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Posted on 02/22/2005 10:06:56 PM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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General George S. Patton was a flamboyant commander who was not content to wait on the sidelines. So when the plans for the Allied conquest of the island of Sicily called for a British army to capture the key port of Messina, Patton decided he would get there first.  Patton at Messina, Life 1943/8/17 Inside Seventh Army headquarters on the southern coast of Sicily, a scowling Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., greeted Lieutenant General Omar Bradley with bad news. "We've received a directive from Army Group, Brad," Patton said between puffs on a cigar. "Monty's to get the Vizzini-Caltagirone road in his drive to flank Catania and Mount Etna by going up through Enna. This means you'll have to side-slip to the west with your 45th Division." "My God," Bradley replied angrily, "you can't allow him to do that!" But Patton had nothing else to say on the subject. "Sorry Brad," he said evenly, "but the changeover takes place immediately. Monty wants the road right away." To Patton, Bradley, and just about every other senior United States Army officer, British General Sir Bernard Montgomery got his way entirely too often. This time, just four days into Operation HUSKY (the code name for the Allied Invasion of Sicily), Montgomery had convinced 15th Army Group Commander General Sir Harold Alexander to grant his Eighth Army exclusive use of a highway previously promised to the Americans. Patton and Bradley considered the decision an insult to American military prestige.  Gen. Terry Allen's "Big Red One" lands at Gela July 10, 1943 On July 10, 1943, Allied ships had deposited Patton's Seventh U.S. Army on the beaches along the Gulf of Gela, on Sicily's southwest coast. Montgomery's British Eighth Army went ashore to the east, south of Syracuse. The Allies targeted the city of Messina, at the northeast tip of the triangular island. Capturing Sicily would eliminate persistent Axis attacks on nearby Mediterranean supply routes, and if Messina could be taken quickly, the invaders would snare thousands of Axis prisoners and gain a convenient jump-off spot for the upcoming invasion of Italy. By July 13, Bradley's II Corps had advanced inland to within 1,000 yards of the Vizzini-Caltagirone road (Route 124)--a major transport route that cut east to west across the center of the island. Meanwhile, dug-in German troops had blunted Montgomery's advance up the island's east coast, hemming Eighth Army in on the plain of Catania between towering Mount Etna and the sea. In a sudden change of plan, Montgomery decided to send a flanking force west around Etna. To do so he needed Route 124, and Alexander, who had overall command of HUSKY's ground forces, gave it to him. The Americans, one of Patton's frustrated staff officers said, were left to "sit comfortably on our prats while Montgomery finishes the goddam war!"  Sicily invasion map from Newsweek 1943/09/06 The British generals thought little of American fighting ability. In February, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps had thrust across the hot sands of North Africa and smashed through inexperienced and poorly led U.S. troops at Tunisia's Kasserine Pass. The unfortunate performance of the young Americans--many of whom had never before seen battle--distressed the British commanders. Alexander declared, "they lack the will to fight." Montgomery believed "they have no confidence in their Generals." In the wake of the disaster at Kasserine Pass, the Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, sent Patton to Tunisia to take over U.S. II Corps. Patton quickly injected discipline and his fighting spirit into the corps and led it to victories at Gafsa and El Guettar. In mid-April as the Tunisian Campaign neared its end, Patton left the corps in Bradley's hands and returned to French Morocco to take part in planning for the Sicily operation.  General Sir Harold Alexander Despite the Americans' improvement on the battlefield, Alexander and Montgomery remained unimpressed. For their part, Patton and many of his colleagues resented British impertinence, especially on the part of Montgomery. Arrogant, self-centered, and pushy, the 56-year-old general in the natty black beret irked his colleagues with outlandish statements and demands. In many ways he was not unlike Patton. At the age of 58, Patton was deeply religious, swashbuckling, "human dynamo" who strutted around in a polished steel helmet with a pair of ivory-handled revolvers strapped to his waist. "His vigor was always infectious, his wit barbed, his conversation a mixture of obscenity and good humor," Bradley wrote. "He was at once stimulating and overbearing. George was a magnificent soldier." By the time he waded ashore on Sicily, Patton's antipathy toward his British counterparts had also come to affect his relationship with his boss, Eisenhower. Patton's long-time friend had the difficult job of holding together the young Anglo-American alliance. But Patton felt that American interests and honor too often took a back seat to British demands. "God damn all British and all so-called Americans who have their legs pulled by them," Patton wrote in his diary in Tunisia. "Ike is more British than the British and is putty in their hands . . . ." For the first invasion of the Axis' home turf, Patton commanded the new Seventh U.S. Army, including Bradley's II Corps. Patton welcomed the chance to assert U.S. military might. Initially scheduled to land on the island's northern coast and capture Sicily's capital Palermo, American troops expected to go on the offensive in Sicily. But Montgomery favored a less dispersed landing to the south and in the end, his plan won out. Patton still expected Seventh Army to make its mark. But to Alexander, it was clear that "Eighth Army would have the glory of capturing the more obviously attractive objectives of Syracuse, Catania, and Messina . . . ."  Messina and view of distant Itlay, ILN 1943/09/11 From the outset Eighth Army strategy left little room for Patton to operate, and Montgomery essentially imposed his will on Alexander. Montgomery reasoned that if the Americans could simply "hold firm against any action from the west I could then swing hard with my right with an easier mind. If they draw enemy attacks on them my swing north will cut off enemy completely." Two days later, Alexander transferred use of Highway 124 to Montgomery. "They gave us the future plan of operations," Patton wrote bitterly, "which cuts us off from any possibility of taking Messina."
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Hi Sam.
Not if I get to them first!
Morning tomball.
There's a video clip of that available too. Awesome!
Snippy and a Scrub Jay fight over a peanut. ;-)
Hiya WN. How's the knee today?
The Way of a Jay
How a Scrub-Jay came to feed from our hands
The first wild bird who trusted me was a Western Scrub-Jay, a California relative of the Blue Jays who live in the eastern half of the USA.
Every morning I used to put out peanuts in the shell on the porch railing. A Western Scrub-Jay often came, but never when my husband and I were outside. From indoors we watched it rush the railing, hardly touching down a foot, and dash with a peanut to the tall hedge at the back of our yard.
Little by little the jay got used to us, and one evening it sailed on spread wings to the railing while I was on the porch. It froze for a moment looking at me, seized the peanut, and was gone.
Next morning I made a trail of peanuts along the railing, ending an arm's length from where I settled down in my chair, with the leftover peanuts piled beside me on the railing.
From the tall hedge, the jay swooped to the railing, landing at the far end of the peanut trail. Motionless, it eyed me. It cawed, letting out a puff of steam from its black beak.
The jay cocked its head, looking in staccato jerks along the line of peanuts. Disregarding my carefully contrived trail, the bird bounded toward me until it arrived at the pile by my side. It picked up a peanut and then, carrying the nut in its bill, it shrieked as if with triumph all the way to the hedge.
Why the bird approached so close I could only guess. I suppose the heap of food must have seemed a richer prize than the single peanuts along the railing.
Having once demonstrated such boldness, the jay again became chary. It approached my offerings in a dance of apprehension, hopping sidewise toward a peanut, pausing to glare at me or flash away in alarm.
Yet within a few days, the bird accepted a peanut from my hand.
The jay seemed to regard this breakthrough with as much elation as I did. It came back immediately for another peanut and then took twenty in succession. The bird carried each to the lawn and hammered it through the tough matted grass with its beak before returning for another.
We began to call the jay Jimmy, after President Jimmy Carter, also a planter of peanuts. Since male and female jays look alike, we didn't actually know the bird's gender, but we couldn't keep calling such an intensely alive being "it."
That summer my husband's parents came to visit, and Jimmy made a new friend. When my father-in-law sat on the porch in the sun to ease his arthritis, Jimmy hopped to the railing, clearly expecting a reward.
I took the jar of peanuts out to Dad, and he offered one on his open palm. Jimmy hopped easily onto Dad's hand for a peanut. Soon I looked out the window and saw the jay leaning back, feet braced against a trousered knee, tugging mightily on a peanut held in a gnarled hand, and I saw a man with his face in a broad, untroubled smile.
Jimmy raced back and forth between Dad and the storehouse lawn. Here was a human who would stay with the job. The yard rang with the bird's delighted shrieks.
Dad put a peanut in his cuff. Jimmy watched and then landed on Dad's shoe and plucked out the peanut. Next Dad pretended to hide a peanut in his cuff but actually concealed it under his hand. No fool, Jimmy flew to Dad's knee and probed under the hand, pulled out the peanut, and cawed as if laughing.
We had quite a few visits from my husband's parents through that summer and fall, and we used to kid Dad, saying we wondered whether he was coming to see Jimmy or us. Our friendship with Jimmy benefited from Dad's visits, however, for every advance of trust that Dad earned was immediately bestowed upon our whole family.
My husband's father passed away that year. My last recollections of him are of a man sitting on a sunny porch, playing tug-of-war with a wild bird.
Jimmy found a mate the next spring, a shy creature, who did not come to our porch. We saw the two birds carrying sticks into the dense top of an oleander in our yard, and a few weeks later we heard the squeals of hungry baby birds.
One day I noticed the birds' alarm calls in the back yard. Running outside, I saw the jays furiously diving at a neighbor's cat. I shooed the cat off, but it came back, and it did so day after day.
One day Jimmy did not come to the porch. The peanuts remained all day in the sun.
Later, I found one blue wing on the lawn back yard.
I did not know whether Jimmy's mate would be able to feed the babies and defend them alone. We saw her ferrying food to her nestlings all day long. She even began to come to the porch, though not to our hands. We offered mealworms to her in a little dish, and she accepted them enthusiastically and carried them to her young.
One day a young jay came with her to the porch. Still in its fluffy baby feathers, it landed awkwardly on the porch railing. Its mother put a seed into its beak. We called the baby bird Jimmy, in honor of the invincibility of life.
Diane Porter
Howdy ma'am
Hiya Sam.
The knee is learning to bend and walk again PE. :-)
Gonna be ready to get around the kitchen and cook soon as ya'll are ready to drive and eat! :-)
Interesting insight into Patton's invective toward Ike . . . at least on the pages of his diary.
Truscott felt that Alexander would not object to such a move, and Patton, Truscott wrote, "with something of the air of the cat that had swallowed the canary, agreed . . . ."
Interesting, in the movie "Patton" this was portrayed as Truscott being against such a move or at least needing a rest.
Patton didn't realize the seriousness of what he had done, but the incidents would soon change his life and career.
And thus the lives of millions of conservative traditional Americans would change forever with the ushering in of the concept known as "politically correct." Barf-a-rama!
"That's a shame Monty, I shaved extra close in hopes that you would"
LOL!
Some of Patton's thoughts about Ike, from "The Unknown Patton" by Charles M. Province
Ike said to me in departing, "Every time I get a new star, I get attacked." And I said, "And every time you get attacked, I pull you out."
Eisenhower is either unwilling or unable to command Montgomery.
Ike asked me to dinner. Butcher, a British aide-de-camp, a WAAC Captain, and Kay Summersby were also present. Ike was very nasty and show-offish. He always is when Kay is present. He criticized General Lee for his flamboyance, but he would give a million to possess it himself.
Ike said to me, "You are fundamentally honest on the larger issues, but are too fanatical in your friendships." It is a good thing for him that someone is.
I wish to God that Ike would leave and take Smith with him. They cramp my style. It is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.
So far in my dealings with him, he has never once mentioned in a complimentary way any action that I or any other officer have performed. I do not believe that it is intentional, but just carelessness; however, it is poor leadership. He had on his new five star insignia. It is a very pretty insignia.
I was more amused than surprised when Eisenhower failed to make any remark about my Bastogne operation. In fact, he made no reference whatsoever to the great successes of the Third Army.
Ike was quite apologetic about the 'four star' business, but has, however, good reasons. That is, you must maintain the hierarchy of command or else relieve them, and he had no reason for relieving them. At the moment I am having so much fun fighting that I don't care what my rank is.
This so called 're-deployment' is really a vote catching program. Ike's people were here to explain the unexplainable.
Later, when we were going well and could have easily taken Berlin, Churchill asked Ike to do it and Ike replied that it was Churchill's fault that the line had been established where it was. I believe this was a great mistake on his part because had we taken the country to the Moldau River and Berlin we would have saved a great deal of agricultural Germany and prevented what I believe historians will consider a horrid crime and a great loss of prestige in letting the Russians take the two leading capitals of Europe.
If Ike, etc. don't like what I do, they can relieve me. Then I will resign, not retire, and I can tell the world a few truths which will be worth saying.
Ike has an unfortunate habit of underrating all Americans who come under him and overrating all British and all Americans who have served elsewhere.
I wish to God that Ike were more of a soldier, and less of a politician.
We suffer very much from lack of command. No one is running the show.
Ike has no conception of physical command. He has never exercised it.
Of course, I was originally selected for 'Torch' through the direct action of Ike and therefore I owe him a good deal. On the other hand, I have paid my way ever since.
His is the style of an office seeker rather than that of a soldier.
Neither Ike nor Brad has the stuff. Ike is bound hand and foot by the British and does not know it. Poor fool. We actually have no supreme commander. No one can take hold and say that this shall be done and that shall be done. It is very unfortunate and I see no solution to the situation.
I told him that if I were reduced to Colonel, I demanded the right to command one of the assault regiments; that this was not a favor, but a right.
Ike replied, "Don't I know it, but what can I do?" That is a hell of a remark for a 'supreme commander'.
Monty does what he pleases and Ike says, "Yes, Sir!"
Ike was very pontifical and quoted Clauswitz to us, who have commanded larger forces than Clauswitz ever heard of.
Ike kept talking about the future 'Great Battle of Germany' while we assured him that the Germans have nothing left to fight with and if we push on now, there will not be a 'Great Battle of Germany'.
Ike is all for caution since he has never been to the front and has no feel for actual fighting.
At 0800 hours, we heard on the radio that Ike had said that 'Monty' was the greatest living soldier and that he is now a 'Field Marshall'.
I wish that Ike were more of a gambler, but he is certainly a lion compared to Montgomery. And Bradley is better than Ike as far is nerve is concerned.
Ike is not well and is very querulous and keeps saying how hard it is to be so high and never to have heard a hostile shot. He could correct that situation very easily if he wanted to. I also think that he is timid.
Ike and Clark were in conference as to what to do. Neither of them had been to the front, so they showed great lack of decision. They have no knowledge of men or war. Too damned slick, especially Clark.
I am flying to see Ike. He and Clark certainly need to know the facts of life. They send some of the most foolish instructions that I have ever read.
Ike was fine, except that he spoke of lunch as 'tiffin', of gasoline as 'petrol', and of anti-aircraft as 'flack'. I truly fear that London has conquered Abilene.
Ike is not as rugged mentally as I had thought. He vacillates and is not realistic.
Ike is getting megalomania.
It is noticeable that most of the American officers here are pro British, even Ike. I am not, repeat, not pro British.
I spent the night at Ike's. Lieutenant Kay Summersby came to supper. Ike and I talked until 0129 hours. He is beginning to see the light but is too full of himself. I was quite frank with him about the British and he took it.
Ike walked the floor for some time, orating, and then he asked me to mention how hard he worked, what great risks he had taken, and how well he had handled the British, in my next letter to General Marshall.
Ike needs a few loyal and unselfish men around him, even if he is too weak a character to be worthy of us. But if I do my duty I will be paid in the end.
It is always depressing to me to see how completely Ike is under the influence of the British. He even prefers steel tracks to rubber tracks on tanks because 'Monty' does.
We are in the clutches of the 'masterminds' here with the inevitable result that we are changing our plans more often than we are changing our underwear. I have been consulted no more than I was when we landed in Sicily.
Ike and I dined alone and we have a very pleasant time. He is drinking too much but is terribly lonely. I really feel sorry for him. I think that in his heart he knows that he is really not commanding anything.
Ike told me that he had not yet decided which of us three, Hodges, Bradley, or I, should command the Army Group. Bradley will!
Ike is getting foolish and bothering about things such as who is to be head nurse; far below his dignity.
Ike has never been subjected to air attack or any other form of possible death. However, he is such a straw man that his future is secure. The British will never let him go.
At no time did Ike wish us luck and say that he was back of us. He is a fool.
Ike said, "You are a great leader, but a poor planner." I replied that except for 'Torch' which I had planned and which was a high success, I have never been given a chance to plan.
Ike arrived. We had a scout car and a Guard of Honor for him. The Guard of Honor was from his old battalion of the 15th Infantry, the only unit he ever commanded.
Ike is now wearing suede shoes, 'a la' British.
When I took Ike to my room to show him the situation, he was not much interested, but he began to compare the sparsity of my reports with the almost hourly news bulletins of the 8th Army under Montgomery.
Ike called up late and said that, "My American boss will visit you in the morning." I asked, "When did Mamie arrive"? Man cannot serve two masters.
I think that if you treat a skunk nicely, he will not piss on you -- as often.
Lieutenant General Cocran, the son of a bitch, called our troops cowards. Ike says that since they were serving in his Corps that it was O.K. I told him that had I so spoken of the British under me, my head would come off. He agreed, but does nothing to Cocran.
It is noteworthy that had I done what Cunningham did, I would have been relieved of duty. Ike told me later that he could not punish Cunningham because he was a New Zealander and political reasons forbade it. Unfortunately, I am neither a Democrat nor Republican. Just a soldier.
I am fed up with being treated like a moron by the British. There is no national honor nor prestige left us the Americans. Ike must go. He is a typical case of a beggar on horseback; 'could not stand the prosperity'.
One can only conclude that where the Eighth Army is in trouble, we are to expend our lives gladly; but when the Eighth Army is going well, we are to halt so as not to take any glory. It is an inspiring method of making war and shows rare quality in our leadership. And Ike falls for it! Oh, for a Pershing!
Ike talked in glittering generalities and then said as nearly as I can remember, "George, you are my oldest friend, but if you or anyone else criticizes the British, by God, I will reduce him to his permanent grade and send him home."
Ike made the sensational statement that while hostilities were in progress, the one important thing was order and discipline, but that now that hostilities were over the important thing was to stay in with 'world opinion'. Apparently whether it was right or wrong.
Eisenhower was also quite anxious for me to run for congress. I presume in the belief that I might help him.
Ike is bitten by the Presidential Bug and he is YELLOW.
Apparently Ike has to a high degree the 'Messiah Complex' for which he can't be blamed since everybody bootlicks him except me.
Eisenhower was more excited than I have ever seen him, and I believe that this can be traced to the fact that he is very much worried about the delay in getting appointed as Chief of Staff at home. He fears that if he stays here, he will lose some of his prestige.
Prince Bernhard of Holland decorated a number of SHAEF officers, including Lieutenant Kay Summersby. She was in a high state of nerves as a result of hearing that General Eisenhower would not be returning.
How can anyone expect any backbone in a man who is already running for President.
I feel that as an American it will ill become me to discredit Ike yet. That is, until I shall prove even more conclusively that he lacks moral fortitude. This lack has been evident to me since the first landing in Africa, but now that he has been bitten by the Presidential Bee, it is becoming even more pronounced.
On Field Marshall Montgomery
Take this five gallon gasoline can to Montgomery with this message; "Although I am sadly short of gasoline myself, I know of your admiration for our equipment and supplies and I can spare you this five gallons. It will be more than enough to take you as far as you probably will advance in the next two days."
We roll across France in less time than it takes Monty to say 're-group' and here we sit stuck in the mud of Lorraine.
We never had to re-group, which seemed to the chief form of amusement of the British Armies.
Montgomery had the nerve to get someone in the United States to suggest that General Eisenhower was 'over worked' and needed a Deputy Ground Force Commander for all of the troops in Europe and that he, Monty, was 'God's gift to war' in this respect.
Monty is trying to steal the show with the help of Eisenhower. He may do so, but to date we have captured three times as many enemy as our cousins have.
I have a feeling, probably unfounded, that neither Monty nor Bradley are too anxious for me to have a command. If they knew what little respect I have for the fighting ability of either of them, they would be even less anxious for me to show them up.
Mr. McCloy asked me what I thought of Monty. I said at first that I preferred not to answer and then when pressed, I said that I thought Monty was too cautious and would not take calculated risks.
During Montgomery's lecture, it was interesting to note that I was the only American Commander of the four American Commanders involved in the plan to be mentioned by name. The other three he mentioned by number of the Army.
I fear that after we land in France, we will be boxed into a beachhead, due to timidity and lack of drive, which is latent in Montgomery.
Bradley says he will put me in as soon as he can. He could do it now with much benefit to himself, if he had any backbone. Of course, Monty does not want me as he fears that I will steal the show, which I will.
Montgomery went to great lengths to explain why the British had done nothing.
To hell with Monty. I must get so involved that they can't stop me. I told Bradley not to call me until after dark on the 19th.
The 'Field Marshall' thing made us sick, that is Bradley and me.
Monty is a tired little fart. War requires the taking of risks and he won't take them.
Eisenhower is either unwilling or unable to command Montgomery.
This is another case of giving up a going attack in order to start one which has no promise of success except for the exaltation of Monty, who has never won a battle since he left Africa and only El Alamein their. I won Mareth for him.
I can out fight that little fart, Monty, anytime.
We never met any opposition because the bigger and better Germans fight Monty. He says so. Also, he advertises so damn much that they know where he is. I fool them.
Yesterday, the Field Marshall ordered SHAEF to have the Third Army go on the defensive, stand in place, and prepare to guard his right flank. The Field Marshall then announced the he will, after regrouping, make what he describes as a lightning thrust at the heart of Germany. "They will be off their guard," he said, "and I shall pop out at them like an angry rabbit."
Awww. That's sweet. The bird needs a different name though. :-)
LOL. Funny tagline today.
Ouch! Gotta love his wit!
My favorite quote about Ike:
"Eisenhower got elected President? Best clerk I ever had.
Love the pics of the Scrub Jays . . . oh what I would give for one of them to eat peanuts out of my hand. How on earth did you do that?
Also, thanks for the kind thoughts regarding our condition with this Pacific storm. Fortunately our neighborhood has been spared the worse. Thank God our home is built on solid ground. It finally broke this afternoon, Sun came out and when I got home the first thing I did was re-hang all my feeders. My birdies get four days of food and then the feeders come down on Monday as another big storm is suppose to hit. This is like Baton Rouge, La. in February. Unreal.
"This means there will be a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."
Works for me.
I only got one to ever do that. Just took a lot of patience, staying very still with peanuts in my hand. Close enough to cover so that it could come close but take off if it felt threatened. It finally would fly to my hand grab a nut and take off, sort of a "hit and run" thing. But he/she finally got used to it and would know when I came out.
Yep, Thank God for the US Marines.
The muchness made of the slapping incidents by the shrieking fairies of the limp-wristed fifth-column press--not to mention by the anglophile Eisenhower--mark a downturn in American exceptionalism, into the Value Jet swamp of Eurination.
Today we have every imaginable "psychological" defense of the worst murders--bathtub drownings of children, Los Hermanos Melendez, et al.
There is of course a cure for this, to get us straight: first, admit the problem. Second, when Ted Kennedy compares abu Ghraib to Saddam Hussein, buckle him in a 70 Olds and deep six him in the Chappaquiddick.
When Ward Churchill calls the 3,000 innocents immolated and crushed in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns", put him on trial for Holocaust denial, convict him, and lock him away for several decades.
As e.e. cummings said, "there is some shit i will not eat"
It is worth reviewing the personality of another famous commander, General Omar N. Bradley. Six years after the war he wrote a careful “official history” book entitled, “A Soldier’s Story.” He attacks Montgomery and his plans viciously, yet defends Eisenhower’s actions – sometimes even when these actions were to support Montgomery. However at occasions there is a break in the “official history” where we get a real glimpse of his thoughts. Unfortunately for us, Bradley did not keep a diary. If he had, we would have seen his day to day thoughts and what he was really thinking. Instead, we know only that both Eisenhower and Montgomery published their “Histories of the War” first, and that it some cases Bradley scrupulously “corrected history” and corroborated Eisenhower’s version.Patton is the only clear voice that remains from WWII without need of deciphering. We are extremely lucky that Patton followed General Pershing’s advice and kept a diary. Without Patton’s diary, we would not have clear proof of his incredible “sixth sense:” his accurate guesses as to the intention of the enemy. It is easy for a commander to say, years after the war, that he “knew all along” the enemy was about to attack. That commander must be able to prove that he knew – and the best proof is a day-to-day account in a war diary.
In “A Soldier’s Story,” Bradley praises Patton with what would seem mollified respect. But in 1983 Bradley wrote another vicious book that fiercely attacks Patton called, “A General’s Life.” The tone used in describing Patton, while in the first book admiring, has changed to bitter hatred. In his second book, Bradley attacks Patton where in the first book he seemed to approve. Read these two passages describing the same event.
“Patton telephoned me that evening from Lucky Forward near Laval. ‘We’ve got elements in Argentan,’ he reported. ‘Let me go on to Falaise and we’ll drive the British back into the sea for another Dunkirk.’‘Nothing doing,’ I told him, for I was fearful of colliding with Montgomery’s forces. ‘You’re not to go beyond Argentan. Just stop where you are and build up that shoulder. Sibert tells me the German is beginning to pull out. You’d better button up and get ready for him.’” “A Soldier’s Story,” by General Omar N. Bradley
“I had a sharp telephone exchange with Patton that morning. He further infuriated me with his boastful, supercilious attitude. ‘Let me go on to Falaise and we’ll drive the British back into the sea for another Dunkirk.’ I replied coldly and firmly, ‘Nothing doing. You’re not to go beyond Argentan. Just stop where you are and build up that shoulder.’” “A General’s Life,” by General Omar N. Bradley
And while in the first account Bradley seems happy that Patton recalled Haislip “without a word,” in the second account, Bradley is “furious” that Patton did not ask to advance Haislip in the first place. There is a very clear difference in Bradley’s attitude towards Patton in both books. Why?
It first must be realized that Bradley lived into the 1980s – long enough to see the collapse of the post-war reputations. Bradley had lived a long and prosperous life. He had commanded in Korea and had been promoted to five-star general. Bradley knew that he had risen higher than Patton would ever have been allowed to go. Yet Bradley must also have known that he was eclipsed by the genius of the man whom he had commanded. Bradley must have read many of the books by historians who had begun to realize that Patton had been unjustly cheated of many opportunities – like Falaise – for winning the war.
Bradley lived to read books by historians who had uncovered evidence that Eisenhower and Montgomery were bad commanders who had purposely “lost” files pertaining to their disasters. “Patton’s Gap,” with its evidence that Bradley had changed his version of events to match Eisenhower’s, had been published as well. There were some cloudy circumstances around his own Hurtgen Forest and Battle of the Bulge, too.
Patton had emerged the true hero of WWII – Bradley was only a five star general who had survived the war. Historians already knew that one of the reasons Bradley was promoted was because he was so weak-kneed. Did Bradley read the books that proved Patton was denied gas for his attacks? Or the books that showed he had ignored Patton’s timely advice predicting the Battle of the Bulge? It would have been difficult for Bradley to ignore the evidence that Eisenhower’s, Montgomery’s, and his own reputation were not going to last beyond his lifetime.
It seems to me that “A General’s Life” was Bradley’s last, desperate “vindication” of the men whose reputations were falling apart around him. Bradley would have went down with far more grace if he had let history uncover itself; but instead in his 2nd book, like his first, Bradley tries to obscure the gradually emerging truth by defending Eisenhower tooth and nail.
Bradley had another unique experience – reading Patton’s diary. Since Patton’s diary was a record of his intensely personal and often critical thoughts and comments, it was not published until after Eisenhower’s death. Patton had often criticized Bradley’s timidity and mediocrity in his diary. Bradley writes of reading Patton’s diaries and letters,
“He wrote obsessively candid self-congratulatory (or self-abnegating) letters and diaries, which have recently been edited and published in two volumes. Reading these volumes was one of the most astonishing literary experiences of my life. It would seem that no thought George ever had in his life – however trivial or magnificent – went unrecorded, that his sense of greatness and destiny demanded a full accounting to the public.”
Bradley does not seem to realize that Patton wrote his diary with no intention of ever releasing it to the public. The thoughts and impressions recorded there were his real opinions – he was not trying to show-off to the “public.”
There was much in Patton’s diary that, while interesting from a historical perspective, was hardly flattering. For instance, Patton wrote about Bradley,
“His success is due to his lack of backbone and subservience to those above him. I will manage without him. In fact, I always have; even in Sicily he had to be carried.” Patton’s Diary
True, but undoubtedly infuriating to its subject.
It seems that after Bradley read Patton’s diary, he bitterly hated Patton and wished to criticize Patton “for the record” in his new book. One particularly jarring account is coupled with the announcement of Patton’s death – a death that does not seem to have upset him at all. He writes that,
“It may be a harsh thing to say, but I believe it was better for George Patton and his professional reputation that he died when he did. The war was won; there were no more wars left for him to fight. He was not a good peacetime soldier; he would not have found a happy place in the postwar Army. He would have gone hungering for the old limelight, beyond doubt indiscreetly sounding off on any subject any time, any place. In time he would have become a boring parody of himself – a decrepit, bitter, pitiful figure, unwittingly debasing the legend.” “A General’s Life,” by General Omar N. Bradley, page 464
While obviously Bradley’s opinion of Patton had soured with age, Bradley never truly appreciated Patton’s worth. In Sicily, Patton had been in command of Bradley. Patton forced Bradley to employ daring end-run tactics which eventually led to the capture of Palermo and Messina. Nevertheless, Bradley resented Patton’s “meddling” in his command. Bradley was the military adviser for the Patton movie. As Carlo d’Este pointed out, Bradley seems the hero, always advising Patton not to be foolhardy – “Those out-spoken comments will eventually catch up with you!” “George, you’re going to get yourself relieved if you don’t shut up!”
Interestingly, one of the most inaccurate scenes of the movie Patton was protested against by the actor who plays Patton, George C. Scott. The scene occurs in Sicily, where Patton tells Truscott that if his conscience will not let him conduct the risky end-run operation, “I will relieve you and have someone else do it.” Patton says that he doesn’t care how many men die, because he must take Messina before the British. Scott believed the scene did not properly represent Patton’s character and that it suggested Patton was indifferent to his men’s welfare. Even though Scott protested the scene, the studio owners wouldn’t change it. It strikes me that the military adviser for the movie, General Bradley, who was there in Sicily in 1943 and knew the scene to be false, did not protest it as well.
Bradley did not see fit to protest the many inaccuracies of the movie even when George C. Scott did, and so the studio owners kept the inaccurate Sicily scene. Scott, however, did not give up easily. He decided to purposely play the scene reclining on the couch, hoping that people would realize the scene’s falsity. When I first watched the movie, the fact that Patton was saying things he never said while lying down particularly galled me. I did not know this interesting side of the story.
Obviously, Bradley must have had some reason that made his hatred blind; what it is, we shall never know. It may have been jealousy at Patton’s fame, anger at Patton’s descriptions and predictions in his diary, loyalty to President Eisenhower, or all three. Bradley says in his book, “A General’s Life,”
“Patton and I were closely associated at Fort Benning for a period of almost a year. It was during this time that I first got to know him well. Thereafter our professional lives would become interwoven in war. He would be my boss; then in a kind of Greek drama, I his. As a result I probably knew Patton as well as any man.”
True, but Bradley did not see fit to defend him even when Scott, who did not know Patton, did.
Here is Bradley’s description of Patton. Historically it is not worth much, but it may be helpful in understanding the man who wrote it.
“As a soldier, a professional officer, Patton was the most fiercely ambitious man and the strangest duck I have ever known. He appeared to be motivated by some deep, inexplicable martial spirit. He devoured military history and poetry and imagined – in the spirit of reincarnation – that he had fought with Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Caesar, [sic] Napoleon. He dressed as though he had just stepped out of a custom military tailor shop and had his own private bootblack. He was unmercifully hard on his men, demanding the utmost in military efficiency and bearing. Most of them respected but despised him. Although he could be the epitome of grace and charm at social or official functions, he was at the same time the most earthily profane man I ever knew. I sometimes wondered if this macho profanity was unconscious overcompensation for his most serious personal flaw: a voice that was almost comically squeaky and high-pitched, altogether lacking in command authority. Like Douglas Mac Arthur, Patton was a born publicity hound, a glory seeker.” “A General’s Life,” by General Omar N. Bradley, page 98.
I cannot help but wonder if Bradley here disguised his own thoughts about Patton as Patton’s men’s; it seems it was really Bradley who “respected but despised” Patton.
Evening Phil Dragoo.
Thanks for the exerpt from "Patton Uncovered”, I read "a Soldier's Story" in HS, never read "A General's Story".
IMHO, we needed more generals like Patton. They knew what needed to be done to win and knew that in the long run we would have suffered less casualties by fighting more aggressive battles.
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