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In WW II, American and British Officers Made Uneasy Allies

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发表于 12-20-2015 19:44:32 | 只看该作者 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
本帖最后由 choi 于 12-20-2015 19:47 编辑

Jonathan W Jordan, Arms Across the Atlantic. American and British officers made uneasy allies. Eisenhower compared their early encounters to those of a bulldog and tomcat. Wall Street Journal, Dec 17, 2015
http://www.wsj.com/articles/arms-across-the-atlantic-1450307552
(book review on Niall Barr, Eisenhower's Armies. The American-British alliance during World War II. Pegasus, 2015)

Note:
(a) Winston Churchill's "ancestor the Duke of Marlborough had led a polyglot coalition against France two centuries earlier."
(i) Duke of Marlborough (title)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Marlborough_(title)
(The name of the dukedom refers to Marlborough [a market town] in Wiltshire)
(ii) John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Churchill,_1st_Duke_of_Marlborough
("His leadership of the allied armies consolidated Britain's emergence as a front-rank power * * * allow[ing] Britain to rise from a minor to a major power")

John led two wars:
(A) Nine Years' War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years%27_War
(1688–97; William III and James II struggled for control of the British Isles)
* William and Mary (Protestant) dethroned James II (Mary's father; Catholic) in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. James II went to France, with the support of his cousin Louis XIV.
* one result of Nine Years' War: Louis XIV recognized William III of Orange as King of England, Scotland
(B) War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)

(b) "Stepping out of the trenches with George Washington’s disaster at Fort Necessity in the French and Indian War [part of Seven Years' War (mainly 1756-1763)], Mr. Barr traces the diverging paths of the American and British armies. American distrust of standing armies is reflected in its reliance on citizen-soldier forces through the Spanish-American War. While the US nurtured a core of fighting men during its first century, those powder-and-shot professionals had little concept of the challenges facing a global power like Great Britain.  Descendants of Concord’s Redcoats, by contrast, spent their years defending far-flung jewels of the British Empire, from Hong Kong to Bermuda. The British soldier learned a very different art of warfare, one that embraced local allies, global logistics, command of the sea and strategic interests."
(i) Battle of Fort Necessity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Necessity
(July 3, 1754)
(ii) powder and shot (n): "ammunition consisting of gunpowder and bullets for muskets"
WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc
www.thefreedictionary.com/powder+and+shot
(iii) Concord, Massachusetts (as in Concord and Lexington)
(iv) Red coat (British Army and Royal Marines)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_coat_(British_Army_and_Royal_Marines)
(or Redcoat)

(c) "Charles Bonesteel, a US combat commander who adopted British innovations like the ubiquitous pre-fabricated 'Bailey bridge'; and George B Jarrett, a[n American] weapons fetishist who learned how to adapt US shells to British tank guns, relieving a desperate ammunition shortage in the Middle East."

Bailey bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_bridge
(Donald Bailey)
(d) "Maj Bonner Fellers, a US military attaché to Cairo * * * Allies didn’t know that Italian cryptographers had broken America’s military attaché codes and were reading the reports—handing Rommel vital intelligence that led to the defeats that Fellers complained of. (A smiling Rommel referred to Fellers, code-named 'Good Source' by the Germans, as 'my bonnie fellow.')"
(i) The German surname Rommel: "nickname for an obstreperous person, from Middle Low German, Middle Dutch rummeln, rumpeln to make a noise, create a disturbance (of imitative origin)"
Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press
(ii) bonny (adj; etymology): "(also bonnie)"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bonny

* The "bonnie" is a wordplay on the first name Bonner.

(e)  After D-Day: "Elation gave way to recrimination and backbiting amid slow British progress against panzers in Calais, slow American progress in the hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula, and frosty personal relations between senior commanders. From Normandy to the Elbe River, Mr Barr chronicles a successful campaign marred slightly by sniping among the American and British high commands."
(i) Calais
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais
(overlooks the Strait of Dover, the narrowest point in the English Channel, which is only 34 km (21 mi) wide here, and is the closest French town to England)
(ii) Elbe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe
(flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km (68 mi) northwest of Hamburg; section 6 Etymology; In 1945, as World War II was drawing to a close, Nazi Germany was caught between the armies of the western Allies advancing from the west and the Soviet Union advancing from the east. On 25 April 1945, these two forces linked up near Torgau, on the Elbe)
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