I'll play devil's advocate. How about the US using nukes?

That tactic seems to have ended the war immediatley in victory with a minimal cost to the Allies.

And despite fear of nuclear war, it's been 67 years without any nation using another device.

There are many as already pointed out in this thread.

I would like to add that the U.S. was too predictable as the Germans knew that U.S. troops never moved beyond their air-cover. This mistake took on particular importance in Italy as Germany knew the Allies would not invade to the north-west of Rome, thus they did not have to devote any attention to defending that area. It is true that the Germans were caught off-guard by the Anzio invasion, but they quickly regrouped. The potential gain of Anzio was lost by not exploiting it in a timely fashion. Instead the troops bogged down near the invasion sight. Of course, all of this could have been avoided had the Allies directed operation Shingle north of Rome to begin with.

Other mistakes were created by the American's lack of experience in modern tactics which led them to under-estimate the value of speed and aggression. The British did have the experience to know better, but they tended to remain deliberate (and therefore "slow) as well. Patton certainly appreciated the value of speed and aggression, thus he shined in comparison to other commanders.

The British (and other Allies) also continually made the mistake of spreading out its forces and mechanized units and attacking piece-meal. Even though they had first-hand experience with Rommel and his tactics, they did not adopt those tactics or properly respond to them.

As an example, the British did not appreciate that Rommel rarely committed his tanks until an opportunity to exploit a situation was presented. At such point, he would send them in a massed force. Prior to that, however, he would soften up the British lines by drawing the British forces into "tank battles" where the British were engaging their tanks against the German's anti-tank guns. After carving up the British tanks, Rommel would then unleash his tanks (which prior to such point where deployed in a supporting role - not an offensive role).

The NSDAP only got 2.6% of the vote in 1928. That is after the French occupied German territory and confiscated almost all the coal. This wasn't only humiliating but also left a lot of Germans freezing in winter.
Therefore I don't see how Versailles on its own can be the reason for Hitler's rise.

Agree. And what about not bombing the German railways, when the allies knew that trains were packing Jews by the thousands.

I might go along with the second nuke, but I think using them once was very good. Firstly, an invasion would have killed more people. It's not good that cities were destroyed and lots of innocents suffered, but I think it might have been a good thing that before the cold war there was an example of what a nuclear bomb could do.

If I were to play devil's advocate, I'd say the bombing of Dresden.

I'm not qualified to comment on Europe, but for the Pacific my vote is for MacArthur's failure to defend the Philippines, especially with leaving his aircraft parked wing-tip to wing-tip on the tarmac hours after receiving notice of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

It's interesting to note that King and Leahy both stated that they didn't consider Halsey to have made grave mistakes at Leyte, but King talked about his mistakes with the two typhoons. As poor as the seamanship was with the Typhoons, it really wasn't a costly mistake in a strategic or tactical sense for the war.

I would say France was pretty rubbish and Belgium in general as much as I remember reading.

If we're including the buildup then Munich.

Until then Chamberalin had been a genius. Destroying Germany economically while rearming, conserving forces and organising the defenses that would later help win the war.

Munich gave the Germans the economic respite plus a free pass over a very costly barrier. Made no sense. Chamberlain's whole strategy required a stand over Munich even if only to make it expensive for the German resources and to provide time to remove all the gold/weapons and destroy the industial areas.

A great man in so many ways but when the key moment came Chamberlain flunked it.

It was pretty inexcusible not to demonstrate the bomb (or two) in a very low population area first.

My understanding of Chamberlain's record is rather different. Chamberlain became PM In 1937. In the 16 months from then until Munich, the German economy grew about 13% and inflation was almost non-existant. The damage to Germany's economy came earlier, and was caused by the great Depression following on to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (with which Chamberlain had nothing to do, being only a backbench MP at the time.)

As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chamberlain delivered the budgets that had the biggest cuts to defence spending in the decade leading up to the war. These cuts led to Britain falling behind Germany and Russia in tank development, alhough before them Britain had been in the lead.

The Munich aggreement itself wasn't really a mistake. It was merely the inevitable by-product of previous greater mistakes by Britain and France. The preceding years of military cuts and failure to oppose German expansionism had left them unable to effectively oppose Germany in 1938. They needed an agreement like Munich to give them time to catch up with German rearmament.

The real mistakes were the degree of cuts in military spending in the 20s and early 30's, and the failure to intervene against Germany's violations of the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaties of Locarno by remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936. In 1936, a military response would have been successful (according to the German Army's own assessment), and was easily justifiable. In 1938, appeasement was the only option left open to them in the short term.

A number of physics and scientists that worked on the bomb actually made this proposal that was rejected. They wanted to explode the bomb as a demonstration instead of actually using it on people.


The Franck Report:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franck_Report

From above link:

Largely written by Eugene Rabinowitch, the report spoke about the impossibility to keep the United States atomic discoveries secret indefinitely. It predicted a nuclear arms race, forcing the United States to develop nuclear armaments at such a pace that no other nation would think of attacking first from fear of overwhelming retaliation. This did, in fact, occur. The report recommended that the nuclear bomb not be used, and proposed that either a demonstration of the "new weapon" be made before the eyes of representatives of all of the United Nations, on a barren island or desert, or to try to keep the existence of the nuclear bomb secret for as long as possible.

The allies only had two bombs and there weren't even sure if the second one would work. If the detonate the first one on a barren island and Japan replies "cool story bro" then what do they do?

Actually they did know the second one would work absolutely (the implosion-type Pu-239 bomb), because of the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945. Though I think all the physicists would not have wagered much against it not working the politicians needed complete assurance. Note that the U-238 bomb was never tested (as a fully assembled unit) and it worked to perfection.