|
|
General George S. Patton and the Battle of the BulgeBy Stanley Weintraub | MHQ | 10 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post Erich Brandenberger expected “a speedy reaction from the enemy.” He meant Patton. Yet he assumed that it would take Patton at least four days to wheel his divisions about, and the terrible weather—rain, sleet and snow—would be an additional handicap. Nevertheless, Patton’s troops began shifting north. He felt that Bastogne was as good as lost if he could not get there by Christmas. (The Germans had already taken St. Vith, on the northern shoulder.) The 101st Airborne Division, surrounded and besieged, was holding the town precariously. Although the division and its supporting armored elements would be bottled up only for eight days, its airborne nature left it without heavy guns, and the tanks of Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division were a lightweight counterpart to the panzer divisions surrounding Bastogne. Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, the 101st’s acting commander, knew that Patton’s forces were being alerted, but he had his doubts about how long the fragile 101st could endure. “Most of us,” he said later, rather ungenerously of Patton, “thought he never had a very good staff but he certainly accomplished miracles with it….Well, I mean the success of moving an unwieldy mass like that; to change your lines of supply, and everything, to turn that cumbersome, heavy-going outfit in the snow, in the fog and the rain, and turn them around so quickly as he did to get them going to the north, was really a remarkable task to accomplish.” Patton had already thought hard about the operation, for he saw no other avenue for the relief of Bastogne. More than breaking a siege, the risky turnaround was essential to reducing the burgeoning Bulge. Yet the town was 125 difficult, wintry miles from the bulk of the Third Army. In two days and nights about a hundred thousand troops, with thousands of supply trucks, tanks, self-propelled guns, and other vehicles, had to slog over roads that barely existed beneath the mud, ice, and snow. Since blackout restrictions meant nothing in the poor visibility and lack of enemy air traffic, drivers kept their lights on. In the miserable terrain, communications teams had to lay and network nearly twenty thousand miles of wire. To his wife, Beatrice, Patton wrote that “the staff of the Third Army, which consisted of myself and Sergeant [John L.] Mims [his jeep driver] visited two corps and five division commanders, and telephoned for the engineers, tank destroyers, extra tank battalions, etc.” It was over-the-top boasting, but Patton believed in hands-on oversight, whatever the hour or the weather. When he was discovered dining in style and enjoying vintage wines in a hotel in Luxembourg City, it had no bearing on where he had already been or would be going. No admirer of Patton—the feeling was mutual—Montgomery sneeringly cabled his ostensible boss, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, chief of staff in London, that Patton’s attack “went off half-cock” and predicted that the Germans would be able to keep going. In his diary on December 22, Brooke wrote, “German offensive appears to be held in the north”—now under Montgomery, but with almost no British troops committed—“but I am a little more doubtful about the south. Patton is reported to have put in a counter attack. This could only have been a half baked affair and I doubt it’s doing much good.” On the same day, Patton wrote to Beatrice that the Third Army had “progressed on a twenty-mile front to a depth of seven miles.” He had “hoped for more but we are in the middle of a snow storm and there were a lot of [enemy] demolitions. So I should be content which of course I am not….We moved over a hundred miles [since] starting on the 19th.” To augment his forces, Patton extracted eight thousand men from rear-area service troops, including clerks and cooks and bandsmen. “If others would do the same,” he wrote to Beatrice—he knew how swollen support staffs were in Paris and Brussels and even in Luxembourg City—“we could finish this show in short order.” His combined attacking force, including Maj. Gen. Willard Paul’s 26th Infantry and Maj. Gen. Horace McBride’s 80th Infantry, numbered 108 armored, infantry, and artillery battalions, with 1,295 guns of 105mm or larger. “I don’t see how the Boche can take this much artillery,” he said. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, World War II
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
What is HistoryNet?The HistoryNet.com is brought to you by the Weider History Group, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. If you are interested in a specific history subject, try searching our archives, you are bound to find something to pique your interest. |
From Our Magazines
|
Weider History Group |
Weider History Network: HistoryNet | Armchair General | Great History | Achtung Panzer! Terms of Use | Copyright © 2009 Weider History Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. |
||
Loading ...
10 Comments to “General George S. Patton and the Battle of the Bulge”
My name is SSG Phillip Murray with 2nd BN 27th IN 25th ID. I am looking for my grandfathers brother who was killed in the Battle of The Bulge. His name is Robert Murray. I would like all the information you could find on him please. I have been looking for informattion on him for a few weeks now and ha e found nothing. I would like to write a little book on my grandfather and 4 brothers in WWII one of them being deceased. I appreciate you help
By Phillip J Murray on Jul 6, 2008 at 11:38 pm
You might consider looking around on the net for what unit he was a part of. There’s a large number of sites around which might be able to put you in touch with people who might have known him.
For instance, the 9th Infantry Division Association comprises the 60th, 47th and 39th Infantry Divisions as well as a large number of other units.
http://www.octofoil.org
Aside from that, your best bet in this is to look through resources such as the national archives which will contain all of the reported information on events in WWII. Good luck in your search!
By Torry Crass on Dec 28, 2008 at 3:44 pm
i think that there should be more information because these teachers at estrella vista elementary want speicific onfo man they want everything from us!!!!!!1
By richard on Jan 12, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Search for PHILLIP MURRAY.
Hello from BELGIUM,result search ROBERT J MURRAY,LOOK
service:42145804
18th infantry regiment,1st infantry division.
Died 18 jan 1945
plot-f…row 6….grave 14.
HENRY CHAPELLE AMERICAN CEMETERY-BELGIUM
abmc.gov
BONNE CHANCE .GOOD LUCK.
CHRISTIAN. BELGIUM COUNTRY.
By BOSMANS CHRISTIAN on Feb 6, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Im taking the person of the century challenge I vote Patton
By Everett Perry on May 21, 2009 at 9:21 am
Was hoping to read something insightful here; surprised instead to find the most psycophantic piece of ignorant rubbish I have read in a long time. It’s reverence of Patton is matched only by its disdain for the excellent job that Montgomery did in re-organising the northern shoulder.
Monty was quite right…the attack by Patton was in too little strength into too difficult terrain, in too difficult weather. The objective of the attack was to reduce pressure on 1st US Army by forcing the Germans to respond. Patton signally failed in this objective. Both of 5th or 6th Panzer Armies continued attacking Hodges 1st US Army unhindered. Essentially, they ignored Patton, because his attack was floundering and was not threatening their advance on their actual objectives.
Hodges, without any orders from Bradley or Eisenhower, neither of whom bothered to ring or visit him, was most grateful to be put under Mongomery’s command. Montgomery is generally acknowleged by even his harshest critics to have done an excellent job of generalship.
The suggestion that Montgomery refused to visit persons of lower rank can only be a deliberate lie, since it is obviously absurd on a moment of the merest thought. How does one exercise command without visiting subordinates and issuing orders? Montgomery visited his army commanders almost every day, regularly visited the corps commanders, and personally gave talks to many thousands of the US troops involved in the Battle of the Bulge, something that US commanders could have learned from. The US troops were astonished to have a field marshal talking to them when they had for the most part never been talked to by their divisional general, let alone a corps or army commander. Monty’s philosophy was that you went forward to subordinates to give orders at the place where they were to be carried out, not call your subordinates back to you at your ivory tower. The meeting referred to is the only one that Monty did not attend because he was tied up on that day directing the actual battle, which is more than either Eisenhower or Bradley were doing.
The suggestion that Eisenhower came up with the idea of shortening the southern army groups to provide reinforcements is also fantasy. That was Montgomery’s suggestion and at first Eisenhower didn’t do it (because it necessarily involved giving up ground). He was later persuaded, but did not want a confrontation with Devers so asked one of his staff to pass the news to Devers (that he should shorten salients and withdraw in places so as to free up reserves). Devers did no such thing, in an excellent example of the disdain that Eisenhower’s battlefield commanders generally had for him as a general, even if they thought the world of him as a person. By the time Eisenhower got around to ordering Devers properly, De Gaulle stepped in politically and forced Eisenhower not to relinquish French territory. So the divisions never did get made available.
None of this is particularly hard to find out.
Finally, the writer seems to go on about the lack of commitment of British formations. He seems to think it would have been wise to cut Brit troops and supply lines across US supply lines. It would not have been. The Brits expanded their frontage to release US divisions to reinforce the Ardennes. Only the Brit garrison units that Monty had the foresight to place on the Meuse bridges got into some limited action to blunt the tip of the German spear. Later on, however, a full British corps of three divisions came into action on the right flank of the counter attack, ordered by Montgomery, by Lightning Joe Collins 7th US Corps….but the writer doesn’t seem to want to mention this, and deliberately leaves the reader with a false impression. Perhaps it would too gracious? Too balanced?
The short capsule on Normandy….where Patton breaks out while the stolid Bradley and Montgomery is pure fantasy where any resemblance to reality is accidental. To point out only the most egregious distortion: the breakout was already achieved before 3rd Army was activated. One hopes the writer will at some stage actually read a history of the Normandy campaign…try Carlo D’estes Decision at Normandy for the US view or Hamilton’s bio on Monty for the Brit view.
There is a lot more, but time does not permit. Basically the article is a disgrace that should never have been commited to type.
By McIvan on May 21, 2009 at 11:30 pm
I couldn’t have said it better than McIvan. History has shown (p.e. the Enigma) that US war correspondence (driven by pride and arrogance) have invented propaganda on their own..;-) I think that the myth around G.S.Patton has been strengthened over the last decades mainly caused by the fact that he died just after the war. Nevertheless he has been a great inspiror and into lengths of time we should be greatfull to those who liberated us!
By Marcel on Jun 17, 2009 at 1:45 pm
The bulge was technicaly a draw both sides had losses about the same. In fact when the battle was closed down the US Army had not recovered the ground it had lossed.
Initially Patton refused to move North when ordered by Bradley and had to be odered by Eisenhower
Opertion Cobra the US Breakout at Normandy only took place after Monty took the bulk of the German tanks onto the Brits and Canadian Armies. six and a half Panzer Divisions including all the SS Panzers. The US faced one and a half panzer divisions at Cobra. and after ‘Goodwood’ The Germans had only 174 AFVs to counter attack Cobra. The British were facing almost 700
It is now widely accepted that that Patton used Ultra to avoid having to fight German Panzers. The British Secret Recconnaisance Regiment (The Phantoms) provided most of Pattons intelligence on the Ground and some of their reports seem to support this
Many people believe that the German Alpine Fortress was invented by the US government to excuse Patton’s moving away from the main German defended areas, going south when the main German forces were moving North. But to the US as long as Patton was advancing even when it was in the wrong direction that was OK.
By the way Monty commanded four of the major succesfful battles of WW2, Alamein, Mareth, Normandy and the Rhein crossingand many smaller succesfull ones. Tell me which US General could match him for success and size
By Arnie on Oct 31, 2009 at 7:06 am