[maestro]

.....He ran wild in Sicily and entered Messina ahead of Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery.

He was "Monty's" favorite guy?

/sarcasm

[Empireoftheatom48]

He was a real Hero not like John F'n Kerry!

[sharktrager]

Actually, the Patton/Montgomery feud is myth. They weren't friends, but they were not the bitter rivals portrayed in the film. They actually had as much respect for one another as 2 men with egos that large could.

The producers of the film needed a foil for Patton, and Montgomery was an obvious choice.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Actually Monty liked Patton very much and considered him to be the U.S. Army's most professional soldier.

Patton on the other hand somehow got off on the wrong foot with Monty and always considered him too much the Prima Donna, of course Patton was one to.

I was able to get a very different picture of Patton by reading the bio by Carlo D'Este, "A Genius For War" and "Monty", three volume bio on Montgomery by Nigel Hamilton.

One very interesting thing I found out was that Monty took the original planning of D-Day and redid it and made it work. D-Day owes a lot of it's great success to Monty's planning and great skill as a tactical field commander.

The other great credit for D-Day's success should go to Monty's boss, Field Marshall Alan Brooke, one of the great strategists of the war.