I agree with most of your list. You included Truscott and Nimitz, whom I omitted through oversight and not through disagreement. Same with Kesselring; I should have included “Smiling Albert” because of his versatility. He was brought up as an artillery officer, switched to the Luftwaffe where he rose to command, and then fought in Italy more or less commanding ground troops.
You included Wainwright, and I don’t strongly disagree, but I still don’t consider him a top commander. Showing a strength of character in “Kobayshi Maru” scenario doesn’t make you great.
While I’ve been a fan of TR as president, I don’t think his son was that great in comparison to other luminaries in WW2.
Guderian was deliberately omitted from my list, and I was ambivalent about him. In France, he carried out Manstein’s plan under von Kleist’s direction. In Russia, he was apt to run off without his infantry support. Sacked in December, he was not heard from again until made director of armored forces in 1943. While he was able to rebuild the panzer arm in time for Kursk, much of his accomplishments were as much due to the production streamlining of Speer. As one of the last Chiefs of OKH, his performance was uneven, although by then he didn’t have much to work with. I thought there were other, better German generals. For much the same reasons I left Rommel off my list, I omitted Guderian. Guderian just got better ink than many of his contemporaries.
Wainwright makes my list based more on character and commitment to his men. These are traits that often are ignored when measuring a leader. It is a shame that he did not get to perform in a better set of circumstances that may have showcased his command ability, but at the same time he also had the character to not attack the man (MacArthur) who put him in that situation and even tried to tear him down when he came up for his Medal of Honor citation. He even went so far to forgive MacArthur and remained friends with him after the fact.
His leadership did not stop once he was captured though and though I didn’t write much on this it was on my mind when putting him on this list. Throughout his imprisonment by the Japanese he was regarded very highly by the men who naturally fell under his command in the Prisoner of War camps. In these camps he fell under the same treatment as the other men, but still put himself at risk to confer with his Japanese captors (as the senior officer) to try and get improved conditions for his men.
I see your point on Guderian, and I agree that he did get good press. But I am impressed with how he understood the logistical needs of running these highly mobile forces and how he improvised to work around some of these short comings despite the fact. Even with all his efforts he still had nightmarish issues keeping his forces in supply, especially fuel.
TR along with the likes of Allen were a different sort of general. They really were in the dirt types that made them unpopular with Bradley (possibly to their detriment). He would not been a successful Army commander and his fatal heart attack after Normandy ultimately cut him short before he got the chance, but on the division level he was excellent in my opinion. It really boils down to rolls again I guess. Some of these leaders just were in the right position for their skill set that moves them up on my list. I suppose if Fredendall had been left to training troops, which he was excellent at, and not put in command of sending them to fight he would not have made my worst list for that matter too.
There are others that I really would have liked to add, but you can see how long this gets anyways. Neither of us list Devers or Patch. I almost put Simpson in instead of Wainwright in all honesty. Then there are those like Fletcher, Spruance, and Turner who would rank, and Halsey who would probably make both lists. And as for the Germans, I think Moltke’s perfection of establishing general staff laid the ground work for some very effective generals for generations to come. It is almost easier to list the ones who were not top commanders than to pick a few as the best of the best.
Just wait until I get my worst list up. I have a couple on there that I’m sure are going to ruffle some feathers, one of them I’m betting you can guess.