BY all rights the the allied coalition in WW2 should of never succeeded as their dislike and distrust of each other was well known. The Americans had an air of superiority about them and looked down on many of their allies.
The Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and Indians distrusted the British and the British looked at the commonwealth as tools for them to use and all of the above countries distrusted the Americans and felt they were not an effective fighting force compared to the commonwealth who had loads of combat experience.
Many in the American high command in all branches felt they were far superior to all other allies when in reality most of them had little in the way of actual combat or command experience. The Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders felt unappreciated yet carried well above their weight in any theatre they fought in be it land, sea or air often saving the British and Americans from their own follies.
In short the allies should have failed miserably in cooperation yet managed to put aside their squabbles and work well together despite prejudices of the time.
You are correct in all of what you said. But forgot about the mistrust of the Western allies and the Soviet Union. Neither side really trusted each other but at the same time they did managed to work together somehow alittle bit.
EditI talked to her at length yesterday July 15th and told me how she met Harold and how they came to Canada After the war but that is a story for another time. She talked a lot about growing up during the blitz and living next to where Harold was stationed and I asked her about if there was any truth about allied nations fighting each other to which she talked about that at length which is abbreviated below(her daughter told me she rarely talks about the war years yet I opened the floodgates it was a good 3 hour visit)
One of My neighbours Edith(98 yrs young) is a war bride she got married at 16(both parents died in the blitz of London) and she met her future husband a Canuck with the Air Force on leave(Harold died 2011). They spent 20 hours together in one of the subways waiting out the bombing raids and hit it off.
Throughout the war she stayed true to him and he to her but temptation abounded as did inter service rivalry and different army rivalries. There was often bad blood between the commonwealth and British armies and many fights broke out but that all changed when the as she put it “The Gawd awful Yanks showed up”. Often if the Brit’s and the commonwealth were fighting each other that would all change when the yanks showed up and it would be everybody against the yanks.
It didn’t help American servicemen were better paid than the other militaries and it made it even worse when they came into a pub, Bar or eatery and the women would flock to the yanks as they flashed money around. Edith personally couldn’t stand the Americans as they were arrogant and snotty and looked down on the other militaries especially the Canadians.
Throughout the war years the police, military police and Shore patrol were kept very busy and the local jails would often fill up with men from various nations often sharing the same cells until they were released. She marvelled at how well allied high command clamped down on the daily fights between allied service members as it rarely made the news but when it did it was usually buried deep in the papers.
Even today she still harbours resentment towards the yanks although it is much more muted than when she was much younger.
British pay was comparatively poor. There is the case of HMS Nabob, an escort carrier with RCN crew but with an RN air group. She was flagged in the RN. The entire crew initially received the lower RN rate of pay, Canadians included. This led to a near-mutiny and desertions. As a result the whole crew was raised to the higher RCN standard.
A lot of the incipient resentment of Canadian troops in Britain by British troops was both economic and sartorial. Canadian troops had better-quality uniforms, which in civilian eyes anyway made them look more like officers. Canadians were also rather better paid that Brits in equivalent ranks/roles.
Resentment of the Canadians almost disappeared as soon as the Americans started showing up in significant numbers, as they were significantly better paid than the Canadians.
Just happened to reading about convoys marshalling at St. John’s, Newfoundland and found a brief note from a wife to her mother.
“Frank was nabbed yesterday by the constabulary after the crew got into it with several yank sailors. Yanks got drubbed good.”
Apparently Frank was a sailor on leave with his mates from a Canadian Corvette and got into a pretty big fight with several American sailors off a destroyer. Haven’t found out more than that but it sounds like it was a good old bare knuckle bruiser.