Hi All, Thought i'd share this with you. General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked if he didn't think there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer was a classic: "I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting." Sniper eep:
Battle of the Bulge, Germans ask the Americans to surrender. Answer short and sweet: "Nuts!" Training for the dams raids in England: "This is bloody dangerous!"
"I speak in the name of the entire German people when I assure the world that we all share the honest wish to eliminate the enmity that brings far more costs than any possible benefits... It would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity if both peoples would renounce force against each other forever. The German people are ready to make such a pledge." Adolf Hitler - 14th October 1933
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such understanding has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.” Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain - 3rd September 1939
"National Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe... The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation... Germany needs peace and desires peace!" Adolf Hitler - 21st May 1935
"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
"…Our losses…have reached an intolerable level. The enemy air force played a decisive role in inflicting these high losses." Grand Admiral Carl Donitz - C-in-C of the German Navy - 24th May 1943
"Goddam it, you'll never get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me!" Captain Henry P. Jim Crowe - 13th January 1943 - (Guadalcanal)
"The 2nd Marine Division has been especially chosen by the High Command for the assault on Tarawa...what you do there will set a standard for all future operations in the central pacific area." Major General Julian C. Smith - Commander of the U.S. 2nd Marine Division - November 1943 "Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning." Colonel David M. Shoup - (Tarawa) - 21st November 1943
"Just as the defending force has gathered valuable experience from...Dieppe, so has the assaulting force...He will not do it like this a second time." Field Marshal von Rundstedt - August 1942
"The fruits of victory are tumbling into our mouths too quickly." Emperor Hirohito (On his Birthday) - 29th April 1942 "Japan...is operating in the Pacific in the hope of extending her hold over New Guinea...from such a position she...could carry out raids on Australia...whilst awaiting our final defeat by Germany" General Alan Brooke - 5th May 1942
"The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' . . . It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness." -President Harry Truman
"[Mariners] have written one of its most brilliant chapters. They have delivered the goods when and where needed in every theater of operations and across every ocean in the biggest, the most difficult and dangerous job ever undertaken. As time goes on, there will be greater public understanding of our merchant's fleet record during this war [World War II]." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
"The Bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." - Admiral William Daniel Leahy (advising President Truman on the U.S. atom bomb project, 1945)
"The Axis Powers and France have an identical interest in seeing the defeat of England accomplished as soon as possible. Consequently, the French Government will support, within the limits of its ability, the measures which the Axis Powers may take to this end." - Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, Chief of State of Vichy France
"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." - Prime Minister Winston Churchill "Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls." - Prime Minister Winston Churchill "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." - Prime Minister Winston Churchill "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." - Prime Minister Winston Churchill (about the Royal Air Force)
"I want to warn against underestimating. There will be bloody battles once the Allied forces run against Axis fortifications. Europe will not be conquered quickly. We must not make the mistake of underestimating the fortifications in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Italy and in the Southeast. We must realize that attacking them will cost us much in blood and tears." - Cyrill Falls, British Military Observer
"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terrors. Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival." - Prime Minister Winston Churchill
"The German Chancellor and others gave the impression that they were not likely to embark on adventures involving force or at least war." - Lord Halifax (1937)
