Rommel, the Bold Swabian

[Actionjick]

Wbitd I read a book about Rommel where it said that his fellow German generals referred to him as the Bold Swabian. He was from there and apparently at that time the inhabitants had a reputation for timidness. Having always heard of Rommel as the Desert Fox I found this very interesting and amusing. Our German comrades can perhaps comment on the accuracy of this other nickname for Rommel.

Do you know of other nicknames, historically accurate or not, for these soldiers and sailors we have all read about?
Sgt. Sake says a little historical embellishment can't hurt.

 

[Old Noob]

Such as "Bull" Halsey, "Chesty" Puller, "Old Blood and Guts" Patton, "Lightning Joe" Collins, "Abe" Abrams, "Iron Ass" LeMay ?

 

[Gamer72]

‘Jumbo’ Wilson, ‘Tiger’ Gort, ‘The Auk’ Auchinleck, ‘Tiny’ Ironside, ‘Strafer’ Gott ...

 

[Martin Mayers]

‘Jumbo’ Wilson, ‘Tiger’ Gort, ‘The Auk’ Auchinleck, ‘Tiny’ Ironside, ‘Strafer’ Gott ...

A cruel irony that Strafer Gott got strafed

 

[Actionjick]

Such as "Bull" Halsey, "Chesty" Puller, "Old Blood and Guts" Patton, "Lightning Joe" Collins, "Abe" Abrams, "Iron Ass" LeMay ?

Yep!

 

[Pip Smith]

Lieutenant General Sir Leslie Morshead "Ming The Merciless".

 

[Old Noob]

Major-General G. Ivor "Von Thoma" Thomas (commanded 43d 'Wessex' Division)

 

[Gamer72]

Major-General G. Ivor "Von Thoma" Thomas (commanded 43d 'Wessex' Division)

Also known as “Butcher”.

 

[Actionjick]

Also known as “Butcher”.

Always an inspiring name for someone who is sending you into combat.

 

[Eagle4ty]

I was always fascinated by the monikers or unofficial nicknames given to Divisions as well, especially the ones given to them by their enemies :

Red Devils: Unofficially given to the British Airborne by the Germans, later accepted as the official moniker of the British 1st Airborne Division. Attributed to the Red Beret they sported.
The Devil's Brigade: Unofficial designation of the 1st Special Service Force, U.S-Canadian regimental sized unit given to them by the Germans and eventually adopted by the unit.
Devils in baggy pants: Given to U.S. Airborne troopers in general and to the 82nd Airborne in particular (504th RCT specifically) again by the Germans. 1st widely used at Anzio but picked up in Normandy and later for almost any actions against U.S. airborne personnel.
The Battling Bastards of Bataan: Originally attributed to all U.S. and Philippine troops held up on the Bataan Peninsula in the defense of the Philippines. It was adopted as the unofficial moniker of the U.S. Philippine Division and the 194th Tank Battalion among miscellaneous other smaller units.
The Bloody Bucket Division: The unofficial nickname of the 28th "Keystone" Infantry Division, originally from the Pennsylvania National Guard. A nickname given to them by the Germans because of the keystone shape of their unit patch and punishing attacks on German forces but adopted unofficially by the unit especially after the Hurtgen Forest fighting, Gen Norman Cota Commanding, at Germeter, Vossenack & Schmidt along the Kall Trail where the division was losing a regiment's worth of platoon & company officers and men in fighting units every 3 to 5 days. By December '44 the battered Division was sent to a quiet sector to rest and refurbish. That sector, the Ardennes Forest, would soon become very active however and the division was all but destroyed in the opening salvos of the Battle of the Bulge. By early 1945 the shattered division had been reconstituted and was was used in the reduction of the Colmar pocket.
Guadalcanal Division: It goes without saying why the U.S. 1st Marine Division is known as the Guadalcanal Division and has that on its divisional emblem.

There are many others in all services and all armies but these readily spring to mind.

 

[von Marwitz]

The Bloody Bucket Division: The unofficial nickname of the 28th "Keystone" Infantry Division, originally from the Pennsylvania National Guard. A nickname given to them by the Germans because of the keystone shape of their unit patch

Hm, are you sure that they took this nickname from the Germans?

In German, this would translate "Blutiger Eimer", which is not exactly catchy but sounds rather awkward. As such, by gut-feeling it would appear kind of strange (though of course not impossible) that this nickname stuck with the Germans.

In English, though, "Bloody Bucket" sounds much better. So could the nickname be "homegrown"?

von Marwitz

 

[Gordon]

Somewhat authoritative I'd think. https://history.army.mil/documents/ETO-OB/28id-eto.htm

 

[Actionjick]

Wbitd had one of the patches for the 28th as the family on both sides had deep roots in Pennsylvania. I'm not sure where the patch came from as far as it belonging to a family member or friend of the family.

 

[von Marwitz]

Somewhat authoritative I'd think. https://history.army.mil/documents/ETO-OB/28id-eto.htm

Well, of course it is nice to take up a catchy name which one has supposedly been tagged with by a combat adversary. Makes for a good story in any case.

Yet I feel that my remark is, indeed, warranted. I'll try to illustrate:



The 1951 US version based on this 1943 German "Feldspaten" was designated "intrenching tool, combination".

Show me the soldier (except a drill instructor maybe) who calls this thing "intreching tool, combinaton". They say "shovel" or find some colloquial expression for it.

Calling the 28th the "Blutige Eimer Division" sounds as awkward to me as a native German speaker as calling that shovel "intrenching tool, combination". You get my meaning. Not impossible, but it sounds just strange.

von Marwitz

 

[Gordon]

I guess we'll have to find the Gefreiter who first coined the term then. Maybe he'd been into the Schnapps first.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

The Devil's Brigade: Unofficial designation of the 1st Special Service Force, U.S-Canadian regimental sized unit given to them by the Germans and eventually adopted by the unit.

Not surprisingly, it was a US officer who came up with this, not a German.....

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Show me the soldier (except a drill instructor maybe) who calls this thing "intreching tool, combinaton". They say "shovel" or find some colloquial expression for it.

The terminology is not invented for the soldiers, though, I'd argue it's more for cataloging and inventory purposes. The Germans were, as with so many things, behind everyone as they didn't have numerical designations for most of their stuff. A tunic was a Feldbluse no matter what combination of details it had. That changed with the Model 1944 Field Uniform. Ditto the steel helmet for another example. Collectors refer to M35, M42 etc. helmets, but to the Germans it was just a Stahlhelm.

The entrenching tool, combination designation differentiated it from the regular entrenching tool with fixed blade.

 

[Eagle4ty]

Hm, are you sure that they took this nickname from the Germans?

In German, this would translate "Blutiger Eimer", which is not exactly catchy but sounds rather awkward. As such, by gut-feeling it would appear kind of strange (though of course not impossible) that this nickname stuck with the Germans.

In English, though, "Bloody Bucket" sounds much better. So could the nickname be "homegrown"?

von Marwitz

Just going with the sources I have.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I remember the Bloody Bucket discussion in the pages of the The General. First, this came out in issue 21-1:



It mentioned the area of the Hurtgen Forest itself being called the 'bucket of blood', but a letter to the editor in 21-4 clarified that Patrick may have mistaken the reference.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

No matter who coined it (the Germans, or the army's PR guys), the phrase seems stuck among veterans and historians of the 28th:





Newspapers.com (English language newspaper archive) only has two references to the expression, the earliest in the 1980s: