General Patton

[Warlady]

The movie Patton is on satellite this month. It is our favorite movie of all time. I'm watching it now and I realized the British General Montgomery in his quest to out do Patton cost many American soldiers their lives. That sickens me to no end. The reason I started this thread is because as a student I never learned much about WWII and I'm hoping our veteran members here will educate me on the facts of that war. I want to know everything. I've read a lot about Hitler but also want to know why the Japanese attacked us at the same time. That was over oil right? I need to be educated about WWII. I think it's pathetic how little our schools teach about this. I also want to add that I believe Patton was much more intelligent and a better warrior than Ike. Patton was spot on about the Russians. Patton was not a PC diplomat. Nor should it have been expected of him. I believe Patton was the reason we won WWII. The Germans couldn't believe that Ike was stupid enough to sideline our best warrior. I'm so thirsty for knowledge about WWII. Can anyone help me?

[Suzie]

We have that movie on DVD. Patton did win that war, the reason they didn't like him is because he wasn't a politician. He was a soldier and had no interest in them playing politics with his troops and equipment, and he told them so.

My thought is the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor because they believed after they obtained Manchuria we were keeping them from acquiring resources into their territories, to my knowledge oil was not one of them. But there were other tensions just because they didn't like us, as is the case in most wars. The first order given was to hit us in the US Navy stationed on the coast of California. That's when Yamamoto said "you can not invade the mainland of the United States, there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." So they went for Pearl Harbor.

[Beowulf]

I love history, particularly WW2, and George Patton is a hero of mine. To be accurate, both Patton and Montgomery wanted glory and prestige as they continually tried outdoing each other. Patton took Palermo on the island of Cicily while he left Montgomery heavier fighting so Patton didn't mind handing the higher casualty count to Monty either. Both men, however, were fighting generals and both shared a mutual dislike of Eisenhower, a classic desk general.

Yamamoto wanted Pearl Harbor as it was the main station for the US Navy. Ultimately, they decided to attack the US because of our embargo on them for the invasion of Manchuria. They felt insulted that we cut off there shipments of metal, rubber and fuel. It was also those reason that they invaded Indochina where supplies of fuel and rubber were plentiful. The lack of metal would be their undoing over time as they failed to give adequate armor protection to pilots. Yamamoto's main decision to attack Pearl Harbor was mostly strategic.

[Turret Gunner A20]

The movie Patton is on satellite this month. It is our favorite movie of all time. I'm watching it now and I realized the British General Montgomery in his quest to out do Patton cost many American soldiers their lives. That sickens me to no end. The reason I started this thread is because as a student I never learned much about WWII and I'm hoping our veteran members here will educate me on the facts of that war. I want to know everything. I've read a lot about Hitler but also want to know why the Japanese attacked us at the same time. That was over oil right? I need to be educated about WWII. I think it's pathetic how little our schools teach about this. I also want to add that I believe Patton was much more intelligent and a better warrior than Ike. Patton was spot on about the Russians. Patton was not a PC diplomat. Nor should it have been expected of him. I believe Patton was the reason we won WWII. The Germans couldn't believe that Ike was stupid enough to sideline our best warrior. I'm so thirsty for knowledge about WWII. Can anyone help me?

As I think you already know, I'm a World War II Army Air Force vet, and I could tell you a few odd war stories that may or may not be interesting to you -- but I don't think they would contribute much to your education if you REALLY want to KNOW about the war itself.

So I am recommending that you begin filling in the "World War II gap" in your education by first going to

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time.htm

There you will find a chronological guide to specific important times, places, people and events, interspersed with some short summaries of some, but not all, of them.

However, the list is comprehensive enough that if you follow it, googling the items not explained at all and/or not covered sufficiently, you will get a very good grasp of that Big Mess -- from the initial causes to the final chapter.

Or, just google World War II -- and take your pick.


Good hunting.

[JimRaynor]

Erm, I learned to like WW2 history by WW2 video games... wow, that's so horrible after the last post.

War stories told by the people who fought them are the best... Vets tell the best stories.

[DesertFox]

I've read a lot about Hitler but also want to know why the Japanese attacked us at the same time. Hitler declared war on us when he heard about the Japanese attack on us. They didn't tell him a thing about the attack in advance, and to him it was a prestige thing to be the one who declared war rather than the one on whom war was declared. Hitler also wanted the Japs to declare war on the Soviets, and Japan and Germany had a treaty between them that war on one was war on the other, but the Japs never did declare war on the Soviets. The Soviets declared war on the Japs three weeks before the Japs surrendered to us, a cynical way of complying with Yalta. That was oil right? It wasn't just oil. It was raw materials, period. The Japs wanted to take over China and Southeast Asia (they had visions of dominating the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere") and knew that eventually we'd oppose them. They had already been warring in China since 1937 -- ferocious, vicious war, with largescale rape, using POW's for bayonet practice, etc. I believe Patton was much more intelligent and a better warrior than Ike. Better warrior? Probably. More intelligent? Doubtful. Dwight Eisenhower was one of the smartest men of his generation in the world (my opinion). I believe Patton was the reason we won WWII. Actually, we won in Japan, but the Soviets won in Europe and would have won whether we helped or not. I don't underestimate Patton, but he wasn't the reason we won WWII. We'd have won no matter what because neither Japan nor Germany could match our output. The Germans couldn't believe that Ike was stupid enough to sideline our best warrior. That's purely movie bluster. The Germans sidelined several of their own best generals, including Erich von Manstein (acknowledged among military historians, including the German generals, as the best strategist on any side of that war) and Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (who invented blitzkrieg, which today is the orthodox method of conducting war).

[The_RANDy_Corporation]

Love him or hate him, I think no one can doubt he was a brilliant tactician. I love him.

[DesertFox]

I neither love nor hate Patton. As a fellow professional removed by a coupla generations from him, I can and do respect him. I can also assure you that few here would want to work for such a man. They make wonderful movie heroes but in real life are hated just as often as worshipped by their men. I've worked for Patton types, and some I did love and some I did hate.

What I liked about him was that he was the first American general to grasp the essence of the Guderian revolution in warfare (blitzkrieg, a term we, not the Germans, gave that form of warfare) pioneered by the Germans. With a few exceptions, even the Germans themselves didn't believe in blitzkrieg when Rommel (their Patton) ripped thru the French like a knife thru hot butter, though it had already proved itself in Poland. Patton grasped it immediately and practiced it, and came in for a great deal of harsh criticism from his own side for it (just as Rommel and Guderian did on their side). "Shock and awe" is nothing more than blitzkrieg updated.

[Republican_Legion]

I neither love nor hate Patton. As a fellow professional removed by a coupla generations from him, I can and do respect him. I can also assure you that few here would want to work for such a man. They make wonderful movie heroes but in real life are hated just as often as worshipped by their men. I've worked for Patton types, and some I did love and some I did hate.

What I liked about him was that he was the first American general to grasp the essence of the Guderian revolution in warfare (blitzkrieg, a term we, not the Germans, gave that form of warfare) pioneered by the Germans. With a few exceptions, even the Germans themselves didn't believe in blitzkrieg when Rommel (their Patton) ripped thru the French like a knife thru hot butter, though it had already proved itself in Poland. Patton grasped it immediately and practiced it, and came in for a great deal of harsh criticism from his own side for it (just as Rommel and Guderian did on their side). "Shock and awe" is nothing more than blitzkrieg updated.

i agree , the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was similar to the invasion of poland 1939 or the invasion of france 1940 .

Warlady , that is great u like the movie patton as i do and my dad .
on the dvd u can enable a documentary about patton while u watch the movie . it talks about how patton pushed the tank into the US Army . and how he designed most of the manuals for tanks etc . he designed his own cavalry sword . he fought and killed poncho villas men and later served under
Pershing in WW1 . he there got to meet his first encounter with a Tank .
patton invented the Tank combat stategys for the US army .
omar bradley was a suck-up to truman , Ike was more worried about being in the whitehouse and impressing the british then to win the war . no doubt we still would have won without patton , it just would have tooken longer and more US military deaths . Montgomery was a shitty general who got lucky at el-alamein because the RAF had already cut Rommels supply lines , rommel was out of ammo and fuel , thus monty won . montys Operation Market Garden was the only major defeat we had in the western front . Patton was never defeated , never did he retreat unless forced by some bureaucrat .
Patton was like GWB , Monty was like John kerry .

[DoctorDoom]

This is the real-life, hard-talking, ruthless Patton.

GEN GEORGE PATTON'S SPEECH (http://www.bob-west.com/PATTON-SPEECH.html)

"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.

"You are not all going to die. 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 f**k 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!

"There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.

"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 f**king!

"We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do.

"My men don't surrender. 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!

"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'."

"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 road 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.

"Don't forget, 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-f**king-bitch Patton'.

"We want to get the hell over there. 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.

"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, 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 c**ksuckers by the bushel-f**king-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.

"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!

"Ahh, I feel much better! See Ya!"

[Republican_Legion]

:thumb: :claps:

thats good stuff , most it was used in the movie .