World War II Question?

Question

Why did Roosevelt and Churchill choose Europe/defeating Hitler as their main objective? (instead of fighting in the Pacific)

What were some of the problems with this plan?

Answer 1

Germany was a much more immediate threat. They had a very real chance of actually winning in Europe and invading England. Meanwhile Japan was not in a position to actually invade the US or any British interests beyond India.

Answer 2

because the pacific didn't have much of a effect on them

Answer 3

Churchill definately wanted emphasis in Europe: Britain is a European nation and had been at war with Germany since 1939.

Both FDR and Churchill saw n**i Germany are more of a threat than Japan.

The problem with the "Germany first" strategy was that prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, much of the American Pacific Fleet was transferred to the Atlantic, especially destroyers to escort convoys.  For Great Britain, many British and Dominion troops were sent to Europe and North Africa, depleting forces that might have opposed Japanese invasions into Southeast Asia.  In addition, as quality aircraft were needed to defend Great Britain, obselete aircraft were deployed against superior Japanese designed and were annihilated.

Answer 4

Hitler posed more of a threat to the Allies than the j**s did.

n**i Germany loomed over Britain and invaded Soviet Union. Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin repeatedly demanded Allied action against Germany, meeting Roosevelt and Churchill personally for immediate assistance. Roosevelt promised Stalin to open a second front against Germany as soon as possible in the Tehran conference. Japan on the other hand had already reached their apex of power after invading the Dutch East Indies and their military strength weaken in the battle of Coral sea n Midway.

For Churchill, Germany was the obvious threat, directly threatening the British Isles from n**i-occupied France.

Racially, Saxons were perceived as the smarter race than Asians, therefore Germany was thought as more dangerous than the Japan.

Answer 5

As it turned out, because the Japanese thrust was so weakly resisted, the Japanese overstretched, were too thinly spread, and were relatively easy to defeat because their supply lines were so very long.  

  After the victories in Europe, Japan began to suffer defeat after defeat.  Would Hitler's Germany have been as easy to defeat had the Allies first tackled Japan?

: "The triumphant fly has captured the fly-paper!" (Steinbeck)

Answer 6

The decision to fight n**i Germany and its allies in Europe before fighting the Japanese was influenced in by Joseph Stalin.

Stalin had long bemoaned his situation to his British and American counterparts. He thought his Soviets were being used as cannon-fodder, that the Soviet forces were being left to fight the war in Europe alone. He had been shouting long and loud about this and demanded a second front be opened in Europe somewhere to take pressure off of the Soviets.

Further more he was not satisfied with the Italy being that second European front as it did not take much German attention away from the East.

It was important to both the British and Americans that they keep Stalin as an allie, for the time being at least, and so focused most of their attention on the European theater of Operation and opening a second, western front in Europe.

It was also influenced by Churchill's desire to reach a conclusion of things in Europe and to take away the threat of invasion from the continent.