From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz> Sent: Nov 6, 2004 2:10 AM To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net, ocorrain@yahoo.com Subject: Re: This Memorable Day

The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was directed against Russia. Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before the US got involved in Europe. So the Russians should get most of the credit.

Yep. I think to a first approximation, the US defeated Japan and the USSR defeated Germany. My impression is that a lot of the push to do the D-Day invasion was to make sure the USSR didn't end up in possession of all of Europe at the end of the war. (Given how things developed, this was a pretty sensible concern.)

Peter.

--John