US Generals

[stcamp]

Two of things I like about this forum are how it provokes me to think and the depth of knowledge of many of the posters. At this point based on my reading I am beginning to come to the conclusion that:

US Generals in Europe - Division level and above: They were not that good. Why?

General Courtney Hodges - The decision to go through Huertgen Forest was flawed. Committing his troops, a division at a time, was flawed. Gen. Hodges was a machine gun company commander in WWI not far I believe from the same area. He had to know what fighting in wooded areas was like. Even if he did not, there was material written on it. For example: Rommels “Infantry Tactics” was published in English in 1944 by I believe the Infantry Review. The resulting battle led to the highest US causalities of the war.

General George Patton - He was responsible for the decision to send Sherman tanks believing the medium tank would be able to hold its own against German armor. This despite the knowledge that they would not as shown by the Russians. US tank crews paid heavily for this.

Mostly I am surprised by the timidity in advancing shown by American generals. I understand the desire to preserve the life of your troops compounded by the belief that the war by 1944 was considered over. What surprises me, is my conclusion that it was overwhelming logistical support, air supremacy, and the quality of the troops at battalion level and below that decided the outcome in American engagements.

[James Patrick]

I think American generalship was the bright spot of the US Army's campaign in northwest Europe. From what I read and heard about the American heavy hitters in that campaign ( i.e. George Patton, Joseph Collins, Walton Walker, Matt Ridgway, Ernest Harmon, Maurice Rose, John Wood, Isaac White, Jimmy Gavin, Max Taylor, Robert Fredrick, Terry Allen, James Van Fleet, Robert Macon, Norman Cota, Raymond Barton, S. Leroy Irwin, George Hays, Jimmy Doolittle, Curtis Lemay, Elwood Quesada, etc.), they may have laked anything BUT aggression. I don't see where these men ever lost due to timidity or being out "aggressed" by their opponents. Even during tough spots like Normandy and the Hurtgen Forest, they turned it up a notch. During the Battle of the Bulge, the crisis of the campaign, American leaders, in fact all Western Allied leaders, were licking at the chops to destroy what was left of the Germans in the West. IMO the only time American leadership showed timidity was after Operation Market-Garden, when Dwight Eisenhower became fixated with a broad-front strategy, and even that had alot to do with the logistic problems facing the WA in Europe. Contrary to popular belief, the WA in NW Europe suffered from a severe logisitics crisis that would affect them to the end of the war and the early years of occupation. Wasn't a production or shipping problem, but a port and transportation problem.

[stcamp]

Even during tough spots like Normandy and the Hurtgen Forest, they turned it up a notch. .

They may have turned it up a notch but why were they in the Hurtgen forest at all? Why didn't they go around? Why did it take them so long to reconize the value of the dams? Why did they commit divisions piecemeal? Why did no one above division level even visit the front to look at the terrain?

Yes, I know about the logistical problems. Cherbourg was the only available deep sea port for some time.

During the weeks that followed the landings, the Germans fiercely resisted Allied advances in the hedgerows of Normandy. Cherbourg fell three weeks after the landings, but the port had been destroyed and time-consuming repairs were required before it could be used to relieve the Allied supply problem. Meanwhile, Allied forces had been deepening the beachhead. By the end of June the most forward positions were about 20 miles inland. The buildup of Allied forces was swift, despite the lack of ports, and by 1 July almost a million men, more than a half-million tons of supplies, and 177,000 vehicles had been landed. By this time General Bradley's U.S. First Army comprised 4 corps with 11 infantry and 2 armored divisions. British strength was about the same.

from http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/reference/eacmp.htm


IF THE planning and conduct of the campaign in Sicily were bad, the preparations for the invasion of Italy, and the subsequent conduct of the campaign in that country, were worse still.

It will be remembered that the next task after clearing the Axis Powers from Africa was to knock Italy out of the war. As a first step we were to capture Sicily but there was no plan for operations beyond. There should have been a master plan which embraced the capture of Sicily and the use of that island as a spring-board for getting quickly across to Italy, and exploiting success.

We proposed to invade the mainland of Europe without any clear idea how operations were to be developed once we got there. The decision precisely where we were to land in Italy was not firm till the 17th August, the day on which the campaign in Sicily ended. So far as the Eighth Army was concerned I was to launch it across the Straits of Messina on the 30th August, but was given no "object." On the 19th August I insisted that I must be told what I was to do in Italy. My object was given me on the 20th August, ten days before we were to land in Italy.

The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery. Chapter 12. New York: Signet. 1959 (1958).

[James Patrick]

The Hurtgen was mistake. Too much cost for so little gain. American leaders put their own drive and ambition over the lives of their men. Furthmore, many leaders form battalion level on up showed poor leadership during the battle. Even US generals like Ridgway and Gavin were critical of the leadership during this battle. In one of your previous posts you said you thought American generals showed timidity, I was just pointing out where some of their leaders were aggressive, in fact over-aggressive.
I wouldn't get too hung up on the division count. American divisions had a very low tooth-to-tail ratio. The combat power of divisions shrank throughout the war as casualties mounted. The higher formations made it even worse by diverting resoures in the rear that were meant for the combat units. There was a rapid build up of men in Normandy, and a gradual increase during the campaign in Europe, but that was because alot of times SHAEF placed priorty on new units and replacements over "beans and bullets". Lack of ammo and fuel was far from unheard of in combat units throughout the campaign. The fuel situation in NW Europe speaks for itself. As I hinted to in my previous post, I think logisitics had more to due with the decisions from SHAEF and the tempo of the campaign than any other component of the war in NW Europe.

[stcamp]

On further thought and reading your posts I think timidity was the wrong word. Perhaps excessive caution is a better word, Italy comes to mind for that.

I also think that compared to their German counterparts the Americans were handicapped by lack of experience. In 1944 for the most part the German command structure at the regimental level and above was intact and had years of experience.