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July 22nd, 1943.

George Patton stood in
his command tent in Sicily, reading a report that made his jaw clench.

Terry Allen’s First Infantry
Division had just disobeyed a direct order.

Again.

Patton had ordered them to halt and consolidate
their positions.

Allen’s men were twelve miles beyond the halt line, chasing retreating Germans
through the mountains.

Patton’s chief of staff waited for the explosion.

Everyone knew what
happened when someone crossed George Patton.

(00:32) But Patton didn’t explode.

He crumpled
the report and threw it in the trash.

“Get me Bradley on the phone,” he said.

Omar Bradley
arrived an hour later, expecting Patton to demand Allen’s head.

Instead, Patton said something
that shocked Bradley to his core.

“I can’t fire him.

He’s the only division commander who
understands how to kill Germans.

” Think about that admission.

George Patton, the most feared
general in the American army, the man who slapped soldiers for cowardice, had just admitted he
couldn’t control one of his own commanders.

(01:08) Bradley wasn’t satisfied with that
answer.

He had been keeping a list of Allen’s infractions.

The bar fights in Tunis.

The looted
supply depots.

The open insubordination.

Bradley told Patton that Allen was making them
all look weak.

Patton looked at Bradley with barely concealed contempt and said, “He’s
making us look weak, or he’s making you look weak?” Bradley left that tent knowing that Patton
had chosen sides.

And it wasn’t Bradley’s side.

(01:40) But what Patton didn’t know was
that his protection of Terry Allen was about to trigger a crisis that would reach
all the way to Eisenhower’s headquarters.

Because Allen wasn’t just breaking rules
anymore.

He was building a private army.

And private armies don’t answer to anyone.

(02:03) Terry Allen arrived at West Point in 1907 with military service in his blood.

His
father was an army colonel.

His grandfather had fought at Gettysburg.

Four generations of
his family had worn the uniform.

But Allan was different from the polished cadets around him.

He
had severe dyslexia that made reading agonizing.

He compensated by memorizing everything,
but academic work was a constant struggle.

He failed out of West Point twice.

(02:33) Most men would have taken the hint.

The army didn’t want them.

Find another career.

Move on.

Allan enrolled at Catholic University in Washington, completed ROTC, and entered the army
as a commissioned officer through the back door in 1912.

The regular army officers looked down
on him.

He wasn’t one of them.

He hadn’t earned his commission the proper way.

Allan didn’t
care.

He was exactly where he wanted to be.

(03:03) World War I turned Terry Allen into a
legend among enlisted men and a headache for his superiors.

He commanded an infantry battalion
at age 30.

He led patrols personally into no man’s land when regulations said battalion
commanders should stay behind the lines.

A machine gun bullet tore through his jaw during
the Meuse-Argonne offensive.

Most officers would have accepted the medical evacuation.

Allan
talked the doctors into sending him back to his unit before the wound fully healed.

(03:35) He showed up at the front line still bleeding.

His men didn’t know whether
to be inspired or concerned.

They settled on both.

His superiors found him impossible.

He drank too much.

He ignored regulations he thought were stupid.

He treated military
ceremony as a waste of time that could be spent training.

But he won.

Every engagement
his battalion fought ended in American victory.

(04:02) After the armistice, Allan returned to the
peacetime army.

He bounced between cavalry posts, got into trouble, got out of trouble, and built
a reputation as the officer you wanted in a fight and nowhere else.

By 1940, Lieutenant Colonel
Terry Allen was being chewed out by his regimental commander and facing possible court martial for
yet another incident.

Then a telegram arrived.

Allan had been promoted to Brigadier General,
skipping the permanent rank of colonel entirely.

(04:33) George Marshall had personally intervened.

The Army Chief of Staff was rebuilding the military for the war he knew was coming.

He
needed combat leaders, not parade ground officers.

Marshall wrote that Allan was outstanding as
a leader who could do anything with men and officers, though unprepossessing in appearance and
apparently casual in manner.

In May 1942, Marshall gave Allen command of the First Infantry Division,
the Big Red One.

It was one of the most coveted assignments in the army.

Allan was about to meet
the man who would try to control him and fail.

(05:09) George Patton was everything the army
wanted a general to be.

West Point graduate.

Wealthy family.

Olympic athlete.

He looked
like he had been cast in a Hollywood movie about military greatness.

He demanded absolute
obedience.

His soldiers feared him more than they feared the Germans.

Patton believed
that discipline and aggression won wars.

Half of that assessment was correct.

(05:35) When Patton took command of the Western Task Force for the invasion of North
Africa in 1942, he inherited Terry Allen’s First Division.

What he saw intrigued him.

Allen’s
men didn’t look like soldiers.

Their uniforms were wrinkled.

They wore unauthorized gear.

They
walked with the casual slouch of dock workers, not the crisp bearing of infantry.

But they
moved with a confidence that caught Patton’s attention.

These men weren’t afraid of anything.

(06:05) Patton called Allen to his headquarters for their first meeting.

He expected Allen
to straighten up, spit shine his boots, and show some respect for rank.

Allen showed up
in a dirty uniform with his collar unbuttoned.

Patton started to dress him down.

Then Allen
interrupted him.

“General, are we here to fight Germans or impress inspection officers?” Patton’s
aide later said the silence that followed lasted an eternity.

Then Patton laughed.

“Get out
of my office, Allen.

And take Casablanca.

” (06:40) Allen took Casablanca.

Then he took Oran.

Then his division stopped Rommel’s counterattack at Kasserine Pass when every other American unit
was running.

Patton watched Allen’s victories pile up and made a calculation.

He could break
Allen and turn the First Division into a conventional unit.

Or he could unleash Allen
and watch him tear through the Africa Corps like a chainsaw.

Patton chose the chainsaw.

(07:08) But there was a price for that choice.

Allen’s men started acting like they owned
North Africa.

They raided supply depots that belonged to other divisions.

They got into massive
brawls with British troops in Tunis.

One night, Allen’s soldiers beat up an entire platoon
of Patton’s own military police after the MPs tried to arrest them for looting.

The
MPs filed a formal complaint with Patton’s headquarters.

Patton threw it in the trash.

(07:36) Omar Bradley was watching all of this with growing alarm.

Bradley was Patton’s deputy
commander for Second Corps.

He believed that discipline was the foundation of an effective
army.

When he saw Patton protecting Allen, he started documenting every infraction.

Bradley
kept a notebook.

The bar fight in Mateur.

The wine warehouse in Bizerte.

The fist fight between
Allen’s troops and the 45th Division.

Bradley took his notebook to Patton and demanded action.

(08:06) Patton looked at the list and said something that Bradley would never forget.

“Bradley, you’re keeping score like this is a goddamn tennis match.

Allen is winning a war.

”
Bradley tried to argue that Allen’s behavior was undermining coalition unity.

Patton cut
him off.

“The British respect one thing: winning.

Allen wins.

Now get out of my tent.

”
That conversation marked the beginning of Bradley’s campaign to destroy Terry Allen.

He just needed Patton out of the way.

(08:38) Here’s what Bradley didn’t write
about in his notebooks.

While Allen’s men were brawling in rear area towns, they were also
perfecting a form of warfare that would change the course of the Italian campaign.

Night
attacks.

During the day, German artillery and machine guns turned every advance into a
bloodbath.

But at night, the equation changed.

German gunners couldn’t hit what they couldn’t
see.

American infantry could close the distance before defenders knew they were coming.

(09:08) Allen trained his division to fight in complete darkness.

Not the standard 8
to 12 hours per week the army required, more like 30 to 35 hours.

His men practiced
moving without flashlights.

They learned to navigate by compass and stars.

They rehearsed
attacks until they could execute them without speaking.

Patton watched one of these night
drills and was mesmerized.

He told his staff, “That son of a bitch has invented something new.

”
(09:38) In July 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily.

Patton commanded the American Seventh
Army.

Bernard Montgomery commanded the British Eighth Army.

And Patton specifically
requested Terry Allen’s First Division for the most difficult landing at Gela.

He knew
Allen’s men could handle it.

What he didn’t know was that Allen was about to embarrass
him in front of the entire Allied command.

(10:04) The First Division landed on July
10th.

Within hours, German panzers from the Hermann Göring Division counterattacked with 90
tanks, trying to push the Americans back into the sea.

Allen’s division stopped them cold.

But then
Allen did something that made Patton’s blood boil.

Instead of consolidating the beachhead as ordered,
Allen pushed inland.

Hard.

His troops advanced so fast that they left the flanking divisions
behind, creating a dangerous salient that exposed them to German counterattack from three sides.

(10:37) Patton drove to the front to personally order Allen to pull back.

He found Allen standing
on a ridge, watching his battalions disappear into the interior.

“What the hell are you doing,
Allen? I ordered you to hold the beach.

” Allen didn’t even turn around.

“The Germans are running,
General.

If we stop now, they’ll dig in and we’ll spend three months bleeding them out.

” Patton
grabbed Allen’s shoulder and spun him around.

“I gave you a direct order.

” Allen looked Patton
in the eye and said, “Then you can relieve me.

But my men are staying on those Germans.

”
(11:15) Patton had two choices.

Fire Allen on the spot and prove to everyone that he
couldn’t control his own commanders.

Or let Allen keep going and hope he was right.

Patton chose option two.

He told Allen, “If you lose a single battalion to a counterattack, I
will personally court-martial you.

” Allen smiled.

“I won’t lose a battalion, sir.

” Then he walked
away before Patton could respond.

Think about the audacity of that moment.

A division commander
tells a field army commander to go to hell, then walks away like it’s settled.

(11:50) Allen was right.

The Germans never counterattacked.

The First Division
cracked the entire German defensive line and allowed Patton’s army to race Montgomery toward
Messina.

It was a brilliant tactical gambit.

It was also blatant insubordination.

And Omar Bradley
was taking notes.

Patton tried to smooth things over with Eisenhower.

He wrote that Allen was
“the finest combat leader I have ever seen” but admitted he was “completely uncontrollable.

”
(12:20) Eisenhower read that report and made a decision that would haunt Patton.

Ike called
Bradley and told him to start looking for a replacement for Allen.

Patton found out about
the order and exploded.

He drove to Bradley’s headquarters and told him that firing Allen would
be “the stupidest personnel decision of the war.

” Bradley looked at Patton with cold
satisfaction and said, “It’s already done.

” Allen was being relieved in 48 hours.

(12:50) Patton went over Bradley’s head directly to Eisenhower.

He argued that Allen
had saved the Sicilian invasion.

He pointed out that Allen’s division had the
highest combat effectiveness rating in the entire theater.

He even threatened to resign if
Allen was fired.

Eisenhower listened patiently, then said something that ended the argument.

“George, you’ve been protecting Allen for eight months.

In that time, his division has become
a gang, not a military unit.

If we take them to France like this, they’ll be a liability.

”
(13:26) Patton knew Eisenhower was right.

He had created this problem by refusing to discipline
Allen.

Now someone else was going to pay the price.

On August 7th, 1943, Omar Bradley called
Terry Allen to Second Corps headquarters.

The conversation was brief.

Allan was relieved of
command of the First Infantry Division.

So was his assistant division commander, Brigadier General
Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

The official reason was discipline problems.

The real reason was that
Patton had lost his battle to protect them.

(14:00) Patton didn’t attend the change of
command ceremony.

He couldn’t watch it.

He sent his chief of staff with a private message
for Allen.

“Tell Terry I fought like hell for him.

Tell him I’m sorry.

” Allen received the
message on a transport ship heading back to the United States.

He crumpled it up and threw
it over the side.

As far as Allen was concerned, Patton’s apology came about six months too late.

(14:28) But what neither Patton nor Allen knew was that George Marshall had been watching the
entire drama unfold.

And Marshall had very different ideas about what Terry Allen deserved.

(14:40) October 15th, 1943.

Terry Allen stood before a formation of soldiers at Camp Adair,
Oregon.

These weren’t the battle-hardened veterans of the Big Red One.

These were draftees
and recent enlistees who had never heard a shot fired in anger.

The 104th Infantry Division,
nicknamed the Timberwolves.

George Marshall had intervened again.

Just two months after
Bradley declared Allen unfit to command, Marshall gave him a second division.

(15:10) Two months.

Bradley fires the guy and Marshall hands him another division before Patton
even finishes writing his letter of apology.

Marshall’s message was clear.

He didn’t care
what Patton thought.

He didn’t care what Bradley wanted.

He needed combat leaders, not politicians.

And Terry Allen was about to prove that Marshall’s judgment was better than all of theirs combined.

(15:35) Allan looked at the raw troops in front of him and saw potential.

He would build this
division from nothing.

He would train them in the tactics that had terrified Germans in
North Africa and Sicily.

And he would create something that would make Patton regret not
fighting harder to keep him.

The training began that afternoon.

Allan transformed the 104th
Division into something the army had never seen.

(16:00) He immediately reinstated the
brutal training regimen he had perfected with the First Division.

While standard
divisions trained for daylight operations, the Timberwolves lived in the dark.

They learned
to move without flashlights.

They practiced hand signals that worked when voices would give away
positions.

They rehearsed attacks until every soldier knew exactly where to be without being
told.

Allan was ruthless about it.

He drove his men to the breaking point.

But this time it wasn’t
just about winning battles.

It was personal.

(16:32) Every successful night drill was a silent
rebuke to Patton and Bradley.

Every soldier who mastered darkness was proof that Allen’s methods
worked.

He was forging the Timberwolves into a weapon that would make his former protector
look like an amateur.

The Timberwolves adopted a motto.

“Nothing in hell must stop the
Timberwolves.

” By August 1944, they were ready.

Allan loaded his division onto transport
ships bound for France.

He was going back to war.

And this time, nobody would be able to stop him.

(17:03) The 104th Division entered combat on October 23rd, 1944 in the Netherlands.

Allan
attacked at night.

His Timberwolves advanced 15 miles in five days through flooded polders
that had stalled other divisions for weeks.

Montgomery himself sent congratulations.

Then
they hit the Siegfried Line.

Concrete pillboxes, dragon’s teeth, interlocking fields of fire.

Other divisions had bled themselves white attacking these defenses in daylight.

Allen’s
men attacked at night.

Again and again.

(17:36) Stolberg fell.

Then Eschweiler.

Then
Inden.

Town after town, captured in darkness while German defenders struggled to organize
resistance against enemies they couldn’t see.

They smashed across the Roer River in a
brutal night assault that Patton’s Third Army had been unable to execute in daylight.

And finally they reached Cologne.

The Germans started calling the 104th “the night fighters.

”
Prisoners told interrogators that fighting them was unfair.

The Americans didn’t follow the
rules.

They attacked when you couldn’t see them coming.

The normal tactics didn’t work.

(18:11) Here’s what those German prisoners didn’t know.

Terry Allen had invented those tactics in
North Africa while Patton was protecting him from Bradley.

Patton had watched Allen perfect them
in Sicily while refusing to fire him.

And now Allen was using them to accomplish objectives
that Patton’s own divisions couldn’t take.

Think about that irony.

The general Patton
couldn’t control had become more effective than the generals Patton could control.

(18:42) By April 1945, Allen’s division had crossed the Rhine and was racing toward the Elbe.

They had fought for 195 consecutive days.

They had never yielded ground to a counterattack.

They had never failed to take an objective.

The division that had been handed to Terry Allen
as a consolation prize had become one of the most feared fighting units in the European theater.

George Patton read the after-action reports and realized what he had lost.

Not just a
division commander.

A tactical innovator who had changed how the army fought at night.

(19:16) Patton wrote a letter to Marshall in March 1945.

He never sent it.

In the letter, Patton
admitted that relieving Allen had been a mistake.

He wrote that Allen’s “unorthodox methods were
not a problem to be solved, but a weapon to be exploited.

” He acknowledged that his failure to
protect Allen from Bradley had cost the army six months of Allen’s combat leadership.

The letter
sat in Patton’s desk until his death.

He never had the courage to admit the mistake publicly.

(19:50) Omar Bradley never admitted he was wrong about Terry Allen.

In Bradley’s memoirs,
he defended the firing as necessary for unit cohesion.

But Bradley’s own staff
officers told a different story.

They said Bradley had been jealous of Allen’s
combat reputation and had used discipline as an excuse to eliminate a rival.

Whether that’s true doesn’t matter.

What matters is the result.

The general
Bradley fired went on to build the most effective night-fighting unit in the war.

(20:23) German prisoners consistently rated the 104th among the American divisions they least
wanted to face.

British commanders studied Allen’s night attack tactics and adopted them for their
own units.

Even the Red Army sent observers to document Allen’s methods after the link-up at
the Elbe.

The troublemaker who failed out of West Point twice had just taught the entire
Allied coalition how to fight in darkness.

Nearly 5,000 Timberwolves were casualties.

Over
a thousand killed in action.

Allan wrote hundreds of letters to the families of men who died
under his command.

Each one personal.

Each one acknowledging the specific sacrifice.

(21:01) In one letter to a mother in Ohio, Allen wrote: “Your son died proving that
unconventional warfare wins conventional battles.

George Patton never understood that.

Omar
Bradley never accepted it.

But your son lived it.

” That mother kept the letter for the rest of her
life.

When historians interviewed her in 1967, she said Allen’s letter meant more than the
medals the army sent.

Because Allen told her the truth.

Her son had died proving his commander
right and his commander’s superiors wrong.

(21:36) George Marshall’s judgment had been
vindicated.

The general who appeared on Time magazine’s cover two days after being fired
had just led his second division to victory.

The officer Patton couldn’t control had
proven that control was overrated when the alternative was effectiveness.

Patton had
wanted a subordinate who followed orders.

Marshall gave Allen the freedom to win wars his
own way.

And Allen had proven that sometimes the most dangerous commanders are dangerous
precisely because nobody can control them.

(22:09) Patton died in December 1945 from
injuries sustained in a car accident.

He never publicly admitted his mistake about Terry
Allen.

But his chief of staff later revealed that Patton had told him privately: “I should
have threatened to resign and meant it.

Bradley wanted Allen gone for all the wrong reasons.

I knew that.

And I didn’t fight hard enough to stop it.

” That admission never made it into the
official histories.

It stayed buried in private papers until decades after both men were dead.

(22:43) Terry Allen retired from the army in 1946.

He never wrote a memoir.

He never gave
interviews about his conflicts with Patton or Bradley.

When reporters asked him about being
fired in Sicily, Allen said only: “They made their decision.

I made mine.

The war decided
who was right.

” That quote is carved on his headstone at Arlington National Cemetery.

Right next to the words: “Night Fighter.

” (23:13) Patton had said Allen was uncontrollable.

He was right.

But what Patton never understood was that Allen didn’t need to be controlled.

He
needed to be unleashed.

And when George Marshall finally did unleash him, Terry Allen proved that
the most dangerous division commanders are the ones who refuse to fight the way everyone expects.

Patton couldn’t control America’s most dangerous division commander.

But in the end, he didn’t
need to.

He just needed to get out of his way.