“Met his match with Patton...” Patton never faced Rommel. Rommel left Africa within days of Patton’s assuming command after Kasserine, leaving von Arnim in command. In Europe, Rommel was wounded July 17th, 1944 and never returned to field command. Patton’s break out during Operation Cobra began after that date. Patton was a competent, aggressive mobile warfare commander, the Germans boasted dozens of such men (the Soviets as well) having fought titanic battles in the East dwarfing anything seen in the West. The Bulge would have made up only a sector in some of those battles; Kursk or Korsun for example. Both men were built up in the popular imagination by the propaganda arts as a prop to army and home front morale. Patton was probably rarer for his talents in the American Army than Rommel in his, the Americans having started with a smaller force with much less experience.
Good post. The vast size of the Eastern Front before we ever entered the war often gets overlooked here in the US.
Thanks.
I do need to explore more now that the heat is keeping me inside and cool for the weekend.