History Main / AmericaWinsTheWar

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'', being a British {{Edutainment}} series, reminds us constantly that the "Britain wins the war" variant (often taught to British children) is just as untrue as the American version. For instance, the RAF Pilots introduce us to their Eastern European members and go out of their way to mention that "some of our bravest men were Polish and Czech", and a sketch taking place in a trench in World War I features a British soldier trying to find the British unit he's assigned to, but instead meeting French, Australian, and South African soldiers (with extremely silly accents) fighting as part of the British Army.

Some see this general 'limited scope' thing as extending to the "official" date of the war's beginning, September 1st, 1939, the date of Germany's invasion of Poland. Most, however, accept that the moniker of 'World War' denotes merely the geography of a war (the British Empire alone spanned three continents at the time), rather than [[UnfortunateImplications implying the conflict wasn't 'serious' or something]] ([[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan the Japan of the time]], and many Japanese ultranationalists since, call it [[InsistentTerminology 'The China Incident']]). Though bloody and horrific in its own right[[note]]With casualties to the tune of at least 15 and as many as 30 million, as well as an impressive gamut of war-crimes like mass-rape (e.g. Nanjing) and live-human-experimentation[[/note]], the war that [[ChiangKaiShek Chiang Kai-Shek's]] [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Kuomintang]] waged against UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan wasn't part of the 'World War' [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo until The Imperial Navy lashed out to take Malaya and the Philippines]].

When this trope is in play, the efforts and contributions of the other "Western" Allies are downplayed, and the Eastern Front (where more than ''80%'' of the Wehrmacht was engaged at any one time after June 22 1941, and where the Germans suffered approximately ''77%'' of their casualties) is considered a ''sideshow'', if it's even mentioned at all. Often it seems like the only other Allied nation-state that actually did anything to fight Germany was the UK, which ([[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys after the Poles and French got their asses handed to them]]) kept the hopeless fight alive until the USA joined in and saved the day. This is likely a result of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar making American educators and filmmakers unwilling to glorify [[DirtyCommunists the Soviet Union]] or [[NoMoreEmperors China]]/[[DirtyCommunists Maoist China]].

* For a long, long, time, the definitive TV-documentary history of WW2 was the British-made ''The World At War'', which condensed WW2 into twenty-six hours of TV narrative. Scrupulous care was taken to make this as objective as possible, to allow the American and Russsian involvements to be related accurately and in context. The last thing the makers wanted was half a year of British triumphalism. American TV has since commissioned its own version of TWAW. And whaddya know, the British and Russian aspects have been pared back to invisibility, as second-rate allies of a triumphant world-leading USA...

* A ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch featured an uptight and AmbiguouslyGay British host getting into a snit with Mickey Rooney, played by DanaCarvey. As they traded barbs, Mickey sneered at the host: "All I know is we hauled your butt out of two world wars!"

** Never mind that the RealLife Winston Churchill had a remarkable political and military career already long ''before'' WW2 broke out. The Brits didn't pick just any nobody for Prime Minister in 1940.

* Spoofed in a 2006 ''Series/TheDailyShow''. Jon Stewart comments that the Iraq War has "gone on longer than {{WW2}}"; Englishman John Oliver corrects him, that {{WW2}} was going on for 2 years longer than the US involvement. Though Stewart wasn't correct until 2009, John Oliver wasn't historically correct ''either'' if the Sino-Japanese angle, considered a separate war in European countries, is factored in (which would place the start at July 1937).
* Explored in the episodes of ''FoylesWar'' which focus on the American entry into the war; whilst the American soldiers who appear are treated largely sympathetically, there's a certain amount of realistic tension between them and the British characters, many of whom take the attitude that they took their time to get involved and now seem to be taking over everything since they got here - and the American 'we're here to save the day' attitude doesn't entirely help matters or endear them.

When this trope is in play, the efforts and contributions of the other "Western" Allies are downplayed, and the Eastern Front (where more than ''80%'' of the Wehrmacht was engaged at any one time after June 22 1941, and where the Germans suffered approximately ''77%'' of their casualties) is considered a ''sideshow'', if it's even mentioned at all. Often it seems like the only other Allied nation-state that actually did anything to fight Germany was the UK, which ([[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys after the Poles and French got their asses handed to them]]) kept the hopeless fight alive until the USA joined in and saved the day. This is likely a result of the ColdWar making American educators and filmmakers unwilling to glorify [[DirtyCommunists the Soviet Union]] or [[NoMoreEmperors China]]/[[DirtyCommunists Maoist China]].

Some see this general 'limited scope' thing as extending to the "official" date of the war's beginning, September 1st, 1939, the date of Germany's invasion of Poland. Most, however, accept that the moniker of 'World War' denotes merely the geography of a war (the British Empire alone spanned three continents at the time), rather than [[UnfortunateImplications implying the conflict wasn't 'serious' or something]] ([[ImperialJapan the Japan of the time]], and many Japanese ultranationalists since, call it [[InsistentTerminology 'The China Incident']]). Though bloody and horrific in its own right[[note]]With casualties to the tune of at least 15 and as many as 30 million, as well as an impressive gamut of war-crimes like mass-rape (e.g. Nanjing) and live-human-experimentation[[/note]], the war that [[ChiangKaiShek Chiang Kai-Shek's]] [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Kuomintang]] waged against ImperialJapan wasn't part of the 'World War' [[WorldWarTwo until The Imperial Navy lashed out to take Malaya and the Philippines]].

Lastly, winning a war can often be futile unless one also "wins the peace", as for instance the victors of WorldWarOne found out two decades later. In the aftermath of World War II, America deserves recognition for assisting the creation of a less balkanized Europe through the Marshall Plan, helping give the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations more clout than its predecessor the League of Nations, and for curbing Soviet aspirations for hegemony in (at least) Europe. USA couldn't (or wouldn't) prevent the Cold War from starting, though (but if there's ever any truth to the saying that it takes two to fight...).

'''Note''': This trope specifically deals with WorldWarII. It does not apply to any other war, particularly modern conflicts.

* The 1945 ErrolFlynn film ''Objective, Burma!'' caused a minor uproar in the UK for supposedly suggesting that British involvement in the Burmese campaign was minimal, when, in fact, the British had been the primary combatants in the campaign. [[WinstonChurchill Churchill]] himself was said to have been incensed by the film, and it was denounced in the ''Times''. WarnerBros. withdrew the film from circulation in the UK, and it did not appear there until 1952.

* The (Peoples' Republic of) Chinese equivalent appears in ''Film/IpMan'', which is set during the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar. The concluding captions mention China's defeat of Japan without mentioning [[WorldWarTwo the Guomindang or the international Allied forces]] that had pushed ImperialJapan back and blockaded the Home Islands in preparation for an amphibious invasion. In reality, the Guomindang and their warlord allies acted as a huge punching bag, losing battle after battle until The United States, Britain, and later the Soviet Union entered the conflict. The importance of US Lend-lease - which was critical to propping the Guomindang with things like massive loans and anti-tank weaponry - also goes unmentioned, naturally.

** [[JerkAss Warden Hodges']] comments didn't help the situation any either - mockingly saying that the US had joined the war quickly this time, "Two and a half years instead of [[WorldWarOne three]]!"

* Parodied indirectly in ''TheSimpsons''; in an episode set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, Moe tells Lisa's British fiance that "We saved your ass in World War II." The fiance replies "Well, we saved [America's] ''arse'' in World War ''III''", and Moe concedes the point.
** ''Bart-Mangled Banner'', which is mainly a TakeThat episode aimed at misguided patriotism, plays with it. The Simpsons are rescued from the sea by a boat captained by a xenophobic Frenchman, who acknowledges his unjustified hatred of the Americans by admitting they were the (not a, the) country [[WorldWarTwo which saved France from the Germans]] - [[WorldWarOne twice]].

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries''.
** Averted - ''probably'' - in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert''. As per HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct, this version of WWII is quite different, with a Soviet invasion of Europe being countered by Allies led by a German supreme commander and aided by technology developed by AlbertEinstein, while WordOfGod is that America didn't directly join the war until the Soviets were already losing. That said, the Allied armory includes what look like Abrams tanks and M-16s ([[AnachronismStew in the 1950's]]), but it's unclear whether this is due to an extensive lend-lease campaign by the United States, the result of {{alternate history}} shenanigans, or simply because the game reuses a lot of assets from the original ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn Command And Conquer]]''.
** Outright inverted in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'', as the United States grudgingly have to ask for help to the European Allies. The French President is [[FrenchJerk stereotypically uppity]]. In the intro cutscene of ''Yuri's Revenge'', though, the desperate U.S. President Dugan acknowledges Yuri that it in fact [[BlatantLies was the United States who won the war]].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'' series is about American soldier B.J. Blazkowicz taking on the nazis [[OneManArmy all by himself]].

** ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein|2009}}'' (2009) can be said to subvert this. While you are still American OneManArmy B.J. Blazkowicz, the assistance of the German resistance is necessary and invaluable to your success, which also nicely averts the common AllGermansAreNazis trope that appears so often in nazi-based FPSs.

* Averted in ''RedOrchestra'' and its sequel: they focus entirely on the conflict between Germany and Russia. To an extent this is also averted in the mods that add other Allied factions; for example, the only D-Day battle present in ''Darkest Hour'' is the Canadian's Juno Beach.

The D-Day landings are another good example. Many American-made productions will focus solely on Omaha Beach, the most heavily fortified of the four landing sites as well as the best-defended--both facts which Allied intelligence failed to realize prior to the operation. The carnage that ensued is a favourite among producers, since it emphasizes the sacrifice Americans made during the war--but doing so gives the impression that Omaha Beach was ''the'' decisive turning point that led to the Allied victory in Europe. (The focus on Omaha Beach is also partially because ''SavingPrivateRyan'' did it, [[FollowTheLeader other games/movies/TV shows want to replicate its success]], and because it's more exciting to show a strongly opposed landing than an unopposed one -- not that the other landings were exactly 'unopposed' (For instance, Canadian troops landing at Juno Beach on that day faced opposition almost as formidable and made better progress towards their objectives in spite of it[[note]]Due to better small-unit communication and leadership, something the military training of smaller nation-states tends to emphasize given their lesser material resources. Not to mention that the Canadians accepted the AwesomeYetPractical Hobart Funnies such as the amphibious tanks to give the landing troop armor support.[[/note]]), but still.

Keep in mind that despite having the name "America Wins The War," this is '''not''' a strictly American trope. The British can and will exaggerate ''their'' role in the war as well, with an additional jab that the Americans were not only late to the party but also stole all the credit, and additionally only joined in when they knew who was going to win. Russia also this; there, you'll find claims that WWII lasted from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945--when this was actually just the duration of the war between the USSR and Germany, (which ironically sells the Soviet Union short because their successful campaigns against Japan in 1939 and late 1945 aren't included in that time frame). In short, many countries have tried to play up their part in the war at the expense of others and such examples are more than welcome.

Lastly, winning a war can often be futile unless one also "wins the peace", as for instance the victors of WorldWarOne found out two decades later. In the aftermath of World War II, America deserves recognition for assisting the creation of a less balkanized Europe through the Marshall Plan, helping give the UnitedNations more clout than its predecessor the League of Nations, and for curbing Soviet aspirations for hegemony in (at least) Europe. USA couldn't (or wouldn't) prevent the Cold War from starting, though (but if there's ever any truth to the saying that it takes two to fight...).

Lastly, winning a war can often be futile unless one also "wins the peace", as for instance the victors of WorldWarOne found out two decades later. In the aftermath of WorldWarII, America deserves recognition for assisting the creation of a less balkanized Europe through the Marshall Plan, helping give the UnitedNations more clout than the previous League of Nations, and for curbing Soviet aspirations for hegemony in (at least) Europe. USA couldn't (or wouldn't) prevent the Cold War from starting, though (but if there's ever any truth to the saying that it takes two to fight...).

->''"[[ArtisticLicenseHistory We saved your ass in Vietnam!]]"''

Cases of this trope are not limited to the European Theater. Most films featuring the Pacific theatre only focus on the naval and air battles fought by the U.S., appearing as though they were the sole force fighting in the Pacific. In reality, UK and Australian forces played significant roles against overwhelming forces in atrocious conditions, and many other nations contributed as well. Not to mention the [[{{Second Sino-Japanese War}} ''brutally'' violent war in China]], probably the most ignored battlefront of the war. This neglect is strange given that it was the longest conflict (starting in 1937) and believed to be the the second-bloodiest theatre of war in human history after the Russian front.

* The (Peoples' Republic of) Chinese equivalent appears in ''Film/IpMan'', which is set during the [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Second Sino-Japanese War.]] The concluding captions mention China's defeat of Japan without mentioning [[WorldWarTwo the Guomindang or the international Allied forces]] that had pushed ImperialJapan back and blockaded the Home Islands in preparation for an amphibious invasion. In reality, the Guomindang and their warlord allies acted as a huge punching bag, losing battle after battle until The United States, Britain, and later the Soviet Union entered the conflict. The importance of US Lend-lease - which was critical to propping the Guomindang with things like massive loans and anti-tank weaponry - also goes unmentioned, naturally.

->''"[[YouFailHistoryForever We saved your ass in Vietnam!]]"''

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''HarkAVagrant'' mentions this trend in war movies [[http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=292 here]].
* Parodied in [[ScandinaviaandtheWorld Scandinavia and the World]], where [[http://satwcomic.com/better-late-than-never America believes that he single-handedly saved all of the other countries]] during World War II, despite the fact that [[http://satwcomic.com/america-has-spoken he didn't even know what was going on.]]

** But generally averted in the other major DCUniverse WWII "team" series, ''{{Blackhawk}}'', about a multinational squadron of pilots where the leader is Polish (although sometimes he is a first-generation American of Polish descent). Even the American members of the team are generally immigrants or refugees from other countries.

* The Wolfenstein series is about American soldier B.J. Blazkowicz taking on the nazis [[OneManArmy all by himself]].
** ''[[ReturnToCastleWolfenstein Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory]]'' allows you to play as one of two sides: one is UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, guess who the other is? Considering you know how the war turns out the implication is a given. In this specific case, however, it's probably less an intentional use of this trope, and more paralleling the singleplayer games.
** 2009 release ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'' can be said to subvert this. While you are still American OneManArmy B.J. Blazkowicz, the assistance of the German resistance is necessary and invaluable to your success, which also nicely averts the common AllGermansAreNazis trope that appears so often in nazi-based FPSs.

->''"[[ArtisticLicenseHistory We saved your ass in Vietnam!]]"''

* ''Series/ThePacific'' earned some minor controversy in Australia after the tv station that aired the show advertised it as the 'fight for Australia', despite Australia doing well enough on it's own against the Japanese Army.

The D-Day landings are another good example. Many American-made productions will focus solely on Omaha Beach, the most heavily fortified of the four landing sites as well as the best-defended--both facts which Allied intelligence failed to realize prior to the operation. The carnage that ensued is a favourite among producers, since it emphasizes the sacrifice Americans made during the war--but doing so gives the impression that Omaha Beach was ''the'' decisive turning point that led to the Allied victory in Europe. (The focus on Omaha Beach is also partially because ''SavingPrivateRyan'' did it, [[FollowTheLeader other games/movies/TV shows want to replicate its success]], and because it's more exciting to show a strongly opposed landing than an unopposed one -- not that the other landings were exactly 'unopposed' (For instance, Canadian troops landing at Juno Beach on that day faced opposition almost as formidable and made better progress towards their objectives in spite of it[[note]]Due to better small-unit communication and leadership, something the military training of smaller nation-states tends to emphasize given their lesser material resources[[/note]]), but still.

When this trope is in play, the efforts and contributions of the other "Western" Allies are downplayed, and the Eastern Front (where more than ''80%'' of the Wehrmacht was engaged at any one time after June 22 1941, and where the Germans suffered approximately ''77%'' of their casualties) is considered a ''sideshow'', if it's even mentioned at all. Often it seems like the only other Allied nation-state that actually did anything to fight Germany was the UK, which ([[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys after the Poles and French got their asses handed to them]]) kept the hopeless fight alive until the USA joined in and saved the day. This is likely a result of the ColdWar making American educators and filmmakers unwilling to glorify [[DirtyCommunists the Soviet Union]] or [[DirtyCommunists Maoist China]].

America Wins The War is a form of HollywoodHistory in which a story implies or outright states that the United States single-handedly won UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.[[note]]To be fair, the USA 'did' provide the USSR with over an eighth of their total armaments during the war, and as much as a quarter of their food and other (rare) materials. Still, there is a certain imbalance of 'blood' versus 'iron' spent to achieve victory, one very much in the USSR's favour with 10+ million Soviet Military and 12+ million Soviet Civilian casualties versus 3 million suffered by The Commonwealth and France and the USA. German casualties stood at 7+ million, for comparison.[[/note]] Sometimes, it's [[UnfortunateImplications unintentional]]; the viewpoint or focus is simply too narrow for the audience to be reminded of the bigger picture. Other times, though, it's a blatant example of HollywoodHistory.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid33SnakeEater'' with the Cobra Unit, which while led by an American (and apparently a hugely patriotic one) contains at least two Russians and three people of unknown origin (all that's said is that they're from the Allied Nations). The game tells you rather erroneously that they all but won WWII as if all the other millions of Allied soldiers were just twiddling their thumbs at the Axis Powers.

Cases of this trope are not limited to the European Theater. Most films featuring the Pacific theatre only focus on the naval and air battles fought by the U.S., appearing as though they were the sole force fighting in the Pacific. In reality, UK and Australian forces played significant roles and many other nations contributed as well. Not to mention the [[{{Second Sino-Japanese War}} ''brutally'' violent war in China]], probably the most ignored battlefront of the war. This neglect is strange given that it was the longest conflict (starting in 1937) and believed to be the the second-bloodiest theatre of war in human history after the Russian front.

None of this is meant to diminish the contribution the United States, or any other single country, made to winning World War II, of course. The United States was very important, since not only was it the main presence on the Western and Pacific Fronts, but by virtue of heavy European investment over the last century or so they had developed the world's no.1 economy, accounting for perhaps a third of the entire world's GDP and maybe as much as 'half' of its industry (though not all of the latter was useful, of course). The United States also had more than twice the population of the Commonwealth, India aside. From the point of American entry, the Allies could have just broken even in the death count and material-destruction figures and still have won (Guomindang China aside, of course). JosefStalin is on record acknowledging that without American loans and industry backing them up the Soviets would taken 'far' greater casualties, and there would basically have been no chance of the Allies 'winning' any part of Europe in the peace to follow. None of the anti-Axis powers won the war all by their lonesome; everyone had their part, and the USA's was certainly in the top three.

* In ''Film/PearlHarbor'', despite being set before America even enters WWII, there is a scene where a British man states:
-->''"God help anyone who goes to war with America".''
** Also in Pearl Harbor, one character picks up the phone to report the December 1941 bombing of the titular base and says ''"I think World War Two just started!". Cue rolled eyes around the world

* ''Churchill: The Hollywood Years'' parodies this. It suggests that Winston Churchill was a tough as nails American G.I. (Christian Slater) who won WWII and romanced then-Princess Elizabeth. The Churchill history is familiar with? The film says he was in fact an actor called Roy Bubbles.

* ''SavingPrivateRyan'' was criticized for this in the UK, since the sole reference in the movie to any non-American involvement in the battle was a brief exchange on how "overrated" General Montgomery was. Of course, like its successor, ''Series/{{Band of Brothers}}'', the narrative maintains a narrow focus on a small unit who might not have encountered foreign Allied soldiers during their mission and might have actually espoused this opinion ([[BernardLawMontgomery Field Marshal Montgomery]] being not-very-popular with a large segment of the American military).

* Absolutely averted in ''TheLongestDay''. It includes practically ''everyone''. Also the Germans. Memorable for its portrayal of German officers:

* In ''[[ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World]]'', Milton Berle's character invokes this while arguing with Terry-Thomas. It proves to be something of a BerserkButton for the latter.

* The (Peoples' Republic of) Chinese equivalent appears in ''IpMan'', which is set during the [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Second Sino-Japanese War.]] The concluding captions mention China's defeat of Japan without mentioning [[WorldWarTwo the Guomindang or the international Allied forces]] that had pushed ImperialJapan back and blockaded the Home Islands in preparation for an amphibious invasion. In reality, the Guomindang and their warlord allies acted as a huge punching bag, losing battle after battle until The United States, Britain, and later the Soviet Union entered the conflict. The importance of US Lend-lease - which was critical to propping the Guomindang with things like massive loans and anti-tank weaponry - also goes unmentioned, naturally.
* The 2011 ''[[CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Captain America]]'' movie, of all places, makes it a point of him having a MultinationalTeam backing him up, and that the program that helped give him his powers was a joint Anglo-American operation. However, you won't find any mention of the Soviet Union save amidst the sea of flags in the end credits.
* This trope is blatantly invoked in IronSky, when the President of the U.S. defends her nation's claim to the [[spoiler:Helium-3 deposits on the moon]] by saying that America won World War 2 and saved the world (albeit with tiny contributions here and there by her allies)... She even goes so far as to base this historic "fact" on Hollywood war movies which "never lie". PlayedForLaughs, of course.
* Thoroughly averted in ''Patton'', despite what some would have you believe. Yes, the film focuses on the deeds of George S. Patton throughout World War II, but Patton does not single-handedly curb stomp the Nazis. His rivalry with British general Bernard Law Montgomery features prominently, and he expresses frustration when resources are diverted to important British operations rather than his own. He is just as much upset by the Soviets conquering Berlin and being the ones to force Nazi Germany to surrender.