December 4, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Stephen Ambrose spent his life showing readers that the heart of history lives in the people who shape it. His gift for storytelling made complex events feel personal, and that gift continues to resonate long after his passing in 2002. Thanks to the stewardship of his estate, his work can now be heard here at Our American Stories. In this installment of his D-Day series, Ambrose explores the decisive role General George Patton played in the push across Europe and explains how Patton’s leadership helped turn momentum into victory.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories.
Stephen Ambrose was one of America's leading biographers and historians
and one of my personal favorites undaunted courage I could
read every year. At the core of Ambrose's phenomenal success
is his simple but straightforward belief that history is biography,
(00:30):
that history is about people, and that's the animating spirit
behind our American Stories too. Stephen Ambrose passed in two
thousand and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can now
be heard here at Our American Stories, thanks to those
who run his estate. Here's Ambrose with the story of
the D Day Invasion, Part three, Winning with Patent. Let's
(00:54):
take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Keyler's relations with his generals couldn't have been worse, and
now by this time he had taken even more so
than previously personal control of the war. He was down
to not just division but regimental level. He made the
decision on who went where or when, what they did
when they got there. And in this case he threw
everything that Germany had into this moreteen counter attack designed
(01:17):
to cut Patent off from the sea, and he had
a lot to throw into it. As many as ten divisions,
not all of them full strength divisions, by no means
all of them armored divisions, but nevertheless a very impressive force.
A greater force in Eisenhower had by quite a lot
to stop it with. But I now had two advantages
(01:38):
in this more teined counter attack battle. One was he
knew Hitler's plans. He knew Hitler's plans because Hitler had
to communicate, not by telephone wire they had all been
torn up by this time telephone lines to the front lines.
He had to communicate by radio, and Ike read everything
that the German general's read, and he saw Hitler's orders,
and he knew what was coming, and he knew in
(01:59):
what strength is now our second great advantage wise his
forces controlled the air. He talked to Bradley. There was
some thought that Jeezez Pittner's putting so much into this,
maybe we better pull Georgie back, Maybe we better have
Patent stop where he is, or even come back a bit.
And maybe we ought to move some more troops down
there to the more teen area than we've got, and
(02:21):
maybe we ought to build our defenses down there, and
we put a halt to our own offensive until we've
thrown back this German counterattack. There was some thought of that.
Eisnawer said, no, we're gonna depend on our air forces.
When those German tanks come out of their loggers and
get out onto the open road, we're gonna shoot them
up and we're gonna wipe them out. And when the
(02:41):
German tanks did come out of their loggers and did
start the attack on more Tein, they did make some
progress initially, and then the RAF and the US Army
Air Forces, the US Army Knight Air Force came into
the battle. It was an important turning point in the
history of war. A great tank attack thousand, two thousand
tanks strong was stopped primarily by aircraft and also by
(03:04):
artillery on the ground from the fourth Division especially, but
basically aircraft stopped this German attack. Now, the generals had
told Hitler that was what was going to happen. They
had been there in Normandy. They knew what that Allied
air superiority meant. German joke had it in Normandy. If
you see a plane in the sky and it's blue,
(03:27):
it's British, if it's silver, it's America. And if it's
invisible as ours and they knew what these fighters could
do and these fighter bombers. The generals did, and they
warned Hitler and advised him against it, but he was
determined to take this great risk, and he remained determined
(03:47):
long after it was obvious that they were not going
to be able to break through it. Martine Hitler continued
to throw his tanks into the attack and they continue
to get kewed up. Meanwhile, Patten was circling around behind
but nothing between him and Paris, begging his immediate superior
General Bradley, and beyond him his next ranking superior General Montgomery,
(04:10):
and beyond him General Eisenhower for permission to go straight
on through to Paris and then come on down on
the east bank of the Seine River and trapped the
entire German Army of the West in Normandy without resources,
no gasoline left, no ammunition left, the tanks all gone.
It would be a bag of prisoners that would greatly
(04:31):
exceed that captured at Stalingrad. It would mean the end
of the war. Germany would never be able to replace
these losses. The Allies, once they had put these prisoners
into their cages, would be able to turn east and
drive on to Germany with almost no opposition, So said Patten,
MANI wasn't so sure, and in this case neither was
Ike that the Germans were that thoroughly defeated. They decided,
(04:54):
we're not going to go for that big solution that
is Patent going on to Paris. Rather, they told Patent,
we I want you to swing in and swing to
the north and meet the Canadians coming and the Poles
coming down from Khan who will be attacking in this direction,
and we will meet at Falaise and we will complete
the encirclement of the Germans that are still there were
(05:14):
still attacking in the direction of Martegne, and will bag
all of them. Won't be the whole German army in
the west, but it will be about half of it,
and it's a much safer operation. There were still fears
that Germany might somehow manage a breakthrough at Marteine, that
Patent would outraise his supplies, especially gasoline. The smaller solution
seems the safer solution in this case, not only to
(05:36):
Montgomery but also to Bradley and Eisenhower. So Patten got
his orders to swing in, and he did and began
the attack toward Falat and got to Filay and was
told to stay in place where he was. This infuriated
pat he talked to Ike. He said, damn it, Ike,
just let me go. Let me drive on north and
I'll drive those damn britz back into the sea for
(05:59):
another dunkirk. Well, Ike had to remind him that it
was the Germans we were after, not the Brits, and
in any case, Bradley's halt order in filets for patent
made sense. Ike was afraid of two things. One that
if Padden started moving forward, he would soon bump into
(06:19):
the Canadians coming south, and there would be friendly casualties.
Not the worst euphemism you were going to take. That,
the Canadians and Americans, not having each other's radio signals
down pad and not recognizing each other as uniforms and
these combat circumstances, would start firing on each other and
that would be just a terrible thing for the Alliance.
(06:40):
In addition, Eisenhower, although he knew that the Germans had
lost most of their armor in the Falaise Gap, realized
that these were German These guys knew how to retreat,
and they had been retreating ever since nineteen forty one
in the Soviet Union. They were the experts at it,
and they would be mad to get out of the trap,
so that they would use any and every trick and
(07:02):
device available to him. He feared that a thin line
between con and Falaise would be overrun by the Germans,
trampled by them as they, in a panic, tried to
get out of the gap, out of the trap. And
so he agreed with Bradley and with Montgomery that Patent
should be stopped at Falaise. In the end, then the
(07:22):
Battle of Falaise left a sour taste and led to
charges that a great opportunity had been missed. That had
Pattern been allowed to go on at Falaise, or even
more so, if he had been allowed to put into
effect his big solution, the war could have been over
then right then. And Falaise has written about and spoken
(07:45):
of by the veterans of the battle, sometimes almost as
if it were a defeat for the Allies. There's a
whole other way of looking at this. The German army
in Normandy was destroyed. The casualties the Germans took were
very as high as fifty percent of all their forces
in the Marteine Battle. Eisenhower, who visited the battlefield a
(08:06):
couple of days later, said that you could walk for
literally a mile in every direction, stepping only on the
bodies of dead Germans. Those Germans who did get out
got out without their trucks, without their tanks, without their
heavy artillery, without their animal wagons, without their supplies, without
(08:28):
their land mines. They just got out as individuals. So
Eisenhower chose to regard Flais as a great victory for
the Allies, and indeed it did mark the end of
the Battle of Normandy.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And a special thanks to the estate of Steven Ambrose,
who have so graciously and generously allowed us to play
some of this terrific storytelling. There was nobody better in
bringing to life what our boys did and young men
did on the beaches of Normandy and in the Pacific.
But D Day in particular, let's face it the World
(09:03):
War Two Museum in New Orleans. Before that was the
World War Two Museum, it was the D Day Museum.
And the reason it was in New Orleans Stephen Ambrose
was teaching in Tulane and Higgins made the Higgins Boats
in New Orleans. Part three. In the final stage of
the D Day Invasion, winning with Patten here on our
(09:23):
American stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories.
Stephen Ambrose was one of America's leading biographers and historians
and one of my personal favorites undaunted courage I could
read every year. At the core of Ambrose's phenomenal success
is his simple but straightforward belief that history is biography,
(00:30):
that history is about people, and that's the animating spirit
behind our American Stories too. Stephen Ambrose passed in two
thousand and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can now
be heard here at Our American Stories, thanks to those
who run his estate. Here's Ambrose with the story of
the D Day Invasion, Part three, Winning with Patent. Let's
(00:54):
take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Keyler's relations with his generals couldn't have been worse, and
now by this time he had taken even more so
than previously personal control of the war. He was down
to not just division but regimental level. He made the
decision on who went where or when, what they did
when they got there. And in this case he threw
everything that Germany had into this moreteen counter attack designed
(01:17):
to cut Patent off from the sea, and he had
a lot to throw into it. As many as ten divisions,
not all of them full strength divisions, by no means
all of them armored divisions, but nevertheless a very impressive force.
A greater force in Eisenhower had by quite a lot
to stop it with. But I now had two advantages
(01:38):
in this more teined counter attack battle. One was he
knew Hitler's plans. He knew Hitler's plans because Hitler had
to communicate, not by telephone wire they had all been
torn up by this time telephone lines to the front lines.
He had to communicate by radio, and Ike read everything
that the German general's read, and he saw Hitler's orders,
and he knew what was coming, and he knew in
(01:59):
what strength is now our second great advantage wise his
forces controlled the air. He talked to Bradley. There was
some thought that Jeezez Pittner's putting so much into this,
maybe we better pull Georgie back, Maybe we better have
Patent stop where he is, or even come back a bit.
And maybe we ought to move some more troops down
there to the more teen area than we've got, and
(02:21):
maybe we ought to build our defenses down there, and
we put a halt to our own offensive until we've
thrown back this German counterattack. There was some thought of that.
Eisnawer said, no, we're gonna depend on our air forces.
When those German tanks come out of their loggers and
get out onto the open road, we're gonna shoot them
up and we're gonna wipe them out. And when the
(02:41):
German tanks did come out of their loggers and did
start the attack on more Tein, they did make some
progress initially, and then the RAF and the US Army
Air Forces, the US Army Knight Air Force came into
the battle. It was an important turning point in the
history of war. A great tank attack thousand, two thousand
tanks strong was stopped primarily by aircraft and also by
(03:04):
artillery on the ground from the fourth Division especially, but
basically aircraft stopped this German attack. Now, the generals had
told Hitler that was what was going to happen. They
had been there in Normandy. They knew what that Allied
air superiority meant. German joke had it in Normandy. If
you see a plane in the sky and it's blue,
(03:27):
it's British, if it's silver, it's America. And if it's
invisible as ours and they knew what these fighters could
do and these fighter bombers. The generals did, and they
warned Hitler and advised him against it, but he was
determined to take this great risk, and he remained determined
(03:47):
long after it was obvious that they were not going
to be able to break through it. Martine Hitler continued
to throw his tanks into the attack and they continue
to get kewed up. Meanwhile, Patten was circling around behind
but nothing between him and Paris, begging his immediate superior
General Bradley, and beyond him his next ranking superior General Montgomery,
(04:10):
and beyond him General Eisenhower for permission to go straight
on through to Paris and then come on down on
the east bank of the Seine River and trapped the
entire German Army of the West in Normandy without resources,
no gasoline left, no ammunition left, the tanks all gone.
It would be a bag of prisoners that would greatly
(04:31):
exceed that captured at Stalingrad. It would mean the end
of the war. Germany would never be able to replace
these losses. The Allies, once they had put these prisoners
into their cages, would be able to turn east and
drive on to Germany with almost no opposition, So said Patten,
MANI wasn't so sure, and in this case neither was
Ike that the Germans were that thoroughly defeated. They decided,
(04:54):
we're not going to go for that big solution that
is Patent going on to Paris. Rather, they told Patent,
we I want you to swing in and swing to
the north and meet the Canadians coming and the Poles
coming down from Khan who will be attacking in this direction,
and we will meet at Falaise and we will complete
the encirclement of the Germans that are still there were
(05:14):
still attacking in the direction of Martegne, and will bag
all of them. Won't be the whole German army in
the west, but it will be about half of it,
and it's a much safer operation. There were still fears
that Germany might somehow manage a breakthrough at Marteine, that
Patent would outraise his supplies, especially gasoline. The smaller solution
seems the safer solution in this case, not only to
(05:36):
Montgomery but also to Bradley and Eisenhower. So Patten got
his orders to swing in, and he did and began
the attack toward Falat and got to Filay and was
told to stay in place where he was. This infuriated
pat he talked to Ike. He said, damn it, Ike,
just let me go. Let me drive on north and
I'll drive those damn britz back into the sea for
(05:59):
another dunkirk. Well, Ike had to remind him that it
was the Germans we were after, not the Brits, and
in any case, Bradley's halt order in filets for patent
made sense. Ike was afraid of two things. One that
if Padden started moving forward, he would soon bump into
(06:19):
the Canadians coming south, and there would be friendly casualties.
Not the worst euphemism you were going to take. That,
the Canadians and Americans, not having each other's radio signals
down pad and not recognizing each other as uniforms and
these combat circumstances, would start firing on each other and
that would be just a terrible thing for the Alliance.
(06:40):
In addition, Eisenhower, although he knew that the Germans had
lost most of their armor in the Falaise Gap, realized
that these were German These guys knew how to retreat,
and they had been retreating ever since nineteen forty one
in the Soviet Union. They were the experts at it,
and they would be mad to get out of the trap,
so that they would use any and every trick and
(07:02):
device available to him. He feared that a thin line
between con and Falaise would be overrun by the Germans,
trampled by them as they, in a panic, tried to
get out of the gap, out of the trap. And
so he agreed with Bradley and with Montgomery that Patent
should be stopped at Falaise. In the end, then the
(07:22):
Battle of Falaise left a sour taste and led to
charges that a great opportunity had been missed. That had
Pattern been allowed to go on at Falaise, or even
more so, if he had been allowed to put into
effect his big solution, the war could have been over
then right then. And Falaise has written about and spoken
(07:45):
of by the veterans of the battle, sometimes almost as
if it were a defeat for the Allies. There's a
whole other way of looking at this. The German army
in Normandy was destroyed. The casualties the Germans took were
very as high as fifty percent of all their forces
in the Marteine Battle. Eisenhower, who visited the battlefield a
(08:06):
couple of days later, said that you could walk for
literally a mile in every direction, stepping only on the
bodies of dead Germans. Those Germans who did get out
got out without their trucks, without their tanks, without their
heavy artillery, without their animal wagons, without their supplies, without
(08:28):
their land mines. They just got out as individuals. So
Eisenhower chose to regard Flais as a great victory for
the Allies, and indeed it did mark the end of
the Battle of Normandy.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And a special thanks to the estate of Steven Ambrose,
who have so graciously and generously allowed us to play
some of this terrific storytelling. There was nobody better in
bringing to life what our boys did and young men
did on the beaches of Normandy and in the Pacific.
But D Day in particular, let's face it the World
(09:03):
War Two Museum in New Orleans. Before that was the
World War Two Museum, it was the D Day Museum.
And the reason it was in New Orleans Stephen Ambrose
was teaching in Tulane and Higgins made the Higgins Boats
in New Orleans. Part three. In the final stage of
the D Day Invasion, winning with Patten here on our
(09:23):
American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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