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George S. Patton

Discussion in 'Leaders of World War 2' started by Stonewall phpbb3, Jun 8, 2005.

  1. Stonewall phpbb3

    Stonewall phpbb3 New Member

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    [​IMG]


    The Speech


    Somewhere in England


    June 5th, 1944

    General Patton arose and strode swiftly to the microphone. The men snapped to their feet and stood silently. Patton surveyed the sea of brown with a grim look. "Be seated", he said. The words were not a request, but a command. The General's voice rose high and clear.




    "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American."

    The General paused and looked over the crowd. "You are not all going to die," he said slowly. "Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen."

    "All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call "chicken shit drilling". That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sockful of shit!" The men roared in agreement.

    Patton's grim expression did not change. "There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily", he roared into the microphone, "All because one man went to sleep on the job". He paused and the men grew silent. "But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did". The General clutched the microphone tightly, his jaw out-thrust, and he continued, "An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking!"

    The men slapped their legs and rolled in glee. This was Patton as the men had imagined him to be, and in rare form, too. He hadn't let them down. He was all that he was cracked up to be, and more. He had IT!

    "We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world", Patton bellowed. He lowered his head and shook it pensively. Suddenly he snapped erect, faced the men belligerently and thundered, "Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do". The men clapped and howled delightedly. There would be many a barracks tale about the "Old Man's" choice phrases. They would become part and parcel of Third Army's history and they would become the bible of their slang.

    "My men don't surrender", Patton continued, "I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!"

    Patton stopped and the crowd waited. He continued more quietly, "All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, "Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands". But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamnit, Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the 'G.I. Shits'."

    Patton paused, took a deep breath, and continued, "Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, "Fixing the wire, Sir". I asked, "Isn't that a little unhealthy right about now?" He answered, "Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has to be fixed". I asked, "Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?" And he answered, "No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!" Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds. And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good old American guts. Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable."

    The General paused and stared challengingly over the silent ocean of men. One could have heard a pin drop anywhere on that vast hillside. The only sound was the stirring of the breeze in the leaves of the bordering trees and the busy chirping of the birds in the branches of the trees at the General's left.

    "Don't forget," Patton barked, "you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch Patton'."

    "We want to get the hell over there", Patton continued, "The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit."

    The men roared approval and cheered delightedly. This statement had real significance behind it. Much more than met the eye and the men instinctively sensed the fact. They knew that they themselves were going to play a very great part in the making of world history. They were being told as much right now. Deep sincerity and seriousness lay behind the General's colorful words. The men knew and understood it. They loved the way he put it, too, as only he could.

    Patton continued quietly, "Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin", he yelled, "I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!"

    "When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!"

    "I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!"

    "From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that."

    The General paused. His eagle like eyes swept over the hillside. He said with pride, "There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana." No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!"



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  2. JCalhoun

    JCalhoun New Member

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    Cool! :D
     
  3. Stonewall phpbb3

    Stonewall phpbb3 New Member

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    Our Blood and His Guts!



    Memoirs of One of General Patton's Combat Soldiers
    by Tech. Sgt. Eugene W. Luciano
    Our Blood and His Guts! © by Tech. Sgt. Eugene W. Luciano
    (copied to this site with the kind permission of the author)
    Edited by David J. Mazzaferro, Sr.
    1st Edition: May, 1995
    To My Wife Mary
    Encouragement She Gave
    My Parents Antonio & Luisa
    Who Were Always There For Their Children
    Acknowledgements

    I am indebted to the following people:
    My deep and sincere thanks to my nephew David Mazzaferro for his expertise, editing and time spent in the writing of these memoirs.
    Also to Wayne and Susan Baylis Sposato for their help in setting up pictures and graphics.

    Table of Contents
    Prologue
    About the Author
    Chapter I Remembrances
    Chapter II Goodbye Torrington
    Chapter III Pine Camp
    Chapter IV Tennessee, Desert, and Texas Maneuvers
    Chapter V England, We Are Coming
    Chapter VI Goodbye England, Hello France
    Chapter VII Breakout and Breakthrough
    Chapter VIII Tears For Mickey
    Chapter IX Orleans And Beyond
    Chapter X A Frenchman's Good Deed
    Chapter XI A Rest After 87 Days
    Chapter XII Fenetrange, Back To Action
    Chapter XIII Paris, Furlough Home
    Chapter XIV Back To France, Joining "A" Company
    Chapter XV Concentration Camp, Gotha, Jena
    Chapter XVI Fraternization And Occupation
    Chapter XVII End Of Army Life
    Chapter XVIII Training and Induction
    Chapter XIX The Soldiers & Officers With Whom I Served
    Chapter XX Awards, Citations, History & Letters Home
    Chapter XXI Return to Camps-50 Years Later
    Chapter XXII Final Thoughts
    Chapter XXIII Casualties


    Prologue
    This work is not a history or a biography, but recollections and some opinions of my army life during WW II. It is a remembrance of events as accurately as I can remember and what I believe of a civilian soldier along with others serving his country during the 2nd World War by attacking the evil Nazi Empire.


    http://webplaza.pt.lu/gries/our_blood_his_guts.html
     
  4. Stonewall phpbb3

    Stonewall phpbb3 New Member

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    The breakthrough, called "Cobra" was now into the open. This was a brilliant plan devised by Gen. Omar Bradley. There were scenes of many dead and demoralized German soldiers. Many cows were killed and bloated. Houses and buildings were demolished. There was mud all over and the stench of dead animals and decaying flesh, rained soaked clothes, and shoes was an appalling, stinking sight. High in a tree, stuck between the branches,was a cow. There were many crater holes from the bombing. The front was very fluid. It was very risky because we were making a fast attack into enemy lines and there was the possibility of being cutoff from our lines of supplies. We were on the outskirts of Avranches, July 31. We were stopped momentarily, but pushed right through and captured more prisoners and equipment and more French people came out with wine, flowers and kisses happily shouting, clapping, applauding and very jubilant after four years of German occupation. General John Wood, our division commander, came up and sized up the situation and must have decided to keep going. The column moved hastily on Aug. 2 towards Rennes. On the outskirts we met token resistance on the way and fought our way into the city. In this engagement we lost our battalion commander, Col. Kilpatrick who was badly wounded. The Germans made another counter-attack on our left flank but were stopped by artillery from the 8th Air Force smashing their column to bits. They retreated in droves. After crossing a canal into the city we assembled in a sunken garden so it seemed. Enemy tanks were burning in the city.
     
  5. Roel

    Roel New Member

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    Wasn't the above speech used in the movie "Patton"?

    It's a very good speech, as these things go, actually: rousing, rallying, encouraging. Definitely not minding an overstatement or two to get the right impact. ;)
     
  6. Stonewall phpbb3

    Stonewall phpbb3 New Member

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    The movie speech was a compilation of various speeches along the same line, cleaned up for the movies.
     
  7. Stonewall phpbb3

    Stonewall phpbb3 New Member

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    American general and tank commander, whose bold armored advance across France and Germany in 1944 and 1945 made a significant contribution to Allied victory in WORLD WAR II . He was born in San Gabriel, Calif., on Nov. 11, 1885, into a family with a long tradition of military service. He attended the Virginia Military Institute and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1909, when he was commissioned a 2d lieutenant in the 15th Cavalry. He graduated from the Mounted Service School, Fort Riley, Kans., in 1913, and a year later from the Advanced Course at the Cavalry School, Fort Riley. In 1916 he went as acting aide to Gen. John J. Pershing in the Mexican expedition, and in 1917 Pershing took him to France as commander of his headquarters troops. In November 1917, Patton was one of the first men detailed to the newly established Tank Corps of the United States Army and was assigned the task of organizing and training the 1st Tank Brigade near Langres, France. He led this unit in the St. Mihiel drive in mid-September 1918 and was wounded later in the month at the opening of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal and promoted temporarily to the rank of colonel. Between the two world wars Patton graduated from the Command and General Staff School in 1924 and from the Army War College in 1932. His assignments during this period included two tours in Hawaii, a tour in the office of the Chief of Cavalry, War Department, and three tours with the 3d Cavalry at Fort Myer, Va. In July 1940, Patton was appointed to the command of a brigade of the 2d Armored Division at Fort Benning, Ga. Less than a year later he was given command of the division and promoted temporarily to the rank of major general. Early in 1942 he became commander of the 1st Armored Corps, which he trained at the Desert Training Center, near Indio, Calif. Patton played a leading role in the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, commanding the ground elements of the western task forces that entered Casablanca and soon occupied French Morocco. When in March 1943 the United States 2d Corps in Tunisia was reorganized following an earlier rebuff at Kasserine Pass by Gen. Erwin ROMMEL's forces, Patton became its commander. Within a month he was promoted temporarily to the rank of lieutenant general and put in charge of American preparations for the invasion of Sicily. On July 10 he commanded the U.S. Seventh Army in its assault on that island. In conjunction with the British Eighth Army, he cleared Sicily of the enemy in 38 days. His victory was marred by an incident in which he struck an Army hospital patient being treated for shell shock--an action for which he later made a public apology. In March 1944, Patton assumed command of the Third Army in Britain and began to plan future operations in northwest Europe. Shortly before the invasion he was reprimanded by Gen. Dwight D. EISENHOWER for indiscreet political statements. On August 1 his army became operational in France, and he began the exploitation of the breakthrough near Avranches made by the First Army a few days before. He thrust one corps westward into Brittany toward Brest, while his other three corps pushed southward toward the Loire and then swung eastward in a series of broad sweeps toward the Seine. In one of the most spectacular actions of the campaign in northern France, he drove toward Paris, bypassed it, and reached the area near Metz and Nancy before being stopped by dwindling supplies and stiffening enemy resistance. While Patton was preparing an attack eastward into the Saar area, in conjunction with the Seventh Army, the Germans launched their Ardennes counteroffensive of December 16. In an action characterized by Gen. Omar N. BRADLEY as "one of the most astonishing feats of generalship of our campaign in the west," Patton turned his forces quickly northward against the southern flank of the bulge and helped contain the enemy. By the end of January 1945, the Third Army was ready to drive against the Siegfried Line between Saarlautern (now Saarlouis) north to St. Vith. Patton's four corps had pierced these defenses by the end of February, and by mid-March had pushed forward through the Eifel to gain control of the Moselle from the Saar River to Coblenz and of the Rhine from Andernach to Coblenz. In the following week his forces raced through the Palatinate region to the Rhine south of Coblenz. On the evening of March 22/23, units crossed the river near Oppenheim. Frankfurt am Main fell three days later. By the third week in April his forces had driven across southern Germany to the Czechoslovak border, and some of his units were in Austria before the month's end. During the first week in May, Third Army columns pushed into Czechoslovakia, and (Pilsen) was freed just before the armistice. Patton was promoted to temporary four-star rank in mid-April. Shortly after the end of the war he entered on his duties as military governor of Bavaria. His outspoken criticisms of denazification policies led to an outcry in the United States, followed in October 1945 by his relief as Third Army commander and assignment to the Fifteenth Army, then a small headquarters engaged in studying miliary operations in northwestern Europe. Near the end of the year Patton was seriously injured in an automobile accident near Mannheim. He died in a nearby hospital in Heidelberg on Dec. 21, 1945. Profane, impetuous, and flamboyant, Patton was easily the most colorful of the United States Army's commanders in the west, and its leading genius in tank warfare. Behind his showmanship and audacity lay the imaginative planning and shrewd judgment that made him one of the great combat commanders of World War II.
     
  8. Tomba

    Tomba New Member

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  9. cheeky_monkey

    cheeky_monkey New Member

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    its always interesting to think what might have been had patton been given a free reign by eisenhower or been supreme commander himself.

    the outcome of the war would have been somewhat different and shorter in my opinion..the allies would have most definetly got to berlin first.
     
  10. Ricky

    Ricky Well-Known Member

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    ... and would have started attacking the Red Army.
     
  11. cheeky_monkey

    cheeky_monkey New Member

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    i dont see why..like all commanders patton would be answerable to his political masters...he might well argue the case to carry on and attack the red army..dosnt mean that is what would have happened...theres is no way roosevelt/trueman and churchill would allow this to happen unless they wanted it to!!
     
  12. Ricky

    Ricky Well-Known Member

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    Well, Churchill was very anti-Communist. :D
     
  13. Man

    Man New Member

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    A purely motivational speech... reminds of other German speeches of the same type. Not alot of truth to be found there, but alot of swearing and passion.
     
  14. Roel

    Roel New Member

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    Patton may have exhausted his own troops and would definitely have exhausted his resources, dashing beyond what could be reasonably achieved. I doubt that Patton's impetuousness would have given much better results in the long run than Montgomery's overcautiousness.
     
  15. cheeky_monkey

    cheeky_monkey New Member

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    i think that it was eisenhower who was the most cautious, with his broad front stratergy. i think patton would have kept the germans permanently of balance and would have crossed the rhine in the autumn of 44.
     
  16. Roel

    Roel New Member

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    A very bold statement, especially since I highly doubt any commander could have broken out of the Normandy beachhead any faster than Monty/Eisenhower did, simply because of the nature of the terrain and the remaining strength of the enemy. This means no troops are free to move anywhere until late August, leaving you three months to reach and cross the Rhine before your estimate is off.

    Obviously, after any kind of Normandy battle you first get an equivalent of Falaise since the Allied resources are too great for the Germans to stop and yet they will be ordered to. However, after that the lack of a decent Allied harbor seriously begins to smart on the advance. And then when France is entirely liberated we get two things that work against Patton's dash: one, the German recovery of September 1944 (which no Allied actoin would have prevented since it was an internal process in German arms production) and two, the reequipped and re-manned Siegfried Line. Meanwhile Patton will be faced with the undeniable fact that his single-thrust (or at least not broad-front) assault has left his flanks wide open and has left vast and important areas in German hands that he will now need to manoeuver or move supplies through.
     
  17. cheeky_monkey

    cheeky_monkey New Member

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    i dont see why its a bold statement...the intent was there with the market garden operations to sieze the bridges and get across the rhine in sept 44..
    a better planned and cordinated affair north and south on a narrow frontage could have succeeded in my opinion, and given the allies the opportunity to break out into the open country of the north german plain
     
  18. Canadian_Super_Patriot

    Canadian_Super_Patriot recruit

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    If im not mistaking , i think he coined the term "Lean, mean killing machine", or "lean , mean fighting machine'
     
  19. mr.bluenote

    mr.bluenote New Member

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    I've just finished Martin Blumenson's Patton (the short abouth 300 pages version, not the 2,000+ one! :)) and it would seem that Patton and his staff had a lot of very good ideas. Ideas that Monty/Alexander/Ike somehow either ignored or only cleared too late.

    I've always respected Patton, but after reading Blumenson's biography, I respect him even more. And I really do believe that Patton could have ended the war way sooner by his agressiveness and sheer willingness to get things done.

    For those who think of Patton as George C. Scott (from the movie), then that image is actually fairly accurate, but dosn't really cover it all. Patton knew his logistics and was an expert at building a fighting force from scrath as well as utilizing what he had at his disposal.

    The speech Stonewall's has posted above is rather close to one Patton, according to Blumenson, held in real life. A private among the audience discribed how they all got goosespunks and was willing to follow (Patton) to Hell and back!

    It's also worth to remember that Patton actual did what he was told to do, even if he didn't like it. He was not the rogue soldier often made out to be!

    As a bynote, my favorite alternate command team for D-Day is Alanbrooke and Patton instead of Ike and Monty. Those two would have kivked some serious German behind! :D

    Best regards!
     
  20. Roel

    Roel New Member

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    Read my previous post. The Normandy landscape does not allow for dashing action as it hugely favours the defender; birdgehead building should not be done by far-flung offensives either since they do not facilitate a gradual buildup of forces and supplies on said beachhhead. The Germans in France were still a considerable force in June 1944 and were well able to stop any Allied offensive dead in its tracks if it was not properly supported, planned and prepared - which would be impossible if an overly impetuous general were in command of the Allied forces.

    I'd suggest you all read up on Patton's actions in Lorraine in the autumn of 1944; they show better than I can explain what happens to Patton's units when supply and support is not available in unlimited quantities, and when the enemy is tenaciously trying to stop them.
     

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