Avalancheon wrote: ↑10 Mar 2019, 06:26
Fascinating. So we finally have confirmation that the legend actually has its origins in the war itself, and that it wasn't a postwar construct (as others have claimed). The numbers are different, of course, but some variation is to be expected as per the Chinese whisper. A three to one myth
during the war became a five to one myth
after the war, as it spread among more people and became subject to permutation.
Yes, fascinating indeed. We have confirmation that whatever number is offered up is confirmation for those who like to myth-make. So two is the same as three is the same as five or perhaps six, just so long as it is conveyed in a Chinese whisper. Fascinating.
Nothing surprising about that. Legends that spread by word of mouth are nebulous things, which mutate as they are transmitted from speaker to speaker. Its never easy to trace their origin unless you have something in writing, which you have thankfully provided. The exact number of Panthers/Tigers specified in the myth is less important than the fact that the Allies believed their tanks were that much inferior to the German cats.
To be precise, a newspaperman in Washington D.C., working for what was at that time an anti-Democratic Party paper (my how times change), keyed off of editorials from the New York Times, in order to level criticism at the government's conduct of the war...the American version of the Hansard debates found by Sheldrake (thanks Sheldrake BTW, very interesting to get the British perspective).
What is ever so much more interesting though than the numbers in the myth, is just how long it took for it to take root (at least from the American side). The controversy that exploded (although in the end at the time it became a tempest in a teapot) began in early January 1945 and extended to March before petering out and was a consequence of six months of growing frustration capped by the battles in the Ardennes and Alsace. I.D. White's letter was cumulative frustration...there was no such expressions made that I have been able to find until the stalemate of fall and winter...it took until late November to convince the tank battalions of 4th AD to accept the 76mm for example.
That General White sure was a real jerk. How dare he make a mountain out of a molehill and investigate the non-existent superiority of German heavy tanks. All he did was give rise to rampant speculation among anti-war journalists and cause the public to question the War Department. Not to mention discouraging the troops. He should have been court martialed for that little stunt!
Gee, nothing like a good red herring to troll a thread with, is there? Where exactly did I criticize White or imply he was a jerk? Where did I imply the lack of superiority of "German heavy tanks"?
BTW though, you may want to work on your basic knowledge and understanding of what went on. White's letter went to Eisenhower, not to "anti-war journalists" (who weren't that, they were anti-Roosevelt's administration and pissed that he had been re-elected again). Eisenhower received White's letter on 26 March 1945, but the controversy effectively died on 28 March, when the War Department released Patton's letter to General Handy, which essentially was the end of it until it got resurrected 25-odd years later...when Eisenhower's wartime papers were printed in 1970. The actual document was declassified about the same time.