Posted on 12/06/2015 5:02:49 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick
The Anglophobic Adm King almost lost the Allies the sea battle and killed hundreds/thousands of young American lads by his refusal to adopt British-Canadian tactics. Until forced.
Patton was the best. Montgomery was an inflated poppycock.
oh God the horror
we beat world domination by totalitarians who murdered millions and millions
we’re faced with an even more insidious foe now our btw in case you failed to notice BLACK EMANCIPATED president either fails to notice at best or supports at worst
and some folks want to go back and moan about injustice against the vaunted black man like that is so pressing and solves anything
well not I hoss
i live in realville
and in realville post segregation aint all chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream
How those two ended up after the liberation of Europe is illustrative. Patton was assigned to a paperwork Army, and then likely assassinated. Montgomery went on to knighthood and a position in government. Operation Market Garden nearly fumbled the war to the Germans in the end.
I’ll give you credit on part of it, but not as pertains to Montgomery, nor your assessment of Patton. Montgomery got away with too many things for which he never took the blame. Dieppe, for example. The plan was Montgomery’s even though he had been transferred to N. Africa before the Dieppe disaster. His plan was followed to a tee and the Canadians paid the price. Another was Operation Market Garden. A Bridge Too Far that Patton had denounced, but Eisenhower gave the go ahead to Montgomery. It was his plan, and like Dieppe, it failed. He even tried to take credit for the Battle of the Bulge which pushed some American Generals to denounce him. We all know how Patton’s 7th Army won the race to Messina, Sicily. He had one creed, do not move until you have overwhelming odds in your favor. His pursuit of Rommel was a perfect example of his fear to engage the enemy in a running battle.
Montgomery didn’t defeat Rommel at El Alamein. The credit should go to the British Navy and Air Force, acting on the information supplied by the backroom boys reading Enigma.
Auchinleck and Alexander were good. Nobody wants to give Auchinleck the credit for stopping Rommel at the First Al Alamein. Churchill did not treat him right. He did not get the manpower and materiel support Montgomery got by a long shot. In my opinion Auchinleck was far superior to Montgomery.
I agree on some of your German choices and would add a few.Of course my favorite is Rommel because in addition to his outstanding tactical genius, he truly cared for his men, and also the lives of his enemy. He and Patton were very much alike, contrary to some so-called historians.
Patch is another of my favorites. I absolutely do not like Omar Bradley.
I agree King was Anglophobic,and I don’t defend his handling of Drumbeat and the early Atlantic war, but Eisenhower was too much of an Anglophile. He made a huge mistake in going with Montgomery on Market Garden instead of listening to Patton who said it wouldn’t work. How many soldiers were lost in that fiasco? BTW, the Americans accomplished their objective, but the Brits didn’t.
You’re right about Market Garden. The Brits needed a hero and it turned out to be Montgomery, who in my opinion was the least deserving.
Patton was betrayed by those he trusted the most. Eisenhower and the jealous, self-righteous, never blamed for his mistakes, Omar Bradley.
Hugh Dowding suffered somewhat the same type of political fate as Patton, and in my opinion was one of the greatest tacticians of the Second World War. His insistence that small groups of fighters were more effective than the big wing theory was proven in the Battle of Britain. He was very badly mistreated and to me was one of the most worthy of the thanks of a nation, certainly far beyond Montgomery.
I think he was replaced by Park in 1942 or thereabouts.
The outbreak of World War II caught both the British and German navies by surprise. Germany had less than fifty U-boats available in 1939, but the British had few escorts with which to counter them. The Nazis immediately began a program of unrestricted submarine warfare against British shipping, a strategy that came very near to starving England out of World War II. Although the British Navy began convoying ships as soon as the war started, its lack of escorts cost these convoys dearly. As more and more German submarines entered the battle, British shipping losses increased at an alarming rate.
Churchill appealed to President Franklin Roosevelt for aid. Although the United States was neutral, Roosevelt agreed to provide the British Navy with fifty obsolete four piper destroyers in exchange for the use of British bases in the Caribbean. The United States also began neutrality patrols, ostensibly to protect neutral shipping rights in the western Atlantic but also to give American naval commanders vital experience should the United States enter the war. The United States also agreed to build escort vessels for the British under the Lend Lease Program. It was this program, combined with America's experimentation with the World War I Eagle Boats, which ultimately led to the development of the destroyer escort.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 brought the United States openly into the war. Germany's declaration of war against the United States also greatly expanded the Battle of the Atlantic. German submarines, which had been operating out of western France since its capitulation in June 1940, had the range to reach the East Coast as well as the Gulf of Mexico. America's sudden entry into the war left it completely unprepared to face the U-boat menace. In the first months of 1942 alone, German submarines sank hundreds of Allied ships, mostly along the eastern United States. [Battle of the Atlantic: Destroyer Escorts]
A very nice synopsis.I was a little girl living on the Atlantic seacoast and vividly remember the war; the Coast Guard patrols on horseback and with dogs, the blackouts, the rationing and black market, shortage of medical supplies and helping my mother and grandmother roll bandages for our soldiers. I used to watch for submarines with grandmother and help Mother make taffy and fudge to send overseas. And when the war was over, and there were no more lifeboats washed up on the beach or oil spots leaked from ships at sea, nor life rings, and even one time a mine which had broken its cables, and the family, friends, and other men came home, changed forever, I remember how the world seemed to come back to sanity again and everything wasn’t so serious anymore.
I suppose it was a lot different for those who lived in states far inland who didn’t live the war every day, but I remember those years like yesterday, even though I was young.
Patton was assigned to a paperwork Army, and then likely assassinated.
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Patton was immensely popular in America and the Politically Correct Crowd hated him. If Eisenhower and all the other big shots had listened to Patton, the Soviet union would have not gained such enormous territory and there wouldn’t have been a Cold War. There would also not have been a Vietnam if MacArthur had been let loose in Korea. Somehow the politicians always screw up the wars won by our military. I find it disgusting.
Wasn’t Doolittle court martialed at one point? He advocated dive bombing ships as a tactic.
The US' biggest asset after Americans themselves was that Hitler was a nutjob. When the information about how many cargo ships were being built here (each drydock was launching a new one every six days) he reportedly lost his ability to stand, plunked into a chair, and exclaimed that "the war is lost". He did the same thing after the long stalemate around Lake Ilmen (I'd never heard of it either).
No. You’re thinking of Billy Mitchell. Doolittle was famous for the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo for which he received the Medal of honor. His greatest contribution to warfare was perhaps his belief in Instrument Flying. He had a long and incredible history. A great man.......so was Billy Mitchell!
In the first months of 1942 alone, German submarines sank hundreds of Allied ships, mostly along the eastern United States. [Battle of the Atlantic: Destroyer Escorts]
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This was Operation Drum Beat. A ship was sunk off my hometown and the bodies were brought ashore by the Coast Guard, packed in ice, and sent by train to Norfolk, Va. I remember my dad helping the Coast Guard unload the bodies. I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I was. Never will forget it.
Thanks. Knew about the first War is Lost, but didn’t know about Lake Ilmen. Always love to learn something new.
I was in the Army around the same time and had many black NCO’s. I remember this huge black E7 who was in charge of Transportation. He saw two guys struggling to get a truck tire into the back of a deuce an a half. He walked over picked up the tire (which by the way still had the rim) and tossed it in the back of the truck. I will guarantee you that dude never heard a racist comment directed toward him.
You’re absolutely correct and we are paying the price today for Roosevelt’s fascination with Uncle Joe. Fortunately, he was forced to replace Wallace, his Vice President with a new Vice President in the last election. Had we not had Truman to drop the bomb, heavens knows what Wallace would have done.
They may have had something to do with the Middle East -- but still, the Brits have no reason to act high and mighty.
Anti-Black riots came in the 1950s, after enough West Indians had arrived.
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