Comments by "" (@lyndoncmp5751) on "TIKhistory" channel.

  1. x chen, Patton couldn't even get out of the Lorraine in 4 months of trying. How long to take Metz? 3 months. Sicily was a success, Normandy was a success, the Ardennes was a success. Montgomery was the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 by some way. He took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander in WW2. Nobody did more to help win the ground war in the west than Bernard Montgomery. The Germans didn't fear Patton. Who on earth told you that?
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  2. Montgomery actually had an alternative plan to Market Garden on the 9th/10th September. This was for a paratroop drop at Walcheren Island to clear the Scheldt, but General Brereton of First Allied Airborne Army flat out rejected this alternative proposal and decided on Market Garden instead. Montgomery had zero jurisdiction to decide airborne operations. Brereton and Eisenhower had the say so.
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  3. Montgomery was the most competent and most savvy Western Allied ground commander of WW2. Nobody did as much to win the ground war in the west than Bernard Montgomery. Nobody.
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  4. "" only America had the weight to achieve a decisive victory."" America couldn't have defeated the European Axis without the British Empire and USSR.
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  5. Montgomerys own words : "I said this point was so important that, if public opinion in America was involved, he should let Bradley control the battle and I would gladly serve under him". Source: Pages 205 and 206, of Monty and Patton, Two Paths To Victory.
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  6. The concentrated northern thrust was for 40 divisions in 4 armies advancing together with the Canadian 1st in the north and Patton's 3rd in the south. The British 2nd and US 1st would be in the middle. The centre point was to be Aachen then the Ruhr. Consolidate when over the Rhine, build up supplies then advance together across Northern Germany to Berlin. A militarily sound proposal.
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  7. Yes it's in Gavin's book On To Berlin. Gavin was positive about Montgomery. He liked him.
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  8.  @coolmeister522  Britain pulled its own fat out of the fire after Dunkirk, starting with the Battle of Britain, then sinking the Bismarck etc. All without the USA.
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  9. 21:50 The "11th Panzer Division" Panthers (actually I./Pz.Rgt. 26) are an interesting subject. It was a brand new battalion on Panthers, just recently trained on the new tank type. It received its Panthers only in December 1943, being quickly sent to the east a mere month later. It was originally destined for Italy to join its parent division, 26th Panzer Division. However it was diverted to the east in early January as a temporary substitute for the Grossdeutschland Panther battalion, which was being formed in the west. The GD was defending near Kirovograd at the time. It was then hastily moved 100km north to be urgently borrowed by 11th Panzer Division. Sources. Nash, Jentz, Klages.
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  10. The barefaced ego of Eisenhower to insist he had to be BOTH the C-in-C of all ground forces AND the Supreme Commander as well. Then he wanted to be the President of the USA. And yet people say it was Montgomery who had the ego? 😂 😂
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  11. Awww diddums. Maybe the British should have the Dutch Army liberate the Netherlands too? Oh wait.......
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  12. Operation Market Garden was lost by the air planners before it even began. Brereton, Williams and Hollinghurst simply made the wrong decisions. It was never lost by any individual airborne commander. Brereton should have told Montgomery at the beginning that he didn't have the resources. He didn't.
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  13. Yep, and the commander of US 7th Armored Division General Hasbrouck said Montgomery saved his division from annihilation with his decision to pull back from St Vith, while Gavin of the 82nd Airborne agreed that a withdrawal was very much in order and his division were able to do much better in the new defensive positions. Montgomery literally saved thousands of American lives with his handling of the Battle of the Bulge.
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  14. x chen, Montgomerys timeline for Normandy was to get to Paris in 3 months. Not only was that target met, Montgomery did better. Montgomery was in Brussels, Belgium in 3 months (September 3rd). It doesnt matter what the half time score is if you win the game, and did it better than expected. How about Patton in the Lorraine. In early November 1944 Patton told Bradley he'd be through the Siegfried Line and across the Saar in 3 days. He was still failing 6 weeks later when he was pulled out of the Lorraine. Do you also think Bradley/Hodges said the Hurtgen Forest would go on for months? Etc etc.
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  15. Yes and British Lend Lease supplies took effect before American and in late 1941 British tanks and planes were important for the defence of Moscow.
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  16. @washingtonradio Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. That never happened until February 1945. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles getting INTO Germany. These campaigns were well supplied without Antwerp. Eisenhower just squandered the supplies in the Hurtgen, Lorraine, Alsace. Antwerp was fully open by late November. Operation Queen and the Lorraine continued to fail and then the Americans were pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes nearly a month after Antwerp was open.
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  17.  @MarikHavair  I was specifically replying to this comment from another poster : "only America had the weight to achieve a decisive victory" WW2 was won by the COMBINED allied nations. No single one was decisive.
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  18. European instability goes back further than 500 years, or did you forget the Romans, Vikings, Normans etc?
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  19.  @ThumperE23  Who told you Montgomery took Patton's supplies? He didn't. Patton had aready stalled in the Lorraine nearly TWO WEEKS before Market Garden was even green lit. Montgomery used British allocated supplies in Market Garden and the ground element wasn't even than large. Only about a quarter of Patton's Third Army in men and vehicles. The First Allied Airborne Army wasn't being allocated to anyone before Market Garden. Bradley wasn't interested in paratroop drops behind enemy lines in September 1944. Only Montgomery wanted to make use of the FAAA. They were sitting in England doing nothing and desperately waiting for somebody, anybody, to utilise them. Patton by the way, began trying to take Metz on September 6th. He'd already failed before Market Garden even began. Patton was not very adept when having to face German defences. Even his boss Bradley said that.
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  20.  @ThumperE23  Absolutely untrue and just two days after Market Garden began, the Americans started attacking into the Hurtgen Forest and priority of supply and major attacks remained with the US armies all through October, November and December. Then everything had to be shut down until February 1945 when the Americans were in retreat in the Ardennes. The American armies had priority for five straight months, and did very little with it. Did you know the twin pronged US 1st Army attack in the Hurtgen Forest and Aachen in October 1944 used FOUR TIMES as many men and supplies as the ground element of Market Garden, which wasn't even a full 2nd British Army attack? You probably did not. Montgomery DID clear the Scheldt and open Antwerp. As a matter of fact this was the only allied campaign of autumn 1944 to succeed in its objectives. All the others failed. Regardless, Antwerp being open changed nothing for the west wall battles. Operation Queen still failed and the Americans still got pushed back into that retreat in the Ardennes. You cannot blame either on Antwerp. The Hurtgen Forest was not an unmitigated disaster due to no Antwerp. It was well supplied. It was an unmitigated disaster because of poor strategy and tactics. It was the most ill conceived idea of the entire 1944/45 period, it achieved nothing, cost unnecessary high casualties and then directly lead to even more unnecessary high casualties in the Ardennes. Eisenhowers broad front strategy was a complete failure.
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  21.  @ThumperE23  The moment you claimed the Hurtgen Forest was a supporting attack for British 21st Army Group was when I stopped reading the rest of your post. It was its own separate US 1st Army campaign and a tandem operation alongside the advance on Aachen. The Hurtgen Forest is south of Aachen. It was by no means "supporting" 21st Army Group in the Netherlands. This, and your previous false claim that Montgomery took Patton's supplies for Market Garden, tells me I shouldn't waste any time further posting to you.
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  22. Market Garden was only a limited operation. It's only objectives were a bridgehead across the Rhine and, if that was achieved, an advance north to the coast to cut off the Western Netherlands and Belgium. The American 1st Army would then still have to get beyond Aachen to the Rhine in its own separate operation before any exploitation of (a successful) Market Garden towards the Ruhr could ever work.
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  23. Actually the majority of people who worked with Montgomery liked him and got on well with him. Almost universally, those under his command liked and respected him. He was only difficult to those on his level and over because he knew he had more experience than any of them yet they behaved as if that wasn't the case.
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  24. Ridgway can't have been too upset with Montgomery because Ridgway wrote this letter to Monty on January 17th 1945: "It has been an honor and a privilege and a very great personal pleasure to have served, even so briefly, under your distinguished leadership. To the gifted professional guidance you at once gave me, was added your own consummate courtesy and consideration. I am deeply grateful for both. My warm and sincere good wishes will follow you and with them the hope of again serving with you in pursuit of a common goal" Sourced from Monty and Patton, Two Paths To Victory by Michael Reynolds page 241.
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  25.  @thevillaaston7811  Cheers mate. Yes, the proof is in the pudding. Montgomery never had any aspirations to be Supreme Commander and Prime Minister. That silly old joke about Montgomery wanting Churchills job is actually more fitting for Eisenhower.
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  26.  @thevillaaston7811  Haha yes, spot on. Ol' IKE clearly got his 'priorities' in order. 😝
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  27.  @jakublulek3261  Good points. I can agree with that. I do, however, feel that during the war the actual relationship between Montgomery and the Americans was not as bad as the post war writings would have us believe. Sicily was a decent working relationship. Normandy was a decent working relationship. The Ardennes was a decent working relationship. It was only after Montgomery's press conference in January 1945 where American generals, principally Bradley, cherry picked and skewed his words (and had to take more than a little self humiliation.... i.e Monty having to come to the rescue) that the animosity got out of hand. However, the Americans were just as complicit, although in a more two faced back stabbing way. Montgomery was open and said his piece face to face. Take Patton. Patton never once dared to castigate Montgomery face to face. It was always in his diary or in conversations with other US generals.
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  28.  @jakublulek3261  I think they both respected the other. Montgomery didn't say or write a bad word about Patton ever. When Eisenhower asked Montgomery on December 19th to take over Bradley's armies in the Bulge, Montgomery even said to Eisenhower that he should call on Patton to get there from the south. Montgomery didn't know at that point that Eisenhower had already just done that. Its clear from that Montgomery had no issues against Patton.
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  29. Operation Market Garden was lost at BRERETON'S headquarters.
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  30. Britain WENT TO WAR for Poland. Seems to be forgotten or ignored by Poles.
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  31.  @ricksamericana749  A common myth. In fact the Commonwealth provided most imported foods, particularly Canada in 1940 and 1941. Lend Lease didnt begin until mid 1941 and not until 1942 was it substantial. By then it was America's war too and in Americas interested for Britain to be doing the fighting while America wasn't yet across the Atlantic even. There was also Reverse Lend Lease, which most Americans are not aware of.
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  32.  @gawdsuniverse3282  "I'm not going to go to the effort..." Because you can't, so you won't. You haven't even bothered to explain why Montgomerys concentrated northern thrust proposal would be self serving for Blumentritt to agree with. THE WAR WAS OVER when Blumentritt discussed it. Blumentritt was 100% correct. The broad front failed and it was not the correct decision. History shows us that. Cheers.
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  33. And that's where he should have remained, being a desk man politician, not taking over ground strategy over the heads of experienced battlefield commanders. This insistence of Eisenhower's stalled the allied advance for six months, with even a retreat thrown in.
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  34. Bradley said he halted Patton at Argentan instead of letting him drive on to Falaise because he doubted Patton's ability to hold the German stampede. "I much preferred a solid shoulder at Argentan to the possibility of a broken neck at Falaise" Bradley also said he did "not consult Montgomery. The decision was mine alone" Both quotes from Bradley, A Soldier's Story.
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  35. @FromPovertyToProgress Antwerp is a red herring. Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. That never happened until February 1945. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles getting INTO Germany. These campaigns were well supplied without Antwerp. Enormous amounts of supplies came in from Normandy, then Le Havre. Eisenhower just squandered the supplies in the Hurtgen, Lorraine, Alsace. Antwerp was fully open by late November. Operation Queen and the Lorraine continued to fail through December and then the Americans were pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes nearly a month after Antwerp was open. Antwerp open changed nothing for the westwall battles.
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  36. But the resources were wasted in campaigns like the Lorraine, Hurtgen Forest, Alsace, Vosges etc. The resources should have been concentrated in a powerful 4 army northern thrust. Instead of knocking on the door all over, it should have been smashed down around the lock and handle.
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  37.  @gawdsuniverse3282  Oh for goodness sake. The Ardennes was mid December. Montgomery's concentrated northern thrust would have been September/October, right after Normandy. Three months before the Ardennes. The Germans were on the run in August and by September they didn't have any new panzer divisions to throw into the front lines. They just lost TEN panzer divisions the month before in August. This is why in September they could only throw in green and badly trained panzer brigades, and these got mauled very quickly. It took Germany MONTHS to build up their panzer divisions to use in the Ardennes. By December they had built them up, although still only at half strength in tanks compared to Normandy. We are talking about a concentrated battering ram into Germany in September/October. Not December. The reason WHY Germany was able to rebuild for the Ardennes was because Eisenhowers broad front strategy was a failure and it didn't break through into Germany as promised. It got nowhere and Germany was able to keep on producing. Had Montgomerys concentrated northern thrust been agreed to by Eisenhower, the industrial heartland of the Ruhr would have been reached much sooner and this would have been detrimental to Germanys ability to reproduce much of their armaments. Their steel production for tanks was largely in the Ruhr. Everyone knew if you take the Ruhr you are going to be stabbing into the heart of Germany. But no, Eisenhower allowed resources to be thrown away in the Lorraine, Hurtgen Forest, Alsace etc.
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  38. And desk man Eisenhower didn't have an ego by insisting he decided the strategy of the ground battle over the heads of actual experienced battlefield generals? Montgomery even offered to serve under Bradley if American public pressure demanded an American command all ground forces. Eisenhower says no and wanted that command himself. The result = a six month stall with hundreds of thousands of casualties.
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  39. Sean O'Sullivan Yep, Montgomery had vast experience of logistical supply over long distances, starting in North Africa where the supply line was over 1,000 km over land at times. And no trains. Just road.
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  40. Only 24% of Luftwaffe fighters were on the Eastern Front at the end of 1942, dropping to 17% at the end of 1943.
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  41. Scott Krater, Nowhere near half of British used tanks and vehicles were American. Britain built nearly 50,000 AFVs and over a million trucks. And British supplied Reverse Lend Lease provided the USA with circa 30% of its requirements in the ETO. That is straight from Roosevelts office. You vastly overstate American input here. By the way the Aussies and Kiwis more or less fed Americas Pacific Campaign.
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  42.  @user-tb9nr5id5y  Instead of throwing supplies into Patton's Metz campaign (which began September 6th) and the Hurtgen Forest campaign (which began September 19th) the US 1st Army should have opened up an attack, even diversionary, towards Aachen at the same time as Market Garden. This would have given the Germans a quandary. Which attack to they decide to counter? They can't counter both at once.
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  43. GloryCarrier22, Well said. Montgomery was actually well known for NOT taking unnecessary casualties. His caution at times was due to the utter waste he saw in WW2. And those under his command mostly liked and respected him because he genuinely seemed to care about them. Even Americans such as Gavin, Ridgway and Dick Winters of Band of Brothers fame had a lot of time for Montgomery.
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  44.  @madmonkeys88  The Germans won the allies the war when they threw away all their strategic reserves of men and material in the Ardennes. Any strategy would have won the war after that. The Broad Front failed all through autumn 1944. It prolonged the war by months.
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  45.  @andipat100  Nonsense. Hitler didn't want war with Britain and offered Britain peace. There was a sea and air war from September 4th 1939. Britain was bombing Germany as soon as Britain declared war. Not Britains fault Poland didn't fight long and was taken by Germany very quickly. If Britain and the Commonwealth didn't go to war against Nazi Germany and stop the Axis from growing larger, more powerful and controlling the Eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, North Africa, Suez Canal and Middle East then the European Axis would have won and the Third Reich would still be occupying Poland to this day. You are welcome, ungrateful sod.
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  46.  @chaseroberts3111  British 603 Squadron was the best in the Battle of Britain, with the highest CONFIRMED kills and nearly all their kills were Bf109s. The Polish captured Enigma machine was from the 1930s, outdated and not relevant to the 1940s. The German WW2 Enigma machine was not broken until the British captured a WW2 one in 1941 and it was broken by Bletchley Park in England. The allies could not decipher German WW2 Enigma messages prior to this.
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  47.  @chaseroberts3111  Poland was only in WW2 because POLAND was attacked. No other reason. Poland would never had gone to war for Britain. Never.
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  48.  @christophersmith8316  Yes it was all geographical. From north to south the armies basically stayed on their assigned lines of advance. Canadian 1st Army at the very north, then 2nd British Army to its south, then US 1st Army, then US 3rd Army then US 7th Army and French 1st Army. US 9th Army came into the line in October, firstly between US 1st and 3rd then was moved between British 2nd and US 1st. I believe this shifting of the US 9th was the only major shifting between army boundaries in 1944/45. I might be wrong but offhand I can't recal when any of the other armies were swapped around like that.
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  49.  @FromPovertyToProgress  You are incorrect. The Hurtgen Forest, Aachen attacks, Lorraine, Alsace, Operation Queen etc were EXTREMELY WELL SUPPLIED. They didnt fail due to lack of supplies. Masses and masses of supplies came in via the Red Ball Express, then the opening of the railways and Le Havre. People don't realise just how much the rebuilt railway network contributed to bringing supplies up. The westwall battles were very well supplied otherwise none of those massive campaigns could have occurred. Look how quickly the US was able to respond to the German Ardennes attack with massive redeployment, resources and supplies. This was late December. Its completely untrue to claim massive levels of supplies couldn't get to the front until February 1945. Massive levels of supplies got to the front all through October, November, December and January. Antwerp is a complete red herring. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles. Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. The Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine, Alsace, Operation Queen etc did NOT fail due to Antwerp not being taken. They failed because of poor strategy and stubborn German resistance. It was Eisenhowers broad front strategy that caused the stall. Eisenhower dispersed the supplies all along a 500km front and squandered them in pointless and unnecessary secondary campaigns, from the Hurtgen down to the Vosges. It was the SQUANDERING of the supplies, not LACK of supplies. Eisenhower should have listened to Montgomery and concentrated the effort only in the north.
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  50.  @gawdsuniverse3282  The available German forces in September/October 1944 would have been powerless to oppose a concentrated 4 army 40 division immovable allied force. Listen to Gunther Blumentritt: ""The best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Germany's strength is in the north. South Germany was a side issue. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open. There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin. By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and 1st Parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Mass and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany. A direct attack on Metz was unnecessary. The Metz fortress area could have been masked. In contrast, a swerve northward in the direction of Luxembourg and Bitburg would have met with great success and caused the collapse of the right flank of our 7th Army. By such a flank move to the north the entire 7th Army could have been cut off before it could retreat behind the Rhine. Thus the bulk of the defeated German Army would have been wiped out west of the Rhine. "" Gunther Blumentritt in, The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart.
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