Would military geniuses of today and recent times do well yesterday?

[Little_Nemo]

@AK84

To be fair to Patton, historically he saw the tanks potential, and he might have done something similar to combined arms British attacks of the 100 days.

I agree Patton would have been more tank-oriented if he had been in a higher command during WWI. (Historically, he had commanded a tank brigade in that war.) But armored attacks and infiltration attacks are almost opposites in their underlying concepts. Patton was not the sort of general who would have instinctively been drawn to a strategy of bypassing enemy strongpoints.

[Daylate]

Was it really the day after, or just a dateline issue? 8 December in the Phillipines is 7 December in Hawaii.

(QUOTE]News of Pearl Harbor reached U.S. forces in the Philippine Islands less than half an hour after the attack (about 2:30 A.M., December 8, in the Philippines, corresponding to 8:00 A.M., December 7, in Hawaii).[1] Nine hours later, unopposed Japanese attacks caught U.S. bombers and pursuits sitting on the ground.

“If surprise at Pearl Harbor is hard to understand, surprise at Manila is completely incomprehensible,”[2] wrote Samuel E. Morison, author of History of US Naval Operations in World War II. Despite destruction of American airpower, no officer in the Philippines was relieved from duty. One officer, the major who commanded the 24th Pursuit Group (PG) at Clark Field, was punished. He never again held a command position. Other, higher-ranking officers – colonels and generals – went on to higher commands.
[/QUOTE]

[Sailboat]

@Daylate

News of Pearl Harbor reached U.S. forces in the Philippine Islands less than half an hour after the attack … Nine hours later, unopposed Japanese attacks caught U.S. bombers and pursuits sitting on the ground.

MacArthur’s air commander repeatedly sought permission to scramble the planes to avoid precisely this outcome.

It’s also worth noting that Dugout Doug had positioned his heavy equipment forward, near the expected landing areas, but held his Filipino troops back in their barracks – the result was their heavy equipment was landed on and captured by the Japanese, then the troops were sent forward to fight without it.

From WWII Database

It was surprising that with MacArthur predicting the attack to take place (though he thought the attacks would come later, in spring of 1942) down to the accurate prediction of Japanese landing sites, MacArthur was unable to react properly to the Japanese attacks. MacArthur was said to be in shock, unable to give commands to his staff officers. When he finally got himself together, he ordered troops to resist the Japanese at the landing sites, which Lieutenant Harold Johnson (later chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff) called a “tragic error”. Johnson believed that, in hindsight, instead of putting the inexperienced Filipino soldiers at the beaches only to be routed by the Japanese, they could have had been transporting food and other supplies to Corregidor where they would be badly needed later on. Some historians believed that the stockpiling of supplies on Bataan should had been done even earlier, for the retreat to the Bataan Peninsula had been in the design of the “Rainbow 5” plan all along.There were discrepancies in regards to the orders given to the bombers present in the Philippine Islands. According to Brereton, he requested immediate bombing missions to attack Taiwan to discourage further Japanese air strikes, and blamed Sutherand, MacArthur’s Chief of Staff, for not giving the authorization to do so. According to Sutherland, however, he did authorize the bombers to launch, but it was Brereton who delayed the action as he had little intelligence on Taiwan and did not know where to strike.

(The key to deciphering the conflicting Sutherland/Brereton versions of events is to know that Sutherland was MacArthur’s right-hand-man and the staunchest defender of the great general’s reputation throughout the war.)

[lisiate]

@Daylate

(QUOTE]News of Pearl Harbor reached U.S. forces in the Philippine Islands less than half an hour after the attack (about 2:30 A.M., December 8, in the Philippines, corresponding to 8:00 A.M., December 7, in Hawaii).[1] Nine hours later, unopposed Japanese attacks caught U.S. bombers and pursuits sitting on the ground.

“If surprise at Pearl Harbor is hard to understand, surprise at Manila is completely incomprehensible,”[2] wrote Samuel E. Morison, author of History of US Naval Operations in World War II. Despite destruction of American airpower, no officer in the Philippines was relieved from duty. One officer, the major who commanded the 24th Pursuit Group (PG) at Clark Field, was punished. He never again held a command position. Other, higher-ranking officers – colonels and generals – went on to higher commands.

Okay then, nine hours really is inexcusable. Apt username by the way.

[villa]

Not sure what we count as “recent times” but I think Generals who were on the crossover between older and modern warfare would have a leg up in this.

Montgomery strikes me as one, though I wouldn’t call him a military genius. Haig, on the other hand, was, and would I think have been comfortable with earlier armies. He had the knowledge and ability to effectively use cavalry, and showed how adaptable he was with his use of new artillery techniques such as creeping barrages etc.

[AK84]

Haig, a genius? He was very good and the Hundered Days are something that any General in history would be proud to have on his resume, but not a genius. I don’t blame him for the Somme, but Pascendale defiantly.