ot, great war book

Den tirsdag den 21. juli 2015 kl. 19.56.28 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:

speaking of WW2 I found this quite interesting

-Lasse

Utter trash..

Churhill was a crock of manure blowhard...

Uh-huh, he wasn't like that at all. The battlefield was littered with his Sherman tank crews mutilated and burned bodies. The Sherman was an inferior piece of garbage, one of the great scandals of the war.

How do you know that? Have you read it?

Patton said, many times, that war was the greatest accomplishment of mankind, and that he loved war, and that he would become a "damned nuisance" to his wife when the war was over.

You should read the book. Do you read books? What's your favorite book?

That's not what he was thinking when he was shot up real bad in WWI.

I don't read material written by non-experts in the subject matter. WW2 was a technological fiasco and horrendous scandal, anyone who buys into it being otherwise is an ignorant idiot. The scary part is the people of modern times are even worse morons, as hard as it to believe.

Fred, you are starting to sound like a crabby, sour old git.

Do you ever have fun?

Perhaps those are qualities one wants in a general, but outside of that, they aren't particularly qualities anyone thinks too highly of in a human being.

Some of Patton's ideas and behaviors were frankly, bizarre - his thoughts about past lives and so on. It's very likely that he suffered from some type of personality disorder; what would these days probably be considered an Axis II cluster B type disorder...somewhere on the narcissist/borderline/histrionic spectrum.

The defining characteristic of all of these disorders is an extremely limited ability to empathize with others, for varying reasons. For the narcissist it's mainly because empathy requires you to put yourself in another person's position, and in some sense that requires a relinquishment of control. In a way empathy means others are controlling how you feel, and pathological narcissists are not big on that.

Apparently a somewhat common fantasy, according to clinicians, among very severe pathological narcissists is that they actually do believe that they are in some way immortal.

Similarly to Steve Jobs, nobody would have put up with Patton or his behavior for a moment if he had been merely average at what he did.

except for usenet?

Or any newspaper, or most any internet site.

I assume he ignores STOP signs, because they are not made by traffic experts.

It's kind of weird to write about the end-game in Western Europe, when the crucial action had largely already taken place in Eastern Europe.

The D-day landings did make life easier for the Russians, but they'd essentially won the war by 1944, and the invasion of Western Europe was more about finishing off the Germans faster than winning the war.

'Fabulous' is not a good recommendation for something that is supposed to be in any way factual. Does this book offer anything new, that publications, post-'85 have not?

This side of the border, Zuehlke covers the Canadian contribution to the general fiasco.

For over 100 years, my own country's leaders have never failed to consistently dispatched it's citizens into such conflict with defective clothing, footwear, weapons, armour, training and 'intelligence'. Glad to hear things are more organized down there.

'Incredible' IS a word that comes to mind, more often than not.

RL

This is a fabulous book. It's the third of a trilogy, but I read this

And not having the Russians staring at us across the English Channel when it was over. It was bad enough having them at the Elbe.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Immense detail and superb writing.

That did come into it. But that was international politics - of which war is merely an extension, by other means - rather than an aspect of the war itself.

John Larkin was advertising a "war book" rather than a study of international politics.

That's a misquotation of Clausewitz's long-discredited bromide. I recommend Keegan's "A history of war" as an effective antidote.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

There was no guarantee the Russians were going to completely defeat Germany on their own. There is at least one example of a German Army holding out against the Red Army despite every attempt to defeat it.

The two front attack /was/ a guarantee Germany would be annihilated.

John, can I suggest the following as a follow up:-

D DAY - Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944 (by Eckhertz)

John