MILITARY COMMANDERS OF WORLD WAR II

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MILITARY COMMANDERS OF WORLD WAR II

• ALLIED AND AXIS

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Major General Harold Alexander British
Expeditionary Force

• LAST BRITISH SOLDIER TO LEAVE THE SHORES OF
  DUNKIRK
• Commander in Chief Middle East

• Was the overseer of the allied victory at El
  Alamein
• Eisenhower wanted him to command D-Day.

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Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr (US)

• His father was Confederate General Simon Bolivar
  Buckner, SR.
• He had surrendered to Grant in the Civil war
• He was a HUGE RACIST
• Alaskan Campaign
• Commanded10th Army
• Okinawa
• Highest ranking American to have been killed
  during the War

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Hermann Goering

• Top Nazi, a political mass-murderer
• Hitler's deputy
• Goering the highest military rank of
  Reichsmarshal
• Signed the Nazi plan for "The final solution of
  the Jewish problem

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Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

• Studied English in Harvard University
• Planned Pearl Harbor
• Yamamoto lost in the Battle of Midway
• Dies in plane crash

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Otto Skorzeny

• "The most dangerous man in Europe"
• Hitler's commando leader
• SS Special Unit Friedenthal
• Operation Greif (Griffin)

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General Mark Wayne Clark

• Deputy Commander for Operation Torch, the Allied
  invasion of North Africa
• Clark was the youngest officer to become Lt.
  General in 1943
• December 1944 he assumed command of the 15th and
  British and US Armies, putting him in command of
  all ground troops in Italy

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General Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Supreme Commander of Allied Forces In Europe
• Given Rank General of the Army
• Although he had never seen action himself, he won
  the respect of front-line commanders

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Heinz GuderianHurrying Heinz

• XIX Army Corps
• Panzergruppe Guderian during Barbarossa
• Chief of OKH
• Hitler dismissed him on 28 March 1945

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• Pioneered the Blitzkrieg concept
• Took Poland 1940
• Very successful in France
• Captured 600,000 Soviet Troops
• Abilities crushed by Hilter

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Douglas MacArthur

• Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the
  Southwest Pacific
• I shall Return
• Oversaw Invasion forces of Philippines

• Island Hopping
• Not a good Politician.
• Accepted Japanese Surrender

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Bernard Law Monty Montgomery

• British Expeditionary Force
• Commanded 8th Army in North Africa against Rommell

• Victory at El Alamein
• Butted heads with American Commanders during
  Invasion of Sicily and Italy
• Commander at D-Day

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Chester Nimitz

• Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces for the
  United States and Allied forces
• Carried out the Island Hopping campaign that
  leads through Iwo and Saipan and eventually on to
  Japan
• Drank A LOT

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• Commaned Admiral William Bull Halsey and the
  Marine known as Howlin Mad Holland Smith
• Started as a Submariner
• Won nearly every engagements he was involved in

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Georgi Zhukov

• Hard Core and Cruel
• Lucky and Skilled
• Great Leader and teacher
• Defeated Japanese in only Real attempt on USSR

• Saved Leningrad, Stalingrad
• Drafted women and children to save Moscow
• Was 1st to reach Berlin

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George C. Marshall

• Humorless, Cold , and Formal
• He transformed the US Army from and force of
  200,000 to 2 million
• Formulated assault on France
• Finest Soldier I have ever known
• Stimson, SOW

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Konstantin RokossovskyUSSR

• He was the Hero of Stalingrad
• Crushed the 6th German Army
• Commander at KURSK
• Finest General in the Red Army

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Frederich Erich Von Manstien

• Most Repsected of the German Officers
• Clear and Calculating
• Altered Hilters plans for invasion of France by
  going through the Ardennes

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• Most successful as a tank commander
• Only German to achieve a major victory against
  the Soviets
• Taking the Black Sea Peninsula
• Credited with Last German victory of the war at
  Kharkov Rail station

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George S. Patton

• Flamboyant and charismatic
• Believer in Destiny
• Unloved but respected
• Took Casablanca in 42
• North Africa with 3rd Armored

• Sicily Trouble
• A TRUE WARRIOR
• Headed 3rd in Ardennes at Battle of Bulge
• Most successful in territory
• 1000 miles in less than a year

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Bertram Ramsay

• Evacuated Dunkirk
• Transports of US troops to the war
• In charge of naval Operations for OVERLORD
  (Operation Neptune)
• 4000 ships
• Delivered 5 divisions to the shores of Normandy

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Irwin Rommel

• Desert Fox
• Faster than any before in France
• Afrika Corps
• Captured Tobruk
• Defeated at 2nd El Alamein
• Great?????

• Failed at Normandy
• Suicided for Plot against Hitler

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Wilhelm Keitel

• Appointed Chief of Staff of German High Command
  in charge of all military strategy
• Nazi PYSCHO
• ANY ACT OF MERCY IS A CRAIME AGAINST GERMANY

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Friedrich Paulus

• Commander of the German Sixth Army in January
  1942 and led the drive on Stalingrad.
• Russian-sponsored National Committee for a Free
  Germany

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Albert Kesselring

• Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff.
• Almost defeated British at BOB
• Commanded German Forces in all of Italy
• Soft Underbelly 20 months
• Germany as Commander in Chief West in March 1945