Old Week
Abstract: To talk about the most famous general of the US military in World War II, it is naturally Patton. His performance in World War II was indeed dazzling, and it was worth it to get such praise. The unit he commanded after the Normandy landings, the 3rd Army was also invincible on the European continent, becoming the number one elite ace of the American army on the European battlefield.
Figure 1: Patton on the Battlefield in North Africa in 1942
To talk about the most famous general of the US military in World War II, it is naturally Patton. His performance in World War II was indeed dazzling, and it was worth it to get such praise. The unit he commanded after the Normandy landings, the 3rd Army was also invincible on the European continent, becoming the number one elite ace of the American army on the European battlefield.
The U.S. Army's 3rd Army is a unit that often immediately comes to mind Patton's name. Like the famous generals of ancient and modern history, the tall and full of personality of the little George W. Bush S． Lieutenant General Patton is often described as the soul of the 3rd Army, and the 3rd Army is undoubtedly the legendary "Iron Legion" under the "Bloody General". Although Patton used only one army during the attack on Metz, the course of the entire campaign and the formulation of the plan of action were still closely related to him. In order to give the reader a better understanding of Patton's role in the Battle of Metz, let's first talk about Barton's military career, in order to understand that the US military attack on Metz was not due to Patton's genius or personal preference, but purely because of the situation.
During the First World War, the high-ranking generals of the various participating countries were undoubtedly "god-like beings" in the eyes of ordinary soldiers. They had no personality and a cold attitude, and were always cowering in the rear thousands of meters away from the front line to direct the entire legion of combat. The personal conduct of the generals is mentioned only slightly in the communiqué of the headquarters, and their contact with subordinate officers and men is almost zero. Fortunately, this situation soon changed radically, and the power of the news media and the people after the First World War was unprecedentedly developed, and ordinary people were finally able to understand the direction of the war from the photos and various news documentaries sent back from the front. By the time of the Second World War, each country had assigned war correspondents to its own armies, and with the presence of these fanatical journalists, the situation on all fronts and all kinds of what had been seen and heard were published in newspapers and magazines, and at the same time greatly enhanced the prestige of the senior generals of the army among the public. With the cult of personality of generals and the prevalence of large headlines in victory news, two superheroes were born in the Allies, Montgomery of Britain and Patton of the United States. For those simple-minded journalists, they do not care about and consider the ability of these two generals, Monty and Patton are just the raw materials for their news reporting, they just want all kinds of "shocking words" that the two inadvertently reveal. For other generals in the Allied army who are not usually so "smart" but are far-sighted in their bones, journalists often leave them aside and even bother to make so-called "criticisms", such as american journalists who have never made any decent news films for Simpson and Bradley.
Figure 2: Patton on the battlefield of France in World War I in 1918
Patton was born on November 11, 1885, into a wealthy American military family in California. So from the beginning, Patton's family background was different from other American generals who were born poor but worked hard to become talented.
Until the age of 12, Barton had no formal education. Although he was almost illiterate and his spelling skills were poor when he was finally sent to school, his mind was filled with all kinds of knowledge taught him by his father and proved his ability to learn to the teacher.
After graduating from school, Patton enrolled at West Point in 1904, and although the environment changed, his experience at the school did not improve his intelligence much, but rather transformed him into a good sportsman. Interestingly, Barton's athletic achievements have something to do with his later career performances. He found himself unsuitable for sports that required teamwork, and his adept riding and shooting were of a personal acting nature. Barton, who graduated from West Point in 1909, joined the Cavalry and then married a New England heiress by virtue of his family's connections and status in society. This move undoubtedly became a major turning point in Patton's military career, after which he quickly opened up relations with the upper echelons of the military and established a good friendship with henry Stimson (the future minister of war) who was then the chief of staff. Because of such a special network of connections, Barton was able to avoid being squeezed out when the times were not good, and at the same time received strong support from many influential people at the top (such as Eisenhower).
If you want to talk about Patton's first experience in the war, it was during the Battle of Pantivera against the Mexican uprising in 1916. In this attack, which was almost a replica of the Hollywood cavalry movie, Patton's performance caught the attention of General Pershing, the future commander of the American European Expeditionary Force (Patton was pershing's aide-de-camp at the time).
Promoted by Pershing, Patton went to France in 1917 to fight in World War I. Desperate to fight, he was faced with two options: either command an infantry battalion or lead a newly formed tank unit into combat. After some consideration, Patton still chose to command the tank unit, a new branch that was basically on paper at the time. Under his rigorous training, Patton's tank unit became the most fashionable unit in the U.S. Expeditionary Force at the time. But for the U.S. Army, Patton's greatest achievement was to introduce a revolutionary new weapon such as a tank to the United States.
Figure 3: Patton during the West Point military academy
After the Battle of Saint-Mière broke out in September 1918, Barton, who had been waiting for a long time, finally seized the opportunity to teach the Germans a lesson. Although the battle itself was not a very critical battle, it was a very rare combat experience for Patton. He continued to travel east and west in fierce battles, commanding the battle almost entirely on foot. However, instead of appreciating Patton's combat characteristics, the top brass of the U.S. military at the time accused him of trying to fight alone against the individual adventurism of the entire German army group in the St. Miyer theater. At the end of September, Patton was wounded and hospitalized in the Battle of Maas-Agunne, and it was only after the surrender of the Germans in World War I that he found that he had been promoted from captain to colonel, and since then he has gradually established in his mind the operational policy of rapidly annihilating the enemy with armored units. Barton at the time probably did not expect that this core tactic would accompany him for 26 years in the future and bring him brilliant honors.
Contrary to Patton's original expectations, the Western countries in the immediate aftermath of world war I were vigorously disarming in peacetime. Seeing that the War Department was no longer interested in armored forces, Patton had to be transferred to a cavalry officer again, and if General George Marshall had not promoted him again, Patton would probably have retired as a colonel. In this regard, Marshall's move undoubtedly gave Barton a second turn in his career.
Fast forward to 1940. The Germans' new "blitzkrieg tactics" were a great success on the battlefields of Western Europe, and Patton, who was not much shocked, threw himself into lobbying for tanks. As the U.S. Army gradually embarked on the war track, Patton was also assigned to command a brigade of the newly built 2nd Armored Division, and he quickly earned the nickname "Bloody Commander" among the recruits. In Patton's own words, "The development of armored offensive tactics will make my forces the most powerful in the entire U.S. army." Patton prayed prayers on weekdays, but he would swear with vulgar words. Although he was a synthesis of many contradictory factors, he was widely loved among the officers and men under his command. The soldiers often hated the harsh system of suppressing their subordinates, but instead admired Patton, a man who was both harsh and brilliant.
Figure 4: The Allied Big Three, Montgomery (right), Bradley (center), and Patton (left)
In the Battles of North Africa and Sicily, Patton won brilliant victories and proved his worth to the world. But trouble ensued. After slapping a soldier pretending to be sick in a field hospital in Sicily, Patton's "rude move" was quickly reported, leading to his dismissal as commander of the 7th Army. For the average American public, Patton's reputation is not so much a brilliant general as a famous bragging king. The reason for so many troubles is because Barton's personality is too complicated. On the surface, his ivory revolver, which is always pinned to his waist, always reflects the exposed personality of his master who likes to express himself, but in patton's heart, he is also an easily emotional person, and often sheds tears for a sad thing.
Since being "repatriated" to the United States, the restless Patton has gotten into new trouble during the period when the Allies were planning to counterattack the European continent. Having provoked the Allied Soviet Union during a folk speech, Patton's ability was again called into question. Later, under the arrangement of the new commander of the American Expeditionary Force, Bradley, he was transferred to south-east London to command the then non-existent 3rd Army. The high-level idea was to use Patton's identity to confuse the German spy network, making them mistakenly believe that the future Allied landings were likely to be in Calais rather than Normandy. Patton, who was holding his breath, could not serve as such an idle "empty commander", and he used this time to actively study the "overlord" action, and even gave a lot of criticism, but no one paid attention to it.
A month after the Normandy landings, Patton, who was already in France but still had no soldiers on hand, finally couldn't hold back. He knew he was 59 years old and that if he could no longer fight himself, he might be in the position of second-line commander forever. The turning point in the Battle of Normandy finally gave him the opportunity to show his skills, and on August 1 the Allied High Command officially appointed Patton to command the U.S. 3rd Army, and his name reappeared in the headlines of the major newspapers along with the units he loved. Patton's fame was so great that even his enemies mistakenly believed that he would command an Allied army group to sweep through France.
Figure 5: Patton and his staff at Army Group Headquarters in Etán in September 1944
A young platoon commander of the 379th Infantry Regiment of the 95th Infantry Division, Charles Crawford, had just arrived in October to fight at a bridgehead southeast of Metz. He later recalled Patton's speech to the 379th Regiment on 5 November, from which we can learn from it the outstanding personality of the famous "Bloody General": "As soon as our division joined the sequence of the 3rd Army, General Patton ordered the senior officers and non-commissioned officers of the regiment to be gathered together, saying that they would personally come to cheer them up. There were about 500 people gathered in the cold and damp venue, and everyone could even hear the rumbling of artillery from the far front. With the issuance of the 'Stand-Be' password, I subconsciously turned to the direction of the road, and then there was a loud military trumpet around me. I saw a jeep with the flag of a three-star lieutenant general slowly driving into the venue accompanied by two gendarme jeeps. In the silence, I watched as Patton's freshly painted car left the convoy sequence, headed straight for where I was standing, and stopped about 50 yards in front of the soldiers. When the driver lowered the windshield, the general himself stood up from the seat of the car, and the officer on the side hurriedly ordered everyone to rest. I had the impression that Patton was supposed to be a tall, broad-shouldered commander, but I was taken aback when he stood up completely upright from the car, after all, I had never seen a senior general as 'majestic as an ox' like him before. At such a close distance, I could clearly see the three silver stars on his steel helmet, and the tank jacket with the woven neckline he was wearing. The general had a belt with brass buttons around his waist, but it seemed to be tied too tightly to hold on to his upper body. Besides, perhaps the most striking is the iconic pair of pearl-encrusted ivory-handled revolvers pinned to the general's crotch, all housed in small holsters with brass buttons and hung from his belt. In the eyes of the average soldier, Patton, standing in a jeep, was like Hercules standing in a four-wheeled chariot. When the general began to speak, his high-pitched voice contrasted sharply with his rude appearance. At first I felt a little disappointed by the content of his speech, but it wasn't long before I realized that what the general said was not wrong. It was a battle-hardened veteran's instruction to a group of young men, and Patton didn't want to use flowery rhetoric in front of us to hide how tough the future battles would be, and he quickly got the point. I remember saying in his speech: 'Your division commander told me that you are a good team eager to fight.' I replied at that time that I would tell him not to worry about it, or to wait for him to take his men to fight for two weeks, and then tell me whether they were good or not. Patton's words were clearly a warning to warn us that if we are not careful in battle, we will die quickly. I had looked around and seen only a bunch of furrowed, granite-like faces—they might have heard the blood coagulated, and almost no one dared to blink their eyes. Patton then stressed the importance of courage in battle: 'I have asked your commanders to immediately hand over all the tools of excavation. I don't want my troops to live in battle by digging fortifications. But if some of you insisted on digging a pit to hide, I wouldn't have kicked you out. Also, I don't want to hear any of you say to me about us being suppressed by artillery fire or something like that. If you can't go forward in battle, then don't give me back. You must bear in mind that only when a person continues to forge ahead on the battlefield will he have a chance to survive. His remarks, spoken in a particularly emphatic tone, immediately suffocated the tension in the room, and made me feel as if Patton's tone was preaching his prophecies of the last days to an audience all over the world. It was a terrible day. I used to know from the newspapers what a real war looks like, but now I know that I'm about to experience it for myself, and there's no other way but to kill the enemy on the battlefield. The good days of training at home were over, and I was so angry that no one had come out to explain to me that the war was such a ghost, and I felt that I had been deceived and obediently followed the troops to Metz like a fool. Patton also seemed to sense the uneasiness of the soldiers at this time, and he immediately relieved everyone's depressed mood with a joke about the love between the American soldiers and Miss Britain. At the end, the general raised his clenched right fist, said 'I wish you good luck', then sat down and closed the windows, and the whole convoy quickly turned around and drove away from the venue. ”
Figure 6: Logo of the 3rd Army
Before the Battle of Metz, the U.S. 3rd Army consisted of three corps, the 20th Army, the 12th Army, and the 8th Army (the 8th Army also liquidated the remnants of the German army in Brittany in the early part of the period). The staff of Patton's command was mostly cavalry, who had followed Patton all the way from North Africa and Sicily to France, and was a staunch advocate of his strategic approach of "winning with surprise speed". Frankly, the Patton Staff Had Always Been in the Shadow of Their Moody Commander, Their Internal Work Was Never Affected. Patton, who usually hated to think about logic and deal with mundane affairs, would often leave his station alone to tour the ancient battlefields of the old days, smoking a cigar and expressing his praise to it, so whenever Patton ran out to nostalgia, an efficient staff committee became an indispensable and important link within the 3rd Army. But then again, despite Patton's temper, he attached great importance to dealing with collaborative relationships with his colleagues, a good habit that would remain until the end of the war.
By the end of August 1944, Patton's 3rd Army had seven infantry divisions, two armored divisions, and a large number of logistics and command units, with a total of 314 to 814 officers and men. The soldiers of the 3rd Army, who had just experienced the battle, were highly motivated and full of desire to make meritorious contributions to killing the enemy. Like the famous armies of history, Patton's troops had high morale, unified command from the top down, and a brilliant general. Some have even said that the 3rd Army was a corps tailored for Patton, and that every ordinary soldier who joined the unit would proudly declare to others: "It is the greatest honor of my life to fight with General Patton!" ”
In fact, as far as the Battle of Metz itself is concerned, our interest is only focused on the 20th Army under the 3rd Army. The 20th Army, which had just completed its mission to pursue the Germans across France, was led by Walton W. Bush. H． Troops commanded by General Walton.H. Walker. Like Barton, Walker was a veteran of the 1918 Battle of Saint-Miyer. On the outside, Walker looks like a short, wide-faced, fierce bulldog with an angry face. Ladislas Farago, who was in charge of Writing Barton's biography after the war, once described Walker rather rudely as "a round oil drum." Although Barton himself admired Walker's abilities, he never actually took Walker seriously. So Walker could only use the aura of the superior he admired to reflect his own value from battle after battle, which could not but be said to be a sad thing for a military commander. Unlike Barton's penchant for self-expression, Walker was a simple man. He always wore only a pair of soldier's leather shoes and tied an ordinary thick-brimmed belt around his waist. When it comes to relationships, almost no one appreciates Walker's approachable personality, so he doesn't have a large number of admirers like Barton. You can't find any legends from him, and you can't squeeze out any interesting things or anecdotes. Patton thought that Walker's best virtue was that he would obediently obey whatever you told him to do, so he kept him in the position of military commander for a long time.
Figure 7: Button's Dodge command car
Similar to the situation in the Army Group, divisions within the U.S. military formation were also mobilized in wartime depending on the circumstances of the war, except that they were invariably supported by engineers, artillery, and medical units when necessary. For the U.S. military, divisions are their most basic tactical units, and the regiments of each division will accompany the division's command units in wartime until the end of the war.
The U.S. Infantry Divisions of the United States In World War II, in carrying out combat operations, were also reinforced by the following units, including several field artillery battalions, a medical battalion, an engineer battalion, a quartermaster battalion, a communications company, a reconnaissance detachment, an ordnance company, an anti-aircraft battalion, one or two tank battalions, and one or two tank fighter battalions.
The backbone of the U.S. Infantry Division lies in its three infantry regiments, each commanded by a colonel-level officer. Each infantry regiment has three battalions, each with three infantry companies and one heavy weapons company. At the same time, the U.S. military also equipped its infantry regiments with engineers, artillery, and tank units, and once a battle broke out, these units would immediately be organized into regimental combat teams (RCTs) so that they could play the advantage of multi-service coordination in combat.
As for the U.S. Armored Division, it has many differences from the Infantry Division in terms of organization. The core combat strength of the panzer division is not the regiment but its three combat groups, commanded by a brigadier general or colonel. Each armored battle group is composed of a variety of tanks, tank destroyers, armored infantry, self-propelled artillery and other units, and all have a strong mobile ability to carry out independent operations.
Figure 8: Sherman tank of the 7th Panzer Division of the 3rd Army
The Germans in the later parts of World War II were quite backward compared to the Americans, and until late 1944 they were still using horses to march heavily and use them to tow various heavy equipment. But the high degree of mechanization of the U.S. military does not mean that they do not have any difficulties. In order to ensure the combat capability of every soldier on the front line, the US military must organize a large number of logistics forces to ensure their supply and supply, which undoubtedly increases the requirements for supply capacity.
In August 1944, the U.S. 20th Army in the Metz Theater had three divisions: the 5th, 90th Infantry Division, and the 7th Panzer Division. The 5th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General LeRoy Irwin, was a regular army that had previously served as a defensive officer in Iceland; the 90th Infantry Division had just concluded the ill-fated Battle of Normandy under the command of Brigadier General Raymond Mclain; and Maj. Gen. Sylvester's 7th Panzer Division had suffered minor losses on the Normandy battlefield. So the 20th Army, which had not yet experienced the bloody battle of Mace, was still a fledgling team, and they did not know that there would be a two-month-long battle waiting for them.
Figure 9: Cover of Bloody Battle on the Banks of the Moselle: Breaking Through the Metz Fortifications
Figure 10: Bloody Battle on the Banks of the Moselle: Breaking Through the Metz Fortifications Table of Contents
This article is excerpted from the latest edition of the "Bloody Battle on the Moselle River: Breaking Through the Fortress area of Metz", which is 264 pages, 310,000 words, 300 photos and maps, and comprehensively introduces the Battle of Metz, which caused both Patton and the 3rd Army a headache, which was rarely mentioned in World War II and is almost little known, but it was precisely in front of the fortress fortress of Metz that the 3rd Army completely occupied Metz after several months of arduous fighting.
The author of this book, Pan Xueji, is a folk scholar with in-depth research on the European war in World War II, and has authored such world war-II special books as "Forgotten Battles: The Salient of the Maas River 1944", "The Battle of Cassino 1944", "Traces of Fire Through the Sand: The Destruction of Rommel's Afrika Korps", "Desert Smoke Rush: Records of the Battle of Rommel's Afrika Korps", etc. This book is another masterpiece of Pan Xueji, the historical materials are detailed, the narrative is rigorous, interested friends can go to the Xinhua bookstores, as well as Jingdong, Dangdang, Taobao "Zhibingtang Bookstore" to buy.