Sweetwilliam > Recent Status Updates

“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” said Patton who then proceeded to urinate into the [Rhine] River.
“ I didn’t even piss the morning when I got up,” added Patton, “So I would have a really full load. Yes sir, the pause that refreshes.”
Patton carried on across the bridge. Once across the river, he knelt down and scooped earth from the ground. “Thus William the Conqueror.”

Moving at full speed- around 25 miles per hour on a road or 16 mph across open ground- helped reduce the chances of being hit, especially by a German tank or anti-tank vehicle armed with the formidable 88mm gun, the most feared weapon among US forces in Europe….”

By this stage of the war, one of the greatest menaces was Germans wielding Panzerfausts - single shot equivalents of the bazooka that could destroy a tank at close range. German teenagers, pumped up on amphetamines, could be lurking behind a tree or a hedgerow or in a ditch and suddenly emerge…tankers used their most potent weapon, their .50 cal machine guns, raking roadsides, ripping and shredding trees and fences

My men don’t dig foxholes. I don’t want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don’t give the enemy time to dig one either.

Sure we want to go home. We want the war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to get those bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin I’m going to shoot that paper hanging son of a bitch just like I’d shoot a snake!

In foxholes near Bastogne, Americans also tried their best to find hope, to get through Christmas night, and to avoid freezing to death.
Then one paratrooper finally learned what Patton had known: that Abraham’s forces were approaching from the south.
Relief was at hand.
“Patton didn’t know the words ‘can’t do it,’” he recalled. The news was “like manna from heaven.”

Relief of Bastogne - Blue Skies: News of Payton’s presence “passed up and down our column and one could see clearly in the posture and expression of every soldier that any previous doubt had been summerly erased” recalled Frankel. “We had them licked by God. That pistol-packin’, swaggerin’, Hun-killin’ son of a bitch had just said so in unmistakable terms!”

“God damn! That O’Neill sure did some potent praying. Get him up here. I want to pin a medal on him….Chaplain, you’re the most popular man in headquarters…you stand in good with the Lord and soldiers.” Patron then pinned a Bronze Star Medal on O’Neil’s chest. He was the only man to be awarded a medal in WWII for writing a prayer.

“…General Allen went over there crossed the line to meet with the Russians. He and a General from the Russians they had a big night. They tried to drink each other under the table. I think Terry beat him”

On May 7th, Allen received word that…that…the German high command had signed the unconditional surrender of all the German forces in Europe….The following morning brought the official VE-day

P222 Patton's message insisted that Terry's relief be without prejudice. Ike agreed to the stipulation that Allen upon return to the states would receive an equivalent command. Because Ike had not agreed to similar conditions for Roosevelt, Patton followed up with a telegram, "I specifically said that unless they both could be relieved without prejudice I would not ask for their relief."

P22 - Although Patton and Allan had clashed...it was obvious that Patton respected his former cavalry comrade and polo adversary as qualified to lead a division in combat. They differed in their combat philosophy: Patton seemed to think in purely military terms....Allen, no less aggressively minded, also considered the cost to soldiers...Ammunition is cheaper than soldiers' lives. Fire away.

If it had been up to Eisenhower and Bradley, Allen and Roosevelt would have been shipped home. Bradley was vocal on Allen's Problems. "I was not happy with Allen..." But Patton valued Allen's battlefield swagger and insisted on keeping him 'at least until the initial phase of the operation is consummated.' I [Bradley] agreed reluctantly meanwhile persuading Patton to tone down a commendation he was writing for Allen

Bradley admitted that Allen enjoyed intense loyalty from his troops. Despite the disaster of the Tine, the men were convinced he would not jeopardize him without just cause. Liebling quoted a young West Pointer on his staff saying, “There are some Generals that if they find the enemy in a strong position, they will go ahead and get you killed. But old Terry will find a way around and kill them all.”

After a softening-up barrage by the 7th artillery, the soldiers left the line of departure shortly before dawn. They reached the first objective in less than 3 hour; there was no contact. The men warily moved further; again no resistance. The Germans had abandoned their Kasserine offensive. entirely.

Richard the Lionheart and the third crusade has taken Acre and while moving up the coast to Joffre, defeated Saladin at a decisive battle at Arsuf and is poised to move toward Jerusalem. It is the summer of 1191.

The other unassailable truth of Jerusalem's conquest is that the crusaders were not simply driven by a desire for blood or plunder; they were also empowered by a heartfelt piety and the authentic belief that they were doing God's work...dusk on 15 July 1099 saw the Latins ...thanks to God. After years of desperate suffering and struggle, the First Crusaders' terrible work was done: Jerusalem was in Christian hands."

After Dorylaeum, crusaders mounts, and pack animals died of thirst: Historians emphasized the military advantage enjoyed by crusader knights because of their larger, stronger, European horses, but in truth, most of these died before Syria was reached. A Frankish eyewitness later noted that because of this 'many of our knights had to go as foot soldiers, and for lack of horses we had to use oxen as mounts'.

The once fashionable myth that crusaders were self-serving, disinherited, land hungry younger sons must be discarded. Crusading was instead an activity that could bring spiritual and material rewards but was...both an intimidating and extremely costly activity. Devotion inspired Europe to crusade.... their most powerful weapon was a shared sense of purpose and indestructible spiritual resolution. (Page 47)

The foot soldier has a special feeling for the ground. He walks on it, sleeps on it...the ground shelters him under fire; he builds his home in it. But mines and booby traps transform that friendly, familiar earth into a thing of menace, a thing to be feared as much as machineguns and mortar shells. The infantry knows that at any moment the ground he is walking on can erupt and kill him...if he's lucky.

Franklin returns to London for a 3rd time in 1765. This time he will promote his Albany plan. If you choose to tax us, give us members in your legislature, and let us be one people.

Mass invited Indians to study at Harvard. The Indians replied that they had sent some of their young braves to study there years earlier, but on their return “they were absolutely good for nothing, being neither acquainted with the true methods for killing deer, trapping beaver, or surprising the enemy.” They offered instead to educate a dozen or so white children in the ways of the Indians “and make men of them.”

“The sirdar waited patiently on his horse for full daylight to come, knowing that he had reached the current climax of his career... Before the men had started their night-march the previous afternoon, he had sent a message round to all units: The sirdar is absolutely certain that every man will do his duty. He has only these words to say: ‘Remember Gordon. The men before you are his murderers.’”

Gordon could have easily left Khartoum had he wished to do so, but evacuating himself would have meant betraying those he had sworn to protect. What troubled him most, indeed, was the knowledge that had he not been there, the population could have surrendered to the Mahdi’s mercy. They had endured endless hardship for his sake: thousands of troops had died defending them…it was his duty to share their fate

Not realizing that Camel’s soft pads are custom-made for walking on sand, the army had actually sent out a number for shoeing-smiths….They did not know it’s capabilities or limitations….Few British soldiers got past the idea that the camel was a joke.”
…as the would-be cameleers approached the animals. Anyone who stood in front of an irritated camel was likely to get splattered by evil smelling vomit”

The tribes received him [Gordon] with delight only because he had announced an end to the ban on the slave trade. Once it was generally known that his intention was to remove the garrisons and abandon the Sudan, they would join the rebellion. The evacuation route would be blocked, the telegraph line would be cut and he would be isolated in Khartoum. He had opened Pandora’s box.