Posted on 12/19/2010 12:17:44 PM PST by ConservativeStatement
Sixty-five years ago this month, Gen. George S. Patton Jr., hero of World War II and an outspoken critic of the Soviets, was en route to a Sunday hunting trip, a day before permanently leaving Europe, when he was critically injured in a vehicle accident on a deserted two lane highway near Mannheim, Germany.
A large US army truck that Patton’s driver later said was waiting for them, suddenly — and without signaling — abruptly turned into his limousine’s path, causing a head-on crash. Even though Patton had an aide with him and the driver of the truck had one or two passengers in the cab, no one but Patton was hurt. He suffered a paralyzing broken neck.
Despite it being early on a no-work day, a horde of military personnel, including a brigadier general, quickly arrived at the scene. And although there were facilities in Mannheim, he was taken to a hospital 20 miles away where, when he arrived, the prognosis was bad. They expected him to die.
But the tough general, vowing to go home and tell “block-busting secrets,” rallied. And in a little over a week he was fit enough to be readied for a grueling trans-Atlantic flight home. On the eve of that flight, he had a sudden relapse. Blood embolisms choked his breathing. Within 24 hours he was dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Sounds like you’ve been to Greenfield Village. Seems to me that they also have Washington’s camp cot, the Wright bros bicycle shop, Edisons Menlo park lab and lord knows a lot of other historical artifacts. I believe the Kennedy assasination car is in the Henry Ford museum now.
I haven’t been over there for years but it seems like the automotive history museum had some interesting things in it. One that stuck with me was a Trans Am station wagon concept car.
Ever read the account of Rasputin's assassination(s)?
Please excuse this OT diversion, but your comment about Hamid Karzai piqued my curiosity. If you really have met him (and if I’m not missing a subtle joke on your part... /g), does he, in your opinion, deserve the bad press and criticism he’s getting.
I’ve posted in previous discussions about seeing a Military Channel program in early 2002 showing Karzai fighting alongside our SpecOps guys and providing invaluable liaison and intelligence services as they were rooting al Quaida and the Taliban out of Afghanistan in the wake of 9-11.
My impression has always been he’s getting a bum rap and has been set up as a fall guy by our side. Any opinions?
The Thing that Wouldn't Die. Stabbed, repeatedly shot, poisoned, clubbed. Finally drowned when they bound him and chucked him in a river with all that damage- and even that almost wasn't enough, he managed to get free of his bonds. I think I read that he got trapped under the ice.
You can't help meeting a guy like that.
Yes, he gets an unfairly bad press ~ that's due to the fact he's been killing commies since the beginning of time. You can't expect the fruitcakes at the WashPost or NYT or their friends to deal fairly with the man.
Remember, they relocated all their industry some 800 miles to the East. Indianapolis, Louisville and Detroit were the major centers of war materiel and canned spam shipped to the Eastern front. These were deep inland cities selected for the most serious of war-making capacity ~ and all you had to do was look at what was happening to the Russian territories "deep inland" to see what was up.
The folks designing and commanding the war were not at all confident that we were going to win.
>> Ever read the account of Rasputin’s assassination(s)?
Hasn’t everyone? They weren’t professionals. If I were the hitman responsible for Patton surviving an “accident” like that, I’d be so mortified I’d hang up my piano wire and retire. Open a bait and tackle somewhere on the lower Rhine.
The Mysterious Death of George Patton
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1622901/posts
General Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2152563/posts
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General Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2152105/posts
Lincoln's Salem courthouse, stone cottages from the Cotswolds, Luther Burbank's greenhouse (Burbank, Edison, and Harvey Firestone were all friends whom Ford idolized); and so on and so on!
Something well worth a visit to the detroit area.
It was a pretty common field trip destination for my school when I was a kid.
ping....
George Washington has reincarnated as John Huntsman, Sr.
Thomas Paine has reincarnated as Glenn Beck.
Of course not. But to think that we “lost China” makes about as much sense as the thought that the United States “lost France” to Nazi Germany in 1940.
Not exactly. What you say is true overall. But a new study came out about two years ago showing that at the battle of Moscow (41-42) the OVERWHELMING number of tanks were either Shermans or British tanks, and 85% of their heavy tanks were Brit. We made, or designed, Soviet aircraft engines until 1945; we made all their radio wire; we made a lot of their radios; and it was the shipping through the Arctic ports (thanks Henry Kaiser) that kept the USSR afloat (no pun intended) at all. Moreover, new studies on US/Brit intelligence show that the Russkis won key tactical showdowns because of what we were feeding them. Oh, and the T-34 was based on an American design.
Big difference. The Japanese had no more fighters. But to cross Europe to Moscow??? Fuggedabout it. We would have encountered hordes of Soviet planes the whole way-—and remember, the weight of the Bomb was so great that I don’t think you could carry more than one per plane, meaning every plane that went down was a complete loss to our nuke arsenal. Then there were the duds. As late as the 1970s, a full 15% of our rockets and bombs failed (this is actually pretty low). But still, take a 100 plane raid, spruce it up with 100 decoys, then siphon out 15% duds, then apply Soviet air defenses . . . .? Nope, wouldn’t be sufficient to even make a dent in Soviet ground capabilities.
And let me again refer you to THE book on the subject by Col Harry Borowski, “Hollow Threat.”
OMG, I forgot about that. Along with the LawnDart Pinto, who could miss it?
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