[Ads-l] Battle of the Bulge Quote

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

A war correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch attributed the
saying to anonymous members of the Fourth Armored Division on March 9,
1945 (published March 12) and suggested that an instance of the motto
had been used earlier during the Battle of Brittany by members of the
same military group.

Date: March 12, 1945 (Note: March 9 delayed, by wireless)
Newspaper: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Newspaper Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Section 2: Editorial
Article: 4th Armored Yanks Bluffed Way Through 6 Nazi Divisions in
Racing 65 Miles Into Reich in 58 Hours
Article Subtitle: Americans, Chuckling, Tell Virginia Irwin, 'They've
Got Us Surrounded Again' — Germans Quit by Thousands but Allies Are
Too Busy to Herd Them to Camps
Byline: Virginia Irwin (War Correspondent of Post-Dispatch)
Quote Page 11, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt; check for OCR and other errors in cite and text]
It is no longer a military secret that, at any time during this drive,
these tough terrain-greyhounds of the Fourth Armored might have been
cut off by the Germans. As a matter of fact, with the nearest infantry
support 35 miles behind us, the Fourth Armored men sat in a German
town night before last and said to me: "They have got us surrounded
again, poor bastards." The word "again" was the only thing they had
added to the phrase since they were surrounded and fought their way
out of Rennes in what now seems the forgotten battle of Brittany.
[End excerpt]

Garson


On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 10:23 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Reconstructed from two GB snippets. The reference appears to be to an issue
> of _Stars and Stripes_, the Army newspaper.
>
> 1945   _Atlantic Mo._ CLXXVI [month unknown] 71: The sergeant folded the
> Stars and Stripes. "Did you read this about 'the heroes of Bastogne'?" he
> asked, accenting the phrase. "Somebody says we said, 'They got us
> surrounded — the poor bastards.' "
>
> "Did you say that?" asked the officer.
>
> "No."
>
> "Neither did I," he said. "Especially not when they bombed."
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Here's one for the military historians.  The Battle of the Bulge quote,
>> "They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards," is often attributed
>> to Creighton Abrams.  Is it likely that Abrams did originate this, or was
>> it an anonymous saying that later got attached to Abrams' name?  Is there
>> any evidence of the quote's usage before 1961, which is the earliest I can
>> readily find?
>>
>> Fred Shapiro (whose father was awarded a Bronze Star for the Battle of the
>> Bulge)
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org