Posted on 09/04/2014 4:10:58 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Maybe time to check out those German daily maps and post an update.
I don’t get that advertisement - “Sure good, sure lots...”. “Sure lots”??? What does that mean? There’s lots of it around?
Churchill is carping again about Anvil/Dragoon. Perhaps, as a historian writing in hindsight, he should have considered what would have happened in the Battle of the Bulge if 6th Army Group had not been there to cover Patton's flank while he moved forces to drive into the southern flank of the German salient?
The lack of supplies for the Third Army really slowed things down, and allowed the Germans time to regroup and prepare.
Who knows what might have happened if they didn’t run out of gas. Territory that took lots of blood to conquer later very well could have been gained fairly easily.
Oh well.
Without Brest or Le Havre we were at the limit of the supply chain.
Patton got to Metz a long time before he took it. It was heavily fortified (dating back to the Franco Prussian war) and when Ike made the poor decision to cut fuel to Patton to divert it to Monty, Patton was forced into a set piece battle for the fortified border cities. Not Patton’s strong suit, and he spent a lot of men getting the job done.
If Patton had gotten the fuel, he could have pushed past the cities, isolating them (like the Atlantic ports were isolated) and moved into the Saar cutting German coal supplies. And Market Garden wouldn’t have happened.
But Ike played politics very well, and a lot of Americans, Brits, and Poles died as a result.
A standard dose of Coke was 6.5 ounces. Pepsi came in a 10 ounce bottle. So you got a lot more for your nickle (but not the benefit of the cocaine leaves).
That’s pretty much the way I see it too.
Michael Bloomberg's dream come true!
It seems an interesting mix of politics and military strategy that Eisenhower and the Senior Staff was dealing with including who should get the limited supplies - Patton or Monty and the British and Canadians.
Not sure what military strategy apart form politics made it seem like the groups in northeastern France and Belgium should trump the hard-driving Third Army headed straight for Germany and Berlin.
They always intended the drive in the north to be the main event, because their first objective was to take the Ruhr. And they weren’t able to change enough as the circumstances changed.
Interesting. And maybe taking the Ruhr as the first objective made sense at the time because I think it was viewed as easier terrain to get to Berlin. If Patton’s success changed the picture, it seems certainly understandable if that the logistics and support structures couldn’t change on a dime.
In some ways, I think they considered the Ruhr to be more important than Berlin, because it represented the most important war materiel-producing area of Germany.
The Saar was important too, just not nearly as big a prize as the Ruhr.
And don’t forget how badly they needed the port facilities of Artwerp...which, of course, they gained seventy years ago to the day.
Having said all that, I think they should have given Patton more gas.
Oh my yes. ;-)
In that photo she looks a little like the girl I married 44 years ago, but she's much younger:
If I have to explain it to you, then you're probably too young to understand.
Ask me again when your voice begins to change...
;-)
Neutralizing the V1 and V2 rocket bases. British public opinion was demanding it, as a lot of civilians were dying from the inaccurate attacks.
But Ike played politics very well, and a lot of Americans, Brits, and Poles died as a result.
Bummer
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