"George S. Patton and the Battle of the Bulge: "As Soon" Topic

… AS YOU'RE THROUGH WITH ME, I CAN ATTACK THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW MORNING'

"At a presidential press conference a dozen years after the December 1944 Battle of the Bulge, President Dwight D. Eisenhower confessed, "I didn't get frightened until three weeks after it had begun, when I began to read the American papers and found…how near we were to being whipped." On the enemy side, with Lieutenant General George S. Patton below the southern flank of the surprise German thrust, the high command under Feldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt realized the hazards of the Bulge from the start. Whatever the initial momentum, the operation had to succeed quickly. As bespectacled General der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger acknowledged in ironic self-congratulation after­ward, "Patton had [already] given proof of his extraordinary skill in armored warfare, which he conducted according to the fundamental German conception."

Whether or not he practiced the German mode of war, Patton, who wrote martial verse all his life, penned a rude rhyme in 1944 that roughly paralleled Brandenberger's principles. Advocating relentless pressure on the enemy, Patton urged unrhapsodically:…"

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Armand

He also had a fantastic army staff unit, Who always planned ahead for any possibility.

Eisenhower shaken, Bradley intimidated, and Montgomery pompous, sluggish and sneering (etc).

How did they win the war?

Because Eisenhower keep it all together. He's job was to not lose the war, which he did an excellent job.

He also had a fantastic army staff unit, Who always planned ahead for any possibility.

In particular, he had Col. Oscar Koch as his G2 (intel officer), who saw the German attack coming, so that 3rd Army was planning its reaction to the German offensive almost before it started.

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Patton appears to have made some very suspicious retrospective alterations to his Diary

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Thanks

Armand

Mserafin +1 and Mkenny Eisenhower heavy redacted his War Diary after the war.

My favorite Patton quote

"Brad, the Kraut's stuck his head in a meat grinder. And this time I have hold of the handle."

Coolness in the face of adversity. A different style from Joffre at the Marne, indeed, but in the end that's the same spirit.

(smile)

Armand

What is interesting about Patton's Drive north, that few know about, is that it was assisted by two separate deception operations. The 23rd Headquarters (AKA The Ghost Army) pulled off an operation that made the Germans think the drive was going more to the east and at a different rate. At the same time it happens that the US Army had cracked the local 'stay behind' German agent ring and coerced the agents to send mis-information- they sent basically the correct info, but made it seem like the US forces were much slower than they were. This let Patton hit the German lines earlier than expected, but also made it seem like the turned German agents were still properly functioning so they could continue to be used to send more false info.

The Germans had already lost the battle before any of Patton's men got into the fight.