Posted on 07/24/2014 5:05:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
Nearly 70 years ago, on Aug. 1, 1944, Lieutenant General George S. Patton took command of the American Third Army in France. For the next 30 days they rolled straight toward the German border.
Patton almost did not get a chance at his summer of glory. After brilliant service in North Africa and Sicily, fellow officers -- and his German enemies -- considered him the most gifted American field general of his generation. But near the conclusion of his illustrious Sicilian campaign, the volatile Patton slapped two sick GIs in field hospitals, raving that they were shirkers. In truth, both were ill and at least one was suffering from malaria.
Public outrage eventually followed the shameful incidents. As a result, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to put Patton on ice for 11 key months.
Tragically, Patton's irreplaceable talents would be lost to the Allies in the soon-to-be-stagnant Italian campaign. He also played no real role in the planning of the Normandy campaign. Instead, his former subordinate, the more stable but far less gifted Omar Bradley, assumed direct command under Eisenhower of American armies in France.
In early 1944, a mythical Patton army was used as a deception to fool the Germans into thinking that "Army Group Patton" might still make another major landing at Calais. The Germans apparently found it incomprehensible that the Americans would bench their most audacious general at the very moment when his audacity was most needed.
always thought that was Ike
I did not know that. Damn...more reading for my list! Thanks.
Frankly, I would rate Longstreet as highly as Jackson, even though the former’s ego sometimes got him into trouble and he too occasionally had feet of clay. But at least he was smart enough to see the tactical value of the Round Tops, even if it was a day late and a dollar short.
They mystery to me is why Lee — ever the brilliant tactician — dismissed them.
“The mystery to me is why Lee — ever the brilliant tactician — dismissed them.”
I think your answer could be found in the book “Lee’s Real Plan at Gettysburg” by Troy Harman. Harman is a park ranger at Gettysburg and has done a lot of historical research.
I read the book a few years ago and it really did make a lot of sense. Lee was really not trying to punch at the center of the Union line ion the third day (Pickett’s Charge) but was angling northwards towards Cemetery Hill, his objective thru the whole battle.
Chances are, you can find this book at your local library. In any case, her’s a link to it on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Lees-Real-Plan-at-Gettysburg/dp/0811700542
Not to completely derail the thread, but even if that was Lee’s true plan, ignoring the Round Tops would have given the Union an opportunity to flank an attack on Cemetery Hill. If the crippling Union artillery had been ensconced there, no attack on the center would have stood a chance.
Armchair general here ...
Thanks Kaslin. Our greatest field general in WWII, and a damned sight smarter than anyone who ever commanded him, with the possible exception of Pershing.
The Sherman tank, for all the badmouthing it has taken since that war, was ideally suited for those narrow lanes in villages and between hedgerows in France. Burning gasoline also meant no problems with needing lots of two different kinds of fuel. Of course, they got shut down anyway, as the number of troops and quantity of hardware on the continent ballooned and there were still inadequate port facilities. Patton didn’t like set-piece battles, and Monty practically lived for them. After the remnants of the Afrika corps broke at El Alamein II, Monty (having lost something like 600 various kinds of armored vehicles, against a foe which was depleted to a level known exactly thanks to Ultra intercepts) had no plan for pursuit.
Rommel himself expressed a lot of curiousity about that, to the point of implying that Monty must have been nuts not to have one, and to sit on his ass once the Germans had to run for it. Rearguards waited for the enemy which never came.
Monty wasn’t nuts, he was only good at self-promotion, and liked his predecessor’s battle plan so well he kept it, used it, took the credit for it, and didn’t develop a pursuit plan of his own.
Anzio showed how quickly German forces could regroup and react to dynamic conditions. The British had remarked about the speed with which the Germans could recover from a defeat. Anzio had taken the Germans by surprise, but the Italian campaign only had one real object, which was gaining control of 13 airfields that lay within striking distance of the Romanian oilfields and some industrial areas — after those objectives were taken, there was no further point in advancing up Italy, part of Churchill’s “soft underbelly” delusion.
Interestingly, Hitler shifted several divisions out of the preparations for Zitadelle, and into Italy, where they were probably not needed (the terrain made for some of if not the toughest fighting in the European theater), and perhaps costing victory in the Battle of Kursk Salient.
This isn’t surprising, considering Hitler was almost as bad as Churchill and Stalin at the tactical level — always the wrong move it seems. Even his rabbit out of the hat — the Battle of the Bulge, which aimed to destroy the Allied hold on Antwerp and starve them of supplies — wound up leading to a general German collapse, even though superficially it delayed the seeming end of the war.
There’s a YouTube of Patton making a public speech, and that high voice of his actually seemed to me to give his words even more impact.
Bradley’s character in the movie was played by Karl Malden, which was ideal casting — made those grandiose sanctimonious speeches look ridiculous. I did appreciate Bradley’s candor in “A Soldier’s Story” — he speaks frankly about Monty’s assing off, and admits he didn’t think the intel reports about the German “bulge” offensive were credible, even after it had gone on for long enough to be clear and obvious. But basically, Bradley was a grocer and shmoozer, and good at deflecting blame from himself.
You can hear the real Patton’s voice here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYjnWXFTQkM
It’s slightly higher in pitch with just a bit of an aristocratic air (Patton was personally quite wealthy) absent in the gruff George C. Scott portrayal.
When his gasoline supply was shut down, Patton stood in the road, made the tanker trucks stop, and empty their remaining loads in the nearest ditch, where Patton’s crews would pump it into their vehicles and every spare can they could scrounge. Then the trucks would be allowed to continue back to the rear areas, where all the heads were. ;’)
When he was told to turn over a tank corps, he chose the one which was in the way he’d concluded the expected German attack would use, such that they’d no longer be under his command, but would also not be destroyed or captured.
The scene in the movie, where the Bastogne stand by the 101st is discussed, something was left out — Eisenhower was there asking the questions, and everyone around the table gave him the same answer, can’t do anything to help. When Patton’s turn came he gave his audacious claim, and Ike said, “don’t be fatuous, George!” Fatuous? Really? The rest of the answers were negative, and Ike was stuck with Patton’s response. There was no alternative.
There would have been nothing to relieve if the 101st and the rest who wound up encircled there hadn’t been resupplied by air — and hadn’t been some of the toughest bastards who ever lived. :’)
Lee never won a major battle after Chancellorsville, and the end-run battle plan was Stonewall’s idea — that battle was his last, and was his masterpiece. The closest Lee came to winning a major battle thereafter was Cold Harbor, and that was just a blunder by Grant — regardless, it didn’t lead to a Union retreat.
Meade whipped Lee at Gettysburg — Meade was a classic counterpuncher, and knew his man. After the war he was unfairly vilified by some blankity-blank ‘journalist’, which had an impact on his reputation. He wouldn’t have made the advance that Grant directed, but few would have.
That's a cool speech, I've never seen it. Patton himself hated his voice but his voice is higher than mine and whenever I call someone it's always OK Ma'am, can I put you on hold? I don't bother correcting them now and it's always a woman that does it. His also doesn't sound 'Californian', more mid west but he grew up in Southern Ca.
Patton also practiced his War Face all the time to get that hard ass look he had.
Patton had a lot of money and was also resented for that.
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