Patton's Pawns: The 94th US Infantry Division at the Siegfried Line
Author:
Genre: History
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genre: History
Book Type: Hardcover
This was a good story, but it was somewhat hard to read. It read like the author took the daily action reports of the units in the 94th Infantry Division and just fleshed them out a bit. After awhile, it just got repetitive, in that you thought you had read this several times before. And as for names, as you might imagine, with all the men in the division, you could only follow the major unit commanders.
One complaint about many history books describing campaigns is that there aren't enough maps. You can't say that here. There were dozens of maps, but almost all were useless. The author seems to have taken topographical maps, with all the roads, gullies, trees and such and just added some unit movements. Plus, all the maps were in black and white, making it very hard to discern what was what. If you didn't use a hand lens to examine the maps they were worthless. After a few, I just ignored them.
Like more recent books on the U.S. high command in the European theater, this one is somewhat critical of George Patton. The author lets it be known PAtton didn't care how many casualties his army suffered, as long as he got results. In one case he told a commander he didn't care how many bushels of Purple Hearts his unit needed. Patton's mistake was saying this in front of enlisted men, who all gasped when he said it.
Patton criticized the 94th for it large number of frostbite and trench foot casualties, which exceeded the number of combat casualties. The division staff didn't tell him this was due to his poor 3rd Army staff, in that they did not supply the division with the new shoepacs, which provided better protection against trench foot, and winter clothing, especially white outer-clothing. The 94th staff was remiss in not doing this.
This all fits in with everything I read about how the tens of thousands of rear echelon troops all had the latest equipment, while the fighting men didn't. The more you read about this, the more you read how the U.S general commanding the supply chain in the European theater needed to be court-martialed. I forget his name, but his first three initials were J.C.H. which many fighting units claimed stood for "Jesus Christ Himself." And then there were the corrupt rear echelon units heavily engaged in black market activities, and this included entire military police units. All this made the war last longer and got more fighting men killed or wounded. It was a disgrace.
One complaint about many history books describing campaigns is that there aren't enough maps. You can't say that here. There were dozens of maps, but almost all were useless. The author seems to have taken topographical maps, with all the roads, gullies, trees and such and just added some unit movements. Plus, all the maps were in black and white, making it very hard to discern what was what. If you didn't use a hand lens to examine the maps they were worthless. After a few, I just ignored them.
Like more recent books on the U.S. high command in the European theater, this one is somewhat critical of George Patton. The author lets it be known PAtton didn't care how many casualties his army suffered, as long as he got results. In one case he told a commander he didn't care how many bushels of Purple Hearts his unit needed. Patton's mistake was saying this in front of enlisted men, who all gasped when he said it.
Patton criticized the 94th for it large number of frostbite and trench foot casualties, which exceeded the number of combat casualties. The division staff didn't tell him this was due to his poor 3rd Army staff, in that they did not supply the division with the new shoepacs, which provided better protection against trench foot, and winter clothing, especially white outer-clothing. The 94th staff was remiss in not doing this.
This all fits in with everything I read about how the tens of thousands of rear echelon troops all had the latest equipment, while the fighting men didn't. The more you read about this, the more you read how the U.S general commanding the supply chain in the European theater needed to be court-martialed. I forget his name, but his first three initials were J.C.H. which many fighting units claimed stood for "Jesus Christ Himself." And then there were the corrupt rear echelon units heavily engaged in black market activities, and this included entire military police units. All this made the war last longer and got more fighting men killed or wounded. It was a disgrace.
