Military Leaders Of World War Ii

"In these pages I have written much of generals and of staff officers; of their problems, difficulties, and expedients, their successes and their failures. Yet there is one thought that I should like to be the over-all and final impression of this book- that the war in Burma was a soldier's war. There comes a moment in every battle against a stubborn enemy when the result hangs in the balance. Then the general, however skillful and farsighted he may have been, must hand over to his soldiers, to the men in the ranks and to their regimental officers and leave them to complete what he has begun. The issue then rests with them, on their courage, their hardihood, their refusal to be beaten either by the cruel hazards of nature or by the fierce strength of their human enemy. That moment came early and often in the fighting in Burma; sometimes it came when tired, sick men felt alone, when it would have been so easy for them to give up, when only will, discipline and faith could steel them to carry on. To the soldiers of the many races who, in the comradeship of the Fourteenth Army, did go on, and to the airmen who flew with them and fought over them, belongs the true glory of achievement. It was they who turned Defeat into Victory."

"Private armies, and for that matter private air forces- are expensive, wasteful, and unnecessary."

"Generals who are terribly busy all day and half the night, who fuss round, posting platoons, and writing march tables, wear out not only their subordinates but themselves. Nor have they, when the real emergency comes, the reserve of vigor that will enable them, for days if necessary, to do with little rest or sleep."

"...any Japanese officer wishing to commit suicide would be given every facility."

"The more modern war becomes, the more essential appear the basic qualities that from the beginning of history have distinguished armies from the mobs. The first of these is discipline."

"Armies do not win wars by means of a few bodies of super-soldiers but by the average quality of their standard units. Anything, whatever short cuts to victory it may promise, which thus weakens the army spirit, is dangerous. Commanders who have used these special forces have found, as we did in Burma, that they have another grave disadvantage- they can be employed actively for only restricted periods. Then they demand to be taken out of the battle to recuperate, while normal formations are expected to have no such limitations to their employment. In Burma, the time spent in action with the enemy by special forces was only a fraction of that endured by the normal divisions, and it must be remembered that risk is danger multiplied by time."

"For them I had none of the sympathy of soldier for soldier that I had felt for Germans, Turks, Italians, or Frenchmen that by the fortune of war I had seen surrender. I knew too well what these men and those under their orders had done to their prisoners. They sat there apart from the rest of humanity. If I had no feeling for them, they, it seemed, had no feeling of any sort, until Itagaki, who had replaced Field-Marshal Terauchi, laid low by a stroke, leaned forward to affix his seal to the surrender document. As he pressed heavily on the paper, a spasm of rage and despair twisted his face. Then it was gone, and his mask was as expressionless as the rest. Outside, the same Union Jack that had been hauled down in surrender in 1942 flew again at the masthead. The war was over."

"The strength of the Japanese Army lay, not in its higher leadership which once its career of success had been checked became confused, nor in its special aptitude for jungle warfare, but in the spirit of the individual Japanese soldier. He fought and marched till he died. If five hundred Japanese were ordered to hold a position, we had to kill four hundred and ninety-five before it was ours- and then the last five had killed themselves. It was this combination of obedience and ferocity that made the Japanese Army, whatever its condition, so formidable, and which would make any army formidable. It would make a European army invincible."

"Patterson-Knight, my "Q" staff officer, who had been at Shwegyin for some days supervising embarkation and was a conspicuous figure in his exquisitely cut, but by now somewhat soiled, jodhpurs, took a tommy gun and went into the fray. About an hour later he came back and exchanged the tommy-gun for a rifle, explaining that "The little yellow baskets are a bit farther off now!""

"He would have been a brave American who would have stood up to Joe Stilwell to his face."

"[F]or excellent reasons, [the government] has preferred the world to think that we still held some scruples and attacked only what the humanitarians are pleased to call 'Military Targets'. I can assure you, gentlemen, that we tolerate no scruples!"

"I cannot remember that he ever did anything that helped us."

"Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Charles Portal pointed out next day that the aim of bombing had not been "to terrorise the civilian population", and he redrafted the memorandum at Churchill's invitation, removing references to "terror"."

"Chief of the Air Staff Charles Portal had calculated that bombing civilians could kill 900,000 in 18 months, seriously injure a million more, destroy six million homes, and “de-house” 25 million, creating a humanitarian crisis that, he believed, would speed up the war."

"All three [directing officers] were new in their appointments that year [1936]. Of them all, Portal was obviously the clearest thinker and speaker although I cannot remember him exercising any distinct "Air" influence on either his colleagues or on the students."

"The higher commander who goes to Field Service Regulations for tactical guidance inspires about as much confidence as the doctor who turns to a medical dictionary for his diagnosis."

"The British have been a free people and are still a comparatively free people; and though we are not, thank Heaven, a military nation, this tradition of freedom gives to our junior leaders in war a priceless gift of initiative. So long as this initiative is not cramped by too many regulations, by too much formalism, we shall, I trust, continue to win our battles – sometimes in spite of our higher commanders."

"All his life Wavell had been not only a student of the art of modern war, but a student of the art of war throughout the ages. He had used various ruses both on the strategic and tactical planes to deceive the Italians in the Abyssinian War, and he was convinced that the study and application of this art were essential elements in the duties of a commander’s planning staff. But he went further, he knew and foresaw, that the Second World War would be a world war in all its implications, controlled centrally by the two great antagonists, the Axis and the Allies. Every operation in every part of the world, however distant, and however disparate the conditions, would have its effect on every other operation. Therefore he argued that if it were possible to deceive the enemy in one theatre, that deception, especially on the strategic plane, could not be effective and might even be dangerous if its effects on operations in other theatres were not controlled."

"A general may succeed for some time in persuading his superiors that he is a good commander: he will never persuade his army that he is a good commander unless he has the real qualities of one."

"A bold general may be lucky, but no general can be lucky unless he is bold. The general who allows himself to be bound and hampered by regulations is unlikely to win a battle."

"It is in peace that regulations and routine become important and that the qualities of boldness and originality are cramped."

"Behind an inarticulate and ruggedly orthodox exterior Wavell concealed one of the most fertile minds ever possessed by a British senior officer."

"Yet the British soldier himself is one of the world’s greatest humorists. That unhumorous race, the Germans, held an investigation after the late War into the causes of moral, and attributed much of the British soldier’s staying power to his sense of humour. They therefore decided to instil this sense into their own soldiers, and included in their manuals an order to cultivate it. They gave as an illustration in the manual one of Bairnsfather’s pictures of “Old Bill” sitting in a building with an enormous shell-hole in the wall. A new chum asks: “What made that hole?” “Mice,” replies “Old Bill.” In the German manual a solemn footnote of explanation is added: “It was not mice, it was a shell.”"

"Let us be clear about three facts. First, all battles and all wars are won in the end by the infantryman. Secondly, the infantryman always bears the brunt. His casualties are heavier, he suffers greater extremes of discomfort and fatigue than the other arms. Thirdly, the art of the infantryman is less stereotyped and far harder to acquire in modern war than that of any other arm…. The infantryman has to use initiative and intelligence in almost every step he moves, every action he takes on the battle-field. We ought therefore to put our men of best intelligence and endurance into the Infantry."

"The beginnings of any war by the British ('still as Saxon slow at starting, still as weirdly wont to win' [The Old Way - Adm Ronald Hopwood]) are always marked by improvidence, improvisations, and too often, alas, by impossibilities being asked of the troops."

"I can only say that I have always believed in doing everything possible in war to mystify and mislead one’s opponent…."

"No amount of study or learning will make a man a leader unless he has the natural qualities of one."

"The car stopped and a general in a magnificent uniform stepped out; he was wearing a monocle and his chest was covered with decorations. He was a most corpulent man, strong-looking with wide shoulders, extremely stiff in manner, imposing, and what seemed to me a terribly Prussian appearance. The expression on his face was hard, hislips tiht, his gestures frigid. I kept myself modestly to one side, watching this character and thinking to myself that it would not be easy to deal with him."

"Just as consistently as Colonel von Choltitz forbade the execution of the commissar order (to liquidate the Soviet commissioners after captivity) in his regiment during the conquest of Sevastopol, he ordered a humane treatment of the wounded and captured Russian soldiers."

"Now you're going to Paris. The city must be utterly destroyed. On the departure of the Wehrmacht nothing must be left standing, no church, no artistic monument. Even the water supply must be cut off so that the ruined city may be prey to epidemics."

"I am a soldier. I get orders. I execute them."

"I asked the Field Marshal von Manstein if he would take part in the actions against Hitler. Manstein was sitting in a chair and reading the Bible. Quick, almost embarrassed, he put it aside and covered it with some papers."

"I stood in front of him and I saw an old, stooped, bloated man with gray, slick hair, barely standing on his legs."

"He was trembling all over and the desk on which he was leaning shook. He was bathed in perspiration and became more agitated."

"Gentlemen, you are the leaders of the best soldiers in the world. I will give you five or six of my own men; we will cover your back with sustained barrage fire to protect you while you cross the rue de Rivoli. All you need to do is force open a door to fight your way to the tapestry."

"I was at Stalingrad, you know... And from that time onwards I have done nothing but manoeuvre to escape encirclement by the enemy: retreat on retreat, defeat upon defeat. And here I am in marvellous Paris. What do you think is going to happen now?"

"Brennt Paris?!"

"Have you read Churchill's speech? Appalling beyond all words! A Jewish brigade to go to Germany! Then the French will take the west and the Poles the east. The hate in that speech! I am completely shattered."

"Even today, I can not say with certainty whether he himself believed in his words or whether he was knowingly deceiving those around him to urge him to keep to the end."

"We all share the guilt. We went along with everything, and we half-took the Nazis seriously instead of saying "to hell with you and your stupid nonsense". I misled my soldiers into believing this rubbish. I feel utterly ashamed of myself. Perhaps we bear even more guilt than these uneducated animals."

"They were just a gang of riffraff. Everybody talks all the time of the "Resistance" or the "Forces Françaises de l'intérieur" as if they were organized and disciplined troops, as if they had any real authority. But they are nothing but freeshooters firing on my men. If it continues I promise you I will take tough action. I will order that Paris be defended and will destroy the city before evacuating it."

"His care and many endeavors for the well-being of the ordinary soldier at the front are to be emphasized as special characteristics of our regimental commander and he did not shy away from his warning voice when commanded by the commando."

"Oh, Field Marshal, so far it would have been a funeral without military honors, maybe now it can become one with military honors."

"Paris is like a pretty woman; when she gives you a smack, you don't smack back."

"French officer: Do you speak German? Choltitz: Probably better than you."

"No doubt: I was in front of a madman. The awareness that the existence of our people was in the hands of an insane person, unable to dominate the situation [...] weighed on me with all its strength."

"Ever since our enemies have refused to listen to and obey our Führer, the whole war has gone badly."

"If for the first time I had disobeyed, it was because I knew that Hitler was insane."

"The worst job I ever carried out - which however I carried out with great consistency - was the liquidation of the Jews. I carried out this thoroughly and entirely."

"Since Sevastopol, it has been my fate to cover the retreat of our armies and destroy the cities behind them."