Hey guys. So I've been doing a lot of research on the many military leaders of WW2. From the Germans and Soviets to the British and Americans. And whilst they all have their excellent and not so excellent generals, America is no exception. It had me thinking though, Germany had some exceptional leaders, but this is no surprise with their pedigree of the Prussian empire and German empire in the previous decades. Similarly the British, who had a vast empire and been fighting wars for centuries. But then when I thought about the Americans, who also had some very good leaders in the army, navy and Air force, where did they come from? Where was americas military history up until then to enable them to have some clearly excellent generals who really knew their way around a war and battlefield?
where did they come from?
Good generals don't spring up from military history. Good generals come from talented people entering the military, having a chance to learn their skills, being recognised for their skills, and placed in positions of command that let them display those skills. Experience in past wars can (but doesn't always) help this process.
In 1939, the US had as much recent experience of large modern wars as Germany (i.e., WWI), and if we count the US Civil War as modern, that too (which would also bring in the Franco-Prussian War for Germany). Many WWII generals were veterans of WWI, but the earlier wars were too distant for direct experience. Still, they had their impact on how armies were organised and trained, and how future commanders were trained. There was an important difference between the US experience in these wars and German experience in these wars: in both, US forces expanded greatly, and many commanders largely learned their trade on the front lines. Armies that rapidly expand sometimes do poorly in early battles, due to lessons not yet being learned. However, armies that begin large also often do poorly in early battles - not for nothing are armies frequently accused of wanted to fight the last war again.
Overall, the US doesn't seem to have done too poorly as a result of its rapid expansion, the prominent failure of leadership being Lloyd Fredendall, relieved of command due to his failure at Kasserine Pass. Fredendall was a career soldier, commissioned as an infantry officer in 1907 (after coming 1st of 70 candidates in the officer's qualifying exam in 1906). He fought on the Western Front in WWI, and stayed in the army, finally promoted to general in December 1939, as the US Army was expanding in expectation of joining WWII. When it came to the crunch, he was not a good commander. Experience in previous wars, good performance on exams, and in training, and in staff training courses, and good performance in the peacetime army do not guarantee good performance on the battlefield. On the other hand, other officers from a relatively similar background (being a career soldier, becoming an officer before WWI, having WWII experience, etc.) proved to be talented generals (e.g., Patton).
The US Army had one advantage over Germany and Italy as far as recognition and promotion of talent: political reliability and obedience to the regime were less important, and promotion was based more on merit. The Nazification of the German armed forces did not raise the quality of commanders! Politics did shorten the careers of some skilled German commanders. Günther von Kluge and Erwin Rommel committed suicide related to the 20th July 1944 attempt to kill Hitler; Erich von Manstein was on medical leave at the time of the bombing and didn't hold command afterwards. Fedor von Bock was relieved of command twice: the first after the failure to capture Moscow, when he was one of 40 scapegoats relieved of command, and in 1942 he was relieved of command of Army Group South because he disagreed with Hitler. Less-than-talented officers rose to high position due to Nazi connections, most notably Sepp Dietrich. When the US relieved generals of command, it was usually for much sounder reasons. As already noted, Fredendall was relieved of command after Kasserine. Jay W. MacKelvie was relieved of command of the 90th Infantry Division a week after the Normandy landings, along with two of his regimental commanders (while his unsuitability for command of a front-line infantry division was noted, his other talents were recognised, and he was pushed sideways to become an artillery officer). MacKelvie's successor as commander of the 90th, Eugene M. Landrum, was relieved of command a month later - the 90th was still performing poorly (Landrum's successor, Raymond S. McLain, showed that the 90th could fight well, when led well (he had 16 of his subordinate officers removed as one of his first actions as commander), demonstrating that the relief of his two predecessors was justified). Relieving unsuccessful commanders can remove commanders who are unlucky rather than poor commanders, but alongside some undeserving victims, it does tend to remove incompetent commanders.
Two prominent skilled US generals, Lucian Truscott and Matthew Ridgway, had joined in WWI, but had served in the US, on the Mexican border, rather than in Europe. Despite their lack of WWI experience, they were good generals in WWII, Ridgway becoming of the best US military commanders of all time, judging by his performance in Korea. Their WWI enlistment and their decision to stay in the army between the wars gave them the seniority to become generals in WWII, and the rest was their own talent.