WW 2 officers who got shafted & didn't deserve it

Dowding, Heinrich Erhler, Manstein, Auchinlek?

the delay in forming up Big Wings meant that this air cover often did not arrive until after German bombers had hit 11 Group's airfields. Post-war analysis agrees that Dowding and Park's approach was best for 11 Group. However, the controversy affected Park's career after the battle and contributed to Dowding's dismissal from Fighter Command.

Battle of Britain

And?

 

rommel was one as well. the last attack on killing hitler,rommel was claim to be part of it(with out any proof) and dimissed of his command and then had a choice on how to die.

 

Admiral Kimmel. Billy Mitchell got lovely treatment as well, but that was before the war.

 

This my opinion and my opinion only.

Admiral Kimmel and Gen. Short got what they deserved for failure in very important appointments.

MacArthur should have been sacked and court-martialed, but Roosevelt was afraid of his domestic political potential.

Billy Mitchell got what he deserved. There were plenty of other air-minded officers who stayed within the system and worked to achieve what Mitchell advocated, and did so without creating undue competition between the services. Moffet and King come to mind.

Some admirals who were treated harshly were Ghormley and some say Frank Jack Fletcher. Ghormley gave his best, but it just wasn't good enough and his sacking was in the interest of the war effort. Frank Fletcher was either inept or just plain unlucky, but either way, his removal made way for other officers who did better than he was likely to have done.

USAAF Gen. Heywood Hansell was sacked when the B-29 didn't live up to it's billing as a "super-bomber," and that wasn't his fault. But Hap Arnold wanted results he could take to Congress and beat the Navy to death and he wasn't going to settle for excuses, so Hansell had to go, and did.

Lot's of senior officers on all sides were sacked or had their careers side-tracked unfairly. But war isn't fair and the consequences of losing are so severe, one can't worry about the careers of indviduals. Some men are told to die, some men are maimed, and some men merely sacrifice their careers.

 

I agree on Short. I'm less certain about Kimmel.

 

Generals Terry Allen and Teddy Roosevelt Jr. during the Sicilian Campaign. Weren't pretty and perfumed enough for Patton's taste. Both of them made a comeback of sorts, but IMO they should have both had corps command (perhaps division command for TR) by the time of Normandy. Of course, TR later died of a heart attack in Normandy.

Jake Devers. Not one of Eisenhower's picked "boys", so Ike couldn't handle it when Devers had his own ideas. The petty treatment of Devers continued decades after the war. When the M2 and M3 Infantry & Cavalry Fighting Vehicles were to be named, the CFV was supposed to be the M3 Devers. Instead, Bradley was chosen as the name for both even though Bradley knew little about armor and even less about the cavalry.

Cheers

BW

 

Great choice! Also I would have to add USN Captn McVey, McVeigh (SP?) to the list of those who got shafted but really didn't deserv e it so.

Also, the Captain of the Ship USS Indianapolis--Captain McVey--did NOT deserve to get royally shafted like he did. Even the Commander of the Japanese Submarine-testified for him-but the brASS was looking for someone to fry no matter what.

 

Not true.

Kimmel was considered a "hard charger" and was one of the Navy's fair-haired boys prior to the war. He was sent out to Pearl to Shake up the Pacific Fleet and put it on a more realistic war-footing. Instead, Kimmel seemed to regard the posting as some sort of reward for prior accomplishments and did little to change the peace-time ways of he Navy. Months after Pearl Harbor, Pacific Fleet men were still dying because they had no idea what being at war really meant; that was Kimmel's failure and the real reason he was sacked. MacArthur also should have been cashiered, but Kimmel wasn't a substitute scapegoat for Mac.

Bereton had just arrived the previous day in the Philippines and hadn't even met most of his officers yet. He had no opportunity to get anything shipshape, and was more or less the victim of circumstances. Besides, sacking Brereton would have made MacArthur look bad and Mac wasn't about to let that happen.

 

When I saw the title for this thread, McVay was the one person that quickly came to my mind. Even though his name was cleared (Thanks in large part to the Indy's surviving crew and Hunter Scott), the court-martial still stands on his record, and I don't think Congress will be expunging it.

 

Hi Phantom, same hee. I thought of him way before I thought of Rommel and Kimmel. Captain McVay did not deserve that placed on him and in fact, I think he should have been awared the Medal of Honor-on how he organized many survivors into his group thus being instrumental in saving many lives.

I sure hope someday, that he will be posthumously awarded that Medal that he so deserves. I have to really shake my head no-no in disgust at how the military can operate at times. I sure hope that the Captain is resting in peace.

Thank you also for the additional info about him and wht his crew did for him. One who has even a BB-sized brainshould take that as a que to the fact that McVay was not the one to blame. I too doubt that the Navy and the politicians-will right this wrongdoing. :-(

I wish I could have left you more than 27 points for this.

Best regards--Carl.

 

Gort, managed against all pressure to do otherwise to make the critical decision that saved the BEF.

Then from commander of the Field force to fortress defender..Gibralter, later Malta, eventually Palestine/Isreal....

Although I can admit he was not going to be in the league of some of his lesser Corps commanders he weathered the postings important though they were, and did his duty without a murmer of disention. It must have been galling to see as the war progressed, his 3rd div commander Monty, Alexander and Brooke rise to heroic status in British annals.
All he had done was save the army, Churchill and the country.

 

He is one of those figures that history has frozen at a particular moment and about which one hears almost nothing of his subsequent life. How many people are even aware what his given name was ? (For anyone interested, a hint is that his initials are J.S.S.P.V.) The French leaders of 1940 also come to mind when I think of people that history highlighted for a short, intense period.

Cheers

BW

 

Interesting stuff. I had hoped some different views on Auchinlek would appear.

A reverse thread might be interesting, WW 2 Officers who didn't get shafted, but should've been.

Bernard Freyberg ever recieve any sort of rebuke or chastisement for Crete? or was it mainly after the war it came to light he could've & should've won?

 

Yep, the name can be seen on the rolls of many a field force including Zulu and Boer wars...His ancestors names appears throughout British military history.

 

If we are saying Auchinleck as in original post, then I'll throw in Wavell...Much maligned and another ending his days in military obscurity and a cloud to the end. If you can call India obscurity, but not a command he would have wanted. And fell out with UK govt and others over famine in India.

Again, much travelled in eary years of war....Stop gapping messes not of his making.

Politics seems to habe been his let down. Always seemed to be associated with a failure of some sort under his command but at times where only a magician could be expected to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.

 

David Stirling, founder of the SAS, who basically ended up buggering about in the private sector when he could have been developing the kind of regiments we needed post-war and for the future.

Alan Turing, of Bletchley Park fame, shunned for his sexuality. Another short visioned move with long ranging effects.

 

Mitchell deserved his court marshall. He chose political grandstanding over following orders. This led to the waste of the Ostfreidland as a test platform for the effects of bombs on ships.
MacAuthur should have been sacked, along with his CoS Sutherland. While MacAuthur was personally brave he was also far too insulated from his command to be really effective in a modern war. Sutherland was largely to blame for the disasterous USAAC performance in the Philippines and SWPA before Kenney showed up.

Another two are Stillwell and Wingate. Both got shuffled off to the far corners of the world to be largely forgotten mainly due to their personalities.