soc.history.war.world-war-ii

David Thornley wrote:

> He did mess up at times; so did Montgomery. Overall, I'm more
> impressed with Patton (although I do have to allow for the
> difference in commanding an army and an army group).

Leaving aside the obvious, that Montgomery and Patton are each most
impressive for different things, I'm still interested in how that
opinion is arrived at.

Not that I'm pushing a particularly pro-Monty agenda here, just that
I'm not sure how Patton is all that better overall (though I suppose I
could be convinced). Specifically, Patton's numerous failings with
logistics would have made him a poor army group commander.

In Sicily, Patton captured a lot of ground, most of it useless. Both
Patton and Montgomery failed to nail their targets. Montgomery is
guilty of tunnel vision, as well as thinking that the Americans were
"our Italians" (though I would be enclined to cut him some slack over
the latter, given how it mostly takes hindsight to know how wrong that
was. Atkinson hadn't written his books, yet).

In similar situations, Patton also seems to have been fixated on his
immediate target - e.g. Metz. So this isn't a matter of score but a
question of whether each of them behaved better in different
circumstances. Patton seems to have been more willing to throw caution
to the winds, and would have been hurt badly had he commanded, say,
8th Army against Rommel.

> Agreed. I'm not familiar enough with Truscott's command of Fifth
> Army to make an intelligent statement, except that he was far better
> at it than Clark. (Faint praise, of course, as far as it goes.)

I think that Clark could have been a good army commander had he
remained under Eisenhower. There would have been none of the pressure
to outdo the main theater and less opportunities for bickering with
allies. Truscott was considered a very good commander, though in the
circumstances it was hard for him to demonstrate brilliance.

> If we're going through ETO/MTO army level commanders and
> immediately above, I'd also ask for Hodges and Clark.

I don't have a problem with rating Patton over Hodges. The latter
seems to have mainly been the kind of non-obstrusive character that
Bradley felt comfortable with. And then we have 9th Army, whose
commander seems not only to have done a good job but to have worked
reasonably well under Montgomery. That alone deserves credit.

> Bradley
> wasn't bad, and did have the good sense to let Patton run wild
> at times, thinking he was putting something over on Bradley.

Bradley wasn't bad, but he wasn't exactly stellar either. His main
advantage seems to have been that Eisenhower saw him as no
competition. Appart from being easy to get along with, which hid some
simmering resentment (very much like Clark in that respect) he wasn't
much of a team player. Neither am I impressed with his handling of
Patton: he seems to have failed to find a middle ground between
cutting him loose and micro-managing him.

I'd definitely rate Montgomery as a better general than Bradley.


LC