Quote of the day III

" Oh you´d be surprised what they can carry!"

Crew members of Mosquito planes to the drivers who by mistake took their cargo ( the first Tallboy bombs ) to the Mosquito Unit´s bomb storage area and wondered how anyone could get a Tallboy onto of those..

 

" Nice chap, no general."

Monty´s first impression on Ike...

 

"My God, I wish we had [the] 9th Australian Division with us this morning."

— Major-General Freddie de Guingand, Chief of Staff, Allied Land-force Headquarters Europe D-Day, 1944.

 

"Australian troops had, at Milne Bay, inflicted on the Japanese their first undoubted defeat on land. Some of us may forget that, of all the allies, it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the Japanese army."
— Field Marshal Sir William Slim.

 

"the Australian divisions and the New Zealanders had become what they were to remain for the rest of the war - the spearhead of the British Army"

— John Terraine, commenting on the fighting capability of the Anzac troops.

 

"For dash and gallantry the bloodthirsty Scots, Australians and Canadians led the way, with the impetuous Irish close behind. The Australian to my mind were the most aggressive, and managed to keep their form in spite of their questionable discipline. Out of the line they were undoubtedly difficult to handle, but once in it they loved a fight. They were a curious mixture of toughness and sentimentality..."

— Lieutenant-General Adrian Carton de Wiart

 

"I cannot surrender. I am in command of Australians who would cut my throat if I did."

— Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hore, said during the Battle of Elands River in 1900 when asked to surrender by the Boer commander

 

Rather three wars with France than one war with Russia!

Unknown German soldier

 

" We have a powerful ally in this matter, that is to say, the enemy has an air force general staff as well."

Albert Speer in 1944 after the major attacks on synthetic oil plants had suddenly stopped.

 

Actually, this is what he said

Albert Speer, the German minister of armaments and munitions, had warned Hitler after the first attack in May 1944: The enemy has struck us at one of our weakest points. If they persist at it this time, we will no longer have any fuel production worth mentioning. Our one hope is that the other side has an air force general staff as scatterbrained as ours.


And persist the bombers did.

 

Meeting King Tigers for the first time:

“Gunner: They look like Tigers, but they are not. Maybe Panthers ?,
Commander: Fire! And do not ask them about their family name.”

Intercom communication in T-85

 

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

Winston Churchill

 

" Herr Führer and Reichskanzler, we hurl it right back at you, right in your evil smelling teeth..."

Sefton Delmer answering to Hitler´s "final peace appeal" to Britain in 1940.

 

" Patton has set his tanks to run around in France like bedbugs in a Georgetown kitchen!"

Happy Henry L. Stimson in early Aug 1944

 

" Now we can just let Joe Stalin and the other dictators fight it out" by Senator Burton Wheeler, a leading isolationist, after Hitler had started Barbarossa.

Burton K. Wheeler - Wikipedia

 

"Sure as hell we have plenty of escort. The Thunderbolts and Lightnings take us to the German border then the 190s and Messerschmitts are with us the rest of the way!"

The Allied Bomber crews before Mustang escort was with them all the way..

 

"It seems that the Russians must already possess better and heavier tanks than we do...."

Report of the German Military Commission during the Spring of 1941

 

" Wars begin where you will but they do not end where you please."

Machiavelli

 

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb

 

Are you aware it is private property? Why you'll be asking to bomb Essen next.

— British Secretary of State for Air Sir Kingsley Wood, regards plans to bomb the Black forest, 30 September 1939