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.
More from post at link
Thank you, it’s fitting and appropriate that you would post on this thread...
For those of us who are not immediately familiar with it, please elucidate on this scripture from I Kings.
How, one might wonder, if Americans were such poor fighters, did the Continental Army defeat the greatest fighting force on the planet, the British military, to win Independence in the first place? Not to mention the Spanish American War, and numerous other skirmishes prior to the 2 WWs.
Your headline reminded me of the reported male British attitudes toward American fighting men who were stationed in Merry Old England. The Brits complained that our GIs were: “Overpaid, oversexed and over here!”
I always admired HST for his frankness and decisiveness. Most of all, he went back to MO and lived in his wife's family home until he died. He never tried to cash in on being President. He was a common man who did uncommon things. Give'm Hell Harry.
Did you ever read the letter he sent to the WP music critic, Paul Hume, who disparaged his daughter, Margret, about her singing ability.
Hume's comments: "Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality; (she) cannot sing very well; is flat a good deal of the time and; more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years; has not improved in the years we have heard her; (and) still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish."
Truman responded on WH stationery:
Mr. Hume:
I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay."
It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.
Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!
Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.
H.S.T.
Wasn’t the 1903 a knockoff of the K98?
I read in a history book a situation where the USMC was picking off Germans at 1000 yards. The Germans were falling like flies and couldn’t figure out where the rounds were coming from.
Agree on Patton. But I have come to elevate Admiral Nimitz to equal stature. The Battle of Midway broke Japan’s back. Plus he had to deal with that asshole MacArthur just like Patton did with Montgomery.
I’ve still got about 4 inches of global warming in my yard. It was about foot last week.
During World War II, York attempted to re-enlist in the Army,[48][49] however at fifty-four years of age, overweight,[48] near-diabetic,[50] and with evidence of arthritis, he was denied enlistment as a combat soldier. Instead, he was commissioned as a major in the Army Signal Corps[48][50] and he toured training camps and participated in bond drives in support of the war effort, usually paying his own travel expenses. Gen. Matthew Ridgway later recalled that York “created in the minds of farm boys and clerks ... the conviction that an aggressive soldier, well-trained and well-armed, can fight his way out of any situation.” He also raised funds for war-related charities, including the Red Cross. He served on his county draft board, and when literacy requirements forced the rejection of large numbers of Fentress County men, he offered to lead a battalion of illiterates himself, saying they were “crack shots.”[51] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York#After_the_war
Following the Normandy landings, a captured German officer was allowed to watch war materiel coming onto Omaha Beach.
He asked his minder, “Where are all the horses?”
Well, about 3 weeks ago I had a female red wing blackbird at my feeder here in Macomb County.........Way too early for them.
Bet it would have been easier to teach the Fentress County men to read than to teach them to fire a rifle accurately at distance.
After all, putting dinner on the table was a more valuable skill in the hills of eastern Tennessee, than reading and comprehending the works of Shakespeare.
Priorities.
LOL.
5.56mm
For those of us who are not immediately familiar with it, please elucidate on this scripture from I Kings.
Well, And Ben–hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben–hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. (1 Kings 20:1-3)
The king of Israel, Ahab - a evil man himself - replied that he would give Ben–hadad what he had asked for. In response to this concession, Ben–hadad asserted that his servants would also loot Ahab's house and the houses of his servants and take whatsoever is pleasant in his eyes.
At this Ahab consulted with the elders and the people of Israel who said unto him, "Hearken not unto him, nor consent."
In response "Ben–hadad sent unto him, and said, The gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me."
Which brings us to the answer of Ahab to this boasting, "Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off."
Ben–hadad heard this while "drinking himself drunk in the pavilions," and mobilized his army, meanwhile "behold, there came a prophet unto Ahab king of Israel, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord." (1 Kings 20:13)
And they slew every one his man: and the Syrians fled; and Israel pursued them: and Ben–hadad the king of Syria escaped on an horse with the horsemen. And the king of Israel went out, and smote the horses and chariots, and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter. (1 Kings 20:20-21)
More battles followed resulting in like slaughter, yet Ahab spared the life of Ben–hadad, and made a covenant with him and sent him away. But God had commanded Ahab to not let him live and which disobedience brought judgment upon him and his people overall.
And Ahab's death later took place by the hand of the Syrians, yet he deserved it anyway , as a evil man himself ("Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him:" (1 Kings 16:30) ruling over an iniquitous people was worthy of damnation anyway, even though they were shown grace and were used of God to defeat another wicked king and people.
But my citation was as a warning against presumption and over confidence. Even the best teams in a league can lose to the last place team when they become like that, and when God is on your side, or rather when you are on God's side, then you are a winner.
Another answer on that Quora pages states,
I have read literally hundreds of German prisoner accounts of their encounter with Americans. A stunningly high percentage of these intelligence interrogations mention a single factor that seems to have overwhelmingly struck the Germans —- the Americans brought NO horses or mules. The lack of pack animals and horse-drawn wagons was significant enough that most German prisoners mentioned it as a factor in their decision to surrender.
In fact, Rommel had spent an inordinate amount of effort and money in strengthening the Atlantic Wall to see to it that American horses and mules would not be able to find forage and that all fodder was well behind the Wall, but close enough to feed the thousands of mules and horses upon which the Nazi war machine relied. The Nazis spent a larger portion of their military budget on horses than tanks!
German soldiers immediately realized that the Allies brought no horses! That meant that the Allies could produce jeeps and gasoline faster and cheaper than Germans could produce horses and hay. For a common infantryman, this was apparently a huge and woeful epiphany that is almost never mentioned. On the other hand, I never saw the lack of Allied horses and mules even mentioned once in higher level reports of the day. - https://www.quora.com/What-offended-the-German-military-when-the-American-military-came-to-Germany/answer/R-W-Carmichael
I don’t think any of the European powers had a good concept of the manufacturing strength of the US. The Japanese may have had an inkling given how many of their military men studied here (including Yamamoto).
Indeed! Plus the kind of character that such a life required. Compare that today to what we see in the sphere of college education. Could we fight WW1 or 2 on its terms today? I consider myself to be quite spoiled.
Yes. And Mauser was paid for the theft of their design.
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