Posted on 12/29/2014 4:41:16 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Can hardly wait.
Page 3, bottom right:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28: The United States, in angry helplessness, is preparing to protest the shooting of American soldiers captured by the Germans during their forward rush into Belgium. The State Department is gathering from the War Department evidence that will form the basis of the protest.
***
To whom, one wonders, will they address this protest ... and why bother? Surely there are more useful things for the clerks of the State and War Departments to do.
Such nice placement of prepositional phrases! You can tell the writer learned in school to diagram his sentences.
The diplomats of warring states would still enter protests against each other through neutral intermediaries. It was kind of a way of saying “We know what you’re doing, knock it off or we officially retaliate in kind.”
Of course, I strongly suspect that “unofficial retaliation” is taking place on the battlefield anyway.
“Do not bother to answer this.”
You’d have to think Ike’s first thought was “Then why bother sending it?”
That last line basically says “I’m just doing this because I’m a dick.”
I don’t think the U.S. would ever, officially, tell the front-line soldiers to kill prisoners.
“Don’t kill the prisoners.”
Wink wink
Nudge nudge
Yeah, like that.
Thanks for posting the Ike-Monty letters. Looks like they weren't declassified until 1967. Monty's arrogance really knew no bounds.
His demands were especially ironic given it was his insistence on Market-Garden and failure to clear the Scheldt that led directly to this disaster.
Apparently, there were several articles in London newspapers clamoring for Monty to be made ground force commander. That precipitated Marshall’s cable to Ike, telling him to stand his ground. They would be interesting to read.
"Very Well...Confuse the...Cat!"
We can laugh from the distance of years, which is fine, but the fact is arrogant self-centered leaders cost real lives in war.
If only some of these people were half as smart as they thought they were ...
Also, per the Wiki page on Montgomery:
In the 1998 documentary Live At Aspen during the US Comedy Arts Festival, the British comedy troupe Monty Python explained how they came up with their name, saying that the name Monty "... made us laugh because Monty to us means Lord Montgomery, our great general of the Second World War".
Weapons-grade deadpan sarcasm from Ike. Reminds me of my mother.
http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/ardennes_battle_bulge.html
Good source here.
It was 60,000 times more effective than Britain's great pre-war joke.
Yes, Britain's "Great Pre-war joke" cost millions of lives. But I still laugh at it.
“Please read this document carefully...”
Monty’s letter to Ike:
Ike’s reply to Monty:
Aha!
General Anthony C. McAuliffe Recounting The German Demand To Surrender Bastogne, 12/29/1944 (December 29, 1944)
https://archive.org/details/GeneralAnthonyCMcAuliffe
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