This week America reached a milestone when it recorded 500,000 dead from Covid-19, more it is said than the sum total of American dead during World War One, World War Two and the Vietnam War put together.

It is indeed tragic that anyone should have died from Covid-19, although expressed as a percentage of population it is fairly similar to the figures from Great Britain although ours are considerably less as we have a much smaller population.

I believe there is a perception that the British people are always “going on about the war” and to some extent it is true, take for example our recent victory in the battle to leave the EU and the jubilation when Brexit was finally declared, causing bunting to be hung up with street parties and celebrations continuing late into the night.

This has brought me back to more facts about “the wars” and don’t blame me, for it wasn’t me that first brought up the comparison between the numbers of war dead and those from Covid-19.

Whilst 500,000 is a substantial number of dead from three wars certainly by modern terms, I have to say it pales into insignificance compared to the British dead of 1,270,000 and we didn’t even take part in the Vietnam War, a fact I have to admit I am jolly glad about as I would have been just the right age to go had we had conscription.

Like many people in Great Britain my Grandfather took part in World War One, my Father took part in World War Two and should there have been a war in which we were involved I would have looked like a bit of a cad had I not offered myself for the slaughter.

One doesn’t want to keep rubbing salt into the wound but as I said earlier I didn’t start it, so here are a few more facts which justify the British obsession with “the war.”

WW1 Started; July 1914. America entered the war: April 1917. WW2 Ended; Nov 1918.

WW2 Started; Sept 1939. America entered the war; Dec 1941. WW2 Ended; Sept 1945.

Now I can see a pattern emerging here which would explain why during World War Two there was a certain resentment of the American GI’s with their flashy uniforms, candy, stockings, chewing gum and money from some of our troops who as can be seen from the chart above had been hard at it for some considerable time, which caused the saying; “over sexed, over paid and over here.”

As grateful as we were for America’s belated entry into the war, we were also delighted with the might of American industry for the tanks, guns, ships and other paraphernalia required to fight a war which they supplied, although I imagine Americans have never come across the expression, “mates rates” as it took us until December 2006 before we finally managed to make the final payment for the purchase of these items.

I am hoping that this post will educate my readers from foreign climes and hopefully go some way to explain why the British, “keep going on about the war!”