What American WW2 Generals Think Of Allied and Enemy Generals ? 

Eisenhower served on McArthur’s staff in the PI prewar. McArthur famously said he was the best clerk he ever had. Eisenhower retorted that he studied drama for four years under McArthur

Macarthur didn't like the Australians,and I think the feeling was mutual.

Closing this with Patton made my day

Out of all these guys, Eisenhower was a president, Bradley eventually got his 5th star, and the name of the US operation that saved and fed Europe after WWII was the Marshall plan. Marshall also ended up as Secretary of State.

My grandpa was a navy WWII veteran and had a huge admiration for Chester Nimitz and absolutely HATED Douglas MacArthur

Patton HATED Montgomery lmao

Eisenhower was the greatest cat herder of all time. Organizing the allied war effort was a task that was beyond impossible, but Ike managed it somehow.

Bradley was very wrong about the Polish and Canadian soldiersMy Father fought with them them from Belgium to Northern Germany,he said if you ever needed a Brothers in Arms it was them.I never heard him say a bad word about them and had great respect

MacArthur showed what a lunatic he was long before the Philippines during the attempted court marshall of Billy Mitchell.

I think the general who did most for the U.S. was Marshall. Respected by all parties. He was also an excellent statesman. Marshall recognized Eisenhowers talent and helped advance his career. Like many people who accomplish the most are those who are brought into jobs they don't even want. My brother served in the U.S. army in the Pacific during WW2. He had an intense dislike for MacArthur. The U.S. navy had a better plan for winning the Pacific War, but the president chose MacArthur's "Island Hopping" proposal. A smart politician/military leader would not have sent the cavalry to attack U.S. Army veterans peaceful demonstration. Doing that got him removed from the army and sent to the Phillipines. Roosevelt sent his wife to discuss the problem with veterans. She accomplished much more than MacArthur.

Leave it to Patton to not mince words about his opinion of Soviet troops!

Nobody who served with or under MacArthur had anything good to say about him

Eisenhower was always a class act...the only allied commander who could have kept the competing General's egos under control.

McArthur received the Medal of Honor for abandoning his command in the Philippines……he also refused to believe the Chinese would invade in the Korean War, and nobody was allowed to contradict the General! After Truman finally sacked him we fought them to a stand still.

Not one mention of the Best General of the war. British General of the 14 Army Gen William(Bill)Slim . How took on and defeated 316,000 Japanese troops in Burma. After doing a fighting retreat of over 1000 mile in 1942.

Ike showed leadership and diplomacy, MacArthur wouldn't give you a red cent unless you gave him a press releases or an Xrated a$$ kissing!

Ike worked for MacArthur in the Philippines. MacArthur said, "Ike was the best filing clerk I ever had."

I will share my Dad's thoughts on some of the commanders in that war. He went into the Navy in 40, did UDT training on Oahu, and was at sea when Pearl got hit. Didn't care for MacArthur, Ike, or Montgomery. Did like Patton, and Bradley. Thought Patton should have been running everything and Bradley his Subordinate. He felt that Halsey and Spruance should have been in Charge of the Pacific, with Halsey subordinate to Patton. My Dad and the people he served with were pretty goddamn mad when Pearl got hit, it had been their home. Anything less than total commitment to absolute obliteration of the enemy was un acceptable to them. Oddly enough he didn't hold a grudge against the Japanese people, just the combatants and their superiors.

Reading these posts one has to love all this wisdom long, long after the event

McArthur calling anyone else useless is peak irony. Granted he wasn’t worthless. He could be used as a bad example in a lot of way, but with a couple brilliant moves that cemented his legacy and ego. An ego that got a whole lot of people killed that didn’t need to be involved.

Eisenhower and Nimitz were excellent judges of talent and not above sacking incompetent commanders and replacing them with better commanders. Ike did this when he Replaced Lloyd Fredendall with Patton and Nimitz replaced Ghormley with Halsey.

During the Pacific War,Australian High Command paid lip service to Mc Arthur, but never thought much of him

MacArthur. Well, let's just say that according to my WW2 Veteran sources, his picture can be found in the dictionary under 'ego' and leave it at that. Patton: Remember this. NEVER bad mouth Georgie in front of troops who "Served With Patton". ESPECIALLY if you are a member of 'The Press'.

The more I read about Ike the more disenchanted I became. He was put in as a facilitator to keep the Allies cohesive. The performance of SHAEF headquarters was a disgrace. The Allied armies were using Michelin guides for maps, the Bocage came as a surprise? You mean to tell me a Frenchman couldn't be found in all of England to describe the area! My uncle's unit the 83rd Inf. Div. lost 1800 men in the first day of action. Patton was so disgusted he made his own plaster model of his area so that he knew what he was doing. Schaef never provided maps.

It is an absolute disgrace that MacArthur was given a Medal of Honor for completely mishandling the Philippines campaign in 1941/42, losing his Air Force without a shot being fired, abandoning his men to the Bataan death march, and then orchestrating a totally useless campaign to retake the Philippines to hide the massive black mark on his record. How many hundred thousand allied soldiers died to feed his ego?

Patton always gave it to you like he saw it :) man didn't hold back :)

those guys had a lot of things going on all over the world at the same time thank you for your service

The AI that colorized Badoglio's picture is already waging war against humankind.

Ya Patton slaps a couple guys and he’s evil. Ike orders a guy shot and that’s ok. Really?!?!?

Saburo Sakai wrote that MacArthur's needless invasion of the Philippines (and by extension, Peleliu), the Americans gave Japan crucial time to reinforce and harden Iwo Jima's defenses. They built those caves and brought in 20000 troops in that time.

My favorite wartime account is Stillwell's in The Stillwell Papers. Reading him, then the comments of his fellow commanders in Europe and Africa, one begins to get a real sense of the man and both his strengths and weaknesses.

Douglas MacArthur was a man with a huge ego who was more interested in his power and position. Not his subordinates. He did not deserve his promotions. They were all political appointments, not from his efforts or experience. He deserved being removed and sent back to the States and retired more so than Patton.

To his dying day Bradley insisted that not closing the Falaise Gap was a smart move. It was not. It allowed tens of thousands of Germans to escape to fight another day. His reputation as a general is not what it was back in 1945.

I totally agree about MacArthur. It was his fault that the Philippines fell and the suffering our our American soldiers and the Philippine people

George Marshall was my favorite unsung hero of WW2, a true Servant. MacArthur was a disgrace in the Philippines. Ike was a pure politician, Bradley was idolized in the movie Patton in a way that out paced the Real Bradley, Patton was a Prima Donna that got results.

MacArthur was a legend in his own mind. He took credit for everything. He even tried to upstage Truman. When Truman went out to talk to him, both were flying in separate Aircraft. MacArthur was delaying his landing trying to Get Truman to land first so it would look like Truman was waiting for MacArthur instead of the proper protocol of MacArthur waiting to greet Truman. Truman had his pilot call MacArthurs plane and ordered the pilot to get that plane on the ground now. Truman eventually fired that AssHat.

Ike never abandoned an army in face of the enemy.

Dugout Doug was really so full of himself he was incapable of accepting comment or criticism . Marshall was the perfect individual for his responsibility during WW II and the following years.

MacArthur told the marines in Korea there was no way the Chinese were crossing the border fighting them

Mac, a Great War hero, led troops against Great War veterans protesting in Washington for promised pensions. Had an 8 hour notice and still had his planes on the ground when the Japanese arrived. Lost a combined command of over 250k and was presented the Medal of Honor while Short was Court Marshalled and hauled before Congress for for Army losses in the surprise attack on 7 Dec. Yeah.

Montgomery was a horn-swaggeler

MacArthur’s greatest success was attacking the Bonus Marchers.

I don’t know if McAuthor said Ike was worthless. But, Gen. Marshal wanted him brought to DC and McAuthor tried to keep Ike with him. Ike was a brilliant young officer. I also read that Patton told Ike that ‘one day I’ll be working for you’.

Patton my favorite General ...his eyes 👀 stare, focus ...unparalleled

Bradley. The Soldier's General was George Patton's son, G S Patton IV. not Bradley. But, I guess that's comparing across generations and is not quite far.

MacArthur was a textbook narcissist.

God imagine having to keep all of these people who hated each other from not actively stabbing eachother enough in the back from causing enough internal strife to aftually work. Love how he totally changed his view of macarthur after the war, but if anyone should have led the retaking of manila he was perfect for it.

Patton must've been a nightmare to work with. The soldier in the hospital that got slapped should think himself lucky he was slapped and not horsewhipped by Patton. It may have even crossed Pattons mind.

Eisenhower had a much more challenging command. As Supreme Commander in Europe he had to work with a coalition which was required management skills. MacArthur was a prima Donna who wanted total command.

Why is General Eisenhower's picture reversed? Patton too. Maybe others. There seems to be a lot of that on the internet. Don't these people look at their own postings?

I can't think of a single thing that McArthur did well, with the exception of leading the charge into the WW1 veterans at home who were protesting a lack of support from their government.

Without Patton, we would have lost the war. Eisenhower only field commander was a disaster, he was a planner, not a combat leader.

Interesting material… but the computer generated narration often made it hard to follow because of incorrect pauses and emphasis. I’d prefer an amateur human to these comp-gen voices anytime.

I think one measure of high rank generals/admirals is the success of their subordinates. The success of a high rank officer depends on several subordinates also performing very well. To a degree, four-star has authority to choose his staff, though not the corps and division commanders. Still, he must get these people to work together to the mission.

Eisenhower was not a great strategist, but he was the diplomat who knew how to tame the egos of those under if his command, egos were a major problem in many of the allies.

"Drunk Mongoloid bandits" After what happened in Berlin I can kind of understand where he's coming from, but not all Russians were barbarians at the time. Many just wanted to defend their homes. Some of them were even women who suffered horribly before being killed.

Nary a mention of Joe Stilwell.

DeGaulle was irrelevant, as was France which wasn’t even included in Yalta or Potsdam. Of very great importance to MacArthur were the Australian generals who he put in command of Britain and the Commonwealth for the Japanese Occupation and the Korean War.

Ike was spot on with Monty, his Normandy campaign was epic and victory was achieved two weeks earlier than he predicted. While its strange that Patton was so disliked by his seniors, nobody had a good word of him, not even Bradley.

Nimitz was an admiral, not a general.

MacArthur was a self-glorifying over-rated general who skeedadled to Autralia and left his army to face the Japanese alone. A real leader would have refused to run away and stay to fight. Most over-rated general. Don't mention the supposed order to move to Australia.

George C. Marshall would have made an outstanding POTUS. A fully formed human being.

Man the more ya hear from Patton the more ya understand why he got fired.

MacArthur was entirely self-centered and primarily in the business of promoting himself. Eisenhower put interests of the country and the Allies first. He was easily worth a dozen MacArthurs. With the blessing of George Marshall, Harry Truman eventually put MacArthur in his place.

I read a book about the condition of the Philippine Air Force in the months before the war. The pilots coming in were very, very green. The atmosphere was holiday like, an hour and a half flight and done by lunch. Every night at the Officer Club and dinner and dancing. No sense of urgency even when the Japanese started flying recon flights over the northern PI. Lack of spare parts like hydraulic gun chargers and heaters for the P-40s, meaning guns froze at high altitude. Then when the Japanese attacked, most planes lost to panic and ineptitude due to avoidable collisions. Finally, many of the grounded pilots were turned into infantry to fight a losing battle. Valuable pilots should have been evacuated by submarine. MacArthur takes responsibility for all that as theater commander.

There is evidence that Patton had a mild (!) case of Tourette's Syndrome brought about by multiple concussions playing polo. This explains his inability to control his mouth. Excellent armored tactician, however. And I think he holds the record for liberating and holding territory with the fewest sustained casualties. That's quite a bragging right.

From what I know Eisenhower was a great commander, a people person who understood dipomacy. MacArthur however from the start was a narcissist and glory hunter. Very good at whispering in the right ears to get his own way. Nimitz was by far the better strategist and commander. Mac Arthur cost unnecessary lives, in both WW2 and Korea.

Ike: *trying to get along with everyone.* Patton: you're a little fucking CENSORED

Eisenhower being able to hold together ALL of these insane (but competent) egotists just shows he was the man to lead the allies.

You've got half of the photos flipped the wrong way around.

Bradley saying that the Canadians didn’t have battle experience is somewhat of an irony

Patton saw the Russians as the way they are.

Who was Eisenhower? He was just a table officer and virtually no achievement during world war 2. I would rather vouch for mcarthur and patton who were field officers who had seen what war was all about. Eisenhower was just good for photo ops.

Montgomery did not have million of available men at hand. Britain had lost almost an entire generation in the previous war. He was very cautious abot how many men he could loose in every battle or campaign. This made a lot of difference in relation of their behaviour. Man to man, I think british soldiers were better soldiers.

The most interesting little known fact about MacArthur is that he was a mama’s boy. That explains a lot about his narcissism,

The pic of Eisenhower shows him wearing his service ribbons/decorations on his right side. I don't think i've seen that before. I notice the same applies to the pic of Patton

MacArthur was a prima donna more than he was a soldier.

if you have ever read Omar Bradley's memoirs, it's clear that he was frustrated with Ike. His opinion was that Ike was promoted to overall command strictly for his political and diplomatic abilities, rather than any real knowledge of commanding men in combat.

It is interesting to note that as Montgomery drew up his plans for the Normandy campaign, the Canadians found themselves assigned to the toughest section of the Normandy front. Why was it the toughest? Because it was so wide open in so many places that it was regarded as by far the most favourable territory for tank warfare. So the very terrain of the Juno Beach regions was far and away recognized as the worst for infantry. Hedgerows were fewer or farther between, but the wide open access for the excellent German armoured divisions made it a terrible place to fight for the generally inferior Allied armour. In response to this, D-Day plans called for double the number of artillery pieces to be landed on Juno than on any other Allied beach and immediately put into action, coordinated with the forward-most Canadian infantry units-the Regina Rifles and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles-both of whom had previously stormed the beach early on June 6. It was in precisely this sector of the Canadian front that the Germans planned to mass their armoured divisions and try to push the Canadians back into the sea, and then spread left and right to attack Gold and Sword beaches. This is what Montgomery realized when he drew up the plans for the Normandy campaign. The terrain literally dictated the Nazi’s strategy. During the lynch-pin Battle for Bretteville (June 7-10, 1944) this artillery support was vital and broke up numerous German infantry and 12 SS Panzer attacks. That and the sheer guts and unbelievable determination of the two aforementioned infantry regiments saved the day. These were some tough Canadian kids from the Prairies who took on the German SS Panzer divisions and beat them. The commander of the 12 SS Panzer division, Kurt Meyer, had smugly concluded that his men would sweep the Canadians back into the English Channel like so many “little fishes.” Needless to say, Meyer and his 12 SS Panzers were the ones licking their wounds and howling in misery when they finally fled from Bretteville-minus 43 dead, 99 wounded, 10 missing and 29 panzers destroyed including a good number of Panther Mark Vs. And other than the 29 lost panzers, that was just on the first night! The Royal Winnipeg Rifles claimed 6 more panzers in nearby Putot. It was here and at nearby Abbey d’Ardenne that Kurt Meyer’s 12 SS and the Canadians began executing each other’s prisoners tit for tat, with no quarter given. The two sides really hated each other and this made for likely the bitterest fighting in Normandy. Here is a limited account of the terrible fighting at Bretteville: www.canadiansoldiers.com/history/battlehonours/northwesteurope/brettevillelorgueilleuse.htm And here is an excellent and much more detailed scholarly account of the Battle of Bretteville in .pdf format: scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss4/2/ [Be prepared to meet Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott of the original Star Trek series fame, as he was actually right in the area, being a Canadian artillery officer who landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. I bet you didn’t know that! 😏] In fact, the Canadians made the greatest penetration of the German lines on D-Day, beating them back almost seven whole miles in the first 24 hours. Neither the Americans nor the British came anywhere close. Indeed, three Sherman tanks of the Canadian 1 Hussars actually reached their assigned D-Day objective-the Caen-Bayeux highway next to Carpiquet airfield-before having to pull back when they could not make radio contact with army HQ and request reinforcements. And it was hard fighting with the Canadians losing 359 men killed landing on the first day alone-second only to Omaha for men KIA, but suffering the highest casualties of all the Allied beaches when calculated as a percentage of troops landed! Perhaps the great progress was because the Canadian army was the only Allied army in Normandy that was entirely volunteer. And yes, the two British and one Canadian beaches faced the bulk of the German armour-something like 80% of all German armoured divisions in Normandy faced us around Caen. Indeed, German armour was lined up virtually cheek by jowl. Historians have carefully investigated the numbers involved and the Germans, Canadians and British had more tanks per square mile all around Caen than the Russians and Germans had at Kursk. Between Caen, Carpiquet and Bayeux alone, the Germans had eight panzer divisions supplemented by an additional battalion of more than 100 Mark V Panthers. They were Panzer Lehr, 2 Panzer, 9 Panzer, 116 Panzer, 1 SS Panzer, 9 SS Panzer, 12 SS Panzer and 21 Panzer. Though few people understand this, these were the heaviest, most concentrated tank battles of WW2. In his analysis of the fighting against the Canadians of the Regina Rifles Regiment at Bretteville (which contained a number of Sherman and Firefly tanks, as did virtually every Canadian and British regiment), Hubert Meyer, the commanding general of the 12 SS Panzer division (after Kurt Meyer had been captured in September 1944) wrote later in “The 12th SS: The History of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division, Volume 1” that: “The tactic of surprise, using mobile, fast infantry and Panzers even in small, numerically inferior Kampfgruppen, had often been practiced and proven in Russia. This tactic, however, had not resulted in the expected success here against a courageous and determined enemy, who was ready for defense and well equipped. Through good battle field observation, the enemy had recognized the outlines of the preparations for the attack and drawn his own conclusions. The deployment of D Company [of the Regina Rifles] to Cardonville had prevented a breakthrough by 2./26 [of the 12 SS] from the farm south of the rail line to Bretteville, only 1,000 meters away. The anti-tank defenses all around the village were strong enough to thwart all attempts by the Panzers to by-pass the town to the south and north. The surprising use of parachute flares with glaring magnesium light blinded the Panthers and clearly outlined them to the enemy Pak [anti-tank guns like 6 and 17 pounders]. This enemy was especially strong in the defense and could not be taken by surprise. He fought with determination and courage.” [pages 186-87] One is unlikely to find higher praise from the SS than 12 SS Panzer General Hubert Meyer had for the Regina Rifles Regiment of the Canadian Army. And finally, let's look at the private sentiments of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In a rarely noted statement from him, cited by esteemed British historian Andrew Roberts in his “History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900” 2007, on page 343, Eisenhower declared that “man-for-man the Canadians were the best soldiers in his army.” In hindsight, it is something of a feather in Montgomery’s hat that he beat his own estimate of 90 days for capturing Caen and destroying the German armies-by two full weeks minus one day-but who is counting when numbers are so great and the opposition so terrible? Lastly, Montgomery (and all the Allied generals) had insights into overall German strategy and counterattack plans through the Ultra intercepts at Bletchley Park, England. On many occasions he chose to withdraw his forces a short distance in order to preserve them, when informed that much superior German armoured divisions were being moved up to recapture territory lost. This was only sensible. You do not throw away large masses of men and armour to be ground up by superior numbers of enemy armour simply to display your bravado. No, you withdraw and rebuild your own forces until you can overcome what you positively 100% know is a much stronger force facing you only a short distance away. Many have questioned Montgomery’s leadership, perhaps with some reason. But how many know that he had to preserve his forces (as much as he could anyway) when Ultra intelligence revealed that not doing so would only be a futile gesture and the deliberate squandering of many men’s lives? Moreover, London had already told him that infantry reserves were virtually nil (though armour was abundant) and he had better save as many of his men as possible. So let’s try to be a little bit fairer in our criticisms of him. My hat comes off to the many, many brave and excellent fighting men from the US and Britain. They fought as hard as anyone else but it was a team effort between the three great English speaking nations of the world that defeated Nazi Germany in Normandy, as well as the many brave French, Polish and other freedom loving European soldiers who fought alongside us. Bravo to all involved! PS I am not trying to glorify war here, just so anyone who might think this to be so can understand that I do not approve of war-for all the good this will do. Sources for German armoured strength in Normandy. - Bernages, Georges “Panzers and the Battle for Normandy” 2001. - Zetterling, Niklas “Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness” 2000.

Dug out Doug abandoned his troops and sacrificed thousands of lives to retake the Philippines during the battle for Manila thousands of civilians died so that the Emperors generall could win more head lines .Finaly after the Pearl harbor attack he failed to take steps to put his army on a war footing.

Bradley one of our best underrated generals 💔👍🏼🙏🏽🙌🏾🔥❤️he was a very competent and generous leader.

Jacob Devers?

MacArthur should have been court martialed due to the attack in the Philippines after getting word of the Pearl Harbor raid. He had word of the Japanese unlike General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel who were relieved of command and convicted of dereliction of duty!

Why are the photos reversed???

Ike was probably best commander for Europe where cooperation with the different nationalities was essential. McArthur was a very determined, intelligent but stubborn and inflexible. For the Pacific war with Japan, an implacable enemy , McArthur was almost Ideal

MacArthur was such a prick. Paton at very end, hilarious

MacArthur is overrated and should have been fired for the Philippines debacle in 41-42.

I have read the books written by General Patton and General Bradley and of course saw the movie......I feel it is important to keep in mind who the soldiers were that were being led by General Patton......17 to 20 years old.....not a lot of West Point Grunts on the Ground...and in my view they responded much better to General Patton's direct approach to things that much of the other strategies and hand holding we now have to live with !!!

Maybe not have the pic of Eisenhower backwards.

Not really very informative. Comments about Patton are mostly about his incident with the one soldier. Half of the video is just Ike talking about personal relationships, not military prowess. And many of the images are shown reversed, which doesn’t say much about whoever made this.

George Marshal was one of the few truly great Americans. America was great when he was influential with the military and Government.

Ike's main job was keeping the Allied Generals working together... MacArthur was just shit.

Douglas MacArthur is said to have a quite an ego. A man like that deserves to have one. When the Untied States started to prepare for war in 38, all of the officers over the age of 50 were thanked for the their service and put into retirement. A Colonel in the army told me, "War is a young man's game." There were some exceptions to the rule. MacArthur was so valued that he was brought back on from retirement. (Press Read more) His method of fighting the war in the Pacific was done with the least amount of casualties. Instead of the direct attack, he cut off the life line of Japanese units stationed in the Pacific islands. In his own words, "Let em starved to death. Better them than us." He saved Truman from going down as one of the worst presidents, by saving South Korea from going communist. He knew exactly what would happen if the US went to Vietnam. He told Kennedy not to do it and Kennedy heeded his advice. Unfortunatly Johnson did not. On MacArthurs deathbed he asked that Johnson come to see him when Johnson was president. He begged Johnson not to go to Vietnam because MacArthur knew how that war was going to be fought. There was never a declaration of war. There were no borders in Vietnam and no objective to win it. Patton knew the military better than anyone. He was promoted from Colonel to General when the US started preparing for war at age 55. In the beginning of the war he did a first class job taking Casablanca. So much so, that he was put in charge the North Africa Campaign. He was getting the headlines as well all the jealousy from all other generals. As a general, no one could beat him. In his career he only lost one battle. He was relieved of command during the Italian Campaign. When that happened the momentum of the Italian campaign was lost and was never regained. It cost a great deal of American casualties when he was relieved.

Obviously my opinion of MacArthur is too strong for RU-vid.

Why are many of the pictures presented backwards?

Why’d they get Batman to voice MacArthur?

I was a fan of Admiral Cunningham - he seemed to understand war

MacArthur was all ego, over rated, abandoned his men, a real hero would have stayed with his men and to hell with orders and actually earn that Medal Of Honor they gave him.

McArthur was fairly incompetent. " Dugout Doug." to his subordinates failed to prepare the Philipines for the japanese intial strike, despite hours of advance notice, losing essentially the entire Philipine air corps in the process. His return to those islands was strategically unnecessary, as was the associated Pelelieu campaign, costing thousands of American lives as well as Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and serving no purpose but to stroke his own ego.

" give me some soldiers like those bastards from waffen ss and I will conquer the world" - patton ,1944. That respected patton .