My choice would be Japan's Nishio Toshizo. . First he walks into a trap set by the Chinese during the Battle of Tai'erzhuang and hands the Japanese army their first defeat in modern times
Showing that he was a slow learner next year he march his army toward Changsa neglecting things like his flanks or reconnaissance, he again walk his army into an ambush set by the Chinese army in the Battle of Changsa. After that he get thrown upstairs as Military governor of Tokyo


and again gets his Army ambushed by the Chinese

Indeed Freyberg was commander of the New Zealand 2nd Division.
Alexander was overall campaign commander but it was Freyberg that lobbied for the monastery's bombing Alexander gave it the go ahead so there is no doubt he has to bear some responsibility just not all.

This is section I scanned from the book CASSINO - The Hollow Victory




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ghost whisper seasons dvd, i just can feel the ghost around me, when i saw cold case seasons dvd, i have to thought, what we people are, we do crule things than animal

I'm obviously late to this forum--and I hope I'm posting correctly-- but haven't seen anyone mention Lesley McNair. His responsibility for killing the deployment of a heavy allied tank was alone enough to place him firmly on this list. While his Sherman tankers were getting blown to pieces in Normandy, he was appropriately killed by his own men by means of an allied bombing attack.

And its not that we weren't expecting bigger, better German tanks. Besides having reports of German tank performance in Russia, we actually directly came up against the Tiger tank in N. Africa.

even though he wasnt really a general id have to say Hitler himself, the 3rd Reich could have succeded in taking europe but he wouldnt listen to his generals and decided to attack Russia when he could have easily gone around to the middle east and gotten petrol there

Originally Posted by KeithG

I'm obviously late to this forum--and I hope I'm posting correctly-- but haven't seen anyone mention Lesley McNair. His responsibility for killing the deployment of a heavy allied tank was alone enough to place him firmly on this list. While his Sherman tankers were getting blown to pieces in Normandy, he was appropriately killed by his own men by means of an allied bombing attack.

And its not that we weren't expecting bigger, better German tanks. Besides having reports of German tank performance in Russia, we actually directly came up against the Tiger tank in N. Africa.

Seems there are a lot of contenders for the title of worst commander, perhaps a we would have been better off choosing worst commander by nationality.

My choices are Gen. Percival at Singapore and Adolph Hitler who sped up Germany's fall.

Originally Posted by papasha408

My choices are Gen. Percival at Singapore and Adolph Hitler who sped up Germany's fall.

Although I agree Percival did surrender long before before he should have done, in the end he wouldn't have had much choice. He lacked aircover, the RAF Brewster Buffalo's had been knocked out of the sky by the more nimble Zero's, the Japanese had bombed the water supply which was failing.

The fault of the disaster doesn't only lay with Percival it lays with successive British Governments who kept the island under equipped. The Japanese were trained in Jungle warfare, the British were not, the Japanese had better uniforms more suited to jungle warfare, the British were issued with shorts, shirts, long socks and hobnail boots. Sending the Prince of Wales and the Repulse to beef up the British and Commonwealth in the Far East without effective air cover was asking for trouble, and thats what they got.

Originally Posted by PFC Prokopy

even though he wasnt really a general id have to say Hitler himself, the 3rd Reich could have succeded in taking europe but he wouldnt listen to his generals and decided to attack Russia when he could have easily gone around to the middle east and gotten petrol there

Um, no...he couldn't have. World War II could have never happened in any reality without the Germans invading Russia. That was part of the ideology of the Nazi party. To remove that ideology from history in order to "coulda, shoulda, woulda" the scenerios is futile. You might as well let them have alien phaser guns because that's about as realistic as them not adhering to their lebenstraum.

Originally Posted by BritinAfrica

Although I agree Percival did surrender long before before he should have done, in the end he wouldn't have had much choice. He lacked aircover, the RAF Brewster Buffalo's had been knocked out of the sky by the more nimble Zero's, the Japanese had bombed the water supply which was failing.

The fault of the disaster doesn't only lay with Percival it lays with successive British Governments who kept the island under equipped. The Japanese were trained in Jungle warfare, the British were not, the Japanese had better uniforms more suited to jungle warfare, the British were issued with shorts, shirts, long socks and hobnail boots. Sending the Prince of Wales and the Repulse to beef up the British and Commonwealth in the Far East without effective air cover was asking for trouble, and thats what they got.

I may be reading the wrong military history but if I'm not mistaken the Japanese were pretty much out of ammo and either would have skulked off waiting for a way out of the peninsula or even surrendered themselves. Though the surrender part I never really believed. The Japanese commander bluffed his way to victory.

Originally Posted by Ollie Garchy

Who was the worst "commander" of WWII?

Even defining this question is tough. Is a poor general someone who is just defeated in the operational sense of the word, or does the manner of the defeat count? What if the victor has overwhelming numbers or just extreme luck? Is General "Murphy" (as in Murphy's law) a poor general? Probably, but there must be a list of poor commanders. Anyone know something about this issue?

I can name one moron. Göring. That oaf -- the head of the German airforce -- refused to listen to men like Adolf Galland and made strange decisions that clashed with both his own experience and any rational logic. Göring was a fighter pilot in WWI. He should have understood the importance of local air superiority. Yet, when men like Galland argued for a large expansion of the German fighter wing in 1940 at the expense of the Stukas and tactical bombers, he turned them down. Germany lost the air war, in small part, because of Göring's stand against the fighter arm. Galland was frustrated.

Göring was under heavy drugs, though during the time he commanded anything. When he was taken prisoner he got "clean".

Suddenly he got much smarter then, too and even played with the court lawers.

He did take heavy drugs i think cocaine? Cause he was wounded when he was with hitler during the 20ies and tried to overthrow the current etablishment.

For me it was Paulus in Stalingrad. He could have done his job better with own decisions regardless of what Hitler told him. In the end only the victory or at least not such a crushing defeat is of importance, not 1 mans responsibilty, blind folded honor to the Führer or life. He didn't commit suicide as suggested to save the last bit of honor he proably got and justify his blindfolded loyality to the Führer. I wonder was his role was anyways, maybe he was as spy to sabotage the german movement and yeah i say this with a straight face. Rommel should have been in Stalingrad, he would perhaps see what a trap it was and react with his own thinking, he was man enough to commit suicide as ordered, too. While i think commiting suicide was bad, but needed to save his family.

Paulus was the worst commander ever, cause he never made a real decision. He made no sense.

Hitler mainly was bad in the regard how he used his top commanders and how he tried to limit their own expertise. That said, Stalin wasn't any better in that field, actually worser, can't get any worser than to actually kill the own top generals out of paranoia. But if you have ridiculous amounts of manpower, resources, strong allies and at least 1 competent general you can make mistakes and still win. Not with limited resources though, you need top commanders, give them freedom and a fortuneteller, in addition a better leader who makes diplomatic alliances with strong nations.