History Main / AmericaWonWorldWarII

When this trope is in play the efforts and contributions of the other Allies are downplayed. Egregiously, the Soviet-German war is considered a ''sideshow'' - if it's even mentioned at all. More than 80% of the Wehrmacht's combat elements were engaged against the Soviets at any given time after the 22nd of June 1941, and the Germans lost ''2/3'' of their dead and captured to them [[note]] Though this is a little non-indicative, as German troops surrendered in droves to the Western Allies in the last couple of months of the war - Operational Group Steiner (yes, ''[[WebVideo/HitlerRants that]]'' [[Film/Downfall Steiner]]), for instance, famously refused to attempt to break the siege of Berlin and instead marched west to surrender to the Americans [[/note]]. Often it seems like the only other Allied nation-state that actually did anything to fight Germany was the UK, which (after the Poles and [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys French got their asses handed to them]]) kept the hopeless fight alive until the USA joined in and saved the day. The non-European Allies have it even worse. When was the last time you saw an American film about the Sino-Japanese War, or Philipino Guerillas? All these oversights are at least partly a result of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar making American educators and filmmakers unwilling to glorify [[DirtyCommunists the Soviet Union]] or [[NoMoreEmperors China]] (especially [[RedChina Maoist]] [[DirtyCommunists China]]).

** Invoked as part of Frenchie's back story. An American on holiday in France draws ire when he claims the US liberated France single-handedly, going so far as to call the French [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys cowards]]. Frenchie is [[BerserkButton less than]] [[CurbStompBattle impressed]].

America Won World War II 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, US lend-lease may have saved the lives of several million Soviet citizens and soldiers. This was done in a number of ways. The most direct of these was through the delivery of non-grain food (cheese, beef, chocolate), which was crucial given the German military's 'foraging' and later 'scorched earth' strategies (destruction of all cities, all farming equipment, most farms) in the occupied Soviet Union (home to a quarter of the population and a third of the grain output). Another way was through the delivery of machine tools and high-quality or unobtainable items, which allowed Soviet industries to re-tool more rapidly and to focus on the maximum possible output of low-quality items (e.g. the delivery of high-power radio transmitter/receiver sets, which allowed the Soviet electronics industry to focus on low-power sets). A more indirect but still very important way was by improving Soviet combat effectiveness and organisation and so indirectly reducing deaths. For instance, the obsolescent weapons and combat vehicles delivered in 1941-2 were not very good and created logistical issues but were still literally better than nothing until the Soviets finally built up decent surpluses of both in late 1944 (more specifically, the combat aircraft delivered in 1941 were still slightly better than the bulk of the Soviets' airfleet at that time). Reduced deaths aside, without lend-lease the Soviets also would not have made it as far into central Europe as they actually did; their ability to sustain long-distance advances (of more than 200km) with large forces was augmented by deliveries which increased the size of their truck fleet (necessary for bridging the gap between the railheads and the front lines) by a quarter [[/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.

America Won World War II 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, US lend-lease may have saved the lives of several million Soviet citizens and soldiers. This was done in a number of ways. The most direct of these was through the delivery of non-grain food (cheese, beef, chocolate), which was crucial given the German military's 'foraging' and later 'scorched earth' strategies (destruction of all cities, all farming equipment, most farms) in the occupied Soviet Union (home to a quarter of the population and a third of the grain output). Another way was through the delivery of machine tools and high-quality or unobtainable items, which allowed Soviet industries to re-tool more rapidly and to focus on the maximum possible output of low-quality items (e.g. the delivery of high-power radio transmitter/receiver sets, which allowed the Soviet electronics industry to focus on low-power sets). A more indirect but still very important way was by improving Soviet combat effectiveness and organisation and so indirectly reducing deaths. For instance, the obsolescent weapons and combat vehicles delivered in 1941-2 were not very good and created logistical issues but still literally better than nothing until the Soviets finally built up decent surpluses of both in late 1944 (e.g. the combat aircraft, which in 1941 were slightly better than the bulk of the Soviets' own mostly-obsolescent airfleet). Reduced deaths aside, without lend-lease the Soviets also would not have made it as far into central Europe as they actually did; their ability to sustain long-distance advances (of more than 200km) with large forces was augmented by deliveries which increased the size of their truck fleet (necessary for bridging the gap between the railheads and the front lines) by a quarter [[/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.

America Won World War II 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, US lend-lease may have saved the lives of several million Soviet citizens and soldiers. This was done in a number of ways. The most direct one was through the deliver of non-grain food (cheese, beef, chocolate), which was crucial given Germany's capture of and later 'scorched earth' strategies (destruction of all cities, all farming equipment, most farms) in the occupied Soviet Union (where a quarter of the population lived). Another way was through the delivery of machine tools and high-quality or unobtainable items, which allowed Soviet industries to re-tool more rapidly and to focus on the maximum possible output of low-quality items (e.g. the delivery of high-power radio transmitter/receiver sets, which allowed the Soviet electronics industry to focus on low-power sets). A more indirect but still very important way was by improving Soviet combat effectiveness and organisation and so indirectly reducing deaths. For instance, the obsolescent weapons and combat vehicles delivered in 1941-2 were not very good and created logistical issues but still literally better than nothing until the Soviets finally built up decent surpluses of both in late 1944 (e.g. the combat aircraft, which in 1941 were slightly better than the bulk of the Soviets' own mostly-obsolescent airfleet). Reduced deaths aside, without lend-lease the Soviets also would not have made it as far into central Europe as they actually did; their ability to sustain long-distance advances (of more than 200km) with large forces was augmented by deliveries which increased the size of their truck fleet (necessary for bridging the gap between the railheads and the front lines) by a quarter [[/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.

America Won World War II 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, US lend-lease may have saved the lives of several million Soviet citizens and soldiers. The most important form of aid was undoubtedly non-grain food (cheese, beef, chocolate), given Germany's capture of and later 'scorched earth' strategy in the central-western Ukraine, but there were numerous other deliveries which improved Soviet combat effectiveness and organisation and so indirectly reduced deaths. One way was by allowing Soviet industry to concentrate on bulkier and less complicated products (such as high-power radio transmitter/receiver sets). Another was that the weapons and combat vehicles were often literally better than nothing (such as the obsolescent combat aircraft delivered in 1941-2, which at the time were slightly better than the bulk of the Soviets' own mostly-obsolescent airfleet), with the Soviets only fully retiring lend-lease combat vehicles and weapons when they became literally worse than nothing (late 1944-early 1945). Deaths aside, without lend-lease the Soviets would not have made it as far into central Europe as they actually did because their ability to sustain long-distance advances (of more than 200km) with large forces was augmented by deliveries which increased the size of their truck fleet (necessary for bridging the gap between the railheads and the front lines) by a quarter [[/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.

America Won World War II 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 ''mountains'' of desperately-needed aid in the form of food, munitions, ships, tanks, planes, trucks, trains, guns, and raw materials to the other Allies that they could not produce for themselves (at least not in anything like the quantities needed). The USSR received 9/10 of all lend-lease material sent (much of which was never paid back), which in turn accounted for some 4-5% of the USSR's total wartime production. That percentage is a little deceptive, however, as that figure was more like 10-15% of the USSR's production during the first year (1941-2) of its involvement in the war (when Soviet industry was still relocating to the Urals). The lend-lease was also concentrated on several very specific items to free up Soviet industry to focus on other things; early-war Russian combat aircraft were ''terrible'', and for over two years the Red Air Force relied on American- (and some British) built aircraft until their own engineers finally managed to turn out something worthwhile; as much as 70% of the Red Army's trucks and a similar proportion of their radios and leather boots (as well as ''all'' the coffee, chocolate, tinned beef, and tobacco) came from overseas. That said, the Soviets suffered 10 million military and 17 million civilian dead. The 'Westerm Allies' (USA and British Commonwealth minus India) lost fewer than 2 million military and civilian dead. This is why Anthony Beevor quipped that 'The Allies bought victory with Soviet blood and paid in Spam' [[/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.

When this trope is in play the efforts and contributions of the other Allies are downplayed. Egregiously, the Soviet-German war is considered a ''sideshow'' - if it's even mentioned at all. More than 80% of the Wehrmacht's combat elements were engaged against the Soviets at any given time after the 22nd of June 1941, and the Germans lost ''2/3'' of their dead and captured to them [[note]] Though this is a little non-indicative, as German troops surrendered in droves to the Western Allies in the last couple of months of the war - Operational Group Steiner, for instance, famously refused to attempt to break the siege of Berlin and instead marched west to surrender to the Americans [[/note]]. Often it seems like the only other Allied nation-state that actually did anything to fight Germany was the UK, which (after the Poles and [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys French got their asses handed to them]]) kept the hopeless fight alive until the USA joined in and saved the day. The non-European Allies have it even worse. When was the last time you saw an American film about the Sino-Japanese War, or Philipino Guerillas? All these oversights are at least partly a result of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar making American educators and filmmakers unwilling to glorify [[DirtyCommunists the Soviet Union]] or [[NoMoreEmperors China]] (especially [[RedChina Maoist]] [[DirtyCommunists China]]).

* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' is a bit of an interesting example, as it focuses on American soldiers in the war, but most of the main cast are played by British actors. Foreign allies do show up in the series, though not necessarily in a positive light. In Market Garden, the British armor support is shown to be [[TanksForNothing completely ineffective]], forcing Easy Company to retreat (In the book, Ambrose not-so-subtly implies that Operation Market Garden, which was led by Montgomery, was doomed to fail and that Patton's plan for crossing the Rhine would have been far more effective - a longtime debate in military history circles). Later on, Easy is tasked with rescuing a number of British soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, though both sides do get along very well after the success of the mission. When Easy Company is advancing on Eagle's Nest, they are specifically ordered to get there before the French do.
** Generally, ''BandOfBrothers'' averts this trope. For instance, the epilogue to the Operation Market Garden episode points out that the British suffered far worse casualties at Arnhem than the [=101st=]. Similarly, the British tank support ''does'' cover Easy's retreat in that episode, and the only reason the British tanks do badly is because their orders force them to "avoid unnecessary destruction of property" which would have allowed them to ambush the German tanks, rather than be ambushed.

** In the show itself J P Morgan causes a fight with some Australia troops by disrespecting the Australians and claiming that the USA was saving them from having 'chopsticks up their ass'.

*** To be fair to the Western Allies, the Germans did commit most of their air strength against the British and Americans and suffered their heaviest air losses against them. The air battles of Western Europe and the Pacific dwarfed those of the Eastern front.

** Despite his good publicity, Montgomery made some major mistakes that cost a lot of British, Canadian, and American lives. A particularly touchy issue is how he proceeded to do absolutely ''nothing'' during the Battle of the Bulge, [[BlatantLies then claimed that he had somehow saved the Americans]]. While certainly capable, it's the opinion of many that Montgomery wasn't fit to stand on the same field as General Bill Slim, the brilliant British commander of Allied forces facing the Japanese in Burma.

* Pretty much averted in the film ''Film/TheGreatRaid'' about the Raid at Cabanatuan wherein the American Alamo Scouts with help from Filipino guerillas rescued a group of American [=POWs=] in the Philippines from a Japanese prison camp. The film showed just how critical the local forces were to the rescue by showing the guerillas holding back Japanese reinforcements at an important choke point and providing hundreds of carabao carts to quickly transport the weakened and diseased American [=POWs=].

America Won World War II 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 ''mountains'' of desperately-needed aid in the form of food, munitions, ships, tanks, planes, trucks, trains, guns, and raw materials to the other Allies that they could not produce for themselves (at least not in anything like the quantities needed). The USSR received 9/10 of all lend-lease material sent (much of which was never paid back), which in turn accounted for some 4-5% of the USSR's total wartime production. That percentage is a little deceptive, however, as that figure was more like 10-15% of the USSR's production during the first year (1941-2) of its involvement in the war (when Soviet industry was still relocating to the Urals). The lend-lease was also concentrated on several very specific items to free up Soviet industry to focus on other things; early-war Russian combat aircraft were ''terrible'', and for over two years the Red Air Force relied on American- (and some British) built aircraft until their own engineers finally managed to turn out something worthwhile; as much as 70% of the Red Army's trucks and a similar proportion of their radios and leather boots (as well as ''all'' the coffee, chocolate, tinned beef, and tobacco) came from overseas. That said, the Soviets suffered 10 million military and 17 million civilian dead. The 'Westerm Allies' (USA and British Commonwealth minus India) lost fewer than 2 million military and civilian dead. This is why Anthony Beevor quipped that 'The Allies bought victory with Soviet blood and paid in Spam' [[/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.

* ''[[Film/Fortress2012 Fortress]]'' focuses on a B-17 crew in the 99th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 12th Air Force flying out of North Africa in 1943. Despite the narrow focus, this gets averted when every mission briefing includes a mention of RAF bombers hitting high-risk targets too. No mention of the Russians, but it's justified because they were only slightly more relevant than the Japanese in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

America Won World War II 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 9/10 of all lend-lease material sent, which in turn accounted for some 4-5% of the USSR's total wartime production. That percentage is a little deceptive, however, as that figure was more like 10-15% of the USSR's production during the first year (1941-2) of its involvement in the war (when Soviet industry was still relocating to the Urals). The lend-lease was also concentrated on several very specific items to free up Soviet industry to focus on other things; as much as 70% of the Red Army's trucks and a similar proportion of their radios and leather boots (as well as ''all'' the coffee, chocolate, tinned beef, and tobacco) came from overseas. That said, the Soviets suffered 10 million military and 17 million civilian dead. The 'Westerm Allies' (USA and British Commonwealth minus India) lost fewer than 2 million military and civilian dead. This is why Anthony Beevor quipped that 'The Allies bought victory with Soviet blood and paid in Spam' [[/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.

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 ''Film/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, but punched through quickly 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 "Hobart's Funnies" such as the amphibious tanks to give the landing troops armor support.[[/note]]), but still.

* The ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' series, however, tend to play this pretty straight, in which you're an American soldier who seems to single-handedly ensure victory in every major Allied campaign and save the day. In later expansion packs and games, this even included battles in which ''America played no part whatsoever''. That said, the second game of the series focused on a French woman, Manon Batiste, fighting the Germans as a Maquis and an OSS operative.

* Parodied indirectly in ''WesternAnimation/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 your [America's] ''arse'' in [[WorldWarThree 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 [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo which saved France from the Germans]] - [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne twice]].
** In ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E4TheReginaMonologues The Regina Monologues]]'' Homer, as usual, handles this in his usual way when visiting London: ''"We're big shot tourists from everyone's favorite country, the USA. We saved your ass in Vietnam and shared our prostitutes with Creator/HughGrant"''.

* In ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', Milton Berle's character invokes this while arguing with Terry-Thomas. It proves to be something of a BerserkButton for the latter.
-->"As far as I'm concerned, the whole British race is practically finished. If it hadn't been for Lend-Lease, if we hadn't kept your whole country afloat by giving you billions that you never even said 'Thank you' for, the whole phony outfit would've sunk under the Atlantic years ago...What are you stopping for?"
-->"GetOut of this machine."
** Well the Brits did say thank you for lend lease. A lot of British bases passed in American hands, the most prominent one later in the Cold War being Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean the only US base in the region which is actually a British Overseas Territory. Also US had first dibs on technological developments in the UK for 50 years after Lend Lease, that is how the Harrier became the AV-8 and why the first tank equipped with Chobham Armour (developed by the Brits) was the M1 Abrams (US).

* 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 [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo the Guomindang or the international Allied forces]] that had pushed UsefulNotes/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.

America Won World War II 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 9/10 of all lend-lease material sent, which in turn accounted for some 4-5% of the USSR's total wartime production. That percentage is a little deceptive, however, as that figure was more like 10-15% of the USSR's production during the first year (1941-2) of its involvement in the war (when Soviet industry was still relocating to the Urals). The lend-lease was also concentrated on several very specific items to free up Soviet industry to focus on other things; as much as 80% of the Red Army's trucks and a similar proportion of their radios and leather boots (as well as ''all'' the coffee, chocolate, tinned beef, and tobacco) came from overseas. All that said, there was a certain imbalance of 'blood' versus 'iron' spent to achieve victory, one very much in the USSR's 'favor' with 9-14 million Soviet military and 15-20 million Soviet civilian dead versus 2 million suffered by The Allies (minus India and China). This is where the saying 'The Allies bought victory with Soviet blood and paid in Spam' comes from. German dead and crippled stood at 5+ 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.

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 lost ''2/3'' of their dead and captured[[note]]Though this is a little non-indicative, as German troops surrendered in droves to the Western Allies in the last couple of months of the war - Operational Group Steiner, for instance, infamously refused to attempt to break the siege of Berlin and instead tried to march west and reach Anglo-American lines so they could surrender to them.[[/note]]) 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 (after the Poles and [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys 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]] (especially [[RedChina Maoist]] [[DirtyCommunists 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]] ([[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 war-dead to the tune of at least 10 and as many as 20 million (the Chinese Civil War that followed has to account for another 10 million or so, but Communist China, in [[ImplausibleDeniability classic form, likes to pretend that no one died in it]]), as well as an impressive gamut of war-crimes like mass-rape (e.g. Nanjing) and live-human-experimentation[[/note]], [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar the war]] that [[UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek Chiang Kai-Shek's]] [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Guomindang]] waged against UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan wasn't part of the 'World War' until the Imperial Navy lashed out to take Malaya and the Philippines.

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 [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar 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 Eastern European Theatre.

** ''Big Red One'' plays it straight, putting you in the boots of an American soldier for almost the entire game.

* The ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' series, however, tend to play this pretty straight, in which you're an American soldier who seems to single-handedly ensure victory in every major Allied campaign and save the day. In later expansion packs, this even included battles in which ''America played no part whatsoever''. That said, the second game of the series focused on a French woman, Manon Batiste, fighting the Germans as a Maquis and an OSS operative.
** ''[=MoH=]: Airborne'', where each mission ends with a debriefing voice-over from the commanding officer. After a relatively minor skirmish in Italy in early 1943, he proclaims "The war has begun", and after a very over-the-top raid on a flak tower in early 1945 he says that the war is over and effectively gives the Airborne itself full credit in his speech. The British are mentioned in passing in one mission, Operation Market Garden - fascinatingly, in contrast to the earlier ''[=MoH=]: Frontline'', it is presented as a great victory in spite of the fact it's actually the Allies' most notorious bungle. It's also an example of the reverse angle (as in the Axis consisting entirely of Germans), as despite half the game taking place in Italy you only fight Italian blackshirts in the first half of the first level - where they are [[ArtificialStupidity much dumber than the German soldiers]] and [[ImproperlyPlacedFirearms only use German weapons]].

* 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 M16 rifles ([[AnachronismStew in the 1950's]]), but it's unclear whether this is due to an extensive lend-lease campaign by the United States and the result of {{alternate history}} shenanigans, or simply because the game reuses a lot of assets from the original ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn Command & Conquer]]''.

** ''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=].

Lastly, winning a war means nothing unless one also [[StrategyVersusTactics "wins the peace"]], as was the case [[NapoleonicWars in Vienna in 1815]] and infamously not [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI at Versailles in 1918]]. In the aftermath of World War II, the USA and Britain and the USSR all deserve recognition for demarking and respecting crystal-clear 'spheres of influence' that kept the peace despite the outbreak of the Yugoslavian, Greek, and [[NoMoreEmperors Chinese]] civil wars. When the CCP gained the upper hand in the Chinese Civil War, and the USA began to [[RedScare see the USSR as a threat]], the USA also began to funnel a great deal of money into reconstructing Western European economies[[note]]Britain got a lot less than France or Germany, as conservative American opinion was appalled that they had the temerity to elect a socialist government; Britain were still repaying US loans, written off for other countries, well into the 1980's.[[/note]] so that they [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar could sustain larger militaries and thus avoid the need for committing US troops to Western Europe in its defense]]. The membership of the USSR and USA in the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations also gave it a lot more clout than its predecessor the League of Nations.

* As did ''[[NickFury Sgt. Fury]] and his HowlingCommandos''. At least Fury's team actually had a (stereotypical) British soldier on it.

* "We cannot win it (the war) without the Americans!" Says Churchill in ''Film/IntoTheStorm2009'' (the Churchill biopic). . Despite this, the movie actually subverts this: The Americans are shown as worthy allies, but the British (and to a lesser extent the Russians) are shown as just as responsible, if not more so, for the ultimate victory.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' 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.