Posted on 03/07/2019 10:41:21 AM PST by daniel1212
Well, they didn’t think the Americans could fight, given they were a nation of immigrants, farmers, and store clerks with no military tradition. They were proven wrong at Cantigny, Château-Thierry, and Belleau Wood. The Americans were green as grass, but they kept on fighting until they won. It was one of the things that shocked the German army and damaged their morale in 1918.
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Amazing how well George C. Scott resembled the man. Love that movie. Try finding it. There was a DVD made of it once, but it wouldn’t load (bought it at Costco).
I’ve read two biographies, and his autobiography. Incredible, and very, very prescient.
My daughter is doing our genealogy. She found out that we are related to both George S. Patton and the man who played him on the big screen, George C. Scott.
“I would have the Berlin police department arrest them.”
This actually goes back to Bismark, who originally said it of the British army.
Patton was a young tank commander in France in WW1 and was wounded in action.
Back in the late 1960s to late 1970s, USMC Rifle Ranges started at 200 yards. 10 rounds Standing Slow Fire, then 10 rounds Standing to Sitting Rapid Fire (5 rounds per magazine). Target is a 12” Bulls-eye - 5 points
Move back to 300 yards. Again a 12” bull. Slow Fire -5 rounds Kneeling, 5 rounds Sitting. Rapid Fide - 10 rounds Standing to Prone.
Finally, at 500 yards, 10 rounds Prone Slow Fire at a 20” Bull. Once the Corps transitioned from the M-14 7.62 to the M-16 5.56, the 20” Bulls-eye became a 20” wide Silhouette.
One Marine recruit in my platoon shot a 241 of a possible 250, dropping 3 points at each of the Slow Fire positions.
The Marine Corps thinks quite highly of marksmanship.
Uncanny.
One of the best movies ever made. Every time I got discouraged by life, I used to watch that movie.
The movie about Churchill, with Oldman playing Churchill will also someday be a classic. I’m shocked in this day and age it was ever made.
There there was Alvin..
York was drafted into the United States Army and served in Company G, 328th Infantry, 82d Division, at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Deeply troubled by the conflict between his pacifism and his training for war, he spoke at length with his company commander, Captain Edward Courtney Bullock Danforth (1894–1974) of Augusta, Georgia, and his battalion commander, Major G. Edward Buxton of Providence, Rhode Island, a devout Christian himself. Biblical passages about violence (”He that hath no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one.” “Render unto Caesar ...” “... if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.”) cited by Danforth persuaded York to reconsider the morality of his participation in the war. Granted a 10-day leave to visit home, he returned convinced that God meant for him to fight and would keep him safe, as committed to his new mission as he had been to pacifism.[15][17] He served with his division in the St Mihiel Offensive.
Medal of Honor action
In an October 8, 1918 attack that occurred during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, York’s battalion aimed to capture German positions near Hill 223 (49.28558°N 4.95242°E) along the Decauville rail-line north of Chatel-Chéhéry, France. His actions that day earned him the Medal of Honor.[18] He later recalled:
The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. They just stopped us dead in our tracks. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn’t tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from ... And I’m telling you they were shooting straight. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home. Our attack just faded out ... And there we were, lying down, about halfway across [the valley] and those German machine guns and big shells getting us hard.[19]
Under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early, four non-commissioned officers, including recently promoted Corporal York,[20] and thirteen privates were ordered to infiltrate the German lines to take out the machine guns. The group worked their way behind the Germans and overran the headquarters of a German unit, capturing a large group of German soldiers who were preparing a counter-attack against the U.S. troops. Early’s men were contending with the prisoners when German machine gun fire suddenly peppered the area, killing six Americans[21] and wounding three others.[22] The loss of the nine killed and wounded put York in charge of the seven remaining U.S. soldiers.[23] As his men remained under cover, guarding the prisoners, York worked his way into position to silence the German machine guns. York recalled:
And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn’t have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush... As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I was sharp shooting... All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn’t want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had.[24]
Sgt. Alvin C. York, 327th Inf., 82nd Div., Attack made from Hill 223 - N. of Chatel-Chéhéry, Argonne Forest, near Corny, Ardennes, France, Oct. 8th, 1918.
During the assault, six German soldiers in a trench near York charged him with fixed bayonets. York had fired all the rounds in his M1917 Enfield rifle,[25] but drew his M1911 semi-automatic pistol[26] and shot all six soldiers before they could reach him.[27]
Imperial German Army First Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer, commanding the 120th Reserve Infantry Regiment’s 1st battalion, emptied his pistol trying to kill York while he was contending with the machine guns. Failing to injure York, and seeing his mounting losses, he offered in English to surrender the unit to York, who accepted.[28]
By the end of the engagement, York and his seven men marched 132 German prisoners back to the American lines. Upon returning to his unit, York reported to his brigade commander, Brigadier General Julian Robert Lindsey, who remarked: “Well York, I hear you have captured the whole damn German army.” York replied: “No sir. I got only 132.”
York’s actions silenced the German machine guns and were responsible for enabling the 328th Infantry, 82d Division, to renew its attack to capture the Decauville Railroad.[29]
Post-battle
Sergeant Alvin C. York at the hill where his actions earned him the Medal of Honor (February 7, 1919)
York was promptly promoted to sergeant and received the Distinguished Service Cross. A few months later, an investigation by York’s chain of command resulted in an upgrade of his Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor, which was presented by the commanding general of the American Expeditionary Forces, General John J. Pershing. The French Republic awarded him the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille Militaire and the Legion of Honour. When decorating York with the Croix de Guerre, Marshal Ferdinand Foch told him “What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any soldier of all the armies of Europe.”
In addition to his French medals, Italy awarded York the Croce al Merito di Guerra and Montenegro decorated him with its War Medal.[30][2] He eventually received nearly 50 decorations.[2] York’s Medal of Honor citation reads:[31]
After his platoon suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.
In attempting to explain his actions during the 1919 investigation that resulted in the Medal of Honor, York told General Lindsey “A higher power than man guided and watched over me and told me what to do.” Lindsey replied “York, you are right.”[32] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York#Medal_of_Honor_action
“Father would do his hunting every day, and if he had any blacksmith work he had to catch up with he would do that of a night. He was a good shot. He loved shooting very much, and always won every match. His advice was always to be accurate in shooting. He would always advise me to take more time and study this more. I grew up with him, hunted with him and worked in the blacksmith shop with him.
I read about Frank and Jesse James. I thought if Frank and Jesse could be crack shots I could too. I used to gallop my horse around a tree with a revolver and muss up that tree right smart. And I got tolerably accurate, too.
March 1918-That first Army rifle they issued me was all full of grease. Of course I didn’t like that. The rifles we used in the mountains were always kept clean. They were muzzle-loading rifles, cap and ball.
They make their own guns there in the mountains.
They are the most accurate guns in the world, up to 100 or 150 yards.
I would rather have had a clean army rifle than a muzzle loader for what we were going to use them for, on account of the repeating shots, but they are not any more accurate than the muzzle-loading rifles.
The Greeks and Italians came out on the shooting range and the boys from the big cities. They hadn’t been used to handling guns.
And sometimes at 100 yards they would not only miss the targets, they would even miss the hills on which the targets were placed.
In our shooting matches at home we shot at a turkey’s head. We tied the turkey behind a log, and every time it bobbed up its head we let fly with those old muzzle loaders of ours. We paid ten cents a shot and if we hit the turkey’s head we got to keep the whole turkey. This way we learn to shoot from about sixty yards. Or we would tie the turkey out in the open at 150 yards, and if you hit it above the knee or below the gills you got it. I think we had just about the best shots that ever squinted down a barrel. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett used to shoot at these matches long ago. And Andrew Jackson used to recruit his Tennessee sharpshooters from among our mountain shooters. We used to call our most famous matches “beeves.” We would make up a beef, that is, we would drive up a beef and then each pay, say a dollar until we had made up the value of the beast. The owner got this money. And we were each allowed so many shots. The best shot got the choice of the hind quarters, the second best the other hind quarter, the third the choice of the fore quarters, the fourth the other fore quarters, and the fifth the hide and tallow. Our matches were held in an opening in the forest, and the shooters would come in from all over the mountains, and there would be a great time. We would shoot at a mark crisscrossed on a tree. The distance was twenty-six yards off hand or forty yards prone with a rest. You had to hit that cross if you ever hoped to get all of that meat. Some of our mountaineers were such wonderful shots that they would win all five prizes and drive the beef home alive on the hoof. Shooting at squirrels is good, but busting a turkey at 150 yards—ho ho. So the army shooting was tolerably easy for me.”
http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.Vignettes/The.Diary.of.Alvin.York.html
Germany forgot the Bible:
And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. (1 Kings 20:11)
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
“They were pretty vexed that we didn’t run away when they started shooting at us.’
The Democrats hate conservatives for the same reason.
______________________________________________________________________________________
The Democrats may hate Conservatives for the same reason , but the Deep State GOPe, who are all notorious cowards, not so much.
True but Patton also fought in WW1 as well in the Tank Corp...
I have been reading about WW2. The Brits were aware of the manufacturing power of the US. But when we started beating the Japanese in 1942 and were sending bombers over, they were astonished. They couldn’t figure out how we were beating the Japanese when all the aircraft and ships were seemingly heading to Europe/Africa/Russia. Especially when we wouldn’t stop the U-boats operating off our coast.
Seems like many European armies (probably including the Germans) emphasized use of the bayonet over actual riflery up to World War 1.
Another famous American shooter in WW1 (not York) wrote that he had tried target shooting with several French rifles, and could not get acceptable results from any of them, no matter how new. His comment was that “their rifles seemed more or less just something to put a bayonet on”.
Despite attempts by the men to intimidate him into quitting, Truman succeeded by making his corporals and sergeants accountable for discipline; he promised to back them up if they performed capably, and reduce them to private and return them to the ranks if they did not. In an event memorialized in battery lore as "The Battle of Who Run", his soldiers began to flee during a sudden night attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains; Truman succeeded at ordering his men to stay and fight, using profanity from his railroad days. The men were so surprised to hear Truman use such language that they immediately obeyed.
Truman's unit joined in a massive prearranged assault barrage on September 26, 1918, at the opening of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. They advanced with difficulty over pitted terrain to follow the infantry, and they set up an observation post west of Cheppy. On September 27, Truman saw through his binoculars an enemy artillery battery setting up across a river in a position allowing them to fire upon the neighboring 28th Division. Truman's orders limited him to targets facing the 35th Division, but he ignored this and patiently waited until the Germans had walked their horses well away from their guns, ensuring they could not relocate out of range of Truman's battery. He then ordered his men to open fire, and their attack destroyed the enemy battery.
His actions were credited with saving the lives of 28th Division soldiers who otherwise would have come under fire from the Germans. Truman was given a dressing down by his regimental commander, Colonel Karl D. Klemm, who threatened to convene a court-martial, but Klemm never followed through, and Truman was not punished.
In other action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Truman's battery provided support for George S. Patton's tank brigade, and fired some of the last shots of the war on November 11, 1918. Battery D did not lose any men while under Truman's command in France. To show their appreciation of his leadership, his men presented him with a large loving cup upon their return to the United States after the war.
Yea but it still requires binoculars......I'm just hoping the temps get above freezing...We've been lucky tho, not too much snow.
Can’t thank you enough for that. He’s one of my favorite Presidents.
Gary Cooper made perhaps a more convincing Sergeant Alvin York than Alvin York his own self - after having met The Real Alvin York and learned his personality, speech and mannerisms, of course...
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