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

  1. Furthermore, when 9th SS sent a force from Arnhem across the bridge and down towards Nijmegen on the afternoon of the 17th to counter the threat posed by the 82nd Airborne in that sector there was not a single tank among this force. Why? Because they didn't have any. They only had half tracks etc. No tanks, no assault guns.
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  2. Patton. Patton couldn't even take Metz for months. He failed to concentrate his forces. Never even managed to get out of the Lorraine and suffered 55,000 needless casualties as a result.
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  3.  @dragosstanciu9866  Yep. Fight one bad guy at a time. The British knew that Hitler wanted to attack Russia at some point, as well. Clever, those British.
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  4.  @johnlucas8479  I will blame the airmen. They screwed it up. Hollinghurst wouldn't even allow a drop south of the Arnhem bridge due to flak. Brereton, Williams and Hollinghurst dropped a massive clanger with their spread out drop serials. It was the air commanders who messed up the plan.
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  5.  @johnlucas8479  The conditions were no different. Four days of clear weather were forecast when the decisions were made. There was no forecast for fog in the morning when the plans were drawn up days before. As we now know, the 4 days of good weather was a wrong forecast because the weather wasnt good enough on days 2 and 3.
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  6. Even a lot of food was luxury unnecessary items. Bananas, oranges, cocoa, rice etc. The British replaced many luxury foreign food imports with their own home grown fruit and veg. Dig For Victory was a massively successful campaign. You don't need to import bananas and oranges when you grow your own apples and plumbs.
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  7.  @thevillaaston7811  Yes was 'ego' about trying to finish the war as quickly as possible rather than messing about in the Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine like Hodges and Patton, wasting far more men for irrelevant objectives?
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  8.  @GiacomoLockhart  Not even one senior allied commander was against Market Garden at the time. Even Gavin said he felt it would end the war. By the way the Germans were able to attack through the thinly defend Ardennes front lines precisely because the Americans suffered excessive losses in their failed Hurtgen Forest, Aachen and Operation Queen campaigns, circa 100,000 casualties. Eisenhowers broad front strategy was a complete disaster. It went next to nowhere for seven months. Ironically the Americans had to then go running back to Monty to take over US 1st Army in the Ardennes after Hodges fled his command HQ and Bradley dithered. Eisenhower WAS supreme commander in Market Garden, just as Villa Aston says and it was Eisenhower who didn't allow Montgomery the full resources he requested.
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  9.  @GiacomoLockhart  Beevor is a well know hack amongst true WW2 specialists. He's merely a populist author in the vein of that other hack Ambrose. Beevor is too gutless and cowardly to heavily criticise the Americans because it would kill his career in his most lucrative market. Instead he writes what his American readers wish to hear. He's pathetic.
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  10.  @GiacomoLockhart  I will agree that Market Garden was a failure if YOU agree Pattons Lorraine campaign and Hodges Hurtgen Forest and Operation Queen were even bigger failures. What say you?
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  11.  @thevillaaston7811  This guy is strange isn't he? Market Garden was a failure but Eisenhowers broad front wasn't? How does that work? Presumably he also thinks the American Ardennes disaster wasnt the biggest allied screw up of the entire 1944/1945 period. Nearly 100,000 American casualties. Just to get back to the start lines they were ALREADY AT six weeks before? It would never have happened under Montys watch.
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  12.  @GiacomoLockhart  Montys ego? But Monty wanted British 21st Army Group and US 12th Army Group to stick together and bash through to the Ruhr. He didn't want British 2nd Army to get to the Ruhr alone. He wanted US 1st to tandem attack towards Aachen on his southern front drawing away German reinforcements. Monty ALWAYS wanted the Americans involved in the northern thrust towards the Ruhr and to stop them messing about wasting men and resources in the Lorraine, Alsace and Vosges as southern Germany was irrelevant. German general Gunther Blumentritt agreed with Monty and he said had a larger and more powerful allied thrust gone for the Ruhr in early to mid September it would have been all over for Germany. Blumentritt is quoted on page 355 of The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart. Blumentritt also said Metz was a waste of time and that instead of Patton trying, and failing, to get eastward across the Lorraine to the Saar he should have instead headed north to Bitburg.
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  13. Just one last thing. The two panzer divisions were at less than half strength and didn't have a single tank between them. They had all been lost in Normandy, like the rest of their heavy weapons. There was no intelligence that powerful TANK units were there in the Netherlands and in fact it was German tank units that were sent in from Germany in the days that followed that made the difference. None of these were previously identified by any intelligence reports, as they were deep inside Germany. Kompanie Hummel (Tiger Is), Kompanie Mielke (Panzer IIIs and IVs), Brigade 280 (Stug IIIs), Brigade 107 (Panthers), Battalion 506 (Tiger IIs). None of these were in The Netherlands before the 18th/19th. The only tank unit identified was the Herman Goring training battalion, equipped with a mere handful of second rate obsolete early war tanks and this unit played no role in Market Garden. It was attacked by US fighter bombers down in the 101st zone on day one, where it scattered and was not encountered again during Market Garden. This unit was what the famous recon photos captured. They were not Panthers or Tigers. None were in The Netherlands pre drops.
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  14.  @GiacomoLockhart  Monty did not 'execute' Market Garden. He turned the planning and decisions over to others. Brereton of the FAAA and Williams of the USAAF chose to drop in daytime over multiple days, Hollinghurst of the RAF forced 1st British Airborne to drop so far from Arnhem and Gavin kf the 82nd and Taylor of the 101st picked and chose their own drop zones. Monty actually had very little input beyond the broad outline/general idea. He left it up to what he considered capable others to plan and execute and he didn't step on their toes and interfere or overrule them. He trusted their judgements 100%.
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  15.  @GiacomoLockhart  You have already mentioned Eisenhowers broad front plan. I find it staggering you call Market Garden a failure but will not call Eisenhowers broad front strategy a failure. Market Garden was no more a failure than Eisenhowers other green lit campaigns that same autumn. Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine, Aachen, Operation Queen, the Ardennes calamity.
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  16.  @thevillaaston7811  Correct. Market Garden was PART of Eisenhowers broad front. Already Pattons attack towards Metz was ordered from 5th September, while the Hurtgen Forest attack started on the 19th, just 2 days into Market Garden. Eisenhower wanted to probe everywhere at once but would not attack anywhere extremely strongly and concentrate his forces.
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  17.  @GiacomoLockhart  Your posts are just one diatribe after another about Montgomery who was, lets face it, the most accomplished and successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 and he took more ground across more countries while facing more quality German units than any other Western Allied general. You are falling for the myth, not the reality. When German General Gunther Blumentritt also said the best course for the allies in September would have been a really strong fighting force going for the Ruhr then you should start listening. Of course Monty had an ego. No great commander doesn't. And sure he was difficult to get along with his peers, although those under his command liked him. An attempt to win the war quickly was not ego, especially as he initially wanted the US 1st and 3rd Armies to go with him to the Ruhr. Not just 2nd British Army. He wanted TWO Army Groups to be concentrated together in a powerful thrust across northern Germany.
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  18.  @GiacomoLockhart  And Market Garden was born out of the 4th September SHAEF Intelligence Summary which told him the Germans facing the Second British Army were and I quote : "A collection of fugitive battle groups, isolated, disorganised, even demoralised, short of equipment and arms" . Had Market Garden not happened then for the last seventy years Montgomery would have been pilloried and castigated for being too timid and too cautious for not at least trying to go for it when the Germans looked down and out. You know it, I know it, we all damn well know it.
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  19.  @GiacomoLockhart  6 and 17 pounder anti tank guns are not light weapons. They could and did take out Tiger tanks, including a 68 ton King Tiger at Oosterbeek. The first German tank attack of Market Garden was stopped by 6 pounder anti tank guns and PIATs by Frost's C Troop Anti Tank Battery commanded by Sgt Robson. Two Panzer IVs of Kompanie Mielke were knocked out near the Arnhem bridge and the Germans called off that attack. You were saying?
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  20.  @GiacomoLockhart  Market Garden couldn't even have gone ahead without the agreement of Eisenhower and Brereton. Had Brereton said no, the operation is killed there and then but Brereton liked the idea and assured Monty it was feasible. Why do you exempt all these other generals and solely blame Monty? By the way you are simply LYING about Gavin. I have Gavins verbatim quote right in front of me. Ready? "We knew the risks were great but we believed that the battle we were about to fight would bring the war to an end." Your response now?
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  21.  @GiacomoLockhart  I never said 9th and 10th SS werent in the area. I said they didn't have a single tank between them. They didnt. They were at less than half strenght. 9th SS only had around 3,000 combat troops. The 8 brand new Panthers on their paper inventory hadn't arrived from the factory and didn't get to Arnhem until the 20th, too late to take part in the battle for the bridge. Source. Market Garden Then And Now, Karel Margry.
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  22.  @GiacomoLockhart  Arnhem was a defeat and a failure. However the rest of Market Garden suceeded. The Germans retreated out of Eindhoven and Nijmegen, the Waal River was crossed, a protective buffer zone in front of Antwerp was created and the ground taken provided a springboard for the British and Canadian advance into Germany in 1945. It took off from the Nijmegen area. Subsequent battles right after Market Garden in October, such as Operation Aintree, took Overloon and Venray. As I keep saying, Market Garden was no more a failure than all the American campaigns that same autumn. None of them achieved their objectives either and they suffered even more casualties than Market Garden.
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  23.  @GiacomoLockhart  I said tank unit. As in units that actually had TANKS. The pictures were of a few second rate obsolete tanks of the Herman Goring training battalion. 9th and 10th SS never had any tanks when the paras dropped but 1st Airborne still took 6 and 17 pounder anti tank guns. The first German tank unit to engage British 1st Airborne Division was 200km away in Bielefeld, Germany when the paras dropped on the afternoon of the 17th. It arrived at Arhnem late the following day. Please learn to read properly, thanks. Your anger and attitude is getting the better of you and is doing you no favours at all.
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  24.  @GiacomoLockhart  The casualty rates could have been better with different tactics? What do you base that on? The American tactics further south were even higher and were a result of piecemeal non concentrated attacks which made them drag on and on. The Hurtgen, Lorraine and Operation Queen were supposed to have been concluded quickly when they were dreamt up. They weren't planned to go on for months haha. They just did, due to poor tactics and an underestimation of the German enemy. Market Garden =15,000 casualties, mosly POWs not wounded or killed. Lorraine =55,000 casualties killed and wounded. Hurtgen Forest = 35,000 casualties killed and wounded. Operation Queen = 30,000 casualties killed and wounded. Looks to me that Market Garden took more ground more quickly and with fewer casualties than any of these American campaigns. How about that?
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  25.  @GiacomoLockhart  The Gavin quote was post war in his own book. He was not against Market Garden and he believed it would work. Most of the actual planning for Market Garden was actually done by......... AMERICANS. Brereton, Williams, Gavin, Taylor etc. It was THEIR planning which turned out to be flawed, not Montgomerys. Montgomery didnt order them to spread out their drop days, didn't order them to neglect the Nijmegen bridge on day one, didnt tell the RAF to not drop near Arnhem, didnt provide the wrong radio crystals, didn't hide the presence of German Tiger tank units in Germany and he certainly didn't control the damn weather. If this was all such a horrible idea then Brereton would have said no to it in the first place, just as he said no to Montys alternative plan of a paratroop drop around Walcheren Island to clear the Scheldt Estuary. On the 9th, Brereton immediately said no to that plan but a big fat yes to Market Garden. Oh and falling asleep in the Ardennes and arrogantly thinking the Germans couldn't possibly attack the US Army caused SIX times as many casualties as Market Garden. You should reserve your anger for that but somehow I doubt I will see you over on the Bulge videos castigating Eisenhower, Bradley and Hodges. Hmmmmm, why not?
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  26.  @GiacomoLockhart  Nobody talked about heavy weapons. Beevor claimed 1st Airborne were only lightly armed. 6 and 17 pounder anti tank guns are not light arms. The 17 pounder was one of the best and most powerful anti tank guns of WW2 and the 6 pounder was the first gun to take out Tigers in Tunisia. Beevor, as usual, was just plain wrong and the knocked out German arnour around Arnhem proves it.
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  27.  @GiacomoLockhart  Yes we ALL know that Monty would have been heavily criticised, especially by Americans, had he just sat at the Belgian border and not tried to go for it when SHAEF intel told him the Germans in front of him were more or less finished. Look how much flak he gets from Americans for nor taking Caen quickly even though he was facing the densest concentration of German armour ever deployed in WW2 (7 panzer divisions and 3 Tiger battlions in less than 20 miles of front) and despite taking Caen twice as quickly as Patton took Metz. For crying out loud, look how much some Americans bitch and cry like babies at Monty for a few cherry picked and edited words in his Bulge press conference after helping them out in their self made mess. Its unbelievable.
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  28.  @GiacomoLockhart  You claim you are ex military yet try to argue the powerful 17 pounder anti tank gun can be considered a light arm? Lol. Im done with you. You are hilarious.
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  29.  @thevillaaston7811  Absolutely mate. Add to that he denies when he has said things he shouldn't have and then purposely misquotes. The lightly armed thing in particular. I never said the anti tank guns were heavy weapons. I said they weren't light arms. And then the tank thing. Its pretty clear I was referring to units with tanks. Finally, like a number of others, he refuses to accept that James Gavin himself liked the idea of Market Garden and believed it would work and end the war. There is now a myth that says nobody but Monty liked the plan and believed in it. If that were the case it simply would never have got going in the first place. Only a madman would think otherwise.
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  30.  @thevillaaston7811  Yes the plan was a doable one and indeed, 90% of it succeed. Even the Arnhem bridge could have succeed had certain things been done differently, notably close drops to the bridge and drops north and south of the bridge. The very fact that XXX Corps managed to get nearly 100km AND were able to keep hold of all the ground they took (and somewhat enlarged by the supporting corps on the flank) proved the idea was feasible. XXX Corps actually linked up with the 82nd in less than two days. Forty two hours to be exact. 8.30 am on the morning of the 19th. As you say, had the Nijmegen bridge been captured by then and XXX Corps had a free roll over the bridge they may have been able to link up with Frost's men later that day, before the Germans could send forces across the Arnhem bridge to block the way to Arnhem. The weather was a crucial factor as well, preventing reinforcements infantry in the 82nd zone and of the Polish brigade. Had the weather been better, had more effort been made to take the Nijmegen bridge on day one been made and had different decisions been made for the Arnhem drops then it could have had a different outcome. And this is without even mentioning what difference a strong tandem US 1st Army attack towards Aachen could have made to the operation.
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  31.  @thevillaaston7811  I think its funny that he claims to have read all those sources he cited, yet clearly had never even heard of Brereton, Williams and Hollinghurst until yesterday. He didn't even know who planned Market. Hilarious.
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  32.  @thevillaaston7811  Its ok for James Bogle to castigate Monty, the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 but then he protests when you question his own service? When did James Bogle help win WW2 like Monty did? Lambasting Montys service is ok, but not lambasting his own supposed service? I dont agree with those double standards to be honest.
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  33.  @GiacomoLockhart  You never did explain how Eisenhowers cautious broad front strategy (Hurtgen = 35,000 casualties, Lorraine = 55,000 casualties, Operation Queen = 30,000 casualties, Ardennes = 100,000 casualties) saved more lives than Market Gardens 15,000 casualties. Do you think it was right that Eisenhower allowed US 1st Army to make pointless piecemeal probes into the Hurtgen Forest just two days after Market Garden began, instead of opening up a major supplementary attack on Aachen in support of Market Garden? General Blumentritt thought this would have been the best strategy.
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  34.  @thevillaaston7811  Just baffles me why some think Market Garden had such high casualties (most were POWs and not wounded/killed) when the OTHER campaigns that same autumn had far higher casualties, dragged on for far longer wasting far more resources and achieving less. I mean, what the heck did the Hurtgen and Metz etc actually achieve? Go figure.
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  35.  @GiacomoLockhart  Seeing as Market was planned by Brereton, Williams, Hollinghurst, Gavin, Taylor etc how was Market Garden Montys "plan"?
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  36.  @thevillaaston7811  Fully agree with that. It is 100% correct. Market Gardens circa 15,000 casualties pale beside the circa 200,000 casualties suffered in the failed American campaigns that same autumn. How come we never see these Market Garden critics on the Hurtgen Forest boards?
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  37. It was 90% a success. Nearly 100km of German held ground was taken, the Germans retreated and major Dutch towns were liberated. A protective buffer zone in front of Antwerp was created and the British 2nd Army got closer to Germany which was very useful for the invasion into Germany after the American Ardennes calamity was sorted out by Montgomery.
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  38. Patton couldn't get out of the Lorraine in four months of trying. This was due to his tactics, not lack of supplies. He all too often failed to concentrate his forces. This was the conclusion by the official US Army history of the campaign. Apart from that, there wasn't much of importance along Patton's advance line. Certainly not Mannheim, Frankfurt etc. The Ruhr, however, was on the line of advance of British 2nd and US 1st armies. The Ruhr was Germanys vital industrial area. By the way, if anything took supplies away from Patton then it was the US 1st Army's twin pronged attack on Aachen and the Hurtgen Forest, which took place immediately after Market Garden. Market Garden used British supply reserves from Normandy for the ground forces, while no airborne forces were planned to be allocated for Patton in September anyway.
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  39.  @ramal5708  Still trolling. Are you Big Woody?
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  40.  @stephenskidmore5283  The Netherlands had to have been taken at some point. If Market Garden did not happen then the Germans would have built up their defences and moving through that same terrain in, say, November instead of September would then have caused probably more casualties in the long run. Antwerp is a red herring. The US 1st Army had three well supplied armoured divisions and over a dozen well supplied infantry divisions for their Aachen and Hurtgen Forest campaign right after Market Garden. Circa 200,000 men. Three times the size of Market Garden. It was Eisenhowers broad front that prolonged the war, wasting men and resources in the Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine, Alsace, Vosges etc. He should have gone with Montys 40 division northern thrust. All sound military observers agreed with Monty.
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  41.  @ramal5708  Troll troll troll. Get a life. Why do you never appear on the Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine videos? Hmmmm.
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  42.  @ramal5708  Did you even know that Browning was removed and out of the paras BEFORE Sosabowski was? Browning was got rid of and sent to Burma as an admin just 2 months after Market Garden? Why do you idiots ignore that?
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  43.  @ramal5708  No you DIDN'T know that Browning was removed from the paras before Sosabowski was otherwise you wouldn't have written that ignorant post. Commanders were removed often. Stop whining about Sosabowski. Monty removed three BRITISH commanders in one week, old friends from North Africa, when they didn't perform up to standards in Normandy during Operation Bluecoat. Now off you go to the Lorraine videos and bitch about Pattons failure there, or Hodges failure in the Hurtgen Forest, with massive casualties in both campaigns, for less gained than Market Garden. Dont cherry pick what you bitch about. Quit hanging round videos concerning Montgomery.
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  44.  @stephenskidmore5283  Indeed, and also in his communications to Montgomery 7th to 9th September, Eisenhower himself seems to think that Antwerp could have been cleared and opened even while going for the Ruhr. Eisenhower never said to Montgomery to stop the advance and clear the Scheldt instead. Anyway ironically, the Scheldt was cleared in late November and then.... three weeks later the Americans got pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes. Opening Antwerp changed very little and in truth Le Havre was only 1/3 longer distance to Patton than Antwerp. It wasn't a vast difference.
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  45.  @ramal5708  Why should I quit backing the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2, the man who did more to win the ground war in the west than any other and with a battle winning record longer than any others? Why should I quit?
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  46. Brereton's insistence on the skies being clear for his 3 days of drops, which ballooned into a week due to the weather, prevented proper ground attack air support.
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  47.  John Cornell  When you think of it, XXX Corps linking up with the 82nd at Grave in just 42 hours despite the ambush and losses near their start line and then the delay in having to build their own bridge at Son when the 101st failed to have it captured is pretty good going. 70 km through enemy territory in 42 hours is impressive.
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  48.  @arturkedzierski8371  No, Germany invaded Poland.
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  49.  @martsyketlinski  " Britain broke EVERY promise she had given to Poland. Very shameful" So Britain DIDN'T declare war on Nazi Germany on September 3rd 1939, keeping its promise to Poland. Silly me, I thought Britain did.
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  50.  @thevillaaston7811  Has he been banned then?
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