As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was contemplating the great military leaders of World War II. The problem is that those who were heralded were for the most part lackluster like British General Bernard Montgomery.
Montgomery had one good run where he killed off all his men like Wellington did at Waterloo, where every other British commandant had failed, so that made him look good, and thereafter all he did was kill off tens of thousands of expendable Canadians.
So for the Lame Cherry history of world war, I am not going to put a great deal of commentary nor explanation for my conclusions in who were the best in their fields. To list the worst would have most of the officers of the second world war as they should have all been taken out and shot.
I begin this with the supreme naval commander. The Imperial Japanese Admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto.
There are those who would pit the victors in Admiral Nimitz and Admiral Halsey of the United States as greater sea marshals, but the fact is World War II in the Pacific went exactly as Yamamoto predicted it would. The thing is, that Yamamoto built the Japanese Navy. He trained it. He created the futuristic battle plans. He carried out Pearl Harbor and thee entire conquest of the Asian Rim.
He was so astute that he was in the process of moving to India and Africa. Up to the 5 minutes of Midway when the Japanese lost 4 super carriers in a nature of war, Yamamoto was about to achieve a reality where Japan could have force the Americans to armistice.
No one can go against the Divine Wind of God in a battle as Midway became a reality, but that does not remove Yamamoto as the greatest Naval Commander of the war. Even as the tide was rolling against Japan, thee Americans still concocted a scheme to murder the Admiral as he was that capable.
Admiral Yamamoto, the Greatest Naval Commander in World War II.
The next phase in this is going to be a bit more exact, because there is a difference between Generals of the Army, Army Generals and Field Marshals.
To explain this, one can not put someone like General Rundstadt in the same category as General Rommel. Rundstadt was a theater commander or an Army General while Rommel was a Field Marshal or Battle General. The talents of each are not the same. Rundstadt was a failure at Normandy and Rommel was never as daring as Hitler would have liked him to be.
The best General of an Army was General Erich von Manstein. This remarkable Army General was the officer who placed the genius of Adolf Hitler into battle accomplishments on the Eastern Front. Time and again he projected German power and time and again he saved German position in counter attacks against the Russian hordes.
He was the best tactical and command officer of the 3rd Reich in a group which as a whole, had the best military army leaders on the planet. The German General with less resources was able through better leadership and training to outclass all opponents.
The Soviets had no ability to maneuver and their tactics were using dead Russians to burn up German munitions. Anyone can defeat the Reich if you have a billion rats.
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein was the greatest General of the Army of World War II.
The best Army General was thee American, General Douglas MacArthur.
In facing a hostile American Navy and an even more hostile leftist regime in Washington DC, bent on capitulation to win the war in the Pacific, MacArthur held out and by determination took the United States Army seaborne and in a series of brilliant maneuvers, saving his Soldier's lives, drove the Japanese back to the homeland.
In contrast, Admiral Halsey running the Navy land wing of the operation, used Marines up as fodder on islands in horrific battles which did not have to be slaughter pits as bad as they were, by the contrast of MacArthur's ease in rolling up the Japanese lines.
There is not any doubt in this, that with General MacArthur in the European theater, that the war would have been over by 1944 and MacArthur would have ordered his general, Patton to join the Germans to obliterate the Soviet menace.
The greatest Army General of World War II was General Douglas MacArthur.
The Greatest Field Marshal of combat Soldiers in World War II, was General George S. Patton.
General Patton had no equal in any army. His vision for future warfare not only understood the way the tanks would be deployed, but the use of flying tanks in fighter bomber aircraft was his genius of the evolving theaters of war, where in Normandy, Patton would take the German Blitzkrieg and destroy a German army using it against them, in the last time it was used in the war.
No General could get as much out of his men. No General accomplished as much as Patton did in every campaign from Africa, to Sicily to Europe. Patton's 3rd Army is what did the heavy work as the American 1st and the British sat in the rear.
No General was feared and respected by the Germans, who were the best at this, than was General George Patton.
General George S. Patton, the greatest Field General of World War II.
Lastly, we come to the position of Head of Army, and in this, the best commander was Adolf Hitler.
It was Hitler's genius which took a castrated German Wehrmacht and made it the lion of Europe. For the opening strategies, these were Hitler's which were met with resounding victories. There is the reality that Adolf Hitler had defeated England, defeated France, and was a few months away from defeating Stalin on the Eastern Front, and would have if not for American Lend Lease, which produced a resource that German industry could not match.
If one examines Churchill's war cabinet in his endless sacking of military officers. Stalins blunders and his shooting his own officers and making them cower in corners, to Franklin Roosevelt needing to be literally carried by General George Marshall and Admiral King on war policy and tactics, no one matched Adolf Hitler.
General Marshall was the equal to Adolf Hitler, but Marshall had his failures too in those he chose in Generals like Dwight Eisenhower and Mark Clarke. Marshall's greatest failure was to allow Franklin Roosevelt to buoy the Soviets instead of forcing Adolf Hitler to resign, placing Admiral Donetz in command of Germany and then uniting America and Germany to obliterate Russia and to place Japan on a Chinese leash.
Adolf Hitler was not a Frederick the Great in being able to fight 4 wars at the same time, due to the rapidity of modern warfare. Hitler could not turn on each front and attack all three as Frederick accomplished against France, Austria and Russia for victory. He was though a genius in modern warfare and had no equal. The only way the allies were able to subdue his leadership was by war crimes in mass murdering Germans in their cities and by war crimes against German Soldiers.
Those are the greatest military men of World War II.
Nuff Said
agtG
