The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Race to Messina (Jul-Aug 1943) - Feb. 23rd, 2005

American History Magazine | Eric Ethier

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

.................................................................. .................... ...........................................

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Patton's Race to Messina

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."

[snippy_about_it]

How on earth did you do that?

That's not my hand. Sam's just teasing. The jays eat peanuts off my deck railing but I've not tried to feed them. Maybe now I will. I'll sit on the deck with them in my hand and see if they'll even think about coming close. I'll let you know.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks Phil. Interesting read.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[stand watie]

GM, snippy, et.al.

sn*wing like H here! YETCH!

free dixie HUGS,duckie/sw

[Iris7]

Personally I think 95% of Patton's criticisms of Eisenhower are fair, and that Bradley wasn't much. Eisenhower was YELLOW.

To be fair with Eisenhower, though, whenever the British thought they were getting disrespected General Marshall would get a call from the Commander in Chief. The reason Marshall picked Eisenhower for his job is that he "could get along with the British". This is simply the sort of man Eisenhower was (MacArthur was correct about Eisenhower, as he was about most things). Roosevelt would have sacked Marshall if Marshall had backed Patton instead.

When Eisenhower said "What can I do?" he was totally serious. He was indeed actually powerless. A "Supreme Commander in Name Only", to coin a phrase.

The British - American military organization had a number of successes due to the difference between Americans and British. The first thing in tactics is to "hold by the nose and kick in the ass", that is, to reinforce moving ahead and using stalled attacks as holding actions. Messina, the Normandy breakout, and the final attack into the Reich all worked the same way, where the Germans saw the British attack as important, as the center of gravity, as the Schwerpunckt, and not the possible American attack, making possible a high speed American breakout. You have to mass your defensive power where you think it wise, since you cannot defend everywhere. Defending everywhere means defending nowhere, as they say. Just ask Jeff Davis, who lost his war trying to defend everywhere. So the Germans massed against the British in critical battles, too bad for them.

Same thing in the Pacific with New Guinea and Guadalcanal, Army and Marines. There the center of gravity shifted so often (in Japanese eyes) that they lost confidence and became indecisive. Too bad, tsk, tsk.

Montgomery timed the counter attack at the Bulge in a masterly fashion. Montgomery was actually quite good on defense, likely learned that in WWI. He was in the March 1918 defense, very rough, war was almost lost. El Alamein was a defensive battle, for instance.

[PsyOp]

Late addition to an old thread:

"The primary mission of armoured units is the attacking of infantry and artillery. The enemy’s rear is the happy hunting ground for armour. Use every means to get it there." - General George S. Patton, Letter of Instruction. 3 April, 1944.

Patton - War as he knew it.

[bandleader]

Good Morning,SAMWolf!The Drew Pearson A**HOles of George S.Patton Jr.'s day are not dissimilar from the A**Holes of George W Bush's day!!!