🚀 go-pugleaf

"Dave Smith" <adavid.smith@DELETETOREPLYsympatico.ca> wrote in message 
news:4965299c$0$22996$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>
> Wen they finally stared fighting in North Africa and Italy their record 
> was not glorious. Patton had his guys "flanking" the enemy to "liberate" 
> Sicilian cities where there we no Germans, while the British and Canadians 
> fought the enemy head on and defeated them.

Below is Gen Bradley's opinion of Patton. And Bradley
was for a while Pattons subordinate, then was leap
frogged to become his 'superior'.

Now let me quote Carlo D'Este's book: Decision In Normandy:
                pages 404-405

    "For weeks Patton* had been anxiously waiting in the wings for
an opportunity to redeem himself after the humiliation of his
relief in Sicily; he was determined not to bungle whatever chance
he got. Bradley* was not pleased to have him as a subordinate. The
campaign in Sicily, where Bradley* had been Patton's* subordinate,
had heightened the strong differences in their characters and
their approach to command. The volatile Patton* was given to
sudden fits of anger; his profane manner was often his undoing
and a source of embarrassment to both Eisenhower* and Bradley*,
as it was to Marshall*. Bradley* was repelled by Patton's* tendancy
to swear at his troops and could never understand his need for
crudeness. More importantly, Bradley* felt Patton* had not been
sufficiently familiar with the planning details for HUSKY, that he
had left too much to his deputy commander, and had not
involved himself deeply enough in the logistics and enemy situ-
ations. <He viewed Patton's* insistence on capturing Messina
before Montgomery** as an ego trip at the expense of his troops.>
Though he remained a loyal subordinate, Bradley* had neverthe-
less grown more disenchanted with Patton*, and found
serving under him a great strain, so that by the time he was
appointed by Eisenhower* to command the First Army for the
invasion Bradley* was delighted to be out from under. 'I disliked
the way he worked, upset technical plans, interfered in my
orders. His stubbornness on amphibious operations and his
<parade plans into Messina> sickened me and soured me on
Patton'*(1). Above all else, two events that did most to sour Bradley*
on Patton* occured on 3 August 1943 and again on 10 August,
when the furious Seventh Army Commander slapped a soldier
thought to be malingering in separate incidents at two field
hospitals. For a disgusted Bradley,* this was the last straw.
    COBRA admittedly made an awkward situation for both men,
with the one-time superior now the subordinate, but although
their journey together to the end of the war was not always
without difficulty, Bradley* was soon to have ample reason to be



Then there was the Kassarine pass episode
when they ran into Rommell's retreating army
and FAILED!

When one considers that the western end of his retreating
army was staffed by cooks and clerks, while his
fighting soldiers were at the East end of the battle
facing the British, miles away from the ameriKKKan
army.




> It was the Canadians and British who did most of the fighting up through 
> Italy while the Americans tried another flanking manouvre and got trapped 
> on a beach.
>
> They managed to sit out most of WWI. The didn't declare war until the 
> Allies started gaining ground against the Germans, and it was the 
> Canadians who succeeded where others had failed.  When they finally did 
> get their men over to Europe they refused to take the advice of the 
> British and Canadians about the tactics that had worked for them, so when 
> they finally got into combat they reverted to the old ways, which had 
> failed, and they got creamed.