In the history of the U.S. military, a total of 10 five-star generals have been awarded.
[The U.S. Congress stipulates that the five-star rank of general in the U.S. military is awarded only in wartime.] In U.S. history, there have been only 10 senior commanders awarded the rank of five-star general. The top ten five-star admirals are: Pershing (five-star general in the Army), Marshall (five-star general in the Army), MacArthur (five-star general in the Army), Eisenhower (five-star general in the Army), Arnold (five-star general in the Air Force), Lehey (five-star admiral in the Navy), Ernest Danger Code; King (Five-Star Admiral), Nimitz (Five-Star Admiral), Halsey (Five-Star Admiral) and Bradley (Five-Star Admiral). 】
Of the ten five-star generals, Eisenhower was the most rapidly promoted general, the first U.S. military to command the largest campaign and the only five-star general to serve as president of the United States.
On June 8, 1944, it was under Eisenhower's command that the Allies completed the Normandy landings. Regarding Eisenhower's legendary experience, we will talk about it next time we have time. Today we're going to take a peek at a kidnapping of Eisenhower himself.
After the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944, Germany's Western Front Army was in passive defense. In order to get out of the predicament, Hitler planned to organize a counterattack in the Ardennes region to regain the initiative in the war.
However, the situation of the German army at that time was not very good, the Western Front Army Group suffered great losses in the Battle of Normandy, and the military forces deployed by the German army on the Western Front were not enough for passive defense, and there was no ability to carry out counterattack warfare. Therefore, in the face of Hitler's counterattack plan, the western military behaved relatively coldly.
But who was Hitler, he was a man who had ascended from dregs to the top, how could he easily abandon his plans?
In October 1944, Hitler summoned his beloved general, Otto Skolzny. This guy was a big fan of Hitler, who had been serving in the Special Forces of the German Waffen-SS during World War II, and he had one of Germany's most elite special forces in his hands.
This special forces once rescued Mussolini in a heavily guarded prison. In order to successfully implement the Ardennes counterattack, Hitler decided to let the German special forces carry out a combat operation called the Griffin Action Plan and cooperate with the military to carry out a counterattack war.
The Griffin Action Plan is divided into three main parts;
First, all german soldiers disguised themselves as American troops lurked inside the Allied fronts, creating sabotage wherever they went.
Second, capture the Bridge of the Maas River, which is controlled by the Allies, and garrison it until the Germans defeat the Allies.
In addition to the above two points, the most important part was the kidnapping of the then Allied commander Eisenhower. The advantage of this was that without Eisenhower's command, the Allied chain of command would certainly be chaotic. This allowed the Germans to carry out a counterattack plan.
On the other hand, Hitler himself hated Eisenhower, and without his command, the German Army Group West would not have been defeated so quickly.
After receiving Hitler's orders, Skolzny gathered a group of elite soldiers within the Special Forces and gave them a two-month English training course under the pretext of carrying out special missions.
All soldiers are required to learn to speak fluent American English, learn the way American soldiers fight, imitate the daily life of American soldiers, and so on.
In order to make this group of soldiers more like American soldiers, German spies at that time also sent a large number of American war blockbusters from the United States mainland to help special forces soldiers learn.
In December 1944, thanks to the tireless efforts of German spies, the military finally identified Eisenhower's location. Hitler ordered Skolzny to leave immediately, so Skolzny selected the 9 soldiers who spoke the most english, plus himself to form a special squad and went to the Allied positions according to the plan.
During the operation, Skolzny told everyone about the target, and their mission was to go to the Allied command stationed in the southern part of France and kidnap the European Allied commander-in-chief, Eisenhower.
The members of the kidnapping team were surprised to learn of the mission, knowing that if they wanted to kidnap Commander-in-Chief Eisenhower in Allied headquarters, the chances of success were slim to none. But the military's orders have been issued, and they have to carry them out.
In fact, the German side was not unprepared for this kidnapping operation, and in order to cooperate with the operation of the special squad, the German side sent more than 600 soldiers to put on The Costume of the American Army and lurk inside the Allied forces to create chaos and create opportunities for the Special Forces.
And before that, intelligence had learned the details of Eisenhower's residence, as well as his route and time to headquarters. The kidnapping team's mission was to intercept Eisenhower's jeep in a secluded location and transfer Eisenhower to their truck.
Considering the danger of the mission, Hitler also made it clear that if Eisenhower could not be captured alive, or could not or take him back to Germany, the special forces could also kill him.
On 13 December 1944, just three days before the Ardennes counterattack began, the 10 Nazis officially launched Operation Griffin. Disguised as American soldiers, they drove to a forest on the border between Germany and Belgium, from where they were to be smuggled into Paris, France.
However, what the special squad did not expect was that because the secrecy work was so good, they were discovered by German air force reconnaissance planes before they reached France.
Since the Air Force did not receive orders to cover the Special Forces, they naturally regarded them as American troops, so the reconnaissance aircraft fed back the information to the Air Force base camp. I heard that there was an American squad that was sneakily operating in the border area, and the Luftwaffe sent bombers urgently.
Two hours later, when the special forces team managed to evade the Allied inspections and was only a few kilometers away from the American position, four German fighter planes suddenly appeared above their heads, headlessly and brainlessly came to them with a round of skyfall justice.
The car in which the members of the special squad were riding was hit by a shell, all nine members were killed or burned to death, and even the commander Skolzny himself died in the explosion, and only one soldier jumped into a trench on the side of the road barely escaped the disaster.
Hitler planned the Griffin Operation for more than two months, in which the kidnappings ended in failure. And Eisenhower, who was far away from the Allied headquarters, could not have imagined that a kidnapping operation against him would be destroyed by the German military itself in silence.
After the Griffin Plan of Action was completely bankrupt, the Ardennes counterattack failed to achieve the desired results, and Hitler committed suicide a few months later.