https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SSsvP-eNuE
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Thanks for posting that video :)
For those who don't know he was also an Olympic fencer and designed the last saber that the USArmy issued.
Good video
Patton also competed in the pistol target competition and completely exhausted himself in one of the running events to where he collapsed after crossing the finish line.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne Smith
Unlike many career officers in all branches of the military, Patton was a soldier first and always. Any skill that was applicable to being a good and effective soldier was, in his mind, worth study, practice and mastery. Many were his detractors but he was a soldier from his helmet to his boots.
Froggie
George S. Patton is one of those folks that the more you read about him, the more fascinating he is. There are not currently nor have there ever been many like him.
Patton wasn't without his faults, but without him, Ike and Monty would have been standing around in Normandy waiting on the Russians to meet them sometime in 1946 or '47.
Ike was a great administrator and a good diplomat, but a tactician he weren't. Monty's only qualification was that, well, he was British........
Thanks for posting the link.
I have read much about Patton, some true and some false. There is little doubt that Patton was the best the allies had in Europe. But he had some really good staff and field people to boot. He hand picked his people for ability and not political reasons. He also understood tank tactics far better than Monty or Ike. Bradley was better in field tactics than Ike or Monty. Ike's real talent was in organizing and planning. The Phillipines might have done better if Roosevelt had pulled McArthur back to the US and left Isenhower there. The US interstate road system was studied and planned by Ike. Patton understood that tanks were just the modern day version of the old calvary. Just faster, better protected, and with very much better firepower. So he used them as such and drove around the flanks producing continual falling back from flanking threats by the Germans. Patton kept his staff continually working on plans not just for today or tomorrows attack but where he was going next. Todays attack was to set up tomorrows and beyond. But always on the offensive. The only British general to come up to his ability was in the Pacific, General Slim. The best the British had. The Germans had no one of Pattons equal since they murdered Rommel. The Russians hated and feared Patton. They knew he was the one man that could put a monkey wrench in their post war plans to dominate Europe.
Remember an article in one of the shooting magazines about Patton’s sidearms way back in the early 70’s. He sneered at a reporter when he was asked about the “pearl” grips saying something about pearl grips and a house of ill repute. They are ivory he replied. Like most men he had his imperfections, but he was a military genius and an avid historian.