The Danger Zone (DZ)

DZ Season 064 Part 40. 0393 DZ WHOLE End the War in 44 – Only Human – JCH Lee 4 – Lee and The Battle of the Atlantic - Part 40

The formidable Nazi war machine was powerless to stop the build up in Britain of Allied troops shipped from the USA and Canada. But in early 1943 Doenitz was winning the Battle of the Atlantic against that other, essential, component that those troops needed, being transported in very vulnerable slow or just plain vulnerable, fast merchant ships. As Paul Kennedy wrote in his book Engineers of Victory: The increasing flood of U.S. and Canadian troops to Britain was transported by an entirely different method — the great liners of Cunard, which, when stripped inside to the bone, could each carry 15,000 GIs at a speed that even a fleet destroyer couldn't keep up with, let alone a U-boat. But, to repeat an earlier question, what would two to three million fresh soldiers do in the United Kingdom if they lacked food, fuel, and munitions? Tag words: Doenitz; Battle of the Atlantic; Paul Kennedy; Engineers of Victory; Cunard; Hitler; Fortress Europe; John Kennedy Ohl; Supplying the Troops; Somervell; U-Boat campaign; Third Reich; HX 229; SC 122; Operation Bolero; Operation Sledgehammer; Operation Roundup; Operation Overlord; General JCH Lee; WSA; War Shipping Administration; Lord Leathers; full and down; Operation Torch; The Center Task Force; Hank H Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; sos; Service of Supplies; C.S. Lewis; Chronological Snobbery; Gulf War; Operation Desert Storm; OPD; War Department General Staff, Operations Division; Victory Program;

DZ Season 064 Part 39. End the War in 44 – Only Human – JCH Lee 3 – For the Overlord Supply Build Up Somervell Needed His Best Man.

To manage the buildup and subsequent supply of the American troops being shipped to Europe for the planned invasion of Hitler’s Festung Europa, Fortress Europe, Hank H Cox, in his biography of General JCH Lee, The General Who Wore Six Stars, wrote: The Allied governments had determined that Germany would be their top priority. After Germany was defeated, they would make Japan their primary focus. But conquering Germany meant it would be necessary to invade Europe, and that would require an amphibious assault across the English Channel. Thus a materiel buildup in Great Britain of vast proportions would be the first essential step to wresting the continent from Germany's grip. To manage a buildup and subsequent supply of that magnitude in Europe, Somervell needed his best man — someone with proven ability that he could trust. Somervell achieved big things because he selected men who knew what they were doing and were determined to get it done. He chose General JCH Lee – did he choose wisely? There were and are many who say that he didn’t. This all plays a big part in why the Allies didn’t win the war in Europe in 1944 – with huge consequences with the voracious Russian bear devouring everything in its path to come out of World War II as a super power that rivalled the United States. Tag words: Hitler; Festung Europa; Fortress Europe; Hank H Cox; General JCH Lee; The General Who Wore Six Stars; Brehon Somervell; General Marshall; Pearl Harbor; General Lesley McNair; John Kennedy Ohl; Supplying the Troops; BOLERO; OVERLORD; European Theater of Operations; ETO; Services of Supply; SOS; Secretary Stimson; Major General Mark Clark; General Eisenhower; GeneralBradley; General Patton; Bedell Smith; Martin Creveld; Supplying War; Logistics; Rommel; Moving Mountains; Lieutenant-General William G Pagonis; Operation Desert Storm; General Homer M Groninger; Colonel Thomas B. Larkin; General James G Harbord; General Pershing;

DZ Season 064 Part 38. End the War in 44 – Only Human – JCH Lee 2 – The Biggest Jerk in the European Theater of Operations

For the most part the popular historians have been even harder on [General JCH Lee than the men who served with him]. Stephen E. Ambrose wrote in Citizen Soldiers that Lee was "the biggest jerk" in the European theater of operations. Hank H Cox, in his biography of Lee, The General Who Wore Six Stars, gave himself the task of answering this key question when he wrote Lee’s biography: The bigger question is whether Lee performed his job well, and that is a matter of some dispute. Indeed it is safe to say that Lee has come down in history to us as one of the most controversial personalities of the great conflict, or perhaps any American conflict.So I have to quote one final peer, a man of the highest rank and importance to the American war effort in Europe, who commented on Lee, in fairly glowing terms. But was he saying what he really thought? Tag words: General JCH Lee; Stephen E. Ambrose; Citizen Soldiers; Hank H Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; General Bradley; A Soldier’s Story; Com Z; Communications Zone; Eisenhower;General Marshall; General Brehon Somervell; G-4; G-3; G-2; Kennedy Ohl; Supplying the Troops; Joseph T McNarney; Goldthwaite Dorr; Colonel Henry S Aurand; World War I; Great War; Services of Supply; SOS; Army Service Forces; Lesley J McNair; Henry Arnold; Matthew 6:24; Patterson;

DZ Season 064 Part 37. End the War in 44 – Only Human – JCH Lee 1 – Eisenhower Only Had 5 Stars – Who Had 6?

On December 16, 1944, there was a wedding at Eisenhower's headquarters in Paris for a young staff officer and a Red Cross nurse. …. The day before the wedding President Roosevelt had nominated Eisenhower to the five-star rank of General of the Army, along with Marshall, Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific, and Hap Arnold of the air force. Also getting multistar treatment were Adm[iral]s. William Leahy, Ernest King, and Chester Nimitz, who were named to the equivalent five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet. This was big stuff to the career military officers, as it represented the pinnacle of professional achievement. Ulysses S. Grant was the first general in American history to wear four stars. George Washington himself had only three as a lieutenant general, though in 1976, in honor of the bicentennial, Congress posthumously awarded him a fourth star, making him General of the Armies. So wrote Hank H Cox in his biography of General JCH Lee, with the telling title The General Who Wore Six Stars. Let me tell you about that, but just briefly, in passing it’s interesting to note the footnote that Carlo d’Este appended to his biography of General Patton, A Genius for War, in the light of the Congress making the posthumous promotion of George Washington (although admittedly to the rank of a  four star general and not a five star general): Two resolutions were introduced into the 82d Congress in 1951 by Massachusetts representatives to posthumously promote Patton to the rank of five-star general, thus placing him alongside both Eisenhower and Bradley. Neither passed and both were opposed by the Pentagon on grounds that it was against policy ever again to promote officers to five-star rank. That Sicilian slapping incident still made Patton, even dead, too controversial a figure to honour in that way just after the war I reckon. Tag words: Eisenhower; President Roosevelt; General of the Army; Ulysses S. Grant; George Washington; Hank H Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; General JCH Lee; Bradley; Patton; Materialschlacht; Service of Supply; sos; Communications Zone; ComZ; Third Army; Court House; Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ Himself; Bedell Smith; Geoffrey Perret; There's a War to Be Won; Kay Summersby; He Was My Boss; Rick Atkinson; The Guns at Last Light; Jonathan W. Jordan;Brothers, Rivals, Victors; Antony Beevor; Captain Harry C. Butcher;

DZ Season 064 Part 36. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Patton 7 – Patton Hated Being on the Defensive at All.

The reality is that Patton accepted the inevitability of death in combat but strove mightily to save the lives of his men. so wrote Carlo d’Este in his biography of Patton – A Genius for War. Patton’s preferred nickname for himself, “Blood and Guts”, would seem to bely this assessment. Carlo d’Este had this to say about Patton’s reputation: Eisenhower was well aware that Patton's detractors were snidely twisting his vainglorious nickname by referring to him as "Our Blood, his Guts," and apparently privately agreed with them to some extent. "Ike feels Patton is motivated by selfishness," wrote Butcher. "He thinks Patton would prefer the war to go on if it meant further aggrandizement for him. Neither does he mind sacrificing lives if by so doing he can gain greater fame." It was a reflection of Patton's obsession with carving his place in history that even his closest friend viewed him as intrinsically a glory hound. Or, as Eisenhower's biographer Piers Brendon has less charitably written: "Ike recognized that Patton's vicious and manic qualities were better calculated to win victories than the sober virtues of less inspired generals." So what’s the truth? Tag words: Patton; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; Blood and Guts; Eisenhower; Bradley; 17thAirborne Division; Ardennes offensive; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; SHAEF; Krauts; Field Marshal Brooke; War As I Knew It; Panthers; Third US Army; General Middleton; VIII US Corp; General Gay; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals; JCH Lee; Jesus Christ himself;