What WW2 commander do you most admire, and why?

@alamein:

I would rate rommel higher, but after el alamein, and his power struggles with the duce, hitler and kesselring, he just kind of gave up the war for lost. and quitting on your troops is unacceptable. even if you don’t believe you can win, you can’t let your troops down.

Rommel ultimately lost because he was outnumbered 3 to 1 and out of gas.

I would say that my number 1 is Admiral Yamamoto of Japan. He was a brilliant naval commander and had the Japanese army and government allowed him to select his own commanders for the missions and had they listened to him better, Japan would have done much better during the war. The Japanese government was what blocked him from success. He originally wanted Admiral Ozawa, an exceptional commander of carriers to attack Pearl Harbor and Midway, but the government refused to give him Ozawa and gave him Nagumo, an incompotent admiral who would send all the carriers’ fighters to attack. No wonder he lost 4 carriers at Midway! Nagumo left ntohing to defend them! Yamamoto had to order him to attack American forces near Guadalacanal because Nagumo was just blind to do it himself. Despite this, Yamamoto still managed to keep Japan going for a year, which was pretty good for his limitations. His assassination by the Americans (ordered by Roosevelt) portrays just how important he was to the Japanese. The irony for him was that he always protested war with the US and was very pro-American and he beame Japan’s commander to fight against the US.

@F_alk:

@DasEwokSS:

-1) Peiper. -1 = highest.

Peiper???
Are you serious???

I guess you are, but Peiper was successful not because of his military genius, but only because of his total lack of respect to human lives. And that is what he became infamous for.

and i love it :) dont u remember Falk. i am insensitive ;)

Well Peiper was an excellent commander if you disregard ethics…

im all axis for best generals, guderian even though i cant spell his name and rommel. guderian is the chief proponent of the panzer divisions and rommel, thats self explanatory. yamamoto was a great general even though he had his hands tied by the japanese army and air cores. montgomery only beat rommel out of lack of supplies. come to think of it the afrika korps didnt fall until after he was transferred to the hospital in paris. :wink: dugalle was just like igor, the bumbling assistant that always botches things up and takes credit for it. kesselrig and the other commi commanders were good but when u have the space of the russian frontier russia basically killed em w/ the scorched earth tactic. kudos to the ussr, the best were the axis generals. :D they just had bumbling superiors

If Yamamoto was so great why did he divide his superior fleet all over the ocean for the Midway operation? He sent two carriers to the Aluetians when they could have been put to good use off Midway. Why not concentrate all your strenght in one place and just hammer your opponent with everything you have?

Guest, you hit the nail on the head with that point (pun intended).

Candy_67,
Don’t you mean hit the head with a bullet? :roll:

Another memorable commander was Günther Prien, commander of the U 47.

He went into the port of Scapa Flow with his sub….
have a look at:
http://uboat.net/ops/scapa_flow.htm

@Anonymous:

If Yamamoto was so great why did he divide his superior fleet all over the ocean for the Midway operation? He sent two carriers to the Aluetians when they could have been put to good use off Midway. Why not concentrate all your strenght in one place and just hammer your opponent with everything you have?

Firstly, he knew that Nagumo’s incompetence from Pearl Harbor would cause him trouble and it would be better to save 2 carriers than to risk losing 4. Secondly, the army who controlled the government and subsequently controlled Yamamoto’s allocation of resrouces, demanded that he divert ships and carriers to support the land invasions which had been planned for the Aleutians and eventually Alaska and Hawaii. The army also refusedto allow him to go into battle himself or to put certain ships at risk that they felt were important.

Another memorable commander was Günther Prien, commander of the U 47.

He went into the port of Scapa Flow with his sub….
have a look at:
http://uboat.net/ops/scapa_flow.htm

Yes… one would imagine if the Germans had had their 300 U-Boats that Donitz wanted if not for Hitler.