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    Hey everyone,

    I need some help finding great quotes from different WW2 commanders. I have room on each national card in my upcoming custom card deck accessory, and I’ve decided to use that space for inspirational quotes… the problem is that I can’t find many good ones. I have a few already that should give you an idea of what I’m looking for…

    On the Germany card:

    “Don’t fight a battle if you gain nothing by winning”

    • Erwin Rommel

    On the Russia card:

    “If we come to a minefield, our infantry must attack exactly as if it were not there”

    • Georgy Zhukov

    On the United Kingdom card:

    “If we lose the war in the air, we lose the war altogether… and we lose it quickly”

    • Bernard L. Montgomery

    On the United States card:

    “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week”

    • George S. Patton

    Request Summary

    …There is a common thread I’m trying to follow here… I want quotes that were meant to offer strategic insight, or increase moral amongst their forces… and I’m looking for quotes from officers and commanders that saw battle, rather than from supreme commanders that just make speeches.

    • I need something for the ANZAC card but everything I find was said in WW1
    • I need something for the Italy card but most of what’s documented came from Mussolini
    • I want something from Yamamoto for the Japan card, but most of his quotes seem pessimistic toward the Japanese situation

    I don’t need anything for the China card, and if there are suggestions for better quotes I already have on national cards, I’m open to those as well.

    Thank you, I appreciate any help I can get in this project.

    Cheers,

    YG.


  • Some quotes that I like YG, including some Japan but no Italy or Anzac. BTW I think many of the best quotes are Churchill’s so it is a shame you have excluded him.

    “My Luftwaffe is invincible…And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks?”
    Hermann Goring - June 1940

    "Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.!
    Admiral Halsey - December 1941

    “My attack on Singapore was a bluff, a bluff that worked… I was very frightened that all the time the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting”
    General Yamashita - 1942

    “Never in history has the navy landed an army at the planned time and place. But if you land us anywhere within 50 miles of Fedela and within 1 week of D-Day. I’ll go ahead and win.”
    Major General George Patton - November 1942 (Commenting of the North Africa Landings)

    “Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake!”
    General George S. Patton - (addressing to his troops before Operation Overlord) - 5th June 1944

    “They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind!”
    Arthur “Bomber” Harris

    “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
    General Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
    Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, upon learning of the success of the attack on Pearl Harbor

    “Nuts”
    General MacAuliffe (when asked to surrender during the Battle of the Bulge, 1944)


  • @Private:

    “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
    Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, upon learning of the success of the attack on Pearl Harbor

    The quote appears at the conclusion of the movie Tora Tora Tora, but if I’m not mistaken its authenticity has been disputed; it may simply have been invented by the writers of the screenplay.


  • That is a shame! Have you got any particular favourites Marc?


  • I posted them in YG’s other thread on this subject:

    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38875.0

  • '17 '16

    You want Italy?

    “I think if we call in the experts we can draw up the full scheme, with the rallying points arranged”
    -Pietro Badoglio (Italy)

    “Sir, give me a single battalion of the Royal Carabineers and I will drive these upstarts into the sea.”
    -Pietro Badoglio (Italy)


    Something positive from Yamamoto?

    “I am looking forward to dictating peace to the United States in the White House at Washington.”
    -Yamamoto


    ANZAC?  How about Australian General Leslie Morshead

    “We’re not here to take it, we’re here to give it.”
    -Leslie Morshead in reference to the British reference that “Tobruk can take it!”


    I can’t help but toss in some of the other Patton quotes

    “May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.”
    -Patton

    “Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.”
    -Patton

    “Some goddamn fool once said that flanks have got to be secure. Since then sonofabitches all over the globe have been guarding their flanks. I don’t agree with that. My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my flanks are, I’ll be cutting the bastard’s throat.”{
    -Patton


  • The Badoglio one about the Royal Carabineers has a really nice ring to it – excellent recommendation.

    As mentioned in the other thread, the Yamamoto quote is actually a deliberate misquote by his enemies in the Imperial Japanese Army.

    When Patton said “May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t”, he may have been consciously or unconsciously echoing Major General Joseph Hooker’s famously overconfident line “May God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.”


  • “He who defends everything, defends nothing”

    • Rommel

    From his book Infantry attacks, if I’m not mistaken.


  • I see your Rommel quote, and raise you a quote about Rommel:

    “There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician or bogeyman to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman, although he is undoubtedly very energetic and able. Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesirable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers. I wish you to dispel by all possible means the idea that Rommel represents something more than an ordinary German general. Please ensure that this order is put into immediate effect, and impress upon all commanders, that from the psychological point of view, it is a matter of the highest importance. Signed, C.J. Auchinleck, General, Commander-In-Chief, M.E.F.”

    The funny thing about Rommel is that he had the same nickname from both sides of the war, “That bastard Rommel”.  The Germans would say things like “That bastard Rommel has the Brits on the run again!”, and the English would say things like “That bastard Rommel is attacking our flank!”

  • '17 '16

    Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White House.
    Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=Yamamoto+

    Japan has always regarded the aircraft carrier as one of the most offensive of armaments.
    Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=Yamamoto+

    Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like.
    Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=Yamamoto+

    Nothing is impossible in this world. Firm determination, it is said, can move heaven and earth. Things appear far beyond one’s power, because one cannot set his heart on any arduous project due to want of strong will.
    Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=Yamamoto+

    When confronted with two alternatives, life and death, one is to choose death without hesitation.
    Yamamoto Tsunetomo
    Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/y/yamamotots536607.html

    When meeting difficult situations, one should dash forward bravely and with joy. Yamamoto Tsunetomo
    Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=Yamamoto+

  • '22 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    my favorite:

    Stalin:  “Not one step back!”

    Order No. 227 issued on July 28, 1942 was an order issued by Joseph Stalin who was acting as the People’s Commissar of Defense. It is famous for its line “Not one step back!” (Russian: Ни шагу назад! / Ni shagu nazad!), which became a slogan of Soviet resistance against the German invasion.

    Hitler: “All you have to do is kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will crumble to the ground.”

    Statement in planning the invasion of the Soviet Union. Alluding to how well he expected Operation Barbarossa to go.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    “It is with gratitude in the past, and with confidence in the future, that we range ourselves without fear beside Britain, where she goes, we go! Where she stands, we stand!”

    NZ PM Michael Joseph Savage


  • “Of course, Germany gets the bigger half” ( referring to the division of the globe between Germany and Japan)- Moe Howard in “You Nazi Spy”

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