The common view in the US is distorted because as the cold war developed people were shown a lot of propaganda lionizing the US's victory and distracting from t

The common view in the US is distorted because as the cold war developed people were shown a lot of propaganda lionizing the US's victory and distracting from things like the firebombing. When you talk to more serious people in the US there's awareness of the point you're making, you just won't find it in Hollywood's movie version of things anytime soon. A similar issue is how Band of Brothers, an otherwise excellent show, re-enforced the idea that D Day happened to stop the holocaust. Those who've read a bit more history however know it was to stop the soviets from marching all the way to Portugal, and that the US and allies declined to take even simple measures like bombing the railway lines to the death camps to fight the holocaust. In particular the treatment of holocaust survivors like a game of hot potato afterwards makes clear what the priorities actually were.