soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Walt" wrote in message
news:b0fcd400-1b55-4ddf-a579-ba7b26a6c1d6@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
> On Mar 20, 4:00 pm, nick.cut...@lycos.com wrote:
>> I know that Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery is (or was) idolised
>> in the UK whereas historians and enthusiasts in the the USA tend to be
>> extremely critical of him. But how is he viewed in other Commonwealth
>> countries (e.g. Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.)?
>
> Hopefully as the gross incompetent he was.
>
> Walt

As opposed to the very competent Patton?

http://www.thetroubleshooters.com/br/br059.html

On 15 Jan. 45 (approx) we were evacuated from Oflag 64 because of the
Russian advance from Warsaw and we made about 350 miles on foot to Parchim,
northwest of Berlin. Starting with some 900+ POW's sleeping in haylofts
along the way through snow across Pomerania and westward, about 425 of us
were entrained (box cars again) to Hammelburg where we met up with several
[hundred] POW's captured in the Battle of the Bulge.** Gen. Patton's
son-in-law,** Lt. Col. John Waters, was one of us and whether or not that
had anything to do with events, a rescue attempt was launched from
Acheffenburg by the 4th Armored. They got us out, but Lt. Col. Waters was
wounded and had to be left in the Hammelburg Medical facility. However,
the
whole rescue failed the next morning and we POW's and the "rescuers" were
all captured and transported by rail to Nuremburg


http://www.hesperianbeacon.com/111050news.htm

In the final stages of the war Colvin participated in "Task Force
Baum", also known as "Patton's secret mission". The mission, which was
personally approved by Patton, was a daring operation in which an American
task force of the 4th Armored Division attempted to advance 50 miles into
enemy territory to liberate the prisoner-of-war camp OfLag XII in
Hammelburg. The task force was named after it's commander, Cpt. Abraham
Baum.

The prison camp was known for housing many American officers,
including Patton's son-in-law Lt. Col. John Knight Waters.

According to Military Magazine.com among the prisoners at Oflag were a
group of captured officers from the Battle of the Bulge, North Africa, and
the Normandy Invasion--a total of about 1,500 American officer prisoners of
war.

Colvin says he was part of an advance patrol sent to look for the
prison camp and "get **Patton's son-in-law** out". "We were on a patrol
ahead of the front lines," said Colvin. "When we got to the camp where we
thought they were, there was no one there. They had been moved. We
(approximately 200) were subsequently captured, on March 26, 1945, while on
this patrol, and spent 34 days as Prisoners of War


http://www.pitt.edu/~rice/april02.htm


Carlo D'Este's recent biography of General George Patton relates
another rescue attempt. **Patton's son-in-law** was a POW in a
German stalag not too far
behind the lines during the last months of the war. Against the advice of
his staff, and his own better judgment, when Patton found his army within
striking distance of the stalag, he detailed a task force to liberate the
camp. The mission was a fiasco. The task force was destroyed with all
elements killed or captured. The force even made it to the gates of the
camp
where the final fire fight ensued. In the melee, Patton's son-in-law was
wounded in the buttocks as he scrambled towards the approaching column. The
end result was that the son-in-law, and the remnants of the task force, had
to wait for VE day for their liberation.

Would Patton have risked his combat machine, had a close
relative not been in that stalag? Of course not, because he never did it on
any other occasion and he knew it was a waste of his precious combat
strength and contributed nothing to the ultimate destruction of the enemy.
The logic of combat is no different in '03. Unfortunately, neither is human
stupidity. So, as happened in 1945, the two cancelled each other out again
this week.

>