The Danger Zone (DZ)

Carlo d’Este, in his biography of Eisenhower wrote:

The only air plan that existed for Overlord in January 1944 vaguely proposed minimal measures for air support during a two-to-three-week period before D-Day in order to knock out coastal defenses and soften the way for the invasion force. When first briefed on air operations in January 1944, Eisenhower and Spaatz were shocked by Leigh-Mallory's prediction that it was still un...

In 1944/1945 General JCH Lee, was the Supremo of supply in the European Theatre of Operations under both Eisenhower, as the theatre commander, and under the great overlord of American logistics, General Brehon Somervell, who sat directly, alongside the Army commander and the Army Air Force commanders, under General Marshall, the Chief of Staff.

There was no more a controversial figure in Eisenhower’s command than General Lee &...

Logistics is the ball and chain of armoured warfare said General Heinz Guderian – and that was definitely a topic that he was qualified to speak on.

Tag words: Logistics; General Heinz Guderian; Somervell; John Kennedy Ohl; Supplying the Troops; General Brehon Somervell; ETO; European Theater of Operations; SOS; Service of Supplies; Russell Wegley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; General JCH Lee; Gener...

The formidable Nazi war machine was powerless to stop the build up in Britain of Allied troops shipped from the USA and Canada. But in early 1943 Doenitz was winning the Battle of the Atlantic against that other, essential, component that those troops needed, being transported in very vulnerable slow or just plain vulnerable, fast merchant ships. As Paul Kennedy wrote in his book Engineers of Victory:

The increasing flood of U....

To manage the buildup and subsequent supply of the American troops being shipped to Europe for the planned invasion of Hitler’s Festung Europa, Fortress Europe, Hank H Cox, in his biography of General JCH Lee, The General Who Wore Six Stars, wrote:

The Allied governments had determined that Germany would be their top priority. After Germany was defeated, they would make Japan their primary focus. But conquering Germany me...

For the most part the popular historians have been even harder on [General JCH Lee than the men who served with him]. Stephen E. Ambrose wrote in Citizen Soldiers that Lee was "the biggest jerk" in the European theater of operations.

Hank H Cox, in his biography of Lee, The General Who Wore Six Stars, gave himself the task of answering this key question when he wrote Lee’s biography:

The bigger question is whether Lee...

On December 16, 1944, there was a wedding at Eisenhower's headquarters in Paris for a young staff officer and a Red Cross nurse.

….

The day before the wedding President Roosevelt had nominated Eisenhower to the five-star rank of General of the Army, along with Marshall, Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific, and Hap Arnold of the air force. Also getting multistar treatment were Adm[iral]s. William Leahy, Ernest King, and Chester Ni...

The reality is that Patton accepted the inevitability of death in combat but strove mightily to save the lives of his men.

so wrote Carlo d’Este in his biography of Patton – A Genius for War.

Patton’s preferred nickname for himself, “Blood and Guts”, would seem to bely this assessment. Carlo d’Este had this to say about Patton’s reputation:

Eisenhower was well aware that Patton's detracto...

Grudging admiration of Patton was even expressed by Adolf Hitler, who referred to him as "that crazy cowboy general."

wrote Carlo d’Este in his biography of Patton, A Genius for War.

I don’t think it was grudging admiration from Adolf Hitler. I think it was a genuine compliment. Let me explain why.

Tag words: Patton; Adolf Hitler; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; Karl May; Christa Schroeder; H...

One of the fellows under me was Orde Wingate!’ …. Rank-and-file British soldiers trained kibbutzniks in military tactics. The British militarised the Yishuv and the 'Jewish warrior — as a cultural and social model and as a fact of life — emerged during the Arab Rebellion.’ …. Wingate slapped and struck Jewish soldiers in his squads, who took this as a necessary part of their drill and called Wi...

The Times 6th December 1943 edition covered a piece written by The Quaker muckraker Drew Pearson, apparently tipped off by an OSS source, broadcast a garbled but uncensored version of the incidents during his weekly radio show as Rick Atkinson recounted in his book The Day of Battle. The Times piece read:

On November 21 crusading Drew Pearson, once called a liar by the President, let his ...

Cowards. Cowardice. Fear. An army has to have soldiers who are afraid. If it didn’t it would be a disastrous army. Just enough fear is what is wanted, but if there’s too much fear then that spells disaster. To understand what I’m talking about you really have to get your head around this.

Tag words: Cowards; Cowardice; Nelson Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom; Jonathon Haidt; The Anxious Generation; fear...

In the space of a week, 3 and 10 August 1943, two incidents occurred that could have resulted in the sacking of Patton. He he’d slapped and otherwise abused two different men in Evacuation Hospitals calling them both cowards and apparently threatening to shoot one of them. The story had reached the ears of four reporters, attached to the Seventh Army, Demaree Bess of the Saturday Evening Post, Merrill Mueller o...

Patton. I stand on shaky ground speaking about this American legend if I’m going to say anything negative about him. Luckily for me all of the men who served in his Third Army are now dead so I’m unlikely to get punched in the face for what I am going to say over the next few parts of this series about the man.

Carlo d’Este, in his biography of Patton, A Genius for War thought that this remark by the Empe...

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Learn from the mistakes of others … You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself!”

It was almost a pity, which would have been of world altering consequences, that General Omar Bradley didn’t live by these words of wisdom. He chose instead to make the mistakes himself. The lesson that Bradley and Eisenhower should have learned was one of great note. One th...

Hitler’s seemingly insane gamble in the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge, wasn’t perhaps as crazy and desperate as it seemed or has been represented. Consider this.

In Washington, after lunch on 27 December, 1944 Henry Stimson, the Secretary for War, walked over to the War Department. He went into Marshall’s office and sat down. He had come to talk about the unthinkable. Stimson later recollected what Marshall had...

Just a few weeks before the Germans launched their massive and unexpected offensive in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944, Major General Pete Quesada, the commander of IX Tactical Air Command, reported a conference he had had with General Hodges, commander of the First US Army: "He went on and on about how we might lose the war …".

Hodges was the last man you would want commanding exactly this army. And he was the man that...

20th December 1944 proved a momentous day for Eisenhower, Bradley and Mongomery. Bradley’s ego was shattered by his best and most trusted friend. Montgomery was about to have greatness thrust upon him. The lives of the top Allied generals were reported to be in danger from Otto Skorzeny’s assassination squads dressed in American uniforms, carrying American arms and riding in American vehicles. And Bradley was dropp...

… on December 20, during Eisenhower's morning staff conference, Ike telephoned Bradley and emphatically stated, "Where is the line you can hold the best and the cheapest? I don't care how far back it is." Bradley was in no position to supply Eisenhower with answers. What had convinced Smith that a changeover was vital was that 12th Army Group had lost communications with First Army for more than forty-eight hours. Moreover, ...