Comments by "Bullet-Tooth Tony" (@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-) on "Gavin wasn't to blame? 'New' evidence on Operation Market Garden's failure?" video.

He gets way too much stick in my opinion. Most of the air decisions were American. Brereton, Williams, Gavin and Taylor. That was where the screw ups were. Market. Garden succeeded.
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No, because despite the high way the ground forces still reached Nijmegen on schedule.
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They were not cowards
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Two roads actually.
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@davemac1197 "Anyone with any military knowledge will know that detailed planning is done by the units that undertake operations, and Army Group commanders like Montgomery only devise the strategic plan, not the operational and tactical planning done by the lower formations." This is a very good point and it also applies to the controversial Goodwood and Caen battles planned by Dempsey and his subordinates not Montgomery.
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@davemac1197 On another note I would love to hear about more the British success in Operation Bluecoat, there's too much focus on Goodwood and Villers bocage.
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@JohnRodriguesPhotographer It wasn’t a total failure. Over 50 miles of German held territory was taken. The towns of Eindhoven and Nijmegen were liberated. It protected the only port taken intact, Antwerp. It prevented the Germans from operating V rockets from that part of holland. it isolated a whole German army. Troops from Nijmegen turned East into Germany. The Market Garden salient was a buffer, one of its prime objectives. Proving it’s worth when the Germans rammed through through US lines in the Bulge. It stood between the advancing Germans and the German 15th Army. It prevented any German attempt to re-take Antwerp directly. The Germans had to try and get to Antwerp the long war round via the Ardennes in December. Market Garden prevented that vital German link up with the 15th Army. Keeping the 15th isolated was a real part of the operation. The salient was vital and proved its worth. The most direct and easiest route to Antwerp was via Venlo. It would have been easier for the Germans to go via Venlo from the Ruhr area but the British were in their way. Going through the Ardennes was one third longer at least in more difficult terrain, for an army desperately short of fuel the extra miles mean a lot, as was proven. They could go through Venlo if they liked but the British in the Market Harden salient between the Germans and Antwerp would have seen the build up and been prepared. The Germans refrained from attacking directly through British defended front lines after 1943. They avoided it and chose to attack through American lines instead. General Blummentritt said the British were next to impossible to dislodge once they were ensconced in defence but the Americans were prone to not defend so stubbornly. Market Garden almost certainly blocked an easier routed German counter attack on Antwerp The reason it wasn’t a 100% success can be largely laid at the feet of Lieutenant General James Gavin of the US 82nd Airboune Division who failed to take the Nijmegen bridge immediately. I recommend reading ‘Lost at Nijmegen’ by Poulsson. The biggest mistakes historians make is to glorify and narrow mindedly concern themselves with Arnhem and Oosterbeek. The Allies were stopped in the south just north of Nijmegen- that is why Arnhem turned out as it did. SS Major-General Heinz Harmel, 1987
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@nickdanger3802 Except that Monty didn't decide that the British Airborne would land at Arnhem, he merely designated which bridges he needed seized and Major General Paul Williams of Brereton's Airborne Army did the planning. Monty had no authority or command over 1st Airborne Army. Quote "Market was an Air Force plan. It followed the Army's request but not the commander's intent. It was never planned at 21st Army Group or (British) 2nd Army, and was delivered complete to those HQ on Sept 15th. The plan violated the original intent of the ground commanders as they had designed and understood the plan." Leaving the bridges for later capture was a fatal idea ." Operation Market Garden - The Campaign for the Low Countries, Autumn 1944: Seventy Years On by John Buckley, Peter Preston-Hough Reference - page 45-46
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@tonyolivari2480 I wouldn't say that it was all about Montgomery's ego. The British & US chiefs were both pushing IKE to use the 1st Airborne army, and Monty's plan was the ONLY one that was submitted. Ike himself said "I not only approved Market Garden, I insisted on it" Had no airborne operation been authorised, Monty still would have had to attack in the general direction of Arnhem, probably with far more casualties and far less progress.
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@tonyolivari2480 Also Market Garden almost certainly blocked an easier routed German counter attack on Antwerp. Quote The Allies did possess a deep salient into German occupied territory that was quickly reinforced. Milton Shulman observed that the operation had driven a wedge into the German positions, isolating the 15th Army north of Antwerp from the First Parachute Army on the eastern side of the bulge. This complicated the supply problem of the 15th Army and removed the chance of the Germans being able to assemble enough troops for a serious counterattack to retake Antwerp. Chester Wilmot agreed with this, claiming that the salient was of immense tactical value for the purpose of driving the Germans from the area south of the Maas and removing the threat of an immediate counterattack against Antwerp.
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@nickdanger3802 There wasn't one road of advance, there were two. And despite attempts by the Germans to cut the road, they did not manage to delay the British advance or attack it in any meaningful way, which arrived at Nijmegen on schedule.
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@bigwoody4704 Except there wasn't one road past Nijmegen. The route XXX Corps used to get to the Oosterbeek Cauldron went to Driel. As the Germans must retain strong forces to prevent a breakout eastwards towards Roermond, and from Nijmegen eastwards towards Cleve and Germany.
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No because 21st Army Group would have been supporting them, 1 million troops.
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@tonyolivari2480 Compared to 33,000 men lost in the Hurtgen Forest
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@bigwoody4704 One key to this operation was to land enough airborne units in the first lift to secure both sides of the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges to secure them, and the route between the Rhine and Waal rivers. Had they done that, and with as little as a company in place to prevent SS Pz 10 from crossing at the ferry, there are few if any scattered small German units that could threaten this vital section of road. Browning and Brereton's inept rationalisation that Arnhem and the route south to Nijmegen could be captured by a single British brigade on the first day, while devoting 3 full American regiments to the far less important canal bridges was the root of most of the later problems.
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@bigwoody4704 Operation Market Garden was entirely winnable for the Allies. (I'd even suggest easily winnable), but was crippled by some truly inept planning and operations by 1st Airborne Army. Had Market Garden been given proper support and been properly executed by 1st Airborne Army, the operation could have cut off the German 15th Army in Holland, making the Scheldt operation much easier for the 1st Canadian army, as it would force the 15th Army to withdraw units from the west to defend it's eastern flank.
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@agamemnongames886 ". The British in 1944 still did not use their armor units effectively." Operation Bluecoat
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