Winston groom will talk and rear about half an hour and then take questions for 15 or 20 minutes more. We encourage questions, we just need you to ask them from the microphone over here both so everyone can be involved and also for our cspan awed yes, sir. Its great to audience. Its great to welcome kin son bloom winston bloom back to washington d. C. Histories including a storm in flanders, shiloh 1862 and tonights book, the generals. One of Winston Grooms gifts is his ability to flesh out the characters of these three influential but different leaders, giving us insights regarding how their experiences shaped their personalities and choices in the Second World War. Another gift is style, so please welcome Winston Groom. [applause] first, id like to thank everybody for coming out to hear me on this lovely saturday afternoon in washington d. C. I have been on a book tour now for a couple of weeks. Ive learned something about what people want to know. One of the first questions im usually asked when i do a tv or radio show is why did you choose these three men from the Second World War . And my answer is that they embodied, i believe, super characteristics of courage, character and patriotism which seem to be traits that are on the wane somewhat today. But i dont think were going to find out if thats a problem until we, god forbid, have another big war. I hope we dont. The second question i think is pertinent, people have asked is what do you think these three generals would do today in the face of the enemies that we, were looking at. And, of course, these unfortunate events in france last night give new meaning to these questions. I think im going to address it right off the bat by saying, obviously, i dont know what they would do. But i think what they would do is they would assemble a reinforced, Mechanized Infantry Division of which there are about half a dozen in this country at the present drawing pay, and they would take them over to where these isis people are. And, now, these people in the Mechanized Infantry Division is about 1520,000 of the best trained, the toughest, wellarmed, wellsupported and meanest sons of bitches on this planet. And they would go through these isis people in about a week. As general patton said, like shit through through a goose. [laughter] however, these generals would not have the authority, of course, to do this deed. It would have to come from the administration, and i dont know what is going to happen with this administration visavis the isis people, but i can tell like anybody with a brain can tell that they are very dangerous. Right now they are either occupying or seeking to occupy several countries in the middle east with all of those countries assets and resources including oil, banks. They will then, if they consolidate, have the ability to purchase very dangerous weapons of mass destruction. And sooner or later, their going to have to be theyre going to have to be dealt with. So with that in mind, lets continue. These three guys, general marshall, general patton and General Macarthur, were 18th century men. They were born in the 1880s. Patton and macarthur graduated from west point. General marshall graduated from the Virginia Military institute. They served in the philippines insurrection before the turn of the century, and after the turn of the century, along the Mexican Border until the First World War came along at which point very quickly they became heroes. General marshall was a terrific organizer, always was, always had been. And he became general pershings chief of staff. General macarthur took over he was a colonel at that point took over an Infantry Brigade and then he became a general, he got his first star. General patton became involved in tanks which were very primitive at that point, of course, but he led an enormous tank attack during the battle of [inaudible] General Macarthur after the First World War became the superintendent of west point. He remained a general. He hen became army he then became the armys chief of staff. And later, in the 1930s, he resigned from the army to become a kind of field martial of the Philippine Army at the behest of of the president. He thought that they could defend the philippines. Well, he ran out of time. General marshall continued with his terrific organizing skills. He didnt have to stay in the army. He was offered a job by the banking firm of jpmorgan, Vice President where he would have made millions of dollars, but he was a soldier. Thats what he was trained to do, and thats what he did. So he turned them down. Neither was general patton, necessary for him to stay in the army, because he was the richest man in the army. He would go to military bases as a young lieutenant or captain with a string of to lo ponies polo ponies and a yacht. His fellow officers didnt begrudge him that because he was the best polo player mt. Army, and he was the best yachtsman in the army. And he actually in 1912 participated in the olick picks in olympics in stockholm, sweden, in an event called the pentathalon which came from the old greek olympics where you have its a martial event. You have about half a dozen Different Things that you do. In the old greek version, they actually kill one another. But in the new version, they set it up to be as though you were a military courier, and you had to ride, and you had to shoot, and you had to sword fight, and you had to swim, and you had to shoot a pistol. Patton at that point was a captain, and he was very good at all these things because he was the best horseman in the army, and he had been a track star at west point, and he was one of the best shots in the army, and he was the best swordsman in the army. He was called the master of the sword, the only master of the sword they had. He designed the new cavalry saber. But also he had learned to swim around catalina be island because Catalina Island because his family owned it. [laughter] in any case, he came in eighth out of a field of about 45 and made lifelong friends of his competitors. Each of these men had to live up to something in their family, their fathers usually. General macarthurs father had won the congressional medal of honor during the civil war and became, ultimately, the commanding general of the army. But in macarthurs youth, he was still a young captain and posted on these farflung military ports out in the west where they were still fighting the indians. And macarthur remembers as a child seeing flaming arrows coming across the walls of these forts. He said himself, he said i learned to ride and shoot before i learned to read is and write. To read and write. And marshalls father, general marshall, they were from pennsylvania. And his tad was a very his dad was a very successful bidsman until his business failed. And theres no way of really telling, but its my suspicion that George Marshall was such a great organizer because he was trying to live up to not failing as his father had done. He was superb at organizing. General pattons father was a successful lawyer, but he just by a matter of his age, hed missed all the wars that we fought. General pattons grandfather had been a confederate general who was killed in one of the last battles of of the war. Patton had grown up with stories about him, about his grandfather. He always had wanted he wanted to be a soldier almost from the day he was born for some reason. And he was always nervous that he wouldntly up to the bravery he wouldnt live up to the bravery of his ancestors. He was always tempting death to find out and prove himself. I mean, one day on the battlefield in france in world d war i general patton and General Macarthur found themselves talking to each other right in the middle of the fight when all of the men were crouched down in foxholes and stuff, and there was a rolling barrage coming toward them which they could see. And they continued the conversation as patton later wrote to his wife, he said because neither one of us wanted to be the first one to say we better get down. [laughter] and so they let the rolling barrage roll right over them, and they miraculously werent hurt, but that was the kind of stuff that these guys were made of. Macarthur, in fact, was said to be perfectly oblivious to danger, and in his later campaign in new guinea and the philippines, he would horrify his staff by simply walking through the battlefield standing up, looking around, trying to figure out what was going on. He was mortified to have to leave the philippines, which he did at the beginning of the war when the japanese attacked pearl harbor and then they attacked simultaneously philippines. And macarthur had, of course, not only the filipino army, but at that point he had a good sized American Army there, and it became apparent there was nothing to be done for them, they were isolated. So president roosevelt ordered General Macarthur to leave the philippines, well, he left by pt boat in the dead of night and was taken later to australia where he became the commander in chief of the southwest pacific area. And he made a vow through the press. He said i shall return, which quickly became because this was the dark days of the war it became the iconic slogan of all the americans. They heard this, and this was something that they wanted to do. I shall return became, it was on, written on coffee cup ands the bottoms of ashtrays and cigarette lighters it was engraved on, it was written on walls, it was written over latrines, i shall return. [laughter] and return, he did. It took him three years, but he had developed a strategy. Some people call it island hopping, but what he really did was he would see, the japanese had had years to occupy numerous islands, and there are numerous islands in that part of the pacific. But rather than take every one of hem, he would simply one of them, he would simply concern what did he call it . Let me see here. Bypass it, i guess, is the best word i can think of. And hed leave these japanese to wither on the vine in his rear. And it saved a heck of a lot of men, because the japanese were very ferocious fighters. When he finally landed back in the philippines in 1944 on the eye hand of lei ley text, and he almost lost that night. Admiral halsey was was decoyed a couple of hundred miles up. Today took a bunch of their carriers, the japanese, that didnt have any planes on them and sent them up as a sacrificial land because they wanted halsey out of the way. And General Macarthur had been on the beaches for about three days with all of his transports, all of his air materials, his ammunition and transport ships out in the harbor there. And suddenly the entire japanese Surface Fleet appeared. They had come through the straits of San Bernardino where Admiral Halsey was supposed to have been to watch and make sure they didnt get through. But they came true, and fortunately and im writing about this in my next book, its going to be called the admirals. [laughter] as you might suspect. But that morning there was a Small Task Force of what they call escort aircraft carriers, maybe half or even less the size of the big aircraft are carriers and with virtually no armaments. They had one 5inch gun. And they were escorted by three u. S. Destroyers and three destroyer escorts which are basically like a yacht or something. And this huge Japanese Force which con sid of five consisted of five battleships, two of them were these enormous super battleships with 18inch guns, bigger than any battleship in the world and better armored. They suddenly appeared over the ooze b at dawn to hidessen at dawn to horizon at dawn command. Something reported to ziggy that they could see these huge masts on thhorizon about 20 miles away. They had binoculars or big telescopes. And he said, well, thats got to be Admiral Halsey. A plane went up there to look at it, they launched a plane, and this guy said, well, no, its not Admiral Halsey, its jalapeno japanese. He said, take another look, and the plane said, sir, theyre shooting at me, i know its the japanese. Theyve got a big red sun on the flag. [laughter] well, everybody went into a grand panic, and Admiral Halsey, they begged him to come back. He was at that point engaging these aircraft carriers. He was sinking one after another, and he was very reluctant to do so. But to make a long story short, which i will, this little group of six destroyers and destroyer escorts and aircraft, escort carriers held off the whole japanese Surface Fleet. Its like a High School Team beating the dallas cowboys. It cost us over a thousand sailors lives because they sank most of the destroys ultimately, but they distracted them enough, and they launched torpedo cans on them, and the aircraft from these little escort carriers. They werent prepared for this. They said launch them anyway, because if they sank, theyd lose the planes. So they would go strafe these enormous battleships with machine gun bullets which is rather absurd. Then when they ran out of machine gun bullets on dummy runs. If you had a torpedo plane and a japanese warship sees you coming, hes going to start evasive tactics, and it slowed them down enough where finally after about three hours of in the japanese commander orders his ships to go back north to sort of reorganize. That was the original plan x. When he finally got all his ships together, he discovered that about 13 of them had been sunk. And so he went back through the San Bernardino straits, and General Macarthur proceeded on his mission. But if that fleet had gotten into the gulf, they would have sunk all of macarthurs supplies and equipment, and they would have murdered everybody on that beachhead, because these big naval guns could shoot 25 and 30 miles, and they had bullets the size of a full grown hog. Anyway, in the meantime, back to the story. General patton, while General Macarthur was winning, beginning to win his battles in new begin and the Island Campaign new guinea and the Island Campaign, general patton took command of the invasion of north africa where he landed in morocco. And the enemy there was not the germans or the italians at that point, it was the i i vichy fre. And the question was were they going to fight. Well, they did fight. They started smoothing and shoots and so shooting and so forth on the shore. He sent a message to the french message, patton sent this message to the french, if you dont surrender this city by 5 00 this afternoon, im going to have it destroyed. They could look out there and see all these big warships, cruise ors, battleships, they could have leveled that city in about half an hour x so they surrendered. And patton was successful and, of course, got himself in all the newsreels and so on. He then conquered sicily before going on to england. There he commanded a dummy army that was designed to fool the germans, didnt have any real troops, had a lot of radio traffic. And this was because of the infamous slapping incident where general patton had lost control of himself. He found a soldier in a hospital ward who was there for some kind of combat fatigue i think they called it then, and general patton did not believe in combat fatigue. So he jerked the soldier up and began to browbeat him. This was reported by the hospital doctors, and eisenhower found out about it. Eisenhower initially didnt do anything about it, he put a letter in the file. But then the press got hold of it and it was rampant across the u. S. That general patton had been slapping his shouldiers. Its also a very rude thing to do. Anyway, general eisenhowers thinking about firing general patton, but here is where general marshall comes in. Of these three men, two general patton, General Macarthur had enormous egos. General marshall had practically no ego at all. He could have, if he wanted to, appointed himself to take command of the european invasion which was probably the most dreamedof job by any military commander. General marshall had not ever had the opportunity to command troops in battle which he wanted very much to do. But president roosevelt asked him to stay in washington because he felt he was a calming influence, so to speak, on the usual tensions between the army, the navy and the air force. He said, yes, sir, ill stay here, and he i appointed general eisenhower. At the same time, general marshall realized he had two very temperamental people on his hands. General macarthur felt he wasnt getting the right kind of support and supplies is and, in fact, he wasnt because roosevelt and Winston Churchill had come to an agreement. They sent most of the stuff over to the allies, british, russians and so on. General macarthur was getting the short end of the tick down in new guinea of the stick down in new guinea, and he didnt like it. He began talking to the press about it. He looked at all this, and he kept eisenhower from fighter patton, he kept macarthur right in his place because he realized that both these men were indispensable to the winning of that war and the shortening of that the war would have been won anyway, i suspect, but they shortened the war which saved a heck of a lot of lives. Every day they put into the meat grinder probably a thousand, two thousand then. In any case, ah, patton. He, everybody knows, probably youve seen the movies, and you know what happens in the story. But in france they finally unleashed general patton away from his dummy army and gave him a real army, the third army, and he was like a racehorse thats been in a pen too long. They had already landed the invasion army, but they