead in fighting Japan and Germany after Hitler unwisely declared war on America following his Japanese ally’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Morally, however, both the USA and the USSR only entered the war when they were attacked by the Axis powers. One country, however, was in the war from its beginning in 1939 to the bitter end in 1945.
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