Today seventy years ago Operation Cobra began, the breakout of First United States Army from the Normandy Peninsula. By the end of July the First Army had shattered the German forces before them and broken out of Normandy. The stage was set for Patton and his Third Army, which became operational on August 1, 1944. My favorite living historian Victor Davis Hanson describes the military masterpiece that followed:
Go here to read the rest at National Review Online.
The unstoppable quality of Patton and his Third Army as they careened across France in August of 1944 was summed up at the time by one of the German generals opposing him: On August 21, the commanding general of the 21st Panzer Division, General Edgar Feuchtinger, reported: “The situation is completely out of hand. From Chartres, Patton has turned north with part of his army and is advancing on the Rouen area. No one seems able to stop him.”
True genius in any field of endeavor is a rare and precious commodity. Patton was a genius at waging war, and a great many Americans are alive today because that genius turned the battle of France into the race across France, sparing the lives of their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers as a result. Patton was bombastic and arrogant, but in his case his bombast and arrogance paled in comparison to the ability of the man to make good every promise he made to his men about what they would accomplish against their enemies.
I just learned on a recent visit to Princeton Battlefield that Patton was a direct descendant of General Hugh Mercer, a close friend of General Washington, who died from wounds he received at Princeton.
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Seems like something I should have already known, but it somehow escaped my prior knowledge (or, if I did know it at one time, I had forgotten it).
http://almostchosenpeople.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/culloden-to-princeton/
Righto. Underneath the uncouth, foul mouth showman was a brilliant, educated, cultured military genius. Hit them fast and hard where they can be beat. Fire and maneuver on the army level. He had proven himslef in North Africa and Sicily. Nathan Bedford Forrest also comes to mind. Also, Richard the Lion-Hearted.
He’d famously fine front-line soldiers for not having on their ties.
Similarly, MacArthur was bypassing (Rabaul) Japanese-held islands and similarly victorious and economical with the lives of his soldiers.
A friend’s (RIP) father (RIP) served as a shave-tail with Pattion charging across France.
America is losing so much of value as these brave men pass on.
Don, I guess that’s why I should be a more frequent reader of Almost Chosen People. Especially given that it so closely aligns with my general interest in American History.
😉
Come to think of it, I’ve visited the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop in Fredericksburg, VA (and have been something of a fan of this Jacobite-turned-American-patriot for quite a number of years), and I can’t imagine that his being a direct ancestor of Patton didn’t come up during the visit, or that I hadn’t stumbled across the fact at some point over the years.
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Still, if I had ever been made aware of it, I had completely forgotten that fact by the time I visited Princeton a few weeks ago.
Too many historical facts Jay for the human mind to hold them all! I often encounter historical tidbits that seem new to me although I suspect that I had encountered them before once upon a time in the dim past, at least dim in my brain.
You could spot a Third Army man from a mile away, my dad said. They bragged about Patton all the time. Other people would brag about their country’s military, or their particular service, but for Patton’s men it was all about their army and their general.
We all know,either from the movie or from other sources, that Patton wanted to march into Berlin and kick the Soviets all the way to Moscow. I’m not suggesting that this would have ever happened, but one can wonder.
A generation earlier, Marshal Josef Pilsudski of Poland saw the Communists for what they were, just as Patton did.