Comments by "Big Woody" (@bigwoody4704) on "Montgomery vs Eisenhower on Operation Market Garden's True Purpose | History Debate" video.
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Enjoy!Hastings and Beevor are both Pritzker Military Literature Award Winners, and both members Royal Society of Literature & Royal Historical Society. And you mop puddles at the Adult Theater - so you have that going for you.I also quote Dr Niall Barr who has a PHD and lectures at King's College on Military History.
HQ blaming Montgomery
Alan Brooke's own words
"Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alan Brooke, entry for 5 October 1944:Page 219" During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay. I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely....."
Or Bernard himself after the War admitting it
The Guns at Last Light, by Rick Atkinson, page 303 Even Field Marshall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks, even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway" Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed Montgomery. He would acknowledge as much after the war, conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
From a PHD at King's College who also notes Ramsay/Brooke warned Monty about the Scheldt Estuary
Eisenhower's Armies ,by Dr Niall Barr ,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden, Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign. Alan Brooke was present as an observer, noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary, followed by an advance on the Rhine, the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin. After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticized Montgomery freely, Brooke was moved to write, I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem
How about Air Marshall Tedder
With Prejudice, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander AEF, Page 599" Eisenhower assumed, as he and I had done all along, that whatever happened Montgomery would concentrate on opening up Antwerp. No one could say that we had not emphasized the point sufficiently by conversation and signal
How about Monty's Chief of Staff
Max Hastings, Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 Freddie de Guingand Monty's Chief of Staff telephoned him saying the operation would be launched too late to exploit German disarray. That XXX Corps push to Arnhem would being made on a narrow front along one road,Monty ignored him
How about IKE's/Allied HQ Chief of Staff Bedell-Smith
Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany,1944-45 The release of the files from German Signals by Bletchley Park conclusively showed that the 9th & 10th Panzer Divisions were re-fitting in the Arnhem area. With their Recon Battalions intact. Yet when Bedel-Smith(SHAEF) brought this to Monty's attention "he ridiculed the idea and waved my objections airly aside"
How about IKE's Private Papers?
The Eisenhower Papers, volume IV, by Edward Chandler By early September Montgomery and other Allied leaders thought the Wehrmacht was finished . *It was this understanding that led Monty to insist on the Market-Garden Operation over the more mundane task of opening the port of Antwerp. He ignored Eisenhower's letter of Sept 4 assigning Antwerp as the primary mission for the Northern Group of Armies
And of course Admiral Ramsay who knew a deep water port was needed
Ardennes 1944,By Sir Antony Beevor, page 14 Sir Bertram Ramsey ,Allied Naval commander-in-chief had told SHAEF and Monty that the Germans could block the Scheldt Estuary with ease. The mistake lay with Monty, who was not interested in the estuary and thought the Canadians could clear it later
Try looking up Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert who took over 20 yrs to finish the 8 volumes on Winston's life
Road to Victory, Winston Churchill 1941-45,by Martin Gilbert A British War cabinet memo suggested that the appointment of Monty was from the point of view of it's reception by public opinion. Apparently that clinched the War Cabinet's vote for Montgomery; based strictly on military accomplishments, the case for him was very weak
The Second World War by John Keegan p. 437 The Plan was the most calamitous flaw in the post Normandy campaign .It was more over barely excusable, since Ultra was supplying Montgomery's HQs from Sept 5 onward with intelligence .As early as Sept 12 Monty's own intelligence reported the Germans intended to hold out along the approaches to Antwerp. Monty - despite every warning and contrary to common military sense - refused to turn his troops back in their tracks to clear the Scheldt Estuary
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Ah another of Monty's apologists pokes his head out of Monty's backside to explain why Monty was not responsible for the failure of Monty's plan.
Seems like Monty forgot that basic fact of Warfare. The commander who underestimates his enemy ( especially when his own intelligence apparatus is ringing alarm bells ) is a fool.The subordinate commanders did not plan the over all operation, Monty did.Stop fetching history from the Cornhole ChroniclesThe dweeb bragged he had all the supplies he was going to get to General Crerar. Here you go from Crerar himself
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 196 Throughout September Montgomery had been most anxious to open the Channel ports to Allied supply,principally LaHavre,Boulogne and Calais.This he regarded as essential to his strategic plans..But he undertook Market Garden without these ports and with a supply line extending from his rear maintenance area around Bayeux directly to the divisions of second Army. The inadequacy of this arrangement led him to ask for more supplies.When he got them,he rescinded the delay in the launch of Market Garden and to Gen.Harry Crerar he wrote that he had won a "great victory" at SHAEF Montgomery never requested more transport for his divisions .He got all the logistical support he requested with only minor delays.The truth was that the operation was too ambitious .In launching it with a tenuous supply line,no reserve build up of supplies,a shortage of ground transport and both VIII & XII Corps not ready at the start,Montgomery's professionalism had deserted him
Marshall,IKE and SHAEF were done catering to the pathetic Pedo.Patton out performed him standing still - literally.LOOK Here
From My Three Years With Eisenhower,by Capt.Harry C.Butcher,p.675 - Sept 24,1944,Monty had been pressing for more supplies to 21st Army Group. IKE informed Monty that he had given preference to the left flank(21st Army) through out the campaign Including the attachments of Air Borne and everything to assure the maintenance.On the other hand all other forces had been fighting with a halter around their necks with respect to supplies. IKE illustrated that for 4 days straight Patton had been receiving serious counter attacks,yet in 7 days without attempting to any real advance 3rd Army captured 9,000 prisoners and knocked out 270 tanks
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www.historynet.com/eisenhower-fire-1944-45.htm Martin van Creveld calculated in his superb study of logistics, Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton Monty’s “40 divisions” realistically would have been quickly reduced to a mere 18 when all logistical and operational requirements were considered. Captured ground could not simply be left in a vacuum, but had to be occupied and defended against the inevitable German counterattacks. Supply lines had to be protected and secured, and as a force advanced, those key “sinews of war” extended longer and longer, requiring the diversion of increasing numbers of combat troops to protect them.
Moreover, because Monty failed to capture the Scheldt Estuary expeditiously and open the port of Antwerp (closed to Allied shipping until December), Ike’s SHAEF logisticians at the time calculated that only 12 divisions could have been supported in a rapid advance. Van Creveld weighed all the factors in the “broad front” vs. “narrow thrust” strategy debate and concluded, “In the final account, the question as to whether Montgomery’s plan presented a real alternative to Eisenhower’s strategy must be answered in the negative"
Eisenhower actually gave Montgomery a chance to show that his narrow thrust strategy could succeed – and Monty botched it Ike approved the September 1944 Operation Market-Garden, Monty’s attempt to “jump” the lower Rhine and position his army group to drive on to the Ruhr industrial region. Market-Garden famously and disastrously failed at the “bridge too far” at Arnhem at the same time that German forces supposedly were so depleted and disorganized that Monty’s narrow thrust, it was claimed, would easily slice right through them and capture the Ruhr. Monty’s boast that his single axis advance would quickly win the war was both literally and figuratively “a bridge too far” at that point of the war in Europe.
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Cheers hey mate,hi mate,hitey ho mate.get a room you rubes.Your boys were driven into the channel.IKE and the GIs gave them 4 full years to cross the English Channel.What was the problem?30 miles the GIs came 3500 miles and supplied the failed English Army again,just like the last war.Should have left your goose stepping cousins have you
It still took Monty 6 months with the US 9th Army's help to move where he left off at the end of September.The Americans still advanced thru Lorainne,the Hurtgen,The Ardennes and across the Rhine in that time Unlike Montgomery forced to go back and open the Port of Antwerp when he promised he'd be in Berlin - A step backward, after making a wrong turn, isn't a step in the right direction
Monty had serious deficiencies in fluid battles, and had limited ability to adjust his methods to changing operational situations. balance,flexibility, cooperation, simplicity and the assimulation of combat lessons.he was vain,rude objectionable - Corelli Barnett
From Patton:A Genius for War,By Carlo D'Este After the War General Fritz Bayerlein commander of Panzer Lehr Division and the Afrika Corp.He assessed the escape of Rommel's Panzers after Alamein "I do not think General Patton would have let us get away so easily" said Bayerlein .Comparing Patton with Guderian and Montgomery with Von Rundstedt
The Rommel Papers,by B.H.Liddell Hart,pages 360-61 "Montgomery risked nothing in any way and bold solutions are completely foreign to him.He would never take the risk of following up boldy and over running us.He could have done it with out any danger to himself.Indeed such a course would have cost him fewer losses in the long run than his methodical insistence on overwhelming superiority in each tactical action,which he could only obtain at the cost of speed"
From The Rommel Papers by B.H.Liddell-Hart page 521 Montgomery was in a position to profit by the bitter experience of his predecessors.While supplies on our side had been cut to a trickle,American and British ships were bringing vast quantities on materials to North Africa.Many times greater than either his predecessors had ever had. His principle was to fight no battle unless he knew for certain that he would win it.Of course that is a method which will only work given material superiority - but that he had. .Command of a mobile battle force was not his strong point British officers made the error off planning operations according to what was strategically desirable,rather than what was tactically attainable
From The Rommel Papers by B.H.Liddell-Hart page 523 Erwin Rommel - "In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience,but it brought rich dividends .Even at the time American Generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the technical handling of their forces Although we had to wait until Patton's Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare The Americans it is fair to say,profited far more than the British from their experience in Africa,thus confirming axiom that education is easier than re-education".
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Seems like Monty forgot that basic fact of Warfare. The commander who underestimates his enemy ( especially when his own intelligence apparatus is ringing alarm bells ) is a fool.The subordinate commanders did not plan the over all operation, Monty did.Stop fetching history from the Cornhole ChroniclesThe dweeb bragged he had all the supplies he was going to get to General Crerar .Here you go from Crerar himself
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 196 Throughout September Montgomery had been most anxious to open the Channel ports to Allied supply,principally LaHavre,Boulogne and Calais.This he regarded as essential to his strategic plans..But he undertook Market Garden without these ports and with a supply line extending from his rear maintenance area around Bayeux directly to the divisions of second Army. The inadequacy of this arrangement led him to ask for more supplies.When he got them,he rescinded the delay in the launch of Market Garden and to Gen.Harry Crerar he wrote that he had won a "great victory" at SHAEF Montgomery never requested more transport for his divisions .He got all the logistical support he requested with only minor delays.The truth was that the operation was too ambitious .In launching it with a tenuous supply line,no reserve build up of supplies,a shortage of ground transport and both VIII & XII Corps not ready at the start,Montgomery's professionalism had deserted him
Marshall,IKE and SHAEF were done catering to the pathetic Pedo.Patton out performed him standing still - literally.LOOK Here
From My Three Years With Eisenhower,by Capt.Harry C.Butcher,p.675 - Sept 24,1944,Monty had been pressing for more supplies to 21st Army Group. IKE informed Monty that he had given preference to the left flank(21st Army) through out the campaign Including the attachments of Air Borne and everything to assure the maintenance.On the other hand all other forces had been fighting with a halter around their necks with respect to supplies. IKE illustrated that for 4 days straight Patton had been receiving serious counter attacks,yet in 7 days without attempting to any real advance 3rd Army captured 9,000 prisoners and knocked out 270 tanks
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Seems like Monty forgot that basic fact of Warfare. The commander who underestimates his enemy ( especially when his own intelligence apparatus is ringing alarm bells ) is a fool. The subordinate commanders did not plan the over all operation, Monty did.Stop fetching history from the Cornhole Chronicles The dweeb bragged he had all the supplies he was going to get to General Crerar. Here you go from Crerar himself
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 196 Throughout September Montgomery had been most anxious to open the Channel ports to Allied supply,principally LaHavre,Boulogne and Calais.This he regarded as essential to his strategic plans..But he undertook Market Garden without these ports and with a supply line extending from his rear maintenance area around Bayeux directly to the divisions of second Army. The inadequacy of this arrangement led him to ask for more supplies.When he got them,he rescinded the delay in the launch of Market Garden and to Gen.Harry Crerar he wrote that he had won a "great victory" at SHAEF Montgomery never requested more transport for his divisions .He got all the logistical support he requested with only minor delays.The truth was that the operation was too ambitious .In launching it with a tenuous supply line,no reserve build up of supplies,a shortage of ground transport and both VIII & XII Corps not ready at the start,Montgomery's professionalism had deserted him
Marshall,IKE and SHAEF were done catering to the pathetic Pedo.Patton out performed him standing still - literally.LOOK Here
From My Three Years With Eisenhower,by Capt.Harry C.Butcher,p.675 - Sept 24,1944,Monty had been pressing for more supplies to 21st Army Group. IKE informed Monty that he had given preference to the left flank(21st Army) through out the campaign Including the attachments of Air Borne and everything to assure the maintenance.On the other hand all other forces had been fighting with a halter around their necks with respect to supplies. IKE illustrated that for 4 days straight Patton had been receiving serious counter attacks,yet in 7 days without attempting to any real advance 3rd Army captured 9,000 prisoners and knocked out 270 tanks
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Wipe Monty's cack out of your eye sockets you carnival barker .You again have displayed your extraordinary ability not to think .Market Garden is what happens when a moron in the form of Monty is handed command .SHAEF finally realized giving good troops to Monty was making Russian generals look like humanitarians.Attacking up a 64 mile lane with no room for maneuver and winter closing in is the idea of an idiot that had no business leading a boy scout assembly.Your distortions are ludicrous postmortem to absolve the abrasive egomaniac who in any other army would have been relieved .And if it wasn't for the sorry fact the British Press propped him up beyond his accomplishments & abilities he would have been.Monty won in the desert when he had an embarrassment of Riches.Not because of maneuver,guile or tactics
Fromhistorynet.com/eisenhower-fire-1944-45.htm Martin van Creveld calculated in his superb study of logistics, Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton Monty’s “40 divisions” realistically would have been quickly reduced to a mere 18 when all logistical and operational requirements were considered. Captured ground could not simply be left in a vacuum, but had to be occupied and defended against the inevitable German counterattacks. Supply lines had to be protected and secured, and as a force advanced, those key “sinews of war” extended longer and longer, requiring the diversion of increasing numbers of combat troops to protect them.
Moreover, because Monty failed to capture the Scheldt Estuary expeditiously and open the port of Antwerp (closed to Allied shipping until December), Ike’s SHAEF logisticians at the time calculated that only 12 divisions could have been supported in a rapid advance. Van Creveld weighed all the factors in the “broad front” vs. “narrow thrust” strategy debate and concluded, “In the final account, the question as to whether Montgomery’s plan presented a real alternative to Eisenhower’s strategy must be answered in the negative" Eisenhower actually gave Montgomery a chance to show that his narrow thrust strategy could succeed – and Monty botched it
Ike approved the September 1944 Operation Market-Garden, Monty’s attempt to “jump” the lower Rhine and position his army group to drive on to the Ruhr industrial region. Market-Garden famously and disastrously failed at the “bridge too far” at Arnhem at the same time that German forces supposedly were so depleted and disorganized that Monty’s narrow thrust, it was claimed, would easily slice right through them and capture the Ruhr. Monty’s boast that his single axis advance would quickly win the war was both literally and figuratively “a bridge too far” at that point of the war in Europe
BTW babbling Burns it's 80 yrs starting last week that Monty led one of the largest retreats in Military History @ Dunkirk.It's also 75 years ago last week for Victory in Europe.See what a Super Power can do in just 5 yrs.Even correcting all the damage done by the crumbling crown and it's rancid runt got themselves into - You're welcome Johnny Giovanni
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@johnburns4017 Brits always fight to last colonial, usually Australians.Old Monty at least Japanese Commanders had the common decency to disembowel themselves after a disaster like OMG.
Try quoting actuall historians and books with page numbers you knob.Puddles are you monty's little swiss boy you keep repeating bullshit and you know it.And here is what Bradley said
From Bradley,A Generals Life,Page 299 Gen Bradley wrote "the news of the German escape from the Falaise Gap was a shattering disappointment - one of my greatest of the war.a golden opportunity had truly been lost.I boiled inside,blaming Monty for the blunder".
From The Second World War by John Keegan,page 399 In 1944 the USA produced 47,000 tanks ,while Germany produced 29,600 tanks and assault guns.Britain in 1944 produced only 5000 tanks.
From September Hope,by John C.McManus,pages 39-40 By September 15,disquieting intelligence about the Arnhem area had come to light.ULTRA AND Dutch intel had detected elements of the 9th& 10 SS Panzer Divisions in Arnhem (Monty later admitted he ignored this) They were not far from the planned British drop zones.Intelligence specialist Maj Brian Urquhart as greatly alarmed by the reports.He already thought that Market Garden was at best a bold gamble ,at worst sheer madness.He was adamantly opposed to it.The Intelligence intercepts were correct.The photographs revealed the presence of camouflaged enemy tanks and self propelled guns in the wooded area near Arnhem
"From Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, Doubleday & Co., 1st American edition, copyright 1959. From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, entry for 5 October 1944:Page 219 "...During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay.I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely..."
Max Hastings,Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 The release of the files from German Signals by Bletchley Park conclusively showed that the 9th & 10th Panzer Divisions were re-fitting in the Arnhem area.With their Recon Battalions intact.Yet when Bedel-Smith(SHAEF) brought this to Monty's attention "he ridiculed the idea and waved my objections airly aside"
Center of Military History,The United States Army,The Sigrfied Line CampaignPage174
Spearheading the 30 Corps ground column reconnaissance troops of the Guards Armoured Division linked with Colonel Tucker's 504th Parachute Infantry at Grave at 0820 the morning of D plus 2, 19 September. (See Map IV) Major formations of the British armor were not far behind. From that point priority of objectives within the sector of the 82d Airborne Division shifted unquestionably in the direction of the bridge at Nijmegen. Already at least thirty-three hours behind schedule because of earlier delays south of Eindhoven and at Zon the ground column had to have a way to get across the Waal.
Pages 184-185 First Attempts To Drive on ArnhemCounting from the time of first contact between the British ground column and the 504th Parachute Infantry at Grave at 0820 on D plus 2, 19 September, until the Nijmegen bridge was taken at 1910 on D plus 3, 20 September, a case could be made to show that the ground column was delayed at Nijmegen for almost thirty-five hours Yet this would be to ignore the facts that first arrivals of the ground column represented no more than a forward reconnaissance screen and that several hours elapsed before sizable British units began to arrive. Indeed, almost another twenty-four hours would elapse after capture of the Nijmegen bridge before the British would renew the drive on Arnhem
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden,Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign.Alan Brooke was present as an observer,noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary,followed by an advance on the Rhine,the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin. After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticised Montgomery freely,Brooke was moved to write,"I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem"
*https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_arnhem_01.shtml
*
At the end of the first day, XXX corps had advanced only seven miles from their start line, and had not reached the first in the sequence of bridges. Meanwhile the Germans were reinforcing, and their tanks were moving into Arnhem ready to take on the lightly armed British paratroopers.
Proof this is a bad plan... the first obstacle each force in this plan had was the very plan itself. XXX Corps stuck going up one road, asking for ambush and serious delays (both occurred)
Retreat to the Reich by Samuel W.Mitcham Jr.,page 244 The US 82nd Airborne was also tied up in heavy fighting in Nijmegen against elements of the 9th SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion which was reinforced by I Battalion/22nd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment(part of the 10th SS Division). Still the Allies might have won the Battle had the armored advance not been slow .By September 19th they were still miles south of Nijmegen trying to push an entire Corp down a single road.
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@sean640307
Center of Military History,The United States Army,The Sigrfied Line CampaignPage174 Spearheading the 30 Corps ground column reconnaissance troops of the Guards Armoured Division linked with Colonel Tucker's 504th Parachute Infantry at Grave at 0820 the morning of D plus 2, 19 September. (See Map IV) Major formations of the British armor were not far behind. From that point priority of objectives within the sector of the 82d Airborne Division shifted unquestionably in the direction of the bridge at Nijmegen. Already at least thirty-three hours behind schedule because of earlier delays south of Eindhoven and at Zon the ground column had to have a way to get across the Waal
Pages 184-185 First Attempts To Drive on Arnhem Counting from the time of first contact between the British ground column and the 504th Parachute Infantry at Grave at 0820 on D plus 2, 19 September, until the Nijmegen bridge was taken at 1910 on D plus 3, 20 September, a case could be made to show that the ground column was delayed at Nijmegen for almost thirty-five hours. Yet this would be to ignore the facts that first arrivals of the ground column represented no more than a forward reconnaissance screen and that several hours elapsed before sizable British units began to arrive Indeed, almost another twenty-four hours would elapse after capture of the Nijmegen bridge before the British would renew the drive on Arnhem .At nightfall on D plus 3, the British had
at Nijmegen only the Guards Armoured Division.
*https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_arnhem_01.shtml
*
At the end of the first day, XXX corps had advanced only seven miles from their start line, and had not reached the first in the sequence of bridges. Meanwhile the Germans were reinforcing, and their tanks were moving into Arnhem ready to take on the lightly armed British paratroopers.
Proof this is a bad plan... the first obstacle each force in this plan had was the very plan itself. XXX Corps stuck going up one road, asking for ambush and serious delays (both occurred)
From - 'It Never Snows in September' Robert J Kershaw - page 221 SS-Colonel Heinz Harmel wondered,even after the war,why the tanks that had rushed the Nijmegen bridge with such 'elan had not continued further.The Allies had certainly missed an opportunity.They might possibly have pushed a battle group into Arnhem itself. Why did they not drive on to Elst instead of staying in Lent? 'he asked; at this instant there were no German armoured forces available to block Elst. "It was a lost chance"
The Eisenhower Papers,volume IV,by Edward Chandler By early September Montgomery and other Allied leaders thought the Wehrmacht was finished .It was this understanding that led Monty to insist on the Market-Garden Operation over the more mundane task of opening the port of Antwerp. He ignored Eisenhower's letter of Sept 4 assigning Antwerp as the primary mission for the Northern Group of Armies
From Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, Doubleday & Co., 1st American edition, copyright 1959.From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke entry for 5 October 1944: *--Page 219 "...During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay. I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely..."
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 228 Gavin knew he faced a staggering task.He tried to rise to the challenge of a bad plan without complaint and achieved a remarkable success.The 82nd could hardly hold the Groesbeek Heights and take the key bridges at the same time.With the presumption of minimal German opposition - there was no margin of error for the operation.Which was open to the assumption of maximum risk.Most of the tactical objectives were outside,not within the landing areas
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II
The European Theater of Operations
THE SIEGFRIED LINE CAMPAIGN
By Charles B. MacDonald
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY WASHINGTON, D.C., 1993
P157
General Browning, was "clear and emphatic" to
the effect that the division was "not to
attempt the seizure of the Nijmegen
Bridge until all other missions had been
successfully accomplished
In his formal order
General Browning stated: "The capture
and retention of the high ground between
Nijmegen and Groesbeck is imperative in
order to accomplish the Division's task."
From the Battle of Arnhem,by Antony Beevor,page 370 German Generals thought Montgomery was wrong to to demand the main concentration of forces under his command in the north .Like Patton the reasoned the series of canals and great rivers the Maas,The Waal,the Neder Rijn - made it the easiest region for them to defend." With obstacles in the form of water traversing it from east to west" wrote General von Zagen,"the terrain offers good possibilities to hold on to positions".General Eberbach whom the British had captured,was recorded telling other generals in captivity:"the whole of their main effort is wrong.The traditional gateway is through the Saar" The Saar is where Montgomery had demanded that Patton's 3rd Army be halted
More Monty victims
Giovanni Pierre created 28 Sept 2013
John Burns created 07 Nov 2013
John Cornell created 13 Nov 2013
TheVilla Aston created 20 Nov 2013
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John Burns - isn't that cute putting diamonds next next to his own carnival barking and attempting to pass it off as fact to get the surly snot off of the hook isn't going to fly.AGAIN quit pulling history from your ample backside.
From September Hope,by John C.McManus,page 4"When Eisenhower strayed from his Broad Front Advance and gave Montgomery permission to launch Market-Garden,he made his worst decision of the war .Market Garden was a bad idea because it took the focus off of Antwerp - and Antwerp mattered the most.Without the necessary supplies,the Allies had no chance of sustaining a victorious push into Germany. In essence Market Garden was based on Hope.Hope that Nazi-Germany was just about finished,hope that the weather would hold,hope that all bridges would be captured intact,hope that all the equipment would work properly.Hope that most of the German opposition would be over-aged invalids
The Second World War by John Keegan,page 437 The Plan was the most calamitous flaw in the post Normandy campaign .It was more over barely excusable,since Ultra was supplying Montgomery's HQs from Sept 5 onward with intelligence As early as Sept 12 Monty's own intelligence reported the Germans intended to hold out along the approaches to Antwerp*Monty - despite every warning and contrary to common military sense - refused to turn his troops back in their tracks to clear the Scheldt Estuary
From With Prejudice, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force,Lord Tedder,Deputy Supreme Commander AEF,Cassel & Co,1st edition, copyright 1966,Page 599 "Eisenhower assumed, as he and I had done all along, that whatever happened Montgomery would concentrate on opening up Antwerp. No one could say that we had not emphasized the point sufficiently by conversation and signal.
From Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, Doubleday & Co., 1st American edition, copyright 1959 From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, entry for 5 October 1944:Page 219 ...During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay.I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely..."
Max Hastings,Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45The release of the files from German Signals by Bletchley Park conclusively showed that the 9th & 10th Panzer Divisions were re-fitting in the Arnhem area With their Recon Battalions intact.Yet when Bedel-Smith(SHAEF) brought this to Monty's attention "he ridiculed the idea and waved my objections airly aside"
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British author of Military History, Max Hastings, states the following in his recent book, The SECRET WAR, Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas 1939 -1945 referring to Field Marshal Montgomery on page 495 “The little British field-marshal’s neglect of crystal-clear intelligence, and of an important strategic opportunity, became a major cause of the Western Allied failure to break into the heart of Germany in 1944.The same overconfidence was responsible for the launch of the doomed airborne assault in Holland on 17 September, despite Ultra’s flagging of the presence near the drop zone of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, together with Field-Marshal Walter Model’s headquarters at Oosterbeek. Had ‘victory fever’ not blinded Allied commanders, common sense dictated that even drastically depleted SS panzers posed a mortal threat to lightly armed and mostly inexperienced British airborne units. Ultra on 14-15 September also showed the Germans alert to the danger of an airborne landing in Holland It was obvious that it would be a very hard to drive the British relief force eighty miles up a single Dutch road, with the surrounding countryside impassable for armour, unless the Germans failed to offer resistance. The decision to launch Operation Market Garden’ against this background was recklessly irresponsible, and the defeat remains a deserved blot on Montgomery’s reputation.
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Jean Pierre Burns
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden,Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign.Alan Brooke was present as an observer,noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary,followed by an advance on the Rhine,the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin.After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticised Montgomery freely,Brooke was moved to write,"I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem"
*https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_arnhem_01.shtml
*
At the end of the first day, XXX corps had advanced only seven miles from their start line, and had not reached the first in the sequence of bridges. Meanwhile the Germans were reinforcing, and their tanks were moving into Arnhem ready to take on the lightly armed British paratroopers.
The Eisenhower Papers,volume IV,by Edward Chandler By early September Montgomery and other Allied leaders thought the Wehrmacht was finished .It was this understanding that led Monty to insist on the Market-Garden Operation over the more mundane task of opening the port of Antwerp. He ignored Eisenhower's letter of Sept 4 assigning Antwerp as the primary mission for the Northern Group of Armies
The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed. Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
From With Prejudice, Air Marshall Tedder,p.586 Eisenhower's firm commitment to the Anglo-American Alliance dominated his thinking. He handled Allied disagreements in Normandy, at the Falaise Gap and for Market-Garden the same way. Eisenhower was determined to protect the facade of Allied unity at the highest levels of the Allied command in spite of Montgomery's insubordination which was motivated by both personal and political objectives. Eisenhower's efforts to cover up Montgomery's lies in Normandy drew praise from his British second in command, Lord Tedder: "One of the most disturbing features of the campaign ... had been the uninhibited boosting at home (England) of the British Army at the expense of the Americans. I ... fear that this process was sowing the seeds of a grave split between the Allies. For the moment, the Americans were being extremely reticent and generous, largely on account of Eisenhower's fine attitude."
From Ardennes 1944,By Sir Antony Beevor,page 14 Sir Bertram Ramsey ,Allied Naval commander-in-chief had told SHAEF and Monty that the Germans could block the Scheldt Estuary with ease.The mistake lay with Monty,who was not interested in the estuary and thought the Canadians could clear it later. From page 19 ,Admiral Ramsey was livid that SHAEF,and especially Monty,had ignored his warnings to secure the Scheldt estuary and the approaches to Antwerp
From Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, Doubleday & Co.1st American edition, copyright 1959. From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke entry for 5 October 1944,Page 219 "...During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay.I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely..."
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The Auk had just won 1st El Alamein,the army group was on the up swing.Tim Collins,Dr Niall Barr and Corelli Barnett spell this out very well in Desert Generals Docu that puts a spotlight on the Monty Myth.O'Connor got caught because he was out front reconnoitering as ULTRA wasn't fully functional as this was a year and a half before the 2nd battle of El Alamein. He led one of the most brilliant military campaigns of the war. In two months, the XIII Corps/Western Desert Force had advanced over 800 miles, destroyed an entire Italian army of ten divisions, taken 133,000 prisoners, 400 tanks and 1,292 guns at the cost of 500 killed and 1,373 wounded - a remarkable military achievement. This led Adolf Hitler to send the Deutsches Afrikakorps under Erwin Rommel to try and reverse the situation .But in true Churchill form he stuck his nose in where it didn't belong After O'Connor's great victory he removed 50,000 crack/experienced troops from the desert to Greece. That proved disasterous in both places. To take the 6th Australian Division, along with part of 7th Armoured Division and most of the supplies and air support was just too much
Monty caused a lot of problems in British command before ever coming in contact with the U.S.Officers. In the desert Air Marshall Conningham and Adml Cunningham strangled the German supply lines in the Mediteranean while keeping the Allies supplied was paramount. Yet the Monty didn't grab airfields or open any ports later - this continued into Italy - Normandy. I'm assuming you watched that Desert generals docu - Montgomery really should have never gotten that gig - he really could not lose after Auchilech and Dorman-Smith lined those mine fields at he ridge of Alam Halfa that helped shored up defense/blocking line by the Qattara Depression to the south which was impassable to mechanized armor at El Alamein creating a choke point.Then The Torch Landings were looming which forced Rommels hand and FDR sending 300 Shermans and 100 self propelled 105 mm Howitzers. Also factor in complete Air Superiority All these things came together at the same time and Monty couldn't help himself - taking credit that wasn't his and later deflecting blame that was - all thru the war really. Conningham & Cunningham wanted to strangle the shit as he basically ignored the Naval and Air Corps tremendous efforts while cleverly crafting his own over the top narrative. As I'm sure you know the allied supply lines were 100 miles away in Alexandria and Rommel's unfortunately for him stretched back into Libya and the port of Tripoli - 1,000 miles away. None of the above advantages were of monty's doing,it was the Allies 2 yrs of toil and he reaped the benefit
Also for a while Auchinleck and Dorman-Smith were with out ULTRA as the Gerries had added another wheel to the Enigma.Throwing off Bletchley Park for a few months,becoming operational conveniently in late August '42 - just when Monty was taking command.Monty didn't go on the offensive for 9 weeks - which is precisely what Auchinleck wanted.When Winston found this out he couldn't just turn around and sack Monty - who was one lucky little Tosser
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LMAO EVERYONE? you bark bombast expecting to be taken at your word that has more holes than one of Monty's battle plans,it was the deal 89 men lost their lives crossing the Rhine to carry the column in and they stop for what? There was only one gun on the road according to the Germans themselves. We never expect much from you and you never fail to disappoint. You never found a source for your 2 armies on the flanks - because they only exist in you bent imagination. It's better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt
Arnhem: The Complete Story of Operation Market Garden 17-25 September 1944,by Willam Buckingham,p309 at the North end of the Bridge Major Cook's paratroopers had fully expected the Guards Amored Division to push on immediately for Arnhem just 10 miles up the road.Their elation turned toward anger as the growing British force remained immobile. LT Patrick Murphy from 3rd Battalion,504th Regiment climbed aboard Sg Robinson's tank and urged him to move only to be informed by the willing Robinson that he had no orders to do so.Capt.Burris was reportedly so furious he threatened the deputy commander of no.1 Squadron Capt.Peter (Lord) Carrington with his Thompson gun,Carrington dropped inside the tank and locked the hatch
The puzzlement was shared by British Officer LT Brian Wilson's platoon from the 3rd Irish Guards had been among the 1st to cross the road bridge in the wake of SgT Robinson's troops and after an night of sitting Wilson stopped at Company HQ "as far as I could discover Nijmegen was cleared....the situation at Arnhem remained desperate.Yet Guards Armored did not move"
German Colonel Heinz Harmel's view the British failure to advance rapidly North from Nijmegen Bridge squandered the last chance to reach 1st Para still clinging to the north end of the Arnhem Bridge. *Because at that time there was virtually no German troops between the two points. And that remained the case for up to 16 hrs until the Germans were able to fully access the Arnhem Bridge midday on Sept 21st and bring reinforcements south. By halting XXX Corp effectively handed the intiative back to II SS Panzerkorps which used the time to erect an effective defense where none had existed as the Irish Guards discovered when it finally attempted to resume the advance at 13:30 on 21 September. Why the Guards Armored failed to push on remains controversial
Arnhem,The Complete Story of Operation Market Garden 17-25 September 1944,by Willam Buckingham,p.358 LT Brian Wilson of the 3rd Irish Guards recalled patrols of US Paratroopers constantly roaming through his location while "for our part" we just sat in our positions all night As Heinz Harmel later put it the English stopped for tea the 4 tanks who crossed the Bridge made a mistake staying in Lent, if they carried on their advance it would have been all over for us A rapid and concentrated relief effort across the lower Rhine never happened because the Irish Guards remained immobile for hours in darkness and beyond as the Guards Armored Division had collectively done since Operation Garden commenced
Arnhem,The Complete Story of Operation Market Garden 17-25 September 1944,by Willam Buckingham,p.359 as LT Brian Wilson put it the situation at Arnhem remained desperate yet the Guards Armored Division did not move While the Germans used the windfall respite to organize their blocking line.
So the Germans/GIs/Irish Guards there - then are in agreement - XXX Corp was not only slow but stopped.Set the scotch down and go to bed.
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Vile Anus you poor trampled cabbage leaf Monty was awful at commanding. Terrible. As in, no fucking good here you go 3 of the 4 Historians will tell you how bad all British https://youtu.be/duOYnIGivys?t=1419
-Hollywood wasn't there when 198,000 Tommies got tossed into the Channel - Monty was.
-Hollywood didn't make 81,000 Tommies surrender at Singapore,
-Hollywood didn't sign a deal with The Reich annexing the Czech Republic - Britain did.
-Hollywood didn't tell Britain to not cross the 30 mile channel after getting driven into it,for 4 full years after Dunkirk.
-Hollywood never showed up at Market Garden,neither did Montgomery
-Hollywood didn't fill ship after ship with tanks,trucks,,halftracks,men,material,munitions, planes,provisions,food,fuel for the duration of the war to prop up the crown.
-Hollywood didn't promise that Caen would be taken in D+1,Monty did and finally took it 43 days later.
-Hollywood didn't promise before Market Garden that they'd go to Berlin and didn't even make it to Arnhem,Monty did
-Hollywood didn't give 16 U.S.Divisions to Monty's 21st Army Group and was practically the last one to cross over the Rhine with them
-Monty didn't destroy 90% of German Armor Allied Air Corps did.
Wipe Monty's cack out of your eye sockets you carnival barker.
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Monty was relieved because he was an in competant supposed FM who embellished his limp wristed efforts.You're only an authority on the electro-shock therapy you receive.
Your distortions are ludicrous postmortem to absolve the abrasive egomaniac.He bragged to the press he did great things even his own staff was motified at his morbid twist of the facts.Britain had many good soldiers but he wasn't one of them
"CONVERSATIONS WITH GENERAL J. LAWTON COLLINS,Transcribed By Major Gary Wade "Monty was a fine defensive fighter up to a certain point. But Monty's basic trouble was that he was a set-piece fighter, in contrast to George S. Patton. This was epitomized in the crossing of the Rhine.Monty was always waiting, waiting until he got everything in line. He wanted a great deal of artillery,American artillery mostly--American tanks, also. Then, when he got everything all set, he would pounce.But he always waited until he had "tidied up the battlefield"--his expression--which was his excuse for not doing anything. Monty was a good general, I've always said, but never a great one.
Page 438 from Ike & Monty ,Generals at War by Norman Gelb Montgomery had served the Allied cause well.But his egotism and irrepressible tactlessness did neither himself or Allied unity any good at a critical moment when important decisions affecting both him and it were about to be made.The military attache' at the American Embassy in London reported back to Washington "I have the strong impression that most British Officers,including many in the influential War Office are much less enthusiastic over Montgomery than is the British Public. Lord Ismay in the House of Commons expressed the wish that someone would "muzzle" or better still chloroform Monty. "I have come to the conclusion that his love of publicity is a disease,like alcoholism or taking drugs and that it sends him equally mad." The sorry fact is the British Press propped him up beyond his accomplishments & abilities otherwise he would have been sacked
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@johnpeate4544 More BS sources were left SHAEF AND Alan Brooke pointed right at Monty
This from a Dutch Poster
isn't it ironic that the biggest Rhine bifurcation was the WAAL at nijmegen and the 30crps effectively HAD crossed the Rhine and all they had to do is do the same as the Germans at ferry crossings:PUT TANKS ACROSS the rivers/canals and you were in free accessible German tank land !Only a small river Oude Ijssel at Doetinchem (which was there too after Market Garden )and go go go into das deutsche Reich?!
Yet NOTHING was established in the rest of 1944 .So tell me, how come?How come Germans were able to ferry tanks and troops over , under the ever watchfull RAF and Montgomery/Horrocks could NOT do the same ?Not in September, not in October and not in November
I like Atkinson to
The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed. Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
From The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 281 Montgomery monitored the battle through liaison officers and radio reports He had neither visited the battlefield at Market Garden nor seen his field commanders he was having his portrait painted,again and seemed intranced by the experience,boasting that his likeness would "create a tremendous sensation at next year's Academy."
Yet at 10:50 PM on wednesday he felt confident enough of the view from Brussels to cable Eisenhower: Things are going to work out alright ..the British airborne division at Arnhem has been having a bad time but their situation should be eased now that we can advance nothwards from Nijmegen to their support.There is a sporting chance that we should capture the bridge at Arnhem.
In the subsequent message to Brooke,he added, I regard the general situation on the rivers as now very satisfctory" This assessment was nothing less than hallucinatory
Despite the valor at Nijmegen,any "sporting chance" to take the Arnhem Bridge had passed.Things in Holland were not going to work out,even if the high command did not yet know it .As XXX Corps account later acknowledged "in front,on the flanks,and in the rear,all was not well."
From The Guns at Last Light,page 282,by Rick Atkinson The new bridgehead over the Waal failed to uncork failed to uncork the advance to Arnhem as Montgomery had hoped. After a 35 hr delay at Nijmegen,XXX Corps vanguard sat for another 18hrs .Enemy raids on Hell's Highway played hob:reinforcements from the 43rd Division took 3 days to travel 60 miles in reaching the Irish Guards and 82nd Airborne .Gavin concluded after 4 yrs british veterans were excessively cautious,nurturing what he called "Why die now" sentiments.He found Colonel Tucker in a farmhouse near the rail bridge seething at the delay. "What in the hell are they doing,why the hell don't they get on to Arnhem" Tucker demanded.
WELL THERE YOU HAVE IT
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John Burns you phoney - British author of Military History, Max Hastings, states the following in his recent book, The SECRET WAR, Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas 1939 -1945 referring to Field Marshal Montgomery on page 495 “The little British field-marshal’s neglect of crystal-clear intelligence, and of an important strategic opportunity, became a major cause of the Western Allied failure to break into the heart of Germany in 1944.
-The same overconfidence was responsible for the launch of the doomed airborne assault in Holland on 17 September, despite Ultra’s flagging of the presence near the drop zone of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, together with Field-Marshal Walter Model’s headquarters at Oosterbeek. Had ‘victory fever’ not blinded Allied commanders, common sense dictated that even drastically depleted SS panzers posed a mortal threat to lightly armed and mostly inexperienced British airborne units.
-Ultra on 14-15 September also showed the Germans alert to the danger of an airborne landing in Holland It was obvious that it would be a very hard to drive the British relief force 70 miles up a single Dutch road, with the surrounding countryside impassable for armor, unless the Germans failed to offer resistance. The decision to launch Operation Market Garden’ against this background was recklessly irresponsible, and the defeat remains a deserved blot on Montgomery’s reputation
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From Eisenhower & Montgomery ,Generals at War by Norman Gelb,page 409 There were many reasons why Montgomery was being effectively downgraded once more .*Eisenhower had no doubt any longer that his reputation as a battle-winning commander was greatly inflated.The experience at Caen,Antwerp,Arnhem and delays in following up the Ardennes assault and the excessively thorough build up for the Rhine crossing provided sufficient evidence for that General Whitely .IKE's British deputy chief of operations,said the feeling at Allied HQs "was that if anything was to be done quickly,don't give it to Monty. Monty was the last person that would be chosen to drive on Berlin - he would have needed 6 months to prepare".
The Eisenhower Papers,volume IV,by Edward Chandler By early September Montgomery and other Allied leaders thought the Wehrmacht was finished .It was this understanding that led Monty to insist on the Market-Garden Operation over the more mundane task of opening the port of Antwerp. He ignored Eisenhower's letter of Sept 4 assigning Antwerp as the primary mission for the Northern Group of Armies
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a406861.pdf
Yup an excerpt a gross underestimation of the enemy and a serious misjudgment of the terrain.”
1 Kirkpatrick later goes on to attempt to explain the intelligence failure by saying, “In the one week between the decision to mount the operation and the attack there was not time to collect additional information on the enemy forces in the area.”
2 This last statement of his is clearly incorrect based on the Ultra messages, and brings his first statement into question. After the fall of Antwerp to the British Second Army on 4 September 1944, Ultra began to provide a very clear picture of the German forces moving into Holland, the reorganization within their command structure, the repositioning of panzer divisions to Holland, and the fact that the Germans anticipated an Allied attack, possibly with airborne forces, towards either Arnhem or Aachen. The intelligence information was available; whether commanders were adequately warned of the risks to the operation is really the question, as well as whether intelligence failed during this operation
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Monty even admitted it,SHAEF and Alan Brooke and Admiral Ramsay pointed right at Monty.He was supposedly a Field Marshall,either demand your directives be followed or cancel the operation
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 198
Montgomery attributes the lack of full success to the fact that the II SS Panzer Corps was refitting in the area. "We knew it was there.....we were wrong in supposing that it could not fight effectively." Here,Montgomery was at the very least being economical with the truth.
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 196
Throughout September Montgomery had been most anxious to open the Channel ports to Allied supply,principally LaHavre,Boulogne and Calais.This he regarded as essential to his strategic plans..But he undertook Market Garden without these ports and with a supply line extending from his rear maintenance area around Bayeux directly to the divisions of second Army. The inadequacy of this arrangement led him to ask for more supplies.When he got them,he rescinded the delay in the launch of Market Garden and to Gen.Harry Crerar he wrote that he had won a "great victory" at SHAEF
Montgomery never requested more transport for his divisions..He got all the logistical support he requested with only minor delays.The truth was that the operation was too ambitious .In launching it with a tenuous supply line,no reserve build up of supplies,a shortage of ground transport and both VIII & XII Corps not ready at the start,Montgomery's professionalism had deserted him
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Complaints go up orders come down.Whatever Brerton did or didn't do was approved by who? A certain FM who evidently was AWOL.Again Burnhole Pierre.None of the objectives were met you knob.And has been pointed out this was Monty's brainchild .You know it, I know it ,your fookin' Mouse pad knows it.
Excerpt FromThe Brereton Diaries: The War In The Air In The Pacific, Middle East And Europe 11 September 1941-8 May 1945“There were several undesirable features of MARKET. General Browning, who had been charged with planning for MARKET with the 21st Army Group, informed me that at *General Montgomery’s insistence he had virtually agreed to drop the 101st Airborne Division in seven separate areas along an axis 30 miles in length to seize key crossings. I objected to this because such dispersion destroys the tactical integrity of a division, presents an insurmountable supply problem, and renders the smaller groups susceptible to being destroyed in detail without accomplishing the mission I decided that General Taylor, commanding the 101st Airborne Division, would see General Montgomery about a more concentrated landing. If, after the disadvantages of the first maneuver have been explained to General Montgomery, he still insists, we will go in as planned.
Excerpt FromThe Brereton Diaries: The War In The Air In The Pacific, Middle East And Europe, 3 October 1941-8 May 1945 Lieutenant-General Lewis H. Brereton It absolutely was a plea to change the order A division commander would not fly to the continent in wartime four days prior to a major operation for a purely social visit
-Monty wasn't there to direct while an actual Field Marshall Model and Air Borne General Student were in fact conducting a clinic on effective modern mobile warfare
-The V-2s were still being launched
-The deep sea port of Antwerp was still closed that was needed for supplies
-Over 17,000 crack allied Paras were lost.
-The Dutch people suffered reprisals from the hunger winter in 22,000 of their citizens died of starvation and disease.
-Many young Dutchmen were sent to work as slave laborers in defense industry in the Reich
-Allies never made Arnhem much less Berlin as your hero bragged
-Monty would not cross the Rhine for 6 more months and that was with the help of Simpson 9th US Army
-Bernard,Prince of the Netherlands said later "My country can never again afford the luxury of another Montgomery success
The berk's top general didn't like the plan From Carlo D'este,Decision in Normandy From the outset Market Garden was a prescription for trouble that was plagued by mistakes,over sights,false assertions and out right arrogance.It's success hinged on a slender thread attack & its execution would prove disastrously complex British ground commander Miles Dempsey was sufficiently concerned that he recommended the drop be made near Wessel.Which would enable*1st Army to block a German counter attack.His proposal was never seriously considered or his concerns addressed
Nor did his Chief of Staff - can't make this up I tell you
Max Hastings,Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 Freddie de Guingand Monty's Chief of Staff telephoned him saying the operation would be launched too late to exploit German disarray.That XXX Corps push to Arnhem would being made on a narrow front along one road,Monty ignored him
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No it didn't limp bizkit good excuse to get the pratt off the hook
Beevor's Arnhem is the single most exhaustive and one of the best sourced of the books on Operation Market Garden that I've read - .Cornelius Ryan has probably talked to as many of the actual combatants as anyone.Kershaws "It Never Snows in September" covers the German perspective,they basically agree it is the fault of the so called Field Marshall Montgomery failed foreray. It is written with the benefits of an exhaustive research of the British, American, Dutch and German records, the book provides amazing detail to "The Bridge Too Far" in Arnhem, Nethlerlands.
The whole plan suffered from the plain fact that it relied on a single road of attack by the British XXX Corps where going off the road was a near impossibility due to the wet, boggy polders, obvious to anyone who has spent any time in The Netherlands (they rarely use fences in pastures as a dug ditch will quickly fill with water creating a natural barrier). The failure to listen to Dutch military personnel about the geographical defeat of the plan was just another in a string of Montgomery ego led disasters.
The utter evil -- absolutely barbaric and shocking to the conscious -- actions of the Nazi SS, the German commanders in The Netherlands, the Dutch SS and the average German soldier are properly detailed and the Dutch people would rightly demand a fuller accounting of the barbarous actions during those months. The author thoroughly explores the lack of planning by Montgomery and Browning, the willful self delusion of Montgomery borne from an ego that held little regard for the futility and needless death of British and American troops.
Reluctantly and very mistakenly Eisenhower put American Divisions under the command of the British General Montgomery in what turned out to be the greatest loss of any American Airborne Division -- before or since. Montgomery should be a national disgrace to the British, that is clear. Eisenhower began acting as a politician in deferring to Monty's superhuman ego, and abdicated his role as general commanding in a war.
The greatest suffering was then endured by the Dutch people. Epic in its tragedy. A lesson in failed leadership by the British and American commanding generals. A shock and outrage to the conscious in the inhumanity and pure evil of the German army. A story that needs to be retold -- and very well done.
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HOLLYWOOD Films? yawning,this makes me sleepy
♦Hollywood wasn't there when 198,000 Tommies got tossed into the Channel - Monty was.
♦Hollywood didn't make 81,000 Tommies surrender at Singapore,
♦Hollywood didn't sign a deal with The Reich annexing the Czech Republic - Britain did.
♦Hollywood didn't tell Britain to not cross the 30 mile channel after getting driven into it,for 4 full years after Dunkirk.
♦Hollywood never showed up at Market Garden,neither did Monty
♦Hollywood didn't fill ship after ship with tanks,trucks,,halftracks,men,material,munitions, planes,provisions,food,fuel for the duration of the war to prop up the crown.
♦Hollywood didn't promise that Caen would be taken in D+1,Monty did and finally took it 43 days later.
♦Hollywood didn't promise before Market Garden that they'd go to Berlin and didn't even make it to Arnhem,Monty did
♦Hollywood didn't give 16 U.S.Divisions to Monty's 21st Army Group and was practically the last one to cross over the Rhine with them
♦Monty didn't destroy 90% of German Armor Allied Air Corps did.
All sad but expected.Say cross over the Channel and ask the Europeans shouldn't take you 4 Full Years like it did Monty
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The Lorraine campaign lasted from 1 Sep to Dec, not just 9 days, 6,657 were killed over 3 months and they took 75,000 German PoWs, compared with 17,000 casualties at Market Garden in just 9 days (which was more than the invasion of Normandy) including nearly 2,000 Brits and Poles killed before taking the American killed into account. Market Garden had nearly 3 times the casualties per day. Op Queen and the Hurtgen Forest battles (of which Queen was part) were costly failures, also, but the same argument applies - the period was far longer and the average losses less together with much higher Axis casualties and PoWs and they do not turn Market Garden into a success. Market Garden was a failure.
Look at a map I don't think you get it - where the hell do think they were going to punch thru?THEY HAD TO FIGHT THRU - that is why it's called a war. Stalin himself pointed this out to Churchill at Tehran and accused the British of stalling - look that up. Patton wasn't going to leave 90,000 Landsers behind him at Metz that fell to 3rd Army. Unlike Monty in the Netherlands who took 6 more months to cross the Rhine. Where he had to go back and open up the port of Antwerp on November 28th. Actually he didn't the Canadians did,and Bernard din't leave them either enough men or materiel as that was wasted on the lopsided loons single thrust
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Montgomery never halted the rocket attacks nor did he cross the rhine for 6 more months. And nobody pressured Winston into installing Monty when much better officers had already won in the Desert.Both O'Connor and Auchinleck. His real intent was to get headlines and beat the Americans across.He didn't do that either but got even mor men butchered with Operation Victory.
From ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p,29 A merger over all would have permitted a more efficient allocation of air transport assets.This was a matter of some urgency,given that the British were becoming increasing reliant upon USAAF resources owing to the on going failure of the Air Ministry to supply sufficient aircraft and personnel to lift more than a fraction of the British Airborne force
From ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p46 the shortage of navigators was so acute that only 4 out of 10 C-47 crews used on the D-Day drop included one,usually flying at the head of the serial. The situation didn't improve by September 1944. the key issue was lack of natural illumination, the 1st airlifts into Normandy involved 900 C-47s and gliders .MARKET envisioned doing the same with around 1,600 flights,with inexperienced and partially trained air crews in the total darkness of a no moon period would have been suicidal Williams insistence on a single lift per day and Brereton's acceptance of it may have been less than ideal,but it was the only realistic option in the prevailing circumstances. (Because of a shortage of navigators on longer flights with much shorter
days)
From ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p49 Major General Richard Gale who converted the British Airborne from a small group of Raiders into a conventional parachute brigade in confidence told Major G.G.Norton in the '70s then curator of the Airborne Forces Museum "that he would rather have resigned his command than execute MARKET as it was foisted on Urquhart" .It is unclear if Gale made his views clear to Browning at the time
From ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p,490-491 Launching Market in a no moon period ruled out a night landing and lack of illumination was also a factor in restricting flight operations.The allied airlift lacked sufficient navigators and trained crews.The post Overlord expansion of aircraft numbers created a shortage of ground crews to service,refuel and repair the aircraft in the time available.There was insufficient transport aircraft to move all three Air Born Divisions simultaneously in their entirety. *Browning was essentially powerless owing to the total control the RAF exercised over the planning and delivery process*However he was connected to a number of errors and these were largely committed because of personal ambition.
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'21st Army Group was one of the formations that received ULTRA intelligence. The Chief of Intelligence, Brigadier Bill Williams, was sufficiently concerned about the presence of 2nd SS Panzer Corps, and more particularly that of 9th SS Panzer Division north of Arnhem, that he drew it to the attention of Montgomery on 10 September, after the latter's meetings with Dempsey and Eisenhower on that day. He failed, however, to persuade Montgomery to alter his plans for the airborne landings at Arnhem. Undaunted, Williams tried again two days later with the support of Brigadier General Staff (Operations) in Montgomery's headquarters, who was standing in as Chief of Staff in the absence of Major General Francis de Guingand who was on sick leave. Unfortunately, their warnings fell on deaf ears.
Alan Brooke's own words
"Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alan Brooke, entry for 5 October 1944:Page 219" During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay. I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely...."
Or Bernard himself after the War admitting it
The Guns at Last Light, by Rick Atkinson, page 303 Even Field Marshall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks, even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway" Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war, conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
From a PHD at King's College who also notes Ramsay/Brooke warned Monty about the Scheldt Estuary
Eisenhower's Armies ,by Dr Niall Barr ,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden, Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign. Alan Brooke was present as an observer, noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary, followed by an advance on the Rhine, the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin. After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticized Montgomery freely, Brooke was moved to write, I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem
How about Air Marshall Tedder
With Prejudice, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander AEF, Page 599" Eisenhower assumed, as he and I had done all along, that whatever happened Montgomery would concentrate on opening up Antwerp. No one could say that we had not emphasized the point sufficiently by conversation and signal
How about Monty's Chief of Staff
Max Hastings, Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 Freddie de Guingand Monty's Chief of Staff telephoned him saying the operation would be launched too late to exploit German disarray. That XXX Corps push to Arnhem would being made on a narrow front along one road,Monty ignored him
How about IKE's/Allied HQ Chief of Staff Bedell-Smith
Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany,1944-45 The release of the files from German Signals by Bletchley Park conclusively showed that the 9th & 10th Panzer Divisions were re-fitting in the Arnhem area. With their Recon Battalions intact. Yet when Bedel-Smith(SHAEF) brought this to Monty's attention "he ridiculed the idea and waved my objections airly aside"
How about IKE's Private Papers?
The Eisenhower Papers, volume IV, by Edward Chandler By early September Montgomery and other Allied leaders thought the Wehrmacht was finished . It was this understanding that led Monty to insist on the Market-Garden Operation over the more mundane task of opening the port of Antwerp. He ignored Eisenhower's letter of Sept 4 assigning Antwerp as the primary mission for the Northern Group of Armies
And of course Admiral Ramsay who knew a deep water port was needed
From Ardennes 1944,By Sir Antony Beevor, page 14 Sir Bertram Ramsey ,Allied Naval commander-in-chief had told SHAEF and Monty that the Germans could block the Scheldt Estuary with ease. The mistake lay with Monty, who was not interested in the estuary and thought the Canadians could clear it later
Try looking up Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert who took over 20 yrs to finish the 8 volumes on Winston's life Road to Victory, Winston Churchill 1941-45,by Martin Gilbert A British War cabinet memo suggested that the appointment of Monty was from the point of view of it's reception by public opinion. Apparently that clinched the War Cabinet's vote for Montgomery; based strictly on military accomplishments, the case for him was very weak
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Pretty much accumulative history not by actual scholars accessing military archives and of course these guys
Arnhem.Jumping the Rhine in 1944 and 1945. By Lloyd Clark, page 333 Tom Hoare, who fought with the 3rd Para at Arnhem may be said to reflect a commonly held perception of OMG, (or Field Marshall Montgomery’s fiasco,as he calls it) when he writes:'It is my opinion that Monty was a great soldier, but he had a even greater ego. When victory was in sight for the Allies, he degenerated into nothing more than a glory seeker. With little regard for the welfare or indeed the lives of his men of the British 1st Airborne Division, he threw the division away in an insane attempt to go down in history as the greatest military leader of the Second World War.’
From Armageddon - The Battle for Germany,1944-45 by Max Hastings,page 50 Jack Reynolds and his unit,the South Staffords,were locked into the long,messy,bloody battle.There was no continuous front,no coherent plan,merely a series of uncoordinated collisions between rival forces in woods,fields,gardens and streets. That is when it got home to me.What a very bad operation this was The scale dropped from my eyes when I realized just how far from our objective we've landed.We knew what even a handful of Germans could do - they were so damned efficient.
As Bob Peatling of the 2 Para said "Marshall Montgomery dropped a clanger at Arnhem"
Maj. Freddie Hennessy the operations officer of the Guards Armored Division which was in the vanguard of the push up the road, compared advancing sixty-four miles on a narrow highway over several major water crossings to “threading seven needles with one piece of cotton, and we only have to miss one to be in trouble.”
"He had made an awful mistake. I didn't like him at all." - Leo Major, the most decorated Canadian soldier of WWII pages 2 and 3 https://web.archive.org/web/20150204042341/http://www2.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94&p=2
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Ah another of Monty's apologists pokes his head out of Monty's backside to explain why Monty was not responsible for the failure of Monty's plan.
Seems like Monty forgot that basic fact of Warfare. The commander who underestimates his enemy ( especially when his own intelligence apparatus is ringing alarm bells ) is a fool.The subordinate commanders did not plan the over all operation, Monty did.Stop fetching history from the Cornhole ChroniclesThe dweeb bragged he had all the supplies he was going to get to General Crerar. Here you go from Crerar himself
From A Magnificent Disaster,by David Bennett,page 196 Throughout September Montgomery had been most anxious to open the Channel ports to Allied supply,principally LaHavre,Boulogne and Calais.This he regarded as essential to his strategic plans..But he undertook Market Garden without these ports and with a supply line extending from his rear maintenance area around Bayeux directly to the divisions of second Army. The inadequacy of this arrangement led him to ask for more supplies.When he got them,he rescinded the delay in the launch of Market Garden and to Gen.Harry Crerar he wrote that he had won a "great victory" at SHAEF Montgomery never requested more transport for his divisions .He got all the logistical support he requested with only minor delays.The truth was that the operation was too ambitious .In launching it with a tenuous supply line,no reserve build up of supplies,a shortage of ground transport and both VIII & XII Corps not ready at the start,Montgomery's professionalism had deserted him
Marshall,IKE and SHAEF were done catering to the pathetic Pedo.Patton out performed him standing still - literally.LOOK Here
From My Three Years With Eisenhower,by Capt.Harry C.Butcher,p.675 - Sept 24,1944,Monty had been pressing for more supplies to 21st Army Group. IKE informed Monty that he had given preference to the left flank(21st Army) through out the campaign Including the attachments of Air Borne and everything to assure the maintenance.On the other hand all other forces had been fighting with a halter around their necks with respect to supplies. IKE illustrated that for 4 days straight Patton had been receiving serious counter attacks,yet in 7 days without attempting to any real advance 3rd Army captured 9,000 prisoners and knocked out 270 tanks
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That''s a fact how about Alan Brooke and Admiral Ramsay you twisted tosser.What kind of idiot would disagree with these men.Monty even admitted he faffed it up,shit on any dead GIs lately Vile?
From a PHD at King's College who lectured @ Sandhurst
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden,Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign.Alan Brooke was present as an observer,noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary,followed by an advance on the Rhine,the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin.After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticised Montgomery freely Brooke was moved to write I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem
From a Pulitzer Prize Winner
From The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed. Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding *"a bad mistake on my part"
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Again for the special education unit Burns is in
From The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 281 Montgomery monitored the battle through liaison officers and radio reports.He had neither visited the battlefield at Market Garden nor seen his field commanders; he was having his portrait painted,again and seemed intranced by the experience,boasting that his likeness would "create a tremendous sensation at next year's Academy."Yet at 10:50 PM on wednesday he felt confident enough of the view from Brussels to cable Eisenhower: Things are going to work out alright...the British airborne division at Arnhem has been having a bad time but their situation should be eased now that we can adv- ance nothwards from Nijmegen to their support.There is a sporting chance that we should capture the bridge at Arnhem. In the subsequent message to Brooke,he added, "I regard the general situation on the rivers as now very satisfctory" This assessment was nothing less than hallucinatory.Despite the valor at Nijmegen,any "sporting chance" to take the Arnhem Bridge had passed.Things in Holland were not going to work out,even if the high command did not yet know it .As XXX Corps account later acknowledged,"in front,on the flanks,and in the rear,all was not well."
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the berk's top general didn't like the plan From Carlo D'este,Decision in Normandy From the outset Market Garden was a prescription for trouble that was plagued by mistakes,over sights,false assertions and out right arrogance.It's success hinged on a slender thread attack & its execution would prove disastrously complex
British ground commander Miles Dempsey was sufficiently concerned that he recommended the drop be made near Wessel.Which would enable*1st Army to block a German counter attack.His proposal was never seriously considered or his concerns addressed
Nor did his Chief of Staff - can't make this up I tell you Max Hastings Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 Freddie de Guingand Monty's Chief of Staff telephoned him saying the operation would be launched too late to exploit German disarray.That XXX Corps push to Arnhem would being made on a narrow front along one road,Monty ignored him
The Village Ass keeps refuting himself with the stupidity of his own statements.None of the objectives were met you knob
-Monty wasn't there to direct while an actual Field Marshall Model and Air Borne General Student were in fact conducting a clinic on effective modern mobile warfare
-The V-2s were still being launched
-The deep sea port of Antwerp was still closed that was needed for supplies
-Over 17,000 crack allied Paras were lost.
-The Dutch people suffered reprisals from the hunger winter in 22,000 of their citizens died of starvation and disease.
-Many young Dutchmen were sent to work as slave laborers in defense industry in the Reich
-Allies never made Arnhem much less Berlin as your hero bragged
-Monty would not cross the Rhine for 6 more months and that was with the help of Simpson 9th US Army
-Bernard,Prince of the Netherlands said later "My country can never again afford the luxury of another Montgomery success
British author of Military History, Max Hastings, states the following in his book, The SECRET WAR, Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas 1939 -1945 referring to Field Marshal Montgomery on page 495 “The little British field-marshal’s neglect of crystal-clear intelligence and of an important strategic opportunity, became a major cause of the Western Allied failure to break into the heart of Germany in 1944.The same overconfidence was responsible for the launch of the doomed airborne assault in Holland on 17 September, despite Ultra’s flagging of the presence near the drop zone of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, together with Field-Marshal Walter Model’s headquarters at Oosterbeek.
Had ‘victory fever’ not blinded Allied commanders, common sense dictated that even drastically depleted SS panzers posed a mortal threat to lightly armed and mostly inexperienced British airborne units. Ultra on 14-15 September also showed the Germans alert to the danger of an airborne landing in Holland It was obvious that it would be a very hard to drive the British relief force 70 miles up a single Dutch road, with the surrounding countryside impassable for armor, unless the Germans failed to offer resistance. The decision to launch Operation Market Garden’ against this background was recklessly irresponsible, and the defeat remains a deserved blot on Montgomery’s reputation
OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN: ULTRA
INTELLIGENCE IGNORED
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a406861.pdf
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Arnhem.Jumping the Rhine in 1944 and 1945. By Lloyd Clark, page 333 Tom Hoare, who fought with the 3rd Para at Arnhem may be said to reflect a commonly held perception of OMG, (or Field Marshall Montgomery’s fiasco,as he calls it) when he writes:'It is my opinion that Monty was a great soldier, but he had a even greater ego. When victory was in sight for the Allies, he degenerated into nothing more than a glory seeker. With little regard for the welfare or indeed the lives of his men of the British 1st Airborne Division, he threw the division away in an insane attempt to go down in history as the greatest military leader of the Second World War.’
From Armageddon - The Battle for Germany,1944-45 by Max Hastings,page 50 Jack Reynolds and his unit,the South Staffords,were locked into the long,messy,bloody battle.There was no continuous front,no coherent plan,merely a series of uncoordinated collisions between rival forces in woods,fields,gardens and streets. That is when it got home to me.What a very bad operation this was The scale dropped from my eyes when I realized just how far from our objective we've landed.We knew what even a handful of Germans could do - they were so damned efficient.
As Bob Peatling of the 2 Para said "Marshall Montgomery dropped a clanger at Arnhem"
Maj. Freddie Hennessy the operations officer of the Guards Armored Division which was in the vanguard of the push up the road, compared advancing sixty-four miles on a narrow highway over several major water crossings to “threading seven needles with one piece of cotton, and we only have to miss one to be in trouble.”
"He had made an awful mistake. I didn't like him at all." Leo Major, the most decorated Canadian soldier of WWII pages 2 and 3 https://web.archive.org/web/20150204042341/http://www2.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94&p=2
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Thicko since 2018 when i arrived i've presented these to you evidently you are troll or have the attention span of a goat.
From a PHD at King's College who also notes Ramsay/Brooke warned Monty about the Scheldt Estuary
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden,Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign.Alan Brooke was present as an observer,noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary,followed by an advance on the Rhine,the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin. After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticised Montgomery freely, Brooke was moved to write, I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem
How about Air Marshall Tedder
With Prejudice, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander AEF, Page 599 "Eisenhower assumed, as he and I had done all along, that whatever happened Montgomery would concentrate on opening up Antwerp. No one could say that we had not emphasized the point sufficiently by conversation and signal
The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed
Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
So Monty admitting it,Brooke/Ramsay/Tedder - all senior British/SHAEF officers pointing right at him presented to you yet again hasn't sunk in?
Why don't you ask these guys
Barrie Rodliffe joined 26 Sept 2013
Giovanni Pierre joined 28 Sept 2013
John Peate joined 28 Sept 2013
John Burns joined 07 Nov 2013
John Cornell joined 13 Nov 2013
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Coincidence I'm sure,of course it is 🤣
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Little Villa for 4 yrs - FOUR YEARS I've left direct quotes from these Officers below who unlike your boy Wilmont were at Allied HQ meetings. You can even move your lips as you read if that helps
I should be charging you for this
Alan Brooke's own words and Monty admitting it from his memoirs.Rick Atkinson a Pullitzer Prize Winner even chimes in,where as we know you just pull it
"Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, entry for 5 October 1944:Page 219" During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay.I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely...."
The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
From a PHD at King's College who also notes Ramsay/Brooke warned Monty about the Scheldt Estuary
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden,Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign.Alan Brooke was present as an observer,noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary,followed by an advance on the Rhine,the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin. After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticised Montgomery freely,Brooke was moved to write, I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem
How about Air Marshall Tedder
With Prejudice, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander AEF, Page 599" Eisenhower assumed, as he and I had done all along, that whatever happened Montgomery would concentrate on opening up Antwerp. No one could say that we had not emphasized the point sufficiently by conversation and signal
How about Monty's Chief of Staff
Max Hastings,Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 Freddie de Guingand Monty's Chief of Staff telephoned him saying the operation would be launched too late to exploit German disarray.That XXX Corps push to Arnhem would being made on a narrow front along one road,Monty ignored him.
How about IKE's/Allied HQ Chief of Staff Bedell-Smith
Max Hastings,Armageddon:The Battle for Germany,1944-45 The release of the files from German Signals by Bletchley Park conclusively showed that the 9th & 10th Panzer Divisions were re-fitting in the Arnhem area.With their Recon Battalions intact. Yet when Bedel-Smith(SHAEF) brought this to Monty's attention "he ridiculed the idea and waved my objections airly aside"
How about IKE's Private Papers?
The Eisenhower Papers,volume IV,by Edward Chandler* By early September Montgomery and other Allied leaders thought the Wehrmacht was finished . *It was this understanding that led Monty to insist on the Market-Garden Operation over the more mundane task of opening the port of Antwerp.He ignored Eisenhower's letter of Sept 4 assigning Antwerp as the primary mission for the Northern Group of Armies
And of course Admiral Ramsay who knew a deep water port was needed
From Ardennes 1944,By Sir Antony Beevor,page 14 Sir Bertram Ramsey ,Allied Naval commander-in-chief had told SHAEF and Monty that the Germans could block the Scheldt Estuary with ease. The mistake lay with Monty,who was not interested in the estuary and thought the Canadians could clear it later
Try looking up Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert who took over 20 yrs to finish the 8 volumes on Winston's life
Road to Victory,Winston Churchill 1941-45,by Martin Gilbert A British War cabinet memo suggested that the appointment of Monty was from the point of view of it's reception by public opinion. Apparently that clinched the War Cabinet's vote for Montgomery;based strictly on military accomplishments,the case for him was very weak
Please copy/paste/cache to avoid further delusion on your part or have the nurses there at the center do it for you. You can even share it with the poster above,whom you seem to think gives a shit what you scribble
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No Bradley later blamed Monty in his second book,Ike again aqcuiesced to the rube for political considerations/pressure from up top - that is clear.And if Ike didn't know shit like Monty bragged how would he have known what he did was so brilliant.And try book/author/page no ya know kind of helps with the credibility aspect
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page 30 Dr Forrest C.Pogue,interviews,US Army Military Institute,1947 On the evening of August 12 Gen.Bradley called Gen. Montgomery's HQ requesting to send Gen Haislips XV Corps north to the boundary at Argentan toward Falaise.Bradley's request was denied' Montgomery's staff officer Brigadier E.T.Williams said he was in Freddie DeGuingand's truck near Bayreaux when Bradley's call went through;"Monty said tell Bradley they ought to get back.Bradley was indignant.We were indignant on Bradley's behalf...Monty missed closing the sack Bradley,Deguingand and Williams argued in favor of the Americans moving north to Argentan to close the gap,but Monty would not change his mind
Major General Francis De Guingand confirms this statement in his own book, "Operation Victory." "My impressions at the time were that Montgomery had been a little to optimistic about the probable progress of 21st Army Group... It is just possible that the gap might have been closed a little earlier if no restrictions had been imposed upon the 12th Army Group Bradley as to the limit of his northward movement." Francis De Guingand, Operation Victory," p. 407 Since De Guingand was unaware of any discussions Eisenhower and Bradley may have had, the order limiting Bradley's northward movement must have come from Montgomery.
see after they were free from the runt's mismanagements they blast him,almost every officer did
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From D-Day,The Battle for Normandy,p 306 On July 14th Montgomery wrote to Field marshall Alan Brooke saying that "the time has come to have a real Showdown on the eastern flank". Then the very next day he gave Dempsey and O'Connor a revised directive.This was more modest in it's objectives.He wanted to advance only a 3rd of the way to Falaise and then see how things stood.This may have well been more realistic assessment of what was possible, yet Monty never told Eisenhower and he never informed his own 21st Army HQ. The consequences would be disasterous for Montgomery's reputation and credibility
From D-Day,The Battle for Normandy,p 319 - at 1600 hrs Monty signaled Field Marshall Brooke operations this morning a complete success the effect of the bombing decisive and the spectacle terrific.......situation very promising and it is difficult to see what the enemy can do at the present Few enemy tanks met so far and no,repeat no mines" He went on to claim quite erroneously that the 11th armored had reached Tilly-la-Campagne,and that the Guars Armored had taken Vimont .It was one thing to to have mislead Brooke,but he had issued a similar commonuque to the BBC and gave a press conference .One of Montgomery's Brigadiers he talked to the assembled journalists "like children".This was to produce a bitter backlash. TheBritish lost nearly 200 tanks that day.Fortunately there were 500 in reserve
From D-Day,The Battle for Normandy,p 320-21 Gen.Eberbach was concerned by the gap between Troarn and Emieville'.Luckily for him the British had not spotted."The enmy needed only to march in that direction then there would have been a breakthrough" Once the darkness had fell according to Eberbach,"the British continued to stay immobile,as if a miricale had happened" Field Marshall Brooke flew to France at midday,when he saw Monty after lunch he "found him in grand form and delighted with his success east of Caen".Perhaps Monty was putting on a brave front.The gulf between the claims he made before the operations began and the reality of the situation revealed after his press conference was becoming a major embarrassment.Journalists thru back at him what they had been told before the offensive. On July 20 Operation Goodwood was called off officially. For the troops who had taken part the situation was a bitter disappointment after all the promises
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Sorry churchill almost removed him for not only being ineffective but not reporting events accurately to cover up his mistakes and lack of accomplishments
D-Day,The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor,p183-84 Any thought of pivoting on Caen as Montgomery had claimed,had become impossible in the 1st few days a pattern of attrition had been established. Monty had to change his approach,although he refused to admit this later.On June 11 after a meeting with Bradley Monty wrote DeGuingand that his objective "was to pull the germans on to 2nd Army so that the US 1st Army could extend & expand. this rather more modest assessment was hardly in keeping with his earlier pugnacious declarations! Inaction and a defensive mentality are criminal in any officer - however Senior He had told this to senior Officers 2 months before the invasion and "Every officer & man must be enthusiastic for the fight and have the light of battle in his eyes
The problem was that Montgomery partly for reasons of morale partly for pride could not admit that any of his plans had gone wrong. He created resentment among his colleages by claiming that he always intended to pull the bulk of the Panzer Divisions on to his front,to give the Americans the great chance of a break out.
D-Day,The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor,p195 There had been mutterings about the uselessness of British Tanks before the Invasion.Colonel Lord Cranley was obliged to address the men on the subject.he was quite aware of of the faults in out tanks "but,it's no good grousing as we would get no others so we make the best of things".The diary of a Britsh officer in Hinde's brigade read on Sunday june 11 "the squadron left to try to take a position and had to return rapidly losing 4 tanks. After 4 years of preparation for the invasion why are our tanks so inferior"
D-Day,The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor,p229 Eisenhower was fuming with impatience,yet Monty refused to be hurried and 21st Army HQ provided SHAEF with little information.Montgomery had mentioned to Dempsey on quite a few occasions "there's no need to tell IKE". Monty liked to keep objectives vague,often with metaphors,so if there was a breakout he could claim credit for it and if the operation ran into the sand he could say that they had simply been tying down the German forces to help out the Americans
From D-Day,The Battle for Normandy,page 234-35 Eisenhower's frustration with Montgomery is not hard to understand.The confident messages had been sending out about a "showdown" simply did not tally with the truth.
From D-Day,The Battle for Normandy,page 263-264 The slowness of Monty's attack in Normandy was one of Ike's chief concerns.Eisenhower even had spoken to Churchill about it while the battle was in full swing. Air Chief Marshall Tedder and Air Marshall Coningham even discussed the possibility of having Montgomery relieved .Conningham who commanded the Tactical Air Force supporting 21st Army Group,had loathed Montgomery since the North African campaign.He had never been able to forgive Montgomery's compulsion to take all the credit .Now they were infuriated by Mongomery's pretence that his strategy was proceeding according to plan when he had manifestly failed to take the ground needed for airfields.
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Go away kid your British and obviously being nationalistic Patton schooled your hero on Sicily and the anemic Mark Clark even out performed the proven berk in italy.Neither of those men got driven off off the continent or waited 4 yrs to come back but had to come 3,500 miles to escort the plodding Monty across.Tell your stories to Europe who saw those backsides beating it up the gangplanks at Dunkirk having to cover the retreat.Your PM emphatically begged and cajoled the POTUS to get involved in fact stated when asked how he planned to win the war - "I shall drag in the United States".Since you obviously don't go to the Library here's what you'll find if you did
All these men were there
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 254 In terms of the Anglo-American divide the Sicilian episode demonstrated that antagonism was not confined to American officers. Montgomery's behavior made enemies of Admiral Cunningham and Air Marshall Tedder as well as their staffs.The much vaunted rivalry between Patton and Montgomery was minor compared to the depths hostility that had developed with the Royal Air Force*Tedder told Patton that Monty was "a little fellow of average ability who has had such a build up that he thinks of himself as Napoleon - he is not"
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page 319
Montgomery's irrational behavior at the Falaise Gap was also influenced by what Canadian General Henry Crerar called ".... the Englishman's traditional belief in the superiority of the Englishman..." Yet with the notable exception of the allies decisive November 1942 victory at El Alamein,where air cover and naval blockade of German supplies,plus ULTRA weighed heavily - the battlefield records of the “combat experienced” British commanders prior to mid-1944 featured little to brag about
From With Prejudice, Air Marshall Tedder,p.586 Eisenhower's firm commitment to the Anglo-American Alliance dominated his thinking. He handled Allied disagreements in Normandy, at the Falaise Gap and for Market-Garden the same way. Eisenhower was determined to protect the facade of Allied unity at the highest levels of the Allied command in spite of Montgomery's insubordination which was motivated by both personal and political objectives. Eisenhower's efforts to cover up Montgomery's lies in Normandy drew praise from his British second in command, Lord Tedder: "One of the most disturbing features of the campaign ... had been the uninhibited boosting at home (England) of the British Army at the expense of the Americans. I ... fear that this process was sowing the seeds of a grave split between the Allies. For the moment, the Americans were being extremely reticent and generous, largely on account of Eisenhower's fine attitude."
The Rommel Papers,by B.H.Liddell Hart,pages 360-61 "Montgomery risked nothing in any way and bold solutions are completely foreign to him.He would never take the risk of following up boldy and over running us.He could have done it with out any danger to himself.Indeed such a course would have cost him fewer losses in the long run than his methodical insistence on overwhelming superiority in each tactical action,which he could only obtain at the cost of speed"
Patton:A Genius for War,By Carlo D'Este After the War General Fritz Bayerlein commander of Panzer Lehr Division and the Afrika Corp.He assessed the escape of Rommel's Panzers after Alamein "I do not think General Patton would have let us get away so easily" said Bayerlein .Comparing Patton with Guderian and Montgomery with Von Rundstedt
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page320 The poor performance of the British 2nd Army in Normandy had tied Monty's hands. He did not expect the Germans to be that good. But when the Americans broke the German lines at St Lo instead of turning the Americans loose on the open German flank,Montgomery stopped the Americans at Argentan and sent them North east to Paris-orleans gap.There were simply too many bitter pills on Montgomery's desk.
From Ike & Monty ,Generals at War by Norman Gelb,p 438 Montgomery had served the Allied cause well during the Battle of the Bulge.But his egotism and irrepressible tactlessness did neither himself or Allied unity any good at a critical moment when important decisions affecting both him and it were about to be made.The military attache' at the American Embassy in London reported back to Washington "I have the strong impression that most British Officers,including many in the influential War Office are much less enthusiastic over Montgomery than is the British Public*. *Lord Ismay in the House of Commons expressed the wish that someone would "muzzle" or better still chloroform Monty. "I have come to the conclusion that his love of publicity is a disease,like alcoholism or taking drugs and that it sends him equally mad."
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Um No Monty was suppose to capture messina, and block the straight but as is well known after Palermo Patton had to take Messina also
From The Battle of the Generals,by Martin Blumenson,p.61 "on the northern shore of Sicily,Patton drove his units to Messina, They reached the city several hours before the British appeared on the scene .Patton proved their merit and excellent ability in combat.
From The Battle of the Generals,by Martin
Blumenson,p 62-63* Montgomery's 8th Army crossed the Straight of Messina from Sicliy to the Italian toe,then made slow progress in the mountainous terrain.A British Division was ferried to the heel,where Italians helped the soldiers disembark.Clark's 5th U.S. Army assaulted the beaches around Salerno. The Germans massed against Clark and came close to driving his men from the shore .As the battle raged 2 conditions quite apart from the combat infuriated Clark.
-First instead of hurrying up the Italian boot to help Clark,Montgomery seemed to dawdle in the toe,making at best a leisurely advance,pausing from time to time to rest and reorganise his troops.
- Second,a public relations office in Alexanders headquarters,which issued periodic advisories to guide news paper coorespondents called for them to "play up" Montgomery. A letter from Montgomery several days later hardly improved Clark's disposition. "it looks as if you may be having not too good a time," Monty had written, "and I do hope that all will go well with you.We are on the way to lend a hand".Clark replied in sarcastic fashion "it will be a pleasure to see you again at an early date" and then added "please accept my appreciation for your assistance by your skillful and rapid advance". But then Clark added "situation here well in hand" Clark's army won his battle at Salerno and opened up the toe for Montgomery .As the Germans withdrew slowly to the North
so in Italy the 47 yr old Mark Clark took Salerno,Naples & Rome and Monty lost Palermo/Messina to Patton in Sicily. See what happens when he wasn't given preference even though Alexander gave him the inside roads in Sicily
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Glowing tributes,LMAO,by the ill informed,O'Connor,Auchinleck,Slim,Tedder,Ramsey,Conningham,Adml Cunningham - all infinitely better officers than the bragging laggard
Arnhem.Jumping the Rhine in 1944 and 1945. By Lloyd Clark, page 333. Tom Hoare, who fought with the 3rd Para at Arnhem may be said to reflect a commonly held perception of OMG, (or Field Marshall Montgomery’s fiasco,as he calls it) when he writes: 'It is my opinion that Monty was a great soldier, but he had a even greater ego. When victory was in sight for the Allies, he degenerated into nothing more than a glory seeker. With little regard for the welfare or indeed the lives of his men of the British 1st Airborne Division, he threw the division away in an insane attempt to go down in history as the greatest military leader of the Second World War.’
From Armageddon - The Battle for Germany,1944-45 by Max Hastings,page 50Jack Reynolds and his unit,the South Staffords,were locked into the long,messy,bloody battle. "There was no continuous front,no coherent plan,merely a series of uncoordinated collisions between rival forces in woods,fields,gardens and streets. That is when it got home to me.What a very bad operation this was." The scale dropped from my eyes when I realized just how far from our objective we've landed.We knew what even a handful of Germans could do - they were so damned efficient.
As Bob Peatling of the 2 Para said Marshall Montgomery dropped a clanger at Arnhem
Maj. Freddie Hennessy the operations officer of the Guards Armored Division which was in the vanguard of the push up the road, compared advancing sixty-four miles on a narrow highway over several major water crossings to “threading seven needles with one piece of cotton, and we only have to miss one to be in trouble.”
Das Deutsches Afrika-korps: Siege und Niederlage. By Hanns-Gert von Esebeck, page 188 Returning from North Africa with an inflated ego after the comparatively easy defeat of the German Africa Corps, he considered himself to be the greatest commander ever. Later information has revealed that he inflated the number of German casualties to improve his image. At El Alamein he claimed that there were more German casualties than there were German troops all together on the actual front!
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Slappy so which one of theses guys who all state the same thing is wrong.Brooke,Tedder,Ramsay?Unlike you they were there
Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 415 After the failure of Market-Garden,Eisenhower held a conference on 5 October 1944 that not only provided a post mortem on the operation but in which he reiterated his strategy for the campaign.Alan Brooke was present as an observer,noted that IKE's strategy continued to focus on the clearance of the Scheldt Estuary,followed by an advance on the Rhine,the capture of the Ruhr and a subsequent advance on Berlin. After a full and frank discussion in which Admiral Ramsey criticised Montgomery freely, Brooke was moved to write, I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault,instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the 1st place....IKE nobly took all the blame on himself as he had approved Monty's suggestion to operate on Arnhem
How about Air Marshall Tedder
With Prejudice, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander AEF, Page 599 "Eisenhower assumed, as he and I had done all along, that whatever happened Montgomery would concentrate on opening up Antwerp. No one could say that we had not emphasized the point sufficiently by conversation and signal
The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed
Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
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From the Ottawa Citizen,May 7th ,2005
Mr. Major is even less charitable to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, who headed up British and Canadian forces.
Field Marshall Montgomery's ill-fated thrust deep into occupied Holland in the fall of 1944, a paratroop attack on river crossings, was an utter failure and undertaken at the expense of a broad steady advance. That delayed the the liberation of the country's biggest cities, Mr. Major figures, and condemned their populace to slow starvation through the infamous "Hunger Winter" that took the lives of 20,000 Dutch civilians.
Pte. Major had an opportunity to express his displeasure with Field Marshall Monty soon afterward. It was during the battle for Scheldt, an estuary guarding the Belgian port of Antwerp. The exploit was supposed to win him a field decoration directly from the hands of Field Marshall Montgomery, but Pte. Major couldn't bring himself to accept. "He had made an awful mistake. I didn't like him at all." Over to you Little Villa
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Monty's memoirs are the greatest work of fiction since chaste and fidelity were added to the French marriage vows
As Bradley said, Montgomery rarely won a battle any other competent general wouldn't have won as well or better. Historian Norman Gelb researched that Montgomery was not only famously insensitive and deliberately insulting to his brothers in arms, but he was capable of outright lies if he thought it would elevate him above potential rivals
Puhleeeze,What he won he won with overwhelming superiority in men, materials,ULTRA and air support. And then barely.......and poorly.Not because of maneuver,guile or tactics.Monty had serious deficiencies in fluid battles, and had limited ability to adjust his methods to changing operational situations. balance,flexibility, cooperation, simplicity and the assimulation of combat lessons.he was vain,rude objectionable - a legend in his own mind Your distortions are ludicrous postmortem to absolve the abrasive egomaniac who in any other army would have been relieved.
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From Six Armies in Normandy,by John Keegan In just 30 days, Patton finished his sweep across France and neared Germany. The Third Army had exhausted its fuel supplies and ground to a halt near the border in early September.Allied supplies had been redirected northward for the normally cautious General Montgomery’s reckless Market Garden gambit. That proved a horrible scheme to leapfrog over the bridges of the Rhine River; it devoured Allied blood and treasure, and accomplished almost nothing in return. Meanwhile, the cutoff of Patton’s supplies would prove disastrous Scattered and fleeing German forces regrouped. Their resistance stiffened as the weather grew worse and as shortened supply lines began to favor the defense.
There are many factors that can be cited for the failure of Operation Market Garden, all deserving of consideration:
-The report by OB West blamed the decision to spread the airborne drop over more than one day as the main reason for the failure.
-The Luftwaffe agreed and added that the airborne landings had been spread too thinly and too far from the Allied frontline.
-General Student thought the airborne landings were a great success and blamed the failure on the slow progress of XXX Corps. In this respect, Generalfeldmarschall Model deserves credit for the skill with which he used the sparse resources available to him, particularly given the state Fifteenth Army was in at the time, and for recognising the importance of the Nijmegen bridges.
-Lt General Brereton reported to Washington that Market had been a brilliant success but had been let down by Garden, with which Bradley in part agreed, blaming Montgomery and the slow advance by the British between Nijmegen and Arnhem.
-Major General Urquhart blamed the fact that the drop zones for 1st Airborne were too far from the bridge and rather unfairly, his own actions on the first day.
-Lt General Browning's report blamed XXX Corps' underestimation of the strength of the German forces in the area, the slowness with which it moved up the highway, the weather, his own communications staff and 2nd Tactical Air Force for failing to provide adequate air support. He also managed to get General Sosabowski dismissed from his command for his increasingly hostile attitude.
*Field Marshal Montgomery blamed the slowness of XXX Corps in general and O'Connor in particular. Later, he partially blamed himself, but laid a large proportion of the blame on Eisenhower. "*. . . if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job - it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area."
There is also the matter of allowing the German Fifteenth Army to escape into northern Holland where it could defend the approaches to Arnhem by not clearing the Scheldt estuary, the nature of the highway along which XXX Corps had to advance (a two tank front), the failure to appreciate the unpredictability of the British weather in September, the critical requirement of good communications, which at that point in history was unlikely given the level of technology available and the blatant ignoring of intelligence (from both the Dutch resistance and reconnaissance flights) that armoured units had moved into the Arnhem area
_Sosabowski in particular feared a flexible, speedy, and strong response, saying, “The British are not only grossly underestimating German strength in the Arnhem area, but they seem ignorant of the significance Arnhem has for the Fatherland.”
IKE even stopped the Southern Thrust (the successful one) to support the ingate and he still faffed it
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@6handicap604 some great insight and responses,Johnny reads from the Cornhole Chronicles and pulls facts from his ample backside
From Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, Doubleday & Co., 1st American edition, copyright 1959. From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke entry for 5 October 1944:p. 219 "...During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay. I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely..."
From My Three Years With Eisenhower,by Capt.Harry C.Butcher,p.675 - Sept 24,1944,Monty had been pressing for more supplies to 21st Army Group.IKE informed Monty that he had given preference to the left flank(21st Army) through out the campaign.Including the attachments of Air Borne and everything to assure the maintenance.On the other hand all other forces had been fighting with a halter around their necks with respect to supplies.IKE illustrated that for 4 days straight Patton had been receiving serious counter attacks, yet in 7 days without attempting to any real advance 3rd Army captured 9,000 prisoners and knocked out 270 tanks
From Blood,Sweat and Arrogance,by Gordon Corrigan,page 417-18 National myth has it that Monty took over a defeated,demoralized and badly led 8th Army,and by his own abilities and powers of leadership won the great victory of Alamein and then went on to drive the Germans & Italians out of North Africa in a whirlwind campaign that could not have been achieved by anyone else. We know this because Montgomery has told us so,not only by his masterly grasp of public relations at the time but in one of the most self serving memoirs ever foisted on the reading public ,one that did immense harm to Anglo-American relations after the war.
"Monty's memoirs are the greatest work of fiction since chaste and fidelity were added to the French marriage vows"
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What report?From whom - source please
From The Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 303 Even Field Marsahall Brooke had doubts about Montgomery's priorities "Antwerp must be captured with the Least possible delay" he wrote in his diary Admiral Ramsey wrote and warned that clearing the Scheldt of mines would take weeks,even after the German defenders were flicked away from the banks of the waterway"Monty made the startling announcement that he would take the Ruhr with out Antwerp this afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him.......I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed.Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war,conceding "a bad mistake on my part"
From Ardennes 1944,By Sir Antony Beevor,page 14 Sir Bertram Ramsey ,Allied Naval commander-in-chief had told SHAEF and Monty that the Germans could block the Scheldt Estuary with ease. The mistake lay with Monty,who was not interested in the estuary and thought the Canadians could clear it later * From page 19* ,Admiral Ramsey was livid that SHAEF,and especially Monty,had ignored his warnings to secure the Scheldt estuary and the approaches to Antwerp*
From Triumph in the West, by Arthur Bryant, Doubleday & Co., 1st American edition, copyright 1959. From the diary of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke entry for 5 October 1944:p. 219 "...During the whole discussion one fact stood out clearly, that access to Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay. I feel that Monty's strategy for once is at fault, Instead of carrying out the advance on Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp in the first place. Ramsay brought this out well in the discussion and criticized Monty freely..."
*He didn't defeat squat,in the desert,Normandy,Netherlands or the Ardennes he was along for the ride.When auchinlech was fired Monty didn't move.Between the Navy,Air Corp,ULTRA and the US Army & supplies he simply hitched a ride.Ike knowingly kept the British relevant in order to keep them in the alliance so that American soldiers would not have to shoulder the entire casualty burden on the Western Front.
As Bradley said, Montgomery rarely won a battle any other competent general wouldn't have won as well or better. Gelb also notes, that Montgomery was not only famously insensitive and deliberately insulting to his brothers in arms, but he was capable of outright lies if he thought it would elevate him above potential rivals
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Arnhem.Jumping the Rhine in 1944 and 1945.By Lloyd Clark, page 333 Tom Hoare, who fought with the 3rd Para at Arnhem may be said to reflect a commonly held perception of OMG, (or Field Marshall Montgomery’s fiasco,as he calls it) when he writes:'It is my opinion that Monty was a great soldier, but he had a even greater ego. When victory was in sight for the Allies, he degenerated into nothing more than a glory seeker. With little regard for the welfare or indeed the lives of his men of the British 1st Airborne Division, he threw the division away in an insane attempt to go down in history as the greatest military leader of the Second World War.’
From Armageddon - The Battle for Germany,1944-45 by Max Hastings,page 50 Jack Reynolds and his unit,the South Staffords,were locked into the long,messy,bloody battle.There was no continuous front,no coherent plan,merely a series of uncoordinated collisions between rival forces in woods,fields,gardens and streets. That is when it got home to me.What a very bad operation this was The scale dropped from my eyes when I realized just how far from our objective we've landed We knew what even a handful of Germans could do - they were so damned efficient.
As Bob Peatling of the 2 Para said Marshall Montgomery dropped a clanger at Arnhem
Maj. Freddie Hennessy the operations officer of the Guards Armored Division which was in the vanguard of the push up the road, compared advancing sixty-four miles on a narrow highway over several major water crossings to “threading seven needles with one piece of cotton, and we only have to miss one to be in trouble.”
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https://www.historynet.com/eisenhower-fire-1944-45.htm
Martin van Creveld calculated in his superb study of logistics, Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton Monty’s “40 divisions” realistically would have been quickly reduced to a mere 18 when all logistical and operational requirements were considered. Captured ground could not simply be left in a vacuum, but had to be occupied and defended against the inevitable German counterattacks. Supply lines had to be protected and secured, and as a force advanced, those key “sinews of war” extended longer and longer, requiring the diversion of increasing numbers of combat troops to protect them.
Moreover, because Monty failed to capture the Scheldt Estuary expeditiously and open the port of Antwerp (closed to Allied shipping until December), Ike’s SHAEF logisticians at the time calculated that only 12 divisions could have been supported in a rapid advance.*Van Creveld weighed all the factors in the “broad front” vs. “narrow thrust” strategy debate and concluded, “In the final account, the question as to whether Montgomery’s plan presented a real alternative to Eisenhower’s strategy must be answered in the negative" Eisenhower actually gave Montgomery a chance to show that his narrow thrust strategy could succeed – and Monty botched it.
Ike approved the September 1944 Operation Market-Garden, Monty’s attempt to “jump” the lower Rhine and position his army group to drive on to the Ruhr industrial region. Market-Garden famously and disastrously failed at the “bridge too far” at Arnhem at the same time that German forces supposedly were so depleted and disorganized that Monty’s narrow thrust, it was claimed, would easily slice right through the Germans and capture the Ruhr. Monty’s boast that his single axis advance would quickly win the war was both literally and figuratively “a bridge too far” at that point of the war in Europe
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Burns go share your novels with your special needs class or the Poles that got ran thru the shredder .You troubled tosser get help. In case your handler didn't read it to you last time,from a PHD of course to you it means piled,higher and deeper
- MONTY GARDEN
ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p49 Major General Richard Gale who converted the British Airborne from a small group of Raiders into a conventional parachute brigade in confidence told Major G.G. Norton in the '70s then curator of the Airborne Forces Museum *"that he would rather have resigned his command than execute MARKET as it was foisted on Urquhart".It is unclear if Gale made his views clear to Browning at the time
ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p111 This plan got blasted 3 miles in when Panzerfaust teams took out 9 shermans and continued to collapse on it's self going forward. Viktor Graebner of 9th SS Panzer had 30 armored halftracks,10 - 8 wheeled armored cars and a number of trucks
ARNHEM,by William Buckingham,p145 the Irish Guards were an hour and 11 miles behind when it's tanks rolled into Valkenswaard main square on the night of the 17th and Horrocks no movement after dark extended this shorfall to 12 hours at a stroke. It remained to be seen if Guards Armored Division would prove capable of moving the following day with sufficient dispatch to make up at least some of the lost time
From Arnhem,by Willam Buckingham,p.358 LT Brian Wilson of the 3rd Irish Guards recalled patrols of US Paratroopers constantly roaming through his location while "for our part" we just sat in our positions all night As Heinz Harmel later put it the English stopped for tea the 4 tanks who crossed the Bridge made a mistake staying in Lent if they carried on their advance it would have been all over for us A rapid and concentrated relief effort across the lower Rhine never happened because the Irish Guards remained immobile for hours in darkness and beyond as the Guards Armored Division had collectively done since Operation Garden commenced
Arnhem,by Willam Buckingham,p.360 The Irish Guards did not try to hard despite the urgency of the situation .Lt-Col John Vandeluer ordered to hold in place after the advance was stopped in the early afternoon .The clear inference was that the Guards had done enough and it was time for another formation to take over. Lt Brian Wilson considered this attitude "shameful" that his Division had remained immobile for 18 hrs after the Nijmegen Bridges had been secured. LT John Gorman a commander in the 2nd Irish Guards was equally forthright,we had come all the way from Normandy,taken Brussels fought half way through Holland and crossed the Nijmegen Bridge.Arnhem and those Paratroopers were just up ahead and almost insight of the bloody bridge we were stopped. I never felt so much despair
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Novelist Grandiose played you two deluded dweebs like a cheap violin.You're just upset that he's better at it than you tired twits - you make me Larf
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page 318
Eisenhower thought Montgomery was a psychopath suffering from an inferiority complex
Ike and Monty:Generals at War,by Norman Gelb,page 329
Monty's egocentric nature made it impossible for him to respond to complex situation in which he found himself by insisting he had not been mistaken about anything.
Monte,Making of a General,by Nigel Hamilton,page 278
Montgomery's stepson John Carver talked about his "....schizoid tendencies engendered by his upbringing..."
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page 317
Montgomery got along with neither the Americans nor the Canadians.After Dunkirk the French absolutely refused to serve under a British commander.Such widespread mistrust of the little British General did not bode well for future Allied operations in which Monty played a role.
For a host of reasons Montgomery's usefulness came to an end in Normandy,probably with in a few weeks of the invasion.Any other British General could have done as well as Montgomery did at Caen;and very few would have handled the Battle of the Falaise Gap so incompetently
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page 319
Montgomery's irrational behavior at the Falaise Gap was also influenced by what Canadian General Henry Crerar called ".... the Englishman's traditional belief in the superiority of the Englishman..."
Eisenhower & Montgomery at the Falaise Gap,by William Weidner,page 320
The poor performance of the British 2nd Army in Normandy had tied Monty's hands.He did not expect the Germans to be that good.But when the Americans broke the German lines at St Lo instead of turning the Americans loose on the open German flank,Montgomery stopped the Americans at Argentan and sent them North east to Paris-orleans gap.There were simply too many bitter pills on Montgomery's desk.He could not allow the Americans,especially George Patton to take Falaise away for m his 2nd British Army regardless of the cost
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Cornhole you poor trampled cabbage leaf Monty was awful at commanding. Terrible. As in, no fucking good here you go 3 of the 4 Historians will tell you how bad all British https://youtu.be/duOYnIGivys?t=1419
-Hollywood wasn't there when 198,000 Tommies got tossed into the Channel - Monty was.
-Hollywood didn't make 81,000 Tommies surrender at Singapore,
-Hollywood didn't sign a deal with The Reich annexing the Czech Republic - Britain did.
-Hollywood didn't tell Britain to not cross the 30 mile channel for 4 full years after Dunkirk.
-Hollywood didn't fill ship after ship with tanks,trucks,,halftracks,men,material,munitions, planes,provisions,food,fuel for the duration of the war to prop up the crown.
-Hollywood didn't promise that Caen would be taken in D+1,Monty did and finally took it 43 days later.
-Hollywood didn't promise before Market Garden that they'd go to Berlin and didn't even make it to Arnhem,Monty did--Hollywood didn't give 16 U.S.Divisions to Monty's 21st Army Group and was practically the last one to cross over the Rhine with them
-Monty didn't destroy 90% of German Armor Allied Air Corps did.
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 116 Britain's war effort even after just one year of conflict - had placed an intolerable burden upon her finances and her future was now in the hands of The United States of America.Without American aid and assistance above and beyond the commercial basis of "cash and carry",Britain would not be able to continue the War.
From Eisenhower's Armies,by Dr Niall Barr,page 454 By April 1945 the 61 American divisions formed the bulk of the Allied Armies,supported by 13 British,11 French,5 Canadian and one Polish.While Britain was now a significant ally amongst many,the United States emergence as a superpower was now all but complete
-Hollywood didn't say that a British Historian/Scholar with a PHD did.
The Crown always fights to the last colonial, usually Australians
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Monty won in the desert when he had an embarrassment of Riches and ULTRA.Not because of maneuver,guile or tactics
From Blood,Sweat and Arrogance,by Gordon Corrigan,page 417-18 National myth has it that Monty took over a defeated,demoralized and badly led 8th Army,and by his own abilities and powers of leadership won the great victory of Alamein and then went on to drive the Germans & Italians out of North Africa in a whirlwind campaign that could not have been achieved by anyone else. We know this because Montgomery has told us so,not only by his masterly grasp of public relations at the time but in one of the most self serving memoirs ever foisted on the reading public ,one that did immense harm to Anglo-American relations after the war.
From The Rommel Papers by B.H.Liddell-Hart page 523 Erwin Rommel - "In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience,but it brought rich dividends .Even at the time American Generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the technical handling of their forces,, Although we had to wait until Patton's Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare .The Americans it is fair to say,profited far more than the British from their experience in Africa,thus confirming axiom that education is easier than re-education"
When interrogated in 1945, Heinz Guderian the Wehrmacht’s foremost practitioner of Blitzkrieg, stated, “ General Patton conducted a good campaign. From the standpoint of a tank specialist, I must congratulate him on his victory since he acted as I would have done had I been in his place.”General Gunther Blumentritt We regarded general Patton extremely highly as the most aggressive panzer-general of the Allies. . . His operations impressed us enormously probably because he came closest to our own concept of the classical military commander. He even improved on Napoleon’s basic tenets
The Rommel Papers,by B.H.Liddell Hart,pages 360-61 "Montgomery risked nothing in any way and bold solutions are completely foreign to him.He would never take the risk of following up boldy and over running us.He could have done it with out any danger to himself.Indeed such a course would have cost him fewer losses in the long run than his methodical insistence on overwhelming superiority in each tactical action,which he could only obtain at the cost of speed"
Ladislas Farago Patton:Ordeal & Triump(New York:Astor-Honor, Inc., Inc.1964)h,p.505 'If Manstein was Germany's greatest strategist during World War II, Balck has strong claims to be regarded as our finest field commander. He has a superb grasp of tactics and great qualities of leadership' - Major-General von Mellenthin General Balck, commenting on the Lorraine Campaign, said: "Patton was the outstanding tactical genius of World War II. I still consider it a privilege and an unforgettable experience to have had the honor to oppose him" From Patton:A Genius for War,By Carlo D'Este After the War General Fritz Bayerlein commander of Panzer Lehr Division and the Afrika Corp.He assessed the escape of Rommel's Panzers after Alamein "I do not think General Patton would have let us get away so easily" said Bayerlein .Comparing Patton with Guderian and Montgomery with Von Rundstedt
CONVERSATIONS WITH GENERAL J. LAWTON COLLINS,Transcribed By Major Gary Wad "Monty was a fine defensive fighter up to a certain point. But Monty's basic trouble was that he was a set-piece fighter, in contrast to George S. Patton. This was epitomized in the crossing of the Rhine.Monty was always waiting, waiting until he got everything in line. He wanted a great deal of artillery,American artillery mostly--American tanks, also. Then, when he got everything all set, he would pounce.But he always waited until he had "tidied up the battlefield"--his expression--which was his excuse for not doing anything. Monty was a good general, I've always said, but never a great one.
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More BS from the Cornhole Chronicles
https://www.historynet.com/eisenhower-fire-1944-45.htm
Martin van Creveld calculated in his superb study of logistics, Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton Monty’s “40 divisions” realistically would have been quickly reduced to a mere 18 when all logistical and operational requirements were considered. Captured ground could not simply be left in a vacuum, but had to be occupied and defended against the inevitable German counterattacks. Supply lines had to be protected and secured, and as a force advanced, those key “sinews of war” extended longer and longer, requiring the diversion of increasing numbers of combat troops to protect them.
Moreover, because Monty failed to capture the Scheldt Estuary expeditiously and open the port of Antwerp (closed to Allied shipping until December), Ike’s SHAEF logisticians at the time calculated that only 12 divisions could have been supported in a rapid advance.*Van Creveld weighed all the factors in the “broad front” vs. “narrow thrust” strategy debate and concluded, “In the final account, the question as to whether Montgomery’s plan presented a real alternative to Eisenhower’s strategy must be answered in the negative" Eisenhower actually gave Montgomery a chance to show that his narrow thrust strategy could succeed – and Monty botched it
Ike approved the September 1944 Operation Market-Garden, Monty’s attempt to “jump” the lower Rhine and position his army group to drive on to the Ruhr industrial region. Market-Garden famously and disastrously failed at the “bridge too far” at Arnhem at the same time that German forces supposedly were so depleted and disorganized that Monty’s narrow thrust, it was claimed, would easily slice right through the Germans and capture the Ruhr. Monty’s boast that his single axis advance would quickly win the war was both literally and figuratively “a bridge too far” at that point of the war in Europe
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Ardennes 1944:The Battle of the Bulge,page366 While undoubtedly an American Triumph,the Ardennes campaign produced a political defeat for the British.Montgomery's disasterous press conference and the clamour of the British Press had stoked a rampant Anglophobia in the USA and especially among Senior American Officers in Europe.And as Churchill recognized there was a much greater consequence.Montgomery would find himself sidelined once across the Rhine on the advance into Germany and all British advice was ignored.The Country's influence was at an end The German and Allied casualties in the Ardennes fighting from 16 December 1944 to 29 January 1945 were fairly equaled.German losses were around 80,000 dead,wounded,missing.The Americans suffered 75,482 casualties,with 8,407 KIA. The British lost 1,408 wounded of whom 200 were killed
Sorry Boy Burny, Bernard will see you for your sponge bath now - can't make that shit up
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@jthunders wrote
To fire him would’ve caused big problems politically and threaten the alliance. Yet Marshall would have done it and Churchill would have had to go along with it had the point been pressed Churchill himself seems to have had mixed feelings about Monty. Burns is right though, he did handle himself well during the Ardennes offensive, at least the military aspect if not the political
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It came closer than most think,and Monty held a shoulder but then wanted to withdraw from that when Joe Collins went on the offensive.IKE should have just left Collins alone he commanded the advance anyway.Part of the Problem was Bradley actually ran 1st Army - Hodges was kept around because he had been a lifer though modern tactics had passed him by not unlike Bernard,though he was lucky enough to be around for a big allied victory as history showed that really couldn't be lost.But IKE certainly made errors,he should have been sent packing along with the sod Monty
From the Guns at Last Light,by Rick Atkinson,page 469 Montgomery hesitated,suspecting that Runstedt 'had enough combat strength for another attack that could punch through to Liege.Collins thought not "nobody is going to break through these troops" he told Montgomery"this isn't going to happen. "If the Allies failed to attack closer to the base of the salient,they risked leaving a corridor through which retreating Germans could escape, he told the Field Marshall "you're going to push the Germans out of the bag,"Collins added,"just like you did at Falaise."
Collins was above all was an effective leader forward thinking and fast on his feat able to adjust to changing circumstances He put himself at all time in the front of the action. He studied tactics, and took advantage of the advent of armor and airpower, much more so than many of those generals who came through command and in fact in charge like static stumblers,Monty and Bradley,Hodges. Collins was, in short, creative, studious, personally brave, and quick to lead and direct those around him respected combat acumen.
From Ardennes 1944:The Battle of the Bulge,page366 While undoubtedly an American Triumph,the Ardennes campaign produced a political defeat for the British.Montgomery's disasterous press conference and the clamour of the British Press had stoked a rampant Anglophobia in the USA and especially among Senior American Officers in Europe.And as Churchill recognized there was a much greater consequence.Montgomery would find himself sidelined once across the Rhine on the advance into Germany and all British advice was ignored.The Country's influence was at an end The German and Allied casualties in the Ardennes fighting from 16 December 1944 to 29 January 1945 were fairly equaled.German losses were around 80,000 dead,wounded,missing.The Americans suffered 75,482 casualties,with 8,407 KIA.The British lost 1,408 wounded of whom 200 were killed
From Ardennes 1944 - by Sir Antony Beevor - Page 304 Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke was disturbed when he heard Monty's account "it looks to me as if Monty with his usual lack of tact has been rubbing into Ike too much Monty advice".Too much "I told you so"
From Ardennes 1944:The Battle of the Bulge,page356 On January 18,determined to mend fences,Churchill made a speech in the House of Commons to emphasize "The United States troops have done almost all of the Fighting and have suffered almost all of the losses....Care must be taken in telling our proud tale not to claim for the British Army an undue share of what is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the War and will I believe, be regarded asan ever famous American Victory".It was Montgomery's own fault that political considerations and rivalries now dictated allied strategy
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The Folly of Generals,by David P.Colley
Montgomery’s and Browning’s apparent combined ignorance of combined airborne & mobile armor was only exceeded by their pompous arrogance, recalcitrance and unbelievably engorged egos. It has been stated that if Montgomery had advanced his concept for Market-Garden as a young staff officer attending the Royal Dutch Military Command College, he would have been cashiered out of the course, and very possibly the army. (Single axis of attack and logistics, lack of infantry support of armor, limited maneuver room (single road on raised embankment) and bad trafficability (flat and marshy) for armor, three major rivers,3 minor rivers and three canal systems (six bridges), length of time before linking up with the airborne elements, to cite but a few fatal flaws.) The official publication of the British Army which was patently ignored and categorically violated by both these high ranking officers.
AIRBORNE OPERATIONS, Pamphlet No. 1, GENERAL, 1943 (Provisional), May, 1943 Prepared under the direction of The Chief of the Imperial General Staff. In its 49 pages the pamphlet details "considerations" (read battle proven axioms) regarding the planning and execution of airborne operations. The contents of this document were subsequently further codified and discussed in greater detail in a major volume entitled
AIRBORNE FORCES, LtCol T.B.H. Otway DSO, Army Council, HMSO, London, 1951 (Confidential) As some may recall LtCol Otway commanded the 9th Bn, 6th Airborne Division at Normandy. The battalion's mission to neutralize the Merville Battery was decisive and successful, for which he was awarded the DSO. When the overall strategy and planning for Operation Market-Garden are compared with the contents of the pamphlet, it is as if each one of the fundamental elements was reviewed, then categorically ignored or violated.
LtGen Browning reviewed the plan with MajGen Richard "Windy" Gale, OC, 6th Airborne Division, who had commanded that division during highly successful D-Day operations at Normandy, only a few months earlier. MajGen Gale expressed serious reservations regarding the plans for Operation Market-Garden. LtGen Browning chose to totally ignore his adamant recommendations. It is truly ironic that although not classified. the cover of the pamphlet contains two strongly worded admonitions; NOT TO BE PUBLISHED, The information given in this document is not to be communicated, either directly or indirectly, to the Press or any person not holding an official position in His Majesty's Service and THIS DOCUMENT MUST NOT FALL INTO ENEMY HANDS. Apparently it didn't even fall into the hands it should have, let alone those of the enemy.
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the mongrel monty allowed Rommel to slip away time and again not wanting to risk his false stature as a history changing leader. British units didn't deploy effectively using deplorable methods filtered down from Monty's ineptitude
The Rommel Papers,p.253 "It was primarily the Panzer Army's staff, led at the time by Lieut.Col. Von Mellenthin whom we had to thank for bringing the British attack to a halt" [at El Alamein]
Panzer Battles Maj.Gen.FW von Mellenthin,p.145 The attacks on 15th Panzer at Alam Halfa the mine fields, artillery shelling and ariel bombing inflicted the most serious losses on remaining gasoline stocks that were almost exhausted. An armored division without gasoline is little more than scrap iron, the shortage of fuel prevented any large-scale withdrawal. The circumstances were extremely advantageous for a British counter attack, but Montgomery made no move, apart from harassing operations north and west of Qaret el Himeimat.
Panzer Battles Maj.Gen.FW von Mellenthin,p.148 I do not propose to discuss British Generalship, their commanders committed many grave blunders and suffered some needless disasters. Even the best of their generals were not as dashing or versatile as Rommel.
And I don't think the British ever solved the problem of mobile warfare in the open desert. In general, the British of making war is slow rigid and methodical; they trust to their sea power and vast resources of their allies, empire and dominion. It is highly probable the British Air Force Officers are more original and enterprising than those of the army, and I may remark in passing that their Mediterranean fleet produced some brilliant officers.
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