Was Patton's achievement an overstatement during Normandy break through?

Question

I mean consider the fact that Germany lacked air superiority, fuel and things weren't the same back in 1940 in terms of tank superiority and manpower strength.

Moreover America being on the other side of the continent, was left basically intact beside pearl harbour and had the luxury of time and space to increase military production.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

Patton was an incredible man at an incredible moment of time. He actually believed that he was born for the greatness of that war. Much as one of the leaders of those who rebelled against the takeover of United Flight 93 also felt at that moment that he was where he needed to be.

It is true that America had a luxury of being separated from the world by 2 oceans. But it also meant that those waters prevented us from earlier involvement. We would have been involved sooner if we'd been touched by the evils taking over the world. That is why FDR managed to get the "Lend Lease" Act thru, which allowed the US to give England military supplies to use, without a direct declaration of war.

Many large organizations, whether military, scientific, medical, social, or business, often are encumbered by the enormity of their own existence. Many times the leaders of these organizations are often slow to act. Eisenhower had to deal with political setups, not just military. His job was to help hold the Allied alliance together and not fracture. British General Montgomery was given much of the early support for his army movement and supplies, because it was felt to give England some good results, since they'd been under direct attack for so long by the Germans.

But Patton wasn't one to get caught up in such "mamby-pamby" relations. His job as a general of an army was to go in and kill the enemy before the enemy killed him. It was his belief, it was his life's mission, as he thot so.
He didn't waste time with a lot of the bickering going on in the upper levels. His job was to win the war.

He had the talent, the experience, and the determination to DO the job, not talk about doing it.

He even wanted to continue after the war, right up into Moscow and get rid of the Soviets. Imagine if he'd been given the green light. He WOULD have succeeded, you know.

Patton, as general, asked his men to spill their blood for him. He pushed them far harder than any man in the armed forces would dare. But he also earned the "average Joe's" respect because he saw it and told it as it was.

The irony of D-Day preparations was that he was set up in England to command a fake army. A complete army was fictionalized with him commanding it. It was to throw the Germans off-track, because the Germans knew how strong a leader and how dangerous Patton truly was to them. And it worked. But it also demoralized Patton, to be temporarily "put to pasture", due to his intense desire to NEED to be involved in WW2.

But there were "complications" with Patton's brashness and directness. His higher-ups, his bosses, didn't like his frankness. The incident where he slapped a soldier hospitalized for shellshock was a keystone in that attitude.

It has been one of the 20th Century's unanswered coincidences that just a few months after WW2 is over, Patton died in a car crash. I"ve read the books about it, and do believe it is just a weird accident.

But fate seems to take those who's time is past.
Consider perhaps the greatest statesman and leader of the whole 20th Century......Winston Churchill. He saved the complete existence of England from destruction by his leadership, his determination, his strength, and yet, immediately after the war, he is dismissed from his duties, voted out by the general public. During wartime, he was invaluable. Once peace came, he suddenly wasn't important anymore to the peacetime efforts. It's incredible to think that the people could forget so easily what he did for them in their darkest hour.

Germany wasn't in any poor position at the time of D-Day. They still had good air support. They still have good supplies, men and material to use. It was the use of those men, materials, and supplies which doomed them.
Communication breakdowns at the outset of D-DAy prevented Panzer divisions from being released to fight the allied armies gaining their beachheads. American Air Superiority didn't happen until later in the war, when greater planes like the P-51 Mustang and Thunderbolt had the ability to travel all the way with the bombers deep into Germany.

Germany might have won the war if they'd have gotten behind the development of their jet aircraft, the Messerschmidt 262. It was designed in the 1930's!! But because of military hierarchy and their WW1 thinking, they didn't like it, or didn't recognize it's potential. Even Hitler wanted it used as a bomber, not the incredible fighter it truly was.

Germany also in the waning days of the war, with fewer resources and manpower, actually produced MORE of their planes and tanks than previously, and many of their factories had been moved UNDERGROUND due to the constant allied bombing.

Germany was a strong scrappy fighter. Even when reduced into the insides of their own country, they fought extra hard, because now they were defending their own homeland, even tho' they'd been the aggressors in the war, and by whole rights, should give up their homeland. Even when the whole empire was reduced to the rubble of Berlin, the remaining old men, women and children fought the oncoming armies of the allies. However, they knew enough that they didn't want to be captured by the Soviets!!

Germany has a long history of military conquest and life. America is a new nation in the world stage. It has been said that it takes a long time to wake up the US, but once it does, it then turns enmass to fight with all its might, as shown by the previous generations' nickname of the "Slumbering Giant".
But in today's world situation, being the only superpower, we have the luxury of having differing viewpoints and actions involving military conflicts. We don't have to get fully behind the wars anymore, because they're not threatening us as WW2 had. But the time will indeed come when the whole country's existence shall be endangered. Where will our Patton be then?

Answer 2

If you are refering to the invasion of France, remember that Patton's 3rd Army was not activated until AFTER the breakthrough at Normandy.

Still, your basic assumptions seem reasonable. However, invading a defended continent is not easy. Better tactical decisions by the Germans, especially Hitler, could have defeated the invasion. What would have happened if German armor reserves had been sent to Normandy on June 7, instead of being held at Pas De Calais (check my spelling here) for a few days?

But really who knows? The Russians like to think that they were primarily responsible for the victory in Europe. Could they have survived without US and British aid? If the 8th US Army Air Force had not caused the diversion of so many resources to the defense of Germany in 43-44, what would have been the affect of all those extra Luftwaffe fighters and 88mm guns on the Russians. We will never know, but it's fun to speculate.

Answer 3

Yes, Patton deserves great credit for the Normandy breakthrough. Yes, the Germans lacked lots of resources but the reason Patton deserves great credit is because if he had not outsmarted the Germans, many more Americans would have died in the battle or Normandy beach. Patton conducted many deceptive pre-invasion missions to make the Germans think the invasion would happen further north than it actually did...there was even a mass deployment of troops and tanks at another location which caused Hitler to disperse his troops and resources to the wrong place.

Answer 4

Also the fact that the British and Canadians were pinning down most of the Germany forces in Normandy allowed Patton to make his sweeping flanking maneuver.

Answer 5

Patton was a good general but is strenght was not strategy as much as his will to get the most land to the soviet influence. The bigest part of the german army as been fought by the british canadian and other part of the us army. so patton got a weaker way to pass through. But his will and leadership made of him a great figure of the second world war

Answer 6

By the time he broke through the British, the Canadians and the Poles had fought the bulk of the German armor by drawing them into the left wing.
This meant that Patton on the right had a weaker force facing him.

Answer 7

~Patton's significance to the victory in Europe is as overstated as the contribution of the US generally. Omar Bradley was the far superior commander. However, the inevitable defeat of the Nazis was sealed on February 2, 1943, when Friedrich Paulus surrendered the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the most stunning defeat of the war and one of the most significant losses in military history. 10 million dead Soviet soldiers (male and female), or 64% of allied military casualties, and another 15 million or so Soviet civilians who died during the war were the real winners of the war in Europe. Contrast this to fewer than 350 thousand combined US troop deaths in both Europe and the Pacific (2% of the total). The US was barely on the ground in Africa while Stalingrad was being contested.

Soviet tanks and artillery were far superior to anything the Wehrmacht (or the allies) had in the field. Stalin's brilliant tactic of giving up ground while he moved his factories east of the Urals, stepped up production and trained troops with which to make his stand on ground he selected sealed Hitler's fate. His purge of the army general staff (often condemned erroneously) allowed him to modernize the Army and Soviet military tactics, while instilling in his officers and troops an unprecedented will to fight (or at least a fatalistic fear of surrendering or retreating).

Normandy was a walk in the park by contrast. The Wehrmacht's best, second best and third best troops were long since dead in June '44. The fourth and fifth best were engaged on the Russian front. What was left was in France. The allies had to open the French front to save face and to be able to have some say as to the future of Europe at the conclusion of the war, but Stalin's forces would have taken Berlin without any help from Patton, the US or the British. Audey Murphy and John Wayne movies notwithstanding, the war was won by the Soviets, and it was essentially over with at Stalingrad. Patton was an adequate general on a weak front against an inferior enemy. He did well in Africa because the Germans were (rightfully) more concerned with Montgomery and his seasoned British forces - and the Afrika Corps was bled anemic when its reserves, equipment, fuel and ammo was diverted to Stalingrad. The same holds in Sicily.

Had Hitler delayed Operation Barbarossa for even a year, the German weapons development would have continued on schedule and the Wehrmacht would have had their jets and rockets in full production by the summer of '43. Britain would have fallen in due course and the US would have focused on the Pacific, having no bases in England from which to operate against Germany. Although inferior to the Soviets, German artillery, armor and aircraft were far superior to anything in the US arsenal. Hitler had 2 jets in the air at the end of the war and 3 more almost ready for production. The VI and V2 rockets were primitive missile systems, but the Germans had other, far more accurate rockets in the field and in production before Berlin fell (see, for example, Rotterdam). The US would fly its first fighter jet in Korea and developed its missile and rocket program only with the help of the German scientists "claimed" at war's end.

But for Barbarossa, Patton would have, at best, had a desk job in Washington. There would have been no theater of action for that tin soldier to play in in Europe.

In short: yes, Patton's contribution in the European theater is greatly exaggerated, but, as with Bull Halsey, a nation needs its mythological heroes in order to perpetuate its fictional claims to grandeur. However, Patton's accolades at Normandy are appropriate. He took no part in D-Day and he gets no credit for the success there. For that, Dwight Eisenhower deserves great credit.

Answer 8

Patton was a good general but not the military genius the press made him out to be. And this 'idolised by his men' stuff is just propaganda. Still, he did the job, and success is what counts in war

Answer 9

I don't know, but I wish we had him back today.