Podcast
The Danger Zone (DZ)
Hosted by Paul Fordyce · EN
Paul conducts the guided tour at the Australian Armour and Artillery Museum, Cairns every Saturday at 10:30 am. Paul’s tour’s like what Carlsberg says about their beer, probably the best tour of an armour and artillery museum in the world. The Trip Advisor reviews of his Tour speak for themselves. This Podcast is like the Tour – only infinitely better. It looks at military history, in incredible detail, the likes of which you’ve never heard before. Never rushed – the topic is exhaustively covered in as many parts as are needed to do the topic full justice.
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Episodes
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DZ Season 064 Part 32. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Patton 3 – Managing a Crisis.
Mar 2500:30:44Tap to summarizeCowards. Cowardice. Fear. An army has to have soldiers who are afraid. If it didn’t it would be a disastrous army. Just enough fear is what is wanted, but if there’s too much fear then that spells disaster. To understand what I’m talking about you really have to get your head around this.Tag words: Cowards; Cowardice; Nelson Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom; Jonathon Haidt; The Anxious Generation; fear; anxiety; Patton; Eisenhower; Rick Atkinson; Liberation Trilogy; The Day of Battle; Kay Summersby; Eisenhower Was My Boss; Past Forgetting; Harry Butcher; cowards and skulkers; Alexander; Eisenhower; Beetle Smith; Carlo d’Este; Blessé; Demaree Bess; A Genius for War; Major General John Porter Lucas; Marshall;
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DZ Season 064 Part 31. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Patton 2 – The Slap That Killed Millions.
Mar 1800:22:06Tap to summarizeIn the space of a week, 3 and 10 August 1943, two incidents occurred that could have resulted in the sacking of Patton. He he’d slapped and otherwise abused two different men in Evacuation Hospitals calling them both cowards and apparently threatening to shoot one of them. The story had reached the ears of four reporters, attached to the Seventh Army, Demaree Bess of the Saturday Evening Post, Merrill Mueller of NBC, Al Newman of Newsweek, and John Charles Daly of CBS.Carlo d’Este, in his biography of Patton, A Genius for War, related what happened next:Bess, Mueller, and Quentin Reynolds of Collier's, flew to Algiers, and on August 19 a written summary prepared by Bess was presented to Bedell Smith. The Bess report noted that Patton had committed a court-martial offense by striking an enlisted man, and ended: "I am making this report to General Eisenhower in the hope of getting conditions corrected before more damage has been done."….The arrival of the three correspondents reinforced Eisenhower's awareness that he had a tiger by the tail. What they wanted was a deal: In return for killing the story they wanted Patton fired. Correspondent Reynolds summed up the strong anti-Patton bias within the press corps when he told Eisenhower that there were "at least 50,000 American soldiers on Sicily who would shoot Patton if they had the chance." John Charles Daly thought Patton had gone temporarily crazy.Eisenhower had no intention of submitting to an undisguised attempt to blackmail him into getting rid of Patton. Torn among loyalty to an old friend, the clear necessity that he must be disciplined, and the consequences of losing Patton altogether if the incidents became public, Eisenhower unhesitatingly decided that "Patton should be saved for service in the great battles still facing us in Europe, yet I had to devise ways and means to minimize the harm that would certainly come from his impulsive action and to assure myself that it was not repeated."Now let me ask a question that you will definitely find odd. Had Patton done the wrong thing? So you can consider your verdict, here’s what happened.Tag words: Patton; slapping incidents; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; General Eisenhower; Ike; Ernie Pyle; Rick Atkinson; The Day of Battle; Charles H Kuhl; Major General John Porter Lucas; Marshall;Private Paul G Bennett; Bradley; Brigadier General William B Kean; Brigadier General Frederick A Blessé; General Alexander;
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DZ Season 064 Part 30. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Patton 1 – Salute to a Rebel.
Mar 1100:26:42Tap to summarizePatton. I stand on shaky ground speaking about this American legend if I’m going to say anything negative about him. Luckily for me all of the men who served in his Third Army are now dead so I’m unlikely to get punched in the face for what I am going to say over the next few parts of this series about the man.Carlo d’Este, in his biography of Patton, A Genius for War thought that this remark by the Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, captured the spirit of Patton:If the art of war consisted in not taking risks glory would be at the mercy of very mediocre talent.Patton was certainly a general who was willing to take risks. So let’s see how Patton stacks up when looking at the war in Europe in those crucial months between the end of July 1944 and January 1945.Tag words: Patton; Third Army; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; Napoleon Bonaparte; George C. Scott; World War II; Andy Rooney; General Omar N Bradley; A Soldier’s Story; Eisenhower; Adolf Hitler; Karl May; Westerns; Basil Liddell Hart; The Other Side of the Hill; Operation Cobra; Blumentritt; Pétain; Field-Marshal Rundstedt; God; Charles Codman; Compassionate; Ruth Ellen;
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DZ Season 064 Part 29. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 14 – Saving General Bradley.
Mar 400:28:41Tap to summarizeOliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Learn from the mistakes of others … You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself!”It was almost a pity, which would have been of world altering consequences, that General Omar Bradley didn’t live by these words of wisdom. He chose instead to make the mistakes himself. The lesson that Bradley and Eisenhower should have learned was one of great note. One that both Bradley and Eisenhower had to have known about but, it seems, had simply dismissed.Tag words: General Omar Bradley; Eisenhower; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Ardennes offensive; Battle of the Bulge; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Montgomery; Patton; Marshall; Lutes; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Brehon Somervell; A Soldier’s Story; Chet Hansen; Middleton; VIII Corps; von Rundstedt; SHAEF; 82nd Airborne Division; 101stAirborne Division; Arnhem; Antwerp; Winston Churchill; William L Shirer; The Collapse of the Third French Republic; Hürtgen Forest; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Carlo d’Este; Antony Beevor; Ardennes 1944; 12th Army Group; General William Donovan; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Court House; Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ Himself; J.C.H. Lee; General George Smith Patton;
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DZ Season 064 Part 28. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 13 – The American Armies Are Exhausted.
Feb 2500:30:30Tap to summarizeHitler’s seemingly insane gamble in the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge, wasn’t perhaps as crazy and desperate as it seemed or has been represented. Consider this.In Washington, after lunch on 27 December, 1944 Henry Stimson, the Secretary for War, walked over to the War Department. He went into Marshall’s office and sat down. He had come to talk about the unthinkable. Stimson later recollected what Marshall had said to him:if Germany beat us in this counter-attack and particularly if the Russians failed to come in on their side, we should have to recast the whole war; we should have to take a defensive position on the German boundary — which he believed we could do with perfect safety — and then have the people of the United States decide whether they wanted to go on with the war enough to raise the new armies which would be necessary to do it.so wrote David Irving in his book The War Between the Generals. Did Hitler almost succeed in driving America out of the war?Tag words: Hitler; Battle of the Bulge; Henry Stimson; Marshall; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutentants; Eisenhower; Bradley; Nigel Hamilton; iThe Battles of Field Marshall Montgomery; Monty; Carlo d’Este; Patton; Stalin; Air Marshal Tedder; Major General Harold R. Bull; Operation OVERLORD; General Somervell; replacements; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals;
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DZ Season 064 Part 27. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 12 – Don't come in George, if you're not bringing good news.
Feb 1800:23:01Tap to summarizeJust a few weeks before the Germans launched their massive and unexpected offensive in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944, Major General Pete Quesada, the commander of IX Tactical Air Command, reported a conference he had had with General Hodges, commander of the First US Army: "He went on and on about how we might lose the war …".Hodges was the last man you would want commanding exactly this army. And he was the man that General Bradley wanted to be leading the charge into the German northern flank of their offensive.Tag words: Major General Pete Quesada; IX Tactical Air Command; General Hodges; First US Army; General Omar Bradley; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Air Marshal Coningham; XXIX Tactical Command; Eisenhower; Otto Skorzeny; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals; Ardennes offensive; Battle of the Bulge; Patton;Marshall; Bastogne; Brigadier General Sibert; 12 Army Group; Hürtgen Forest; Rick Atkinson; Captain Sylvan; Rundstedt;
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DZ Season 064 Part 26. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 11 – Would You Follow a General Who Hid From the Enemy.
Feb 1100:20:38Tap to summarize20th December 1944 proved a momentous day for Eisenhower, Bradley and Mongomery. Bradley’s ego was shattered by his best and most trusted friend. Montgomery was about to have greatness thrust upon him. The lives of the top Allied generals were reported to be in danger from Otto Skorzeny’s assassination squads dressed in American uniforms, carrying American arms and riding in American vehicles. And Bradley was dropping the ball big time.Tag words: Eisenhower; Bradley; Mongomery; Otto Skorzeny; Ardennes; US First Army; Battle of the Bulge; Hodges; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; SHAEF; 82nd Airborne Division; 101st U.S. Airborne Division; General Patton; Carlo d’Este; de Guingand; Bedell Smith;Major Hansen; Bastogne; Verdun; Kay Summersby;
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DZ Season 064 Part 25. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 10 – The Truth Was That Bradley Himself Had Nothing Under Control.
Feb 400:28:23Tap to summarize… on December 20, during Eisenhower's morning staff conference, Ike telephoned Bradley and emphatically stated, "Where is the line you can hold the best and the cheapest? I don't care how far back it is." Bradley was in no position to supply Eisenhower with answers. What had convinced Smith that a changeover was vital was that 12th Army Group had lost communications with First Army for more than forty-eight hours. Moreover, Bradley had no idea whatsoever if Hodges had the situation under control, which — as has been conclusively shown — he did not during the crucial first days of the battle. The truth was that Bradley himself had nothing under control and was in no position to influence the outcome of the battle from his headquarters in Luxembourg. Smith called it "an open-and-shut case.wrote Carlo d’Este in his biography of Eisenhower.Tag words: Eisenhower; Bradley; 12th Army Group; First Army; Hodges; Carlo d’Este; Monty; LO’s; Liaison Officers; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Major General Hasbrouck; Fifth Panzer Army; Battle of the Bulge; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Roer dams; Hotel Britannique; Spa; Kay Summersby; Major Hansen; Ernest Hemingway; Patton; Russell Weigley; General Strong; Ardennes; Middleton; Rundstedt; Hitler; EAGLE TAC; Luxembourg; Sibert; Sixth SS Panzer Army; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals; Major-General William Kean; Stimson;
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DZ Season 064 Part 24. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 9 – Germany was achieving near-miracles in fighter production.
Jan 2800:28:46Tap to summarizeOn 19 October 1944, Spaatz flew on to Luxembourg to visit Bradley. Bradley told him he planned to start his big offensive toward the Rhine on November 10. Spaatz wanted it sooner than that. Hitler's jet fighters were appearing in growing force, and they threatened to drive Spaatz's daylight bomber formations from the skies. "To maintain our present air supremacy over the Hun," warned Spaatz, "will cost the strategic air force about forty thousand crew members . . . . So it's essential for the armies to get to the Rhine as quickly as possible so that we can secure additional airfields for our fighters."David Irving wrote in his book The War Between the Generals.Tag words: Spaatz; General Bradley; Hitler; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Luftwaffe; Bf 109s; Fw 190s; Messerschmitt 163; Me163;Messerschmitt 262; Me262; Ar 234; Bedell Smith; Battle of the Bulge; Bastogne; Field Marshall Mongomery; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Los; liaison officers; Hodges; 21st Army Group; Eisenhower; Brigadier Williams; Major General Strong; General Simpson; Patton; General Collins; 7th U.S. Armored Division; 106th U.S. Infantry Division; Horrocks; SHAEF; General Middleton;
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DZ Season 064 Part 23. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Bradley 8 – where in hell has this son of a bitch gotten all his strength.
Jan 2100:23:53Tap to summarizeThe Germans had launched their massive Ardennes offensive on the morning of 16th December. Bradley had brushed it off as a spoiling attack.… by Sunday afternoon, December 17, Bradley had conceded misjudgment in his previous evening's modest estimate of the enemy effort. "This is Rundstedt's all-out attack," Bradley now announced. "Pardon my French — " he said over the situation map, " — I think the situation justifies it — but where in hell has this son of a bitch gotten all his strength?" – Russell Weigley wrote in his book Eisenhower’s Lieutenants. It was a good question.Tag words: Ardennes offensive; Battle of the Bulge; General Omar Bradley; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; The Morgenthau Plan; Dexter White; Stalin; Churchill; Sean McMeekin; Stalin’s War; Roosevelt; Goebbels; Hitler; Eisenhower; General Marshall; Volksgrenadier divisions; Luftwaffe;
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