Posted on 06/11/2015 6:12:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
Seventy-one years ago, the British, Canadians and Americans landed on the Normandy beaches to open a second ground front against Nazi Germany.
Operation Overlord -- the Allied invasion of Western Europe -- proved the largest amphibious operation in military history, dwarfing even Xerxes' Persian invasion of Greece in 480 B.C.
Brilliant planning, overwhelming naval support, air superiority and high morale ensured the successful landing of 160,000 troops on the first day -- at a cost of about 4,000 dead.
Three weeks after the June 6 landings, nearly a million Allied soldiers were ashore, heading eastward through France. Hitler's once-formidable Third Reich seemed on the verge of collapse. On the Eastern Front, the German army was imploding under the weight of 5 million advancing infantrymen of Russia's Red Army. At the same time, Allied four-engine bombers, with superb long-range fighter escorts, at last were beginning to destroy German transportation and fuel infrastructure.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Because Selma hadn’t happened yet?
Quite likely that the more daring Patton could have prevented the partition of Germany, or at least left a smaller E Germany.
Especially if Ditka was driving.
aka WWI part II.
Probably not. The partition of Germany had been settled at Yalta the year before.
it is what it is...... no amount of Wednesday morning quarterbacking will change the facts
Bradley was also contemptuous of Patton as well. In his third volume on World War II, Rick Atkinson talks about all the U.S. senior commanders in Europe and the reality is that they weren't an outstanding group of individuals. Between the personality issues and the army commanders in over their head and the political give and take it probably added immensely to the casualties.
If only, my military acumen been used wisely, instead of being wasted by
mediocre men of lesser ability - men harboring political aspirations - the
war would have ended much sooner than it did ... with a great savings in
lives and materials.
You're being too hard on Eisenhower. He had to deal with a bunch of Prima Donnas in Montgomery, Patton and De Gaulle and the various allied politicians. Patton was lucky to retain his command after the slapping incidents and Eisenhower and Bradley went out on a limb insisting that Patton assume command of the Third army. Eisenhower wrote at the time
"If this thing ever gets out, they'll be howling for Patton's scalp, and that will be the end of Georgie's service in this war. I simply cannot let that happen. Patton is indispensable to the war effort – one of the guarantors of our victory."
Iwo Jima was not under MacArthur but under Nimitz.
I guess, too, that if America hadn’t developed the atomic bomb, & Truman hadn’t had the guts to use it, Japan would have fought on Japanese soil to the last woman & child with broomsticks killing many more thousands of Allied troops.
Troop carriers were on their way to Japan when Truman dropped the bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. - Their commanding officers lined them up and told them, “Look to your left & then to your right. When we land, two out of the three of you will die.” - Those boys were, frankly, relieved when they heard Truman had bombed Japan.
A respectable argument could be made that WWII was the final act in a three act play; i.e. the Franco Prussian War; WWI and WWII.
And we lost more than 12,500 during Operation Iceberg, the capture of Okinawa.
In June of 1961, I enrolled at NC State as a sophomore. I attended an assembly for incoming students and a lecture by the chancellor.
He admonished us to look to your left and then to your right. Two of the three will not graduate
(he also said that one of the most important things you must do each day is to take a crap)
Eisenhower despised Montgomery as did Patton as did Bradley as did just about every American commander. Ultimately, especially after Market Garden, Eisenhower had enough and put it on the line to Churchill, either Monty goes or he goes. Churchill was ready to cut Monty loose. Monty got wind of it and got on his knees asking for Ike’s forgiveness. This was a blow to Monty’s ego who went on, post war, to ravage Ike as a poor choice for CINC because he had never held a battlefield command.
Anyway, the entire way Monty had to be handled with kid gloves it is yet another classic lesson of what happens when politics and military planning mix. In short, they don’t.
unconditional surrender
Thanks for the post.
"U.S. Gen. George S. Patton -- in the doghouse for the slapping of ill GIs a year earlier"
They should have punished Patton by making him stay at the front.....
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