I share the fascination with Patton, but I think it is a real tragedy that probably our greatest soldier (and a great civilian statesman as well), George C. Marshall, seems so little remembered today. He picked almost all the major army commanders, down to division and sometimes RGT level, and vetted the army air commanders for the war, having trained many of them at the infantry school at Ft. Benning in the 30s. At that school he worked out the concept of the "holding attack" which made the best use of the army's new triangular force structure after abandoning the "square division" concept from WWI. His concept here was simple, but eminently suited for a large force recruited from civilian life with very few professional company grade leaders. He handled the unbelievable complexity of building an army and air force of about 10 million and managing much of the war production that went with it (kudos to Somervell, McNair, Handy, etc). Probably most of all he had to manage FDR's, British and Ernie King's personalities. I can clearly envisage winning the war without Patton, MacArthur or even Eisenhower(also a great manager), but without Marshall, it's a lot longer, tougher war.
