General Patton's Tactics Affect The Battle Of The Bulge

This ebook helped answer the research question, “How did General Patton and his tactics affect the outcome of the Battle of the Bulge?”. The ebook details George S. Patton’s life and career, starting from his family’s history in the U.S military, through Patton’s education and early life choices, through battles Patton fought in and ending with his death in December of 1945. The value of the ebook to this investigation is the wealth of information given on Patton. The ebook details fully how Patton behaved and acted while leading his men while also giving information pertaining to his tactics. The ebook’s purpose was to tell Patton’s life and in doing so it provided greatly to this investigation. The ebook does have limitations though. The

The battle began with a 90-minute artillery barrage from the Germans’ Sixth Panzer Army at 0530 (Yeide 364). The Germans quickly overwhelm the thinly stretched VIII Corp. () and by December 18, 1944, they had pushed quickly past the initial defenders (). In a briefing at Verdun on December 19, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower asked General George S. Patton to counterattack from the south, telling him “to make a strong attack with six divisions” (Yeide 365). General Patton had other plans however, stating he would attack in three days’ time with three divsions (Forty 154). This caused several British officers to laugh at Patton, believing this to be impossible (Giltin 90) as it required Patton to make “a 90° turn with an entire army” (Forty 154) and march straight north without stopping. Doing just as he said, Patton’s divisions, namely the 4th Armored Division, slammed into the Germans’ southern flank on December 22, 1944, three days after the briefing at Verdun, pushing straight for their goal, Bastogne (Barron 60). By December 27, 1944 after fierce resistance, Patton had succeeded in liberating the 101st Airborne at Bastogne (Blumenson and Hymel 74). Across the front the Allies had succeeded in halting the German advance and began to push back by the start of January 1945. General Patton had

This allowed Patton to better prepare for battles and outperform his peers when it came time for the U.S. to join World War 2. Patton noticed “First and Ninth armies were fighting on narrower fronts than his” and later commented “The First Army is making a terrible mistake in leaving the VIII Corps static, as it is highly probably that the Germans are building up east of them” (Blumenson and Hymel 71). Patton’s thoughts became true when his G-2, Col. Oscar Koch told Patton on December 9, 1944, “he thought the Germans were con- centrating their forces on the VIII Corps’ front” (Blumenson and Hymel 72), confirming Patton’s previous thoughts and so Patton set forth preparing his Third Army for the attack. Patton’s battle awareness, as well as his G-2’s, ended up paying off, as when the attack did come and Patton was asked how soon he could be ready, he replied “in three days time” (Forty