Andy Rooney says George Patton had little to do with winning war in Europe!

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/ | 12/1/02 | sonofatpatcher2

[sonofatpatcher2]

Was just channel surfing and caught Andy Rooney on a late nigth repeat of Larry King Weekend as he said that George Patton has little to do with the liberation of France and defeat of Nazi Germany!

He then went into a ramble about Omar Bradley being the commander of Third Army...

[Stavka2]

Read: 48 hours to Hammelburg...where Patten sent off a force of 400 men and armor south to free a prisoner of war camp where his son-in-law, a Maj Green, was being held. They only had to go through 1 regular infantry division, 1 reserve infantry division (to include female soldiers), an SS cadet battalion, a Combat Engineers brigade and various garrisons. They actually made it to the camp...some 100 km away...but it ended in the predictable manner....especially after spotter planes saw that they were not the armored thrust of a greater force. Granted, Patten did want to send a 4,000 man force but Eisenhower talked him down to 400...but the 4,000 would probably have faired about as well.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

The German generals would beg to differ with Rooney. Interviewed after the war, they rated Patton as the best general they faced, ahead of Bradley, Zhukov, or Montgomery.

[The Other Harry]

Read: 48 hours to Hammelburg...

Will do. I have some other things I need to order from Amazon, so I'll add that to the list. Thanks!

[Stavka2]

It was an old paper back that I bought in a used book store...dated from the 60's or early 70's I believe...good luck if you can find it, hopefully it's still in print. Unfortunetly my copy got gone when I loaned it (why I hate loaning my books) and I pcsed.

[RightOnline]

What you say is true, and Patton himself would grudgingly agree.........but what Roonie also fails to point out is the "fear factor". The Germans feared Patton, and it's like a defensive coordinator dealing with the league's leading running back. You suck up a lot of additional resources double- or triple-teaming the guy to keep him from scoring.

In turn, that fear freed up a lot of American and other Allied resources to move faster eastward. Even with all of the amazing accomplishments by Patton's 3rd, I personally think this was his/their greatest accomplishment.

[mdmathis6]

I don't know how you guage importance, if any of the pieces the allies were putting in place to defeat Germany had failed, we would have lost the war or had it pro-longed needless ly. It was as important for Patton do be where he was as it was for the USSR to do what it was doing. Both forces were important.

[mdmathis6]

So they were captured? Defeated? what?

[TomB]

I saw Rooney on a cable show about Patton once spweing the same garbage. But the funny part was that, as he was going on about what a lousy General Patton was and how his men hated hem, they intertwined interviews of men who served under Patton who all said how much they respected him and would have followed him anywhere.

Needless to say, Rooney came off looking like a putz.

[Valin]

An interesting account comes up of 3 koreans captured by US forces. These intrepid adventurers were in the Korean army when the Japanese annexed Korea. They surrendered to the Japanese. When in the 30's Japan was fighting with the Soviets, they were forced into the Japanese army...where they surrendered to the Soviets...who forced them to fight in Barbarosa...where they...you guessed it...surrendered to the Germans....to find themselves in US hands and be returned to Korea in time for the Korean War....got to love that.

There has GOT to be a book in there somewhere.

[Grut]

...to find themselves in US hands and be returned to Korea in time for the Korean War....got to love that.

If I were one of them, I think I could manage not to.

[MinuteGal]

Rooney is a whine and quiche liberal, one of the last of the aging media leftists who despise and disparage the things General Patton epitomized (rightly or wrongly)......toughness, duty, masculinity, winning wars, patriotism, leadership, tough talk. War generals are not the favorite heroes of the left and never will be.

Leni

[Stavka2]

I don't quite remember what book I got the account out of...but it was for a report I had to do as a 2nd Lt on a staff ride to Normandy.

[Stavka2]

The Korean guys? Well, once returned to Korea, they were not kept track of.

[jimtorr]

Kinda' like the riddle, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears, does it make a sound...?

I kinda like Gary Larson's (Far Side) variant: If a tree falls in the forest and kills a lawyer, does anybody care?

All right, all right,.......Larson used mime instead of lawyer, but I knew what he really meant.

[johnny7]

Rooney is one of the old FDR democrats that is still hanging on. Mike Wallace is also.

Their minds are befuddled and have been on TV so long they have illusions of grandeur.

CBS seems to hang on to a lot of these dem old farts.

[Grampa Dave]

Amen re the FDR lovers who are still alive:

Rooney is one of the old FDR democrats that is still hanging on. Mike Wallace is also.

Their minds are befuddled and have been on TV so long they have illusions of grandeur.

[Valin]

It just struck me as a great tale. Unfortunatly these three guys are probably dead by now.

[Stavka2]

Yeah, it would be an interesting insight on four of the major WW2 armies and that of Korea...to bad...who knows, maybe one of them published a book...if they survived the Korean war.

[IronJack]

Bradley worked for Patton in Sicily, but was his commander in Europe. And George Patton's pet terrier did more to win the war than Andy Rooney.

[Dduckdr]

Andy Rooney stated, in his 60-second segment of 60-Minutes, that the Branch Dividians were a bunch of kooks and deserved what they got. That comment defined Andy Rooney.