Word: patton
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Geniuses & Gadflies. Crusade in Europe should also be close to the final word on the Montgomery and Patton controversies, if not on the Battle of the Bulge. Patiently and logically, in terms of command and the necessities of logistics, Ike knocks down Monty's argument in favor of a single ground commander in Europe (Monty wanted the job) and a single punch against the Ruhr and Berlin (again by Monty) instead of a broad crossing of the Rhine. The same logic and logistics dispose of Patton's claim that, given the men & supplies he needed, he could have...
...James Grigg (British Secretary of State for War, 1942-45) has written, Eisenhower had to put up with "not one but two geniuses-Patton as well as Montgomery . . . [not] an entirely unalloyed blessing." Ike leaves no doubt that he valued them both. He also leaves no doubt that they could, each in his own way, be irritating. Each time Patton made a boner, Blood-and-Guts would come to Ike close to tears, and promise not to do it again. Writes Eisenhower: "His emotional range was very great and he lived at either one end or the other...
...hand-picked Patton because "for certain types of action [he] was the outstanding soldier our country has produced ..." Patton knew that Ike had saved his hide more than once, wrote to him after the famous soldier-slapping incident: "I am at a loss to find words with which to express my chagrin and grief at having given you, a man to whom I owe everything and for whom I would gladly lay down my life, cause to be displeased with...
Rankin was also at odds with the government. Not content with mere New Dealers, he jumped on Secretary of War Stimson, crying that Communists had been allowed to obtain commissions in the Army. He demanded Stimson's resignation, and put up the name of General George Patton for the job. The government, however, found it wise to disregard not only this piece of advice, but a staggeringly high percentage of the other suggestions Rankin offered in his brief tenure as de facto chairman of Dies' committee. In 1946, the Republican scoop displaced the Mississippian in favor of J. Parnell Thomas...
Those two masterly books brought Freeman invitations to lecture at the Army & Navy War Colleges and the Army's staff and command school. They also brought him the admiration of such men as Eisenhower, Marshall, Patton and Nimitz. Freeman still guides visiting generals over the Civil War battlefields near Richmond and no living person knows the terrain so well...