Posted on 11/09/2021 5:13:46 PM PST by ammodotcom
The father of my sister’s friend served in Europe under Patton. Wonderful kind man, BTW.
He loved Patton. Said he was something and never asked them to do things he wouldn’t do himself. Including swimming across a river.
He carefully studied his opponents, for one.
North Africa, Sicily, Cobra, the Ardennes, Czechoslovakia.
If you want to start earlier, the assault on Shreveport in the 1941 Louisiana maneuvers.
My Uncles served under him, they hated him. On the flip side, their wives and mothers LOVED him to death. They didn’t see the point of fooling around, they wanted the KICK DRAGON and Take dog tags. They wanted their men folk home, and they saw the style of command that Patton represented was the way to go. Unlike today, they wanted no tomfoolery.
My understanding is that his brilliant insight was recognizing that air power was the key to winning. I believe this was also a criticism of his peers that he relied too heavily on air power. His main strategy to my understanding was to have the air power (at his disposal) also protect his flank in addition to their other attack duties. This allowed him to concentrate his forces on the main attack. I think the movie Patton hints at much of this as the beginning of the movie he has a complaint that the British Air Force was not providing proper support. Then in the middle of the movie he has the chaplain write a pray for good weather so he can get his air support back.
His anticipation of the need to move 3rd Army to help out during the battle of the bulge tipped the scales in allowing the Allies to successfully repel the attack.
Most of this is covered in Gen. Bradley's book "A Soldier's Story", Patton's autobiography "War as I Knew It", and any number of good biography's on Patton. I think the one I read was "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph" by Ladislas Farago
Don't want to sound Snarky, but that sounds like something crazy that Jack London would do - not Patton.
Regards,
Correct. The German Army of WW1 developed infiltration tactics to a high art in that war. But there were operational limits to the endurance of the infiltrating storm troopers and if the opponents stood firm, the attacks would eventually grind to a halt. Grafting the tank into penetration phase was the operational solution and the chief insight during the interwar years. So by WW2 you get panzer & panzer grenadier divisions slicing through your front lines and going for double-envelopments.
I don’t disagree, as I thought it to be crazy also. However, I would attribute the action to a very high degree of self-confidence, rather than an act of craziness.
Jack London did the SAME THING, and almost killed himself and his family.
Read "The Cruise of the Snark."
Regards,
Cheap Louisiana whore-house to be precise.
Reminds me of a quote from Sin City: “He’d be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody’s face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him.”
It’s hard to imagine what a man like Patton would have done in peacetime. He’d certainly the ability to excel at anything, but would he have been as satisfied to do it? After so many thousands of years, surely some men are made to fight.
I was enlisted-Vietnam era. I’ve been around people whose only place is on the battlefield. 1975/Okinawa. Tour bus-sat next to him. The stuff that came out of this guys mouth was frightening. If I was in battle I’d want to be in a foxhole with him. When the war’s over what to do do with him then? The French Foreign Legion takes all comers but they don’t get used. Refer him to hotspots in the middle east for countries we support? OPEC paying their salaries? It would be like the Flying Tigers we sent to Burma in WW2. Strange arrangement.
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