By the way, j-t, I hate to break it to ya. The meme of America coming to the world's aid is the US version.
The non-US version has the US idling on the sidelines while the other Western (and then communist) countries fought fascism. This when it was at its most powerful and aggressive. The US joined in only because it was forced to by Japan. It wasn't so much a voluntary act of participation - of coming to the world's aid - as a necessary one due to its self-interest.
No one denies that US force helped. But the war was turned in favour of the allies first by Hitler's failure to overwhelm the British Empire and its former colonies (remember that Canada, Australia, NZ, South Africa, India, HK, Singapore etc were all engaged in protecting Britain's territory and its air) and then by Russia's winter and its sacrifice. The US accelerated the turning of the tide. But it wasn't the primary hero of the story. It was the country that wanted not to participate in fighting fascism. And then had to.
No one wants to diminish the US contribution. But let it be what it was. A tremendously valuable involvement. And worth a share of heroism without seeming to assert priority or claim a selflessness which just wasn't the case.
"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour!”"
This was their finest hour. Not just that of the British Empire, which ended almost immediately, but in the end of all the allies that fought against fascism.
| 
