| Gary Kennedy | 18 Jun 2008 4:23 a.m. PST |
I think this was from the Colditz story. An Allied soldier shinning down a makeshit rope found himself confronted by a German sentry looking through the window (who was probably just as surprised). The order from the German to a man dangling in mid air, holding onto a rope? "Hande hoche!" (Apologies if i've got the spelling wrong, I'm on lunch) And a Napoleonic era one I remember along the lines of, "Let us charge them now before they realise how few we are!" French hussar I think, may be someone else can recall who? Gary |
| Rex Bellator | 18 Jun 2008 4:31 a.m. PST |
About her Husband: "…he never said go in there men, but rather, follow me boys!" Mrs. Elizabeth Custer. |
| Ditto Tango 2 1 | 18 Jun 2008 5:04 a.m. PST |
In 1941, the US Marines who defended Wake Island,
when asked what they required, had said"Send us more Japs." This was actually a bit of a an urban legend at the time which had its origins in a message that had padding at the end and after the body of the message. The padded words if not discarded, and incorrectly read as part of the actual message looked like "send more japs".
--
Tim |
| Bob Hume | 18 Jun 2008 6:29 a.m. PST |
Originated by John Wright (one of my gaming buddies) and repeated in most games where we play on the same side." very dangerous, you go first" |
| Byrhthelm | 18 Jun 2008 6:32 a.m. PST |
Ivan, Thanks! I just couldn't remember… put it down to a senior moment! |
| thomalley | 18 Jun 2008 6:40 a.m. PST |
Bluto: Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! |
| Steve Flanagan | 18 Jun 2008 6:54 a.m. PST |
Originated by John Wright (one of my gaming buddies) and repeated in most games where we play on the same side." very dangerous, you go first" Isn't that Salah to Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark? |
| sma1941 | 18 Jun 2008 8:04 a.m. PST |
"Lets roll" Todd Beamer, United Flight 93, September 11, 2001 |
| Khevenhuller | 18 Jun 2008 8:17 a.m. PST |
During the Napoleonic Wars four Hungarian hussars wanted to attack 40 enemy light cavalrymen but were prevented from doing so by their officer who thought the odds too great. "Eh?" grumbled one Hussar, "I had never heard that we had to count the enemy before we attack." After Imphal in 1944 some Ghurkas were burying dead Japanese on the battlefield when one came across a wounded enemy soldier. Pulling out his Kukri he was just about to finish him off when his British officer stopped him, explaining that it was`wrong to kill men like that in cold blood. The anguished Ghurka replied: "But sir, I cannot bury him alive." In the SYW in training an Austrian solier, some 1.8 metres tall, was told by his (much shorter) Korporal: "Stand upright, and keep your head up!" "In which case," responded the recruit, "I will never see you again so we had better say goodbye." K |
| Last Hussar | 18 Jun 2008 9:20 a.m. PST |
Ivan- I sit corrected. Worst timed remark was the German officer at St Nazier who queried what the British hoped to acheive, seconds before Campbeltown exploded. and of course, the finest line by a war correspondent "I counted them all out, and I counted them all back"
(?John Simpson, at the Falklands, because he could not say how many Harriers took part in a raid) Schwartzkopf on the Iraqi Army. "I'm going to cut off, then I'm going to kill it" Very Guderian. |
| Ivan the Reasonable | 18 Jun 2008 9:39 a.m. PST |
LAST HUSSAR, MAX HASTINGS! See me after class! |
| Ivan the Reasonable | 18 Jun 2008 9:42 a.m. PST |
Sorry, I think I must have put my pedants head on this morning. |
Big Red  | 18 Jun 2008 9:51 a.m. PST |
One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic – Stalin (and he should know!) It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army – Marshal Georgi Zhukov |
| mosby65 | 18 Jun 2008 10:03 a.m. PST |
Several more ACW quotes: "It can hardly be in human nature for men to show more valor, or generals to manifest less judgement" - anonymous Northern reporter at Fredericksburg, 1862 "The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on." - Ulysses S. Grant "The [American] Civil War is not ended. I question whether any serious civil war ever does end." - T.S. Eliot |
| vtsaogames | 18 Jun 2008 12:14 p.m. PST |
Lincoln: "Sending reinforcements to McClellan is like shoveling flies across a barnyard." |
| donlowry | 18 Jun 2008 12:28 p.m. PST |
When a crusader fighting the Cathars in southern France asked the Pope how to tell the heretics from true believers the Pope supposedly replied, "Kill them all; God will recognize his own." |
| Grand Duke Natokina | 18 Jun 2008 12:42 p.m. PST |
When Custer asked how many warriors were in the big Lakota/Cheyenne encampment on the Little Bighorn, one of his Crow scouts replied:
There are more warriors than there are bullets in the belts of the white soldiers. |
Empires at War  | 18 Jun 2008 1:00 p.m. PST |
Grey haired Japanese soldier on being found on a remote Pacific island in 1998 "Its been over how long?" |
| Bob Hume | 18 Jun 2008 1:04 p.m. PST |
Why Steve, you are correct. My buddie nicked it. Wait till I see him again. |
 Virtualscratchbuilder  | 18 Jun 2008 2:20 p.m. PST |
"Luke! Use the technology… that's what it's there for!" |
| Kevin Kiley | 18 Jun 2008 3:35 p.m. PST |
Last Hussar, The officer that said that was Powell, not Schwartzkopf, at a Pentagon breifing. Sincerely,
Kevin |
| Khevenhuller | 19 Jun 2008 12:06 a.m. PST |
Kevin I thought that sounded too erudite for Schwarzkopf… K |
| CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 19 Jun 2008 12:36 a.m. PST |
Letter home from a British recruit in 1939: "They have taught us the use of cold steel, which the Germans do NOT like!" |
| valleyboy | 19 Jun 2008 1:39 a.m. PST |
"Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country"
Bertrand Russell "In defeat unbeatable; in victory unbearable"
Churchill on Montgomery "I don't mind you being killed,but I object to you being taken prisoner"
Kitchener to th Prince Of Wales when he asked to go to the Western Front in WW1 |
| Dave Crowell | 19 Jun 2008 3:39 a.m. PST |
Veni, Vidi, Vici Alea Iacta Est Delenda Est Carthago
It is finished.
|
| IR1Lothringen | 19 Jun 2008 4:11 a.m. PST |
"experience is the comb life gives you when you have lost all your hair" (Anon) "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" (Anon) |
| Gary Kennedy | 19 Jun 2008 4:11 a.m. PST |
A couple I rememeber from those sites with a selection of less than flaterring opinions of trainee officers from their tutors – "His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiousity." "Having hit rock bottom this cadet has proceeded to dig." And my favourite; "This officer sets himself extremely low standards, which he continually fails to achieve." Makes you wonder what happened to them after Sandhurst… |
| Defiant | 19 Jun 2008 6:26 a.m. PST |
Again, Borodino, 1812 The performance of the French themselves was magnificient. They pressed home their attacks under murderous canister fire, and in recognition of their bravery the chivalrous Bagration 'several times clapped his hands and shouted "bravo! bravo" ' I always loved reading that… |
| Khevenhuller | 19 Jun 2008 7:03 a.m. PST |
"Good shot" General Montbrun as he fell from his saddle at Borodino, mortally woulded by a shell splinter. K |
| Supercilius Maximus | 19 Jun 2008 8:06 a.m. PST |
<<"I counted them all out, and I counted them all back"
(?John Simpson, at the Falklands, because he could not say how many Harriers took part in a raid)>> <<LAST HUSSAR, MAX HASTINGS! See me after class!>> Actually it was Brian Hanrahan. |
| Big Red | 19 Jun 2008 8:47 a.m. PST |
|
| 138SquadronRAF | 19 Jun 2008 9:24 a.m. PST |
The reputed British Army fitness report on a Second Lt. "I would not breed from this officer" When wellington complained Gen. William Erskine was considered to be mad he was told "Yes but when he's lucid he's really clever." |
| CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 19 Jun 2008 9:26 a.m. PST |
We can all hope for a reference like that! |
| Robert le Diable | 19 Jun 2008 9:31 a.m. PST |
Did Wellington actually say, as another company headed for Hougoumont, "In you go, lads, let's see no more of you"? Further to the various Lincoln ones, I've always liked his response to a ?politician/?journalist who challenged him to a duel: "Why, certainly. What do you say to cow-dung thrown at thirty paces?" |
| Ironwolf | 19 Jun 2008 10:00 a.m. PST |
Not sure if its true but always heard this was found on a captured Japan ww-II submarine. "The beatings will continue until moral improves" |
| Ivan the Reasonable | 19 Jun 2008 10:15 a.m. PST |
Supercilious, Ah,ok. I,ll sit at the back with Last Hussar! |
| CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 19 Jun 2008 10:42 a.m. PST |
Let's not forget 'Comical Ali's' premature reports on the death of the US army at Baghdad, surely a modern classic. |
| Cke1st | 19 Jun 2008 11:44 a.m. PST |
Maj. Lloyd W. Williams, USMC, when advised by a French officer to retreat from Chateau-Thierry: "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!" Supposedly Churchill: "The greatest thrill a man can experience is to be shot at and missed." Bud Anderson, American P-51 pilot, on being asked to repeat a radio transmission in the middle of a dogfight: "Can't talk, gotta shoot." |
| TanSonNhut | 19 Jun 2008 12:38 p.m. PST |
"An entire world at war and I'm left out of it! God will not let this happen! I will be allowed to fulfill my destiny! His will be done." From the movie Patton. Not exactly a one liner, but it was a great scene. |
| carne68 | 19 Jun 2008 1:13 p.m. PST |
American frontiersman/trapper and all around mountain man Jim Bridger was once asked if he was ever 'lost' in the wilderness to which he replied: "I don't reckon I was ever lost but I was powerful turned around for about three weeks one time." |
 Mserafin | 19 Jun 2008 1:42 p.m. PST |
Admiral Lord Cunningham to the Mediterranean fleet during the Crete battle: Remember that it takes the navy three years to build a ship, but it's taken three hundred to build a tradition." |
| Mserafin | 19 Jun 2008 2:02 p.m. PST |
Herman Goring to the Swiss Ambassador: "You say you can put half a million men in the field. What will you do if we invade with one million?" Swiss ambassador: "Each of us will have to shoot twice" |
| 4th Cuirassier | 19 Jun 2008 2:41 p.m. PST |
"Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake." – Napoleon "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver" – Goering "The Screaming Eagles are on the Euphrates. Jihad, mother****er!" – unknown member of the 82nd Airborne, 1991 |
| Last Hussar | 19 Jun 2008 3:56 p.m. PST |
Hold on – I got the Hanrahan quote right, just wasn't sure about the reporter- hence the ?. Sorry about the Powell one- its so late before I get on the 'net I can't always be bothered to check what I thought I was sure about. In my defence I would put up something I heard thorugh ex army
"Try, Fail. Try better, Fail better. Try again"
So I really don't want to sit at the back with Ivan- his mum gives him funny sandwiches for lunch. |
| donlowry | 19 Jun 2008 6:00 p.m. PST |
If we're quoting movies now: "He graduated dead last in his class at West Point. Quite an achievement when you consider some of his classmates."
Longstreet describing Pickett in the movie Gettysburg To which Pickett replies, "Yes,the Yankees got all the smart ones; much good it did them!" |
| CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 20 Jun 2008 12:16 a.m. PST |
Thought the Swiss quote was to the Kaiser pre-1914 (and they'd have to shoot five times) |
| LORDGHEE | 20 Jun 2008 1:52 a.m. PST |
The Persian official to the Spartans at Thermopylae
"The Great king will let you go all you have to do is give up your weapons" King Leonidas "come and get them"
And
"I AM SPARTACUS" |
| CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 20 Jun 2008 1:55 a.m. PST |
No, I'm Spartacus! "I know, let's flog the queen of the Iceni and rape her daughters! What are these rabid, battle-crazed Celts going to DO about it?" |
| Cke1st | 20 Jun 2008 6:06 a.m. PST |
Lincoln on McClellan: "If I gave him a million soldiers, he would immediately decide that Lee had two millions, and then sit in the dust and howl until I gave him three." Lincoln also referred to McClellan as "the Virginia creeper." |
| Martin Rapier | 20 Jun 2008 6:09 a.m. PST |
Oh, we are doing movie quotes now. "This isn't mission difficult Mr Hunt". Anthony Hopkins in MI2. "If I had six divisions of such men, our troubles here would soon be over". Col Kurtz. "Always with the negative waves Moriarty". Oddball. "I am an officer of the law". Inspecter Clouseau. "Aren't you a little short to be a Stormtrooper?" Princess Leiea (sp?) |
