Posted on 09/15/2008 6:13:36 AM PDT by 7thson
My wife and I went to a Republican fund-raiser this weekend - a wine-tasting party. At our table an eldery couple sat down - both in their late 80's. The man was a WW II vet. Joked that he joined the army in 1940 only for one year and ended up getting out in 1946. Was in the Normandy invasion all the way to Germany. Was part of the group that liberated Dachau. Swore up and down that Patton was the greatest general ever. Had some good conversation with both he and his wife.
They are getting fewer and fewer. My Dad passed two years ago this week. He was 87. He joined in 1941 “to keep from getting drafted.” Fought with the 13th Infantry from 2 weeks after D-Day until the German surrender. Was in the states training for the invasion of Japan when (his words) “Harry Truman saved my life.”
Met my Mom while stationed in Tennessee in 1942 and they married shortly after his discharge in 1945. The celebrated almost 61 years together. Mom passed two years ago this Christmas.
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Swore up and down that Patton was the greatest general ever."We going to cut out their living [bleeping] guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun [characterization deleted]s by the bushel [clang, clang] basket." -- Gen. George S. Patton |
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Quite agree with your analysis. Also, the Shermans were made in enormous quantities, and the Germans were to be overwhelmed wherever possible. Superior firepower was the view evolved in the pre-WWI German military (sorry, had to put that in, just finished Mosier’s “The Myth of the Great War”).
Patton’s view (originating in his WWI experiences, when the tanks were POS) regarding armor was that it was to be used analogously to cavalry (breakthroughs, flanking, pursuit) rather than to, say, guard a bridge. Even if the bridge was being used as a nice spot to piss in the Rhine. :’)
Wholeheartedly agree. There’s a cool anecdote in a recent book (uh, sometime in the past four years or so) from Eisenhower’s son (the one who served on his father’s staff in WWII); troops training in England were being observed by Ike, Ike’s kid, Patton, and whomever else was around, and Patton jumped down, grabbed a soldier’s rifle, laid on the ground, and showed him and all around how they were to do it. :’) He was a hands-on guy, he understood war inside and out, and unlike the way he’s generally (heh) portrayed, followed orders even when he argued against them, because he knew the importance of discipline in the chain of command. He probably had a few, uh, slightly unorthodox ideas regarding discipline of course. :’D
Yeah, that would be excellent!
Bradley was a grocer; there’s nothing wrong with that, because soldiers need to eat.
Didn’t John Eisenhower graduate West Point on June 6, 1944? If I’m recalling that correctly, that anecdote is suspect. Patton’s exploitation of Operation Cobra began on August 1st. If that event happened (and it’s possible) it would have probably happened in early-to-mid-July.
Most of Patton’s 3rd Army troops would have been packing their gear to move over the Channel — probably not out on field maneuvers.
I take your larger point about Patton being interested in tactical detail. He invented a tanker’s uniform, cavalry sword, etc. He commented favorably on the M-1 Garand Rifle too, suggesting his opinions were being solicited by the Washington Brass. He is partly responsible (to blame?) for the M4 Sherman being chosen for mass production.
I was reading “An Army at Dawn”. Patton didn’t take a lot of interest in Adm. Hewitt’s preparations for the Torch Landings. He didn’t make that mistake twice. Patton’s use of several amphibious hooks during the Sicilian campaign kept the German defenders backpedaling.
> Most of Patton’s 3rd Army troops would have been packing their gear to move over the Channel — probably not out on field maneuvers.
:’) I’ll see if I can find the real details (as opposed to my sometimes-hazy memory).
The Germans were great at tactical retreat and using terrain to their advantage. Also, they got the point about the relative useful/uselessness of fixed fortifications prior to WWI. Patton was probably lucky to be relieved from 7th command after the slapping incident, because the “soft underbelly” idea from Churchill, invading Italy, was a really stupid idea, and at best, Patton might have gotten somewhat quicker — but still costly — results. I recall a propaganda poster the Germans had printed in English, and plastered around surreptitiously in Allied-held areas of Italy; it showed a big hill, anthropomorphized, picking up US servicemen and tossing them into its mouth. D-Day’s final go-ahead didn’t get done (I think I read this in Bradley’s “A Soldier’s Story”) until Stalin humiliated Churchill and ridiculed the Italian campaign, insisting the real second front be opened ASAP.
The 90mm was mounted on the M36, it could outshoot an 88mm.
I used to minimize the slapping incident, but have revised my thinking as I've gotten older. That kind of thing may have been fine for the Prussian or Russian armies, but the U.S. Army tradition is more respect for the men by their officers. If a soldier needed to be set straight, the NCO's could deal with that, but an officer, especially a General, should not.
In the specific situation Patton confronted, he could simply have ordered the docs to segregate the "battle fatigue" case away from the wounded men. Losing his temper was uncalled for and Ike was justifiably p.o.'d about it, IMHO.
Any idea what unit or division he was in?
My father served under Patton in the 7th Army, which Patton commanded in north Africa and Sicily. This is the command Patton was relieved of after slapping the soldier suffering from combat fatigue. My dad said he preferred serving under Patton’s replacement, General Patch. In fact he suggested that sometimes it was difficult to say who annoyed you more, the German army or George Patton.
When Patton made the big ruckus over that combat fatigue soldier the soldier was quickly released from the hospital. Instead of sending him back to his infantry unit the army assigned him to the AAA battery my dad was in. The poor guy was utterly worthless. He was like some kind of clay figurine that would stay motionless wherever you last placed him, staring blankly ahead. After a few days of this he was shipped off somewhere else. He had the “thousand yard stare”, only more so.
Some years later in Vietnam my father worked with Patton’s son, a colonel, who was highly regarded by those who knew him. I guess he didn’t take after his father in some ways.
Patton likely wouldn’t have replaced Clark in Italy. Patton’s old command, under Alexander Patch, landed on southern France in mid August. I suspect Patton would have continued to lead this army, which moved farther and faster than his 3rd and reached the Rhine ahead of the 3rd.
My understanding of war at the echelons beyond reality is that it is about beans, bullets, and bodies. The object of the exercise seems to be having more of them at the “decisive point” than the enemy. It could be that a “grocer” is as good at this as a warrior.
The real trick, of course, is finding, or creating, the “decisive point.” Again, this isn’t a talent limited to warriors...
My grocer comment regarded Bradley’s trying to move enough supplies, and basing his, or rather the US’, Euro theater campaign on how much of what got moved didn’t go to Monty. In his memoir he complains that there weren’t enough riflemen because of attrition (that one made it into George C. Scott’s mouth in the movie). At least he didn’t try to deny that he missed the significance of the German counterattack we remember as the Battle of the Bulge. It led to his degradation in favor of Monty, while Patton’s response to it led to his reevaluation and elevation.
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