soc.history.war.world-war-ii

In article ,
Robert Sveinson wrote:
>"David Thornley" wrote in message
>news:13ur6tqkm4h6re6@corp.supernews.com...

>> for the raid, and then did nothing about it. Liberating a PoW
>> camp is not in itself a bad idea, but sending insufficient force
>> is.
>
>What anticipated military benefit to the Allies
>would the rescue of Patton's son in law have been?

By himself? Not much. The raid did not simply grab him and
leave all other PoWs behind, so the question is irrelevant.

>Would the rescued POWs have been armed to continue
>the fight against Nazi-ism?

Very likely, depending on their treatment. If nothing else,
liberating them would have been a good thing.

>What justification can there be for sacrificing approximately
>200 US soldiers, who were killed, or
>themselves became POWs to unite Patton with his *son in law*?
>
It was a screwup. I can find far greater losses in operations
that didn't do much of anything either.

>> If Patton had risked his combat machine, or a significant part of
>> it, the raid would likely have been a success.
>
>What military benefit would have been achieved even
>had the raid been a success?
>
Freeing prisoners, quite possibly putting them back in action.

Is it your opinion that there is no point in recovering captured
soldiers? Would you like to be in an army where the official
position was that, if you were captured, tough?

When the British recovered prisoners, should they have shipped
them back to the Germans?

>> To repeat, the bad idea was in attempting it with insufficient force,
>> and that was not directly Patton's fault.
>
>Not Patton's fault? Whose son in law was the focus
>of this "military" operation?
>Who other than Patton was in command?

Um, the corps commander, the division commander, the combat command
commander, the task force commander? Is this a trick question?

In fact, the decision of what force to send was made, I believe,
by the division commander. I could be wrong, but it wasn't
made by Patton.

>Does "fault" reside only with subordinates,
>and "praise" only with the superior?
>
In what context does this question make sense?

Decisions are made on various levels. Asking for the liberation
was questionable, and Patton knew it. Still, it wasn't inherently
a bad thing to do. It became one through the use of insufficient
force, which was a decision that Patton was not involved in in the
least.

It is possible to blame Patton for setting up the situation where
the lower commanders did not feel they could refuse, and did not
feel they could send enough force. However, Patton did not make
the force selection, and did not actually order the attack.

Patton was known for standing behind his subordinates' decisions,
at least publicly.

>> Now that you have carefully dissected precisely one highly questionable
>> act, are you going to offer to let Walt dissect one of Montgomery's
>> acts of Walt's choosing, and base his opinion of Montgomery
>> on it?
>
>There are about 88 posts in this "adoration of Montgomery" thread.
>Surely some of these must be narrating one questionable
>Montgomery act.
>
Of course.

>Besides hasn't Walt already had one shot at Montgomery ?
>It was also very well supported by credible cites.

Okay. Is this sufficient for you to consider Montgomery
incompetent? You seemed to imply that you considered
Patton incompetent based on one incident. If I misread
you, please inform me.


--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
david@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-