And that's that

Before we move on from Rommel & Patton, I’ve told Brian and Chris in e-mails what bothered me about the book, so I figure I should just blog about them. First, the haphazard structure of the book

drove me crazy. From the title and premise, what you would expect is a book that interweaves fictionalized accounts of the two title characters against the backdrop of post-D-Day Normandy and speculates on a plan to, without Hitler’s knowledge or consent, attempt to negotiate an armistice to save Germany from total defeat when things looked bleakest on the Third Reich’s Western Front.   

You’d also expect character portraits of the two that created some sense of their personalities. Humanizing them, if you will. How this is accomplished is to plod day-by-day through the story, meaning Rommel’s story takes place in the first half of the book; Patton’s the second. The trouble with this is that Rommel gets gravely injured, but the story (and premise for the book) have to play out. This means for the second half of the book, Feldmarschall Hans von Kluge has to take over as the main German character. It undercuts the whole idea of Rommel being considered a main character – and by extension also undercuts any contrasts/parallels you were drawing to Patton. 

The dialogue also sinks it for me.  Once again, people speak in facts. The British cannot say anything without a “jolly good” or “my dear chap” or “chop, chop” thrown in. I’m aware this might be legitimate idiomatic speech; it just feels strained and forced.

I will say this though – Patton’s Gap was written to assign blame to Montgomery and to portray Patton in an heroic light for the incident of the Falaise Gap; Rohmer has not forgotten this, and here that is taken to the extreme. Rohmer’s prejudices are transparent; Montgomery is portrayed as petty and petulant – and unable to get over the fact he wasn’t getting credit for the Allied offensive. Rohmer can’t resist having him whine about it at every opportunity and to describe him that way: As Monty is speaking, his assistant listens like so: “Corby sat listening intently, fascinated as always by Montgomery’s high-pitched, nasally voice with it’s peculiar lisp.”  In the same paragraph he is described as “the scrawny general”. A bit later – in case you didn’t get the message – Monty goes on a rant about how he’s being slighted: “And who’s getting all the kudos for my planning? Bradley and Eisenhower and now Patton. The great and glorious Georgie, racing across France but only because I made it possible. And what do I get? Nothing but criticism. So here is my chance Freddie, my chance to demonstrate to the world that I brought this off, not the bloody Americans.” All we need is him chortling evilly to complete the scene.

By contrast, Patton can do no wrong. During a conversation when Churchill and Roosevelt are ostensibly talking about a possible armistice offer from Hitler – when the fate of the war is at stake – Roosevelt can’t help but turn into a gushing fanboy. He wants Patton to negotiate with Kluge instead of Montgomery – seemingly because he looks so cool: “When Patton presents himself in front of Kluge for the first time, that poor Prussian bastard will be overwhelmed by what he sees.  Patton will have on his best shiny steel helmet, his battle-dress jacket will be flowing with ribbons, he’ll have on his cavalry jodhpurs, riding boots and spurs, and his riding crop will be tucked under his arm. And on each hip will be a beautiful ivory-handled revolver. And Patton’s tall Winston, he’s tall. Kluge won’t be faced by some little sparrow general in a beret and sweater, no sir. If he was here now, I’d give his knee a manly pat.”  Okay, I added that last line. But they are discussing something of vital importance that could end the war and save countless lives and Roosevelt feels it’s appropriate to describe how Patton looks and take a shot at Montgomery?

And the name of that “youthful reconnaissance pilot”?

Richard Rohmer.

I really wanted to like this book. I expected to like this book. So, why didn’t I like this book? Mostly it's because it's not being the book I wanted. My fault entirely. I wanted to read Rohmer’s wartime reminiscences, but instead got something about how “flamboyant” George S. Patton was done wrong by “frail” Bernard L. Montgomery.

I take issue with Rohmer’s contention that the Falaise Gap renders everything achieved on D-Day a dismal failure. Is he right that Montgomery's bruised ego was at fault? Could be. He doesn’t present much of a case because he doesn’t present much. Yeah, I’m going on about the lack of original research again.

Rohmer is pretty quick to dismiss anything that contradicts his argument as the product of a “faultiness of memory”, which is how we get this:

Bradley, in A Soldier’s Story, attempted to recall verbatim conversations and the line of reasoning that led him to the decisions he’d made seven years earlier.

Well, A Soldier’s Story was published in May 1951, not even six years after D-Day. Bradley wrote the memoir with the aid of his World War II files, which are currently held at the Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania… which is a place Rohmer didn’t visit, but should have.

Rohmer’s own memories of the war are heavily reliant on that the Squadron 430 logbook, which in some ways explains the bland, emotionless prose that makes very nearly each and every one of his flights the same as the last. The most memorable is that in which Rohmer writes that he was scared… there's emotion, you see.

What does it say about Patton's Gap that most vivid scene is the one in which Richard Rohmer is slugged by a madam for being an asshole? What does it say about the author that he feels no shame, after all these decades, at having slugged her back?

Q: Shouldn’t the title be Monty’s Gap?

Why was Patton’s Gap such an ungodly slog?  It’s written at a fifth-grade level, just like I like it; it should have been a breeze.  And it’s a great story.  The nicest people on Earth (Canadians) fight the worst people on earth (12^th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend), and the fate of mankind hangs in the balance while a nation burns.  It’s like Lord of the Rings with French women and tanks.  But Richard Rohmer – there’s no polite way to say this -- makes it really, really dull. 

Really, really, really, really, really dull.

Part of the problem is that Rohmer has nothing to say.  And part of the problem is that Rohmer says the same things, over and over.  These aren’t Homeric epithets, repeated for poetic effect.  They’re just padding.  Although they do make 200 pages feel like an epic, and your eyes glaze over, and pretty soon it’s the rosy fingered dawn.

For example, did you hear what happened to Patton in Sicily?

Bradley… like Patton, had gained battle experience there and in Sicily… It was General Marshall who made the decision between the two men… By that time Patton had been through his notorious Sicilian slapping incidents.  -- P. 27

In Sicily, (Patton) had commanded with huge success the U.S. Seventh Army… Unfortunately, the shimmering glory from Patton’s Sicilian military successes, which had established him in the minds of the American public as a military genius and leader of equal, if not superior status to Montgomery, would soon be dimmed by the growing black shadow of the ‘slapping incidents.’ -- P.28

In contrast to the diminutive, bantam rooster image of Montgomery was his arch-competitor from the Sicily days, Lieutenant General George Smith Patton, Jr… -- P.29

We knew who General Patton was.  Old Blood and Guts, the American general who got into trouble slapping a soldier in Sicily. -- P. 42

By the time he received that message Patton knew not only that his junior, Bradley, was to be the American Army commander but that his Sicily equal and competitor for glory, Montgomery, would command the invasion force. -- P.43

Patton was the only American general whom the Germans respected.  They were certain that because of his success in Sicily he would undoubtedly be in the vanguard of any fighting force… -- P.45

Thus (Patton) was paying penance for his Sicily slappings… -- P. 47

At 10:25 Patton and party were airborne.  It was almost a year to the minute from the time he had left Algiers for the Sicily that he and his then equal, Montgomery, would conquer. -- P. 126

“But let me make the point again at the risk of being wearisome.” -- Montgomery, as cited by Rohmer, P. 140

Gap Fin

Finished Patton’s Gap.

My excuse for coming in second – or am I third? – is that I misplaced my copy. It’s somewhere in the house – probably in a box in the attic – but damned if I can find it. In the end I had to resort to interlibrary loans.

Loans?

Yep, loans – because my copy of Patton’s Gap is the 1998 “Second Edition”, issued seventeen years after the first. One of us had to compare the two, right?

You each owe me a beer.

Given the criticism Patton’s Gap received – see: Carlo D’Este, Max Hastings, William French et al – I expected Rohmer to take the opportunity to correct, clarify and revise. I also thought he'd be bringing further documents to support his contention that his hero, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr, was robbed of the glory offered in closing the Falaise Gap. Reading Rohmer’s “Preface to the Second Edition” reinforced my expectations:

From the time Patton’s Gap was first published in 1981, I have come upon three items that both shed new light on the Battle of Normandy, fought in the summer of 1944, and enable us to see the event from the viewpoints of two important historical figures.

I was wrong. There are no revisions, no corrections, no clarifications; no additional information is on offer. The central text remains unchanged, to be followed by a new Afterword in which the author shares the discovery made in 1985, when researching Rommel & Patton, that he had played a role in the 17 July 1944 attack on the Dessert Fox. Rohmer cites as evidence an entry for the same day found in the 430 Squadron Log… and nothing more.

Now, because I’m a bastard, I’ll point out that the 430 Squadron Log is one of only two original documents consulted in writing Patton’s Gap. And, because I’m a bastard, I’ll wonder aloud how it is that the author didn’t read the entry until four years after Patton’s Gap was published.

It’s hard to criticize Rohmer without coming off as some sort of ingrate – believe me, I appreciate his service – but this Afterword just doesn’t convince. The Major-General reads the entry and then:

Immediately my memory of that day returned, and I could picture clearly that huge staff car traveling south from Livarot on the sideroad just to the west of the Livarot-Vimoutiers highway. I had been about 1,500 feet leading a second of four Mustangs when I came upon the impressive vehicle. I could tell there were brass in the car because the sun glinted off their caps and uniforms. But I had no idea at the time that I was looking down on Field Marshal Rommel.

I don't know. Maybe I'd be more willing to accept the forty-one-year-old memory if it hadn't come from a man who three pages earlier had argued against the accuracy of Omar Bradley’s “seven year memory”.

Look, Rohmer may have played a role in the attack on Rommel – I like to think he did – but without further research how can he be so sure? "I did catch Rommel shortly after 16:00", he writes.

And what are we to make of the two appendices that follow.

In “Appendix I: The Colonel Borders Connection”, Rohmer reports that in 1981 he received a handwritten letter of appreciation from Colonel Bill Borders (reproduced in full), “who had served on Patton’s immediate staff”. No bias there. “I used Colonel Border’s letter in developing my fact-fiction treatment of the incident in Rommel & Patton”, writes Rohmer, who then presents five pages from the novel in question.

The inclusion of “Appendix II: The President Reagan Connection", is even harder to justify. Remember, in his Preface Rohmer writes that the reason for the "Second Edition" comes through “three items that both shed new light on the Battle of Normandy, fought in the summer of 1944, and enable us to see the event from the viewpoints of two important historical figures.”

Because I’m a bastard I’ll backtrack a bit here by pointing out that the 430 Squadron Log was not a new item; the entry in question was simply one he'd never taken time to read. Is Colonel Bill Borders a historical figure? His name doesn't feature in Patton's wartime memoir, and is not found in the 944-page Patton Papers: 1940-1945. I've yet to come across the name Bill Borders in a Patton biography.

That Reagan counts as an historical figure cannot be denied. What new light does the actor shed on the Battle of Normandy? What did he see from the distance of Hollywood home?

Nothing.

And yet, in July of 1984 the President sent a 102-word letter thanking Rohmer for a copy of Patton’s Gap. Not one of those words concerns the Battle of Normandy; twenty-five are about Patton:

Thank you too for marking the pages relating to your meeting with our hero. I’ve already read them – and yes they are typical of our hero.

I haven’t been able to determine whether Reagan and Patton so much as met, though the actor did narrate this:

c

Because I’m a bastard: Rohmer twice describes the letter sent by Reagan, along with the envelope in which it arrived.

One last thing: The second edition changes the original title, Patton’s Gap: An Account of the Battle of Normandy 1944 [sic], to Patton’s Gap: Mustangs Over Normandy. Both are accurate, but why not simply Patton’s Gap Two?

Yes, I am a bastard.

Dialogue from the Days of Letraset

"I like it, but you forgot the subtitle."
"Oh, man. Sorry. I'm sure I can fit it in."
"Good… Oh, and sales thinks we should put in something about Rohmer being a major-general."
"No problem."
"And I came up with a great pitch driving in this morning: 'Patton vs Montgomery vs Bradley & Eisenhower'. What do you think?
"Well… um, it's a bit long? Can we drop Bradley?"
"No, he's gotta be there."
"How about ''Patton vs Montgomery vs Bradley & Ike'?"
"Ike?"
"You know, Eisenhower's nickname?"
"I know! 'Monty' instead of 'Montgomery'."
"Perfect."
"Now, you're sure there's room for that subtitle?"