Word: allene
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Former foot soldiers, who regarded even a regimental headquarters as a soft spot, may also find it hard to understand Allen when he writes: "Tailors and bootmakers in neighboring towns were deluged with rush orders for smart battle jackets and combat boots . . . high-geared action, hard-hitting competence, and breezy cockiness became HQ Third Army's fixed character and tempo. It moved, talked, and fought, fast, tough, and hard...
George Could Have Done It. Allen's charges against SHAEF and British Field Marshal Montgomery are heated and serious, but military men and plain readers alike will be apt to notice a lack of documentation for Author Allen's conclusions. Says Allen of the Falaise gap: "The trap was set. All that remained was to spring it. ... There was nothing...
Lucky Forward is peppered with similar charges, none of them convincingly sustained. Says Allen: "Patton was the sparkplug and dynamo of the war in the ETO. The full record of his genius and far-flung impact on operations still is entombed behind an official wall of jealous silence and so-called 'classified documents...
This kind of runaway lingo often leads Historian Allen into exaggerations. Where a few casualties were inflicted on a German combat patrol, Allen recalls that they were "mowed down." A minor attack became a powerful counterattack, prisoners are credited to the wrong division and the negotiated surrender of a distant enemy division is described as if the enemy troops laid down their arms at the mere sight of Patton...
...felt that there was discrimination against the Third Army in the distribution of supplies, especially gasoline, and knew that the Third could have kept advancing at times when it was halted by higher headquarters. What the reasons were was not always clear and is not entirely clear yet, and Allen does nothing in Lucky Forward to clarify matters. Even rabid Third Army veterans will probably not be satisfied with Colonel Allen's charge of simple jealousy in higher places. The Patton legend does not need to be increased by decreasing the services, the skills and the patriotism...