Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "The Front"
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Thje title is ludicrous. The target was an aqueduct which supplied water to a major element if rhe Italian civilian population and armed forces. The hope was that destruction would hamper Italian military operations in Albania & in North Africa.
Yes, it failed. Casualties were 1 killed, 1 wounded and 35 captured. Those captured were victims of the failure of a submarine, HMS Triumph, to be sent to the intended pick up point Triumph had a crew of 64, and her mission was aborted after a Whitley bomber had reported that it was ditching, co-incidentally at the recovery point.
Naval commanders feared that the Whitley's distress signal had been picked up by the Italians, and Triumph might, had she been allowed to continue with the operation, have walked into a reception committee.
Churchill's only involvement in Colossus was at second hand, in that it was upon his initiative that a British Paratroop arm was created in the first place'
Do the fools who made this seriously think that Churchill was trying yo micro-manage every single British military operation at the time/
They say ignorance is bliss, but stupidity is unforgivable!
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@darin271 I don't need to check my history. The raid into the Indian Ocean was intended to cover a large troop convoy out of Singapore. Actually, a small carrier without aircraft, and two heavy cruisers were sunk, as well as a number of smaller craft. In point of fact, Somerville was actually searching for the Japanese force in order to carry out a night attack using his radar-equipped Albacores, something for which the Japanese had neither any means of defence, nor any experience. As the British knew that there were no transports in the Japanese force, they also knew that it was a raid, not an invasion, and chose not to challenge it with the weaker forces at their disposal at the time.
As I understand it, Coral Sea was a strategic defeat for the Japanese, in that it resulted in the cancellation of the landing near Port Moresby. Moreover, wasn't Shokaku damaged and sent back to Japan for repairs, thus not being available for Midway, whilst Zuikaku had lost a considerable number of aircraft and aircrew, and was not considered for use at Midway either?
I suggest that 'victory' is defined by which side achieves the strategic goals it sought, rather than by simply counting the dead. On that basis, Stalingrad would have been seen as a crushing German victory.
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@alexanderd8740 I haven't said anything of the sort. Only that a one way trip with no hope of landing back is not, at least in my opinion, really carrier aviation.
Doolittle's was an attack from a carrier, as was that from Furious, but they were hardly relevant to the evolution of carrier warfare, the first principle of which is that the aircraft should be able to operate from the carrier. Being able to take off, but not land back, does not meet that principle. The first proper aircraft carrier was HMS Argus, commissioned in September 1918.
The Royal Navy had previously operated scouts from platforms on battleship turrets, on cruisers, or even from towed barges. Would you consider this carrier aviation?
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@silverhost9782 Certainly not a credible source, that's for sure. Perhaps he isn't aware of the time Nelson, for one, spent in the Mediterranean, and subsequently with the East Indies Fleet? Or he is unaware that, Nelson spent from 11 June, 1944 to 18 June, 1944, on bombardment duties, and was scheduled to return after re-ammunitioning at Portsmouth had she not been mined?
Rodney was used for bombardment duties from 7 June until 10 June, and then, after re-ammunitioning at Milford Haven, from 18 June until 9 July, during which period she had fired 519 x 16in, 454 x 6in and 1200 x 4.7in.
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@bigwoody4704 The integrity I was concerned about was that of Maxwell-Taylor & Truscott. The same integrity you disparage simply because their opinions of the Sicilian campaign did not accord with yours.
Do you wish me to supply a whole host of opinions contrary to those you have produced above? Have you ever read, for example 'War Diaries, 1939 -1945 Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke' by Alex Danchev & Daniel Todman,(University of California Press)? The assessment highlights the often fractious relationship between Alanbrooke & Montgomery, as indeed did Corelli Barnett, who argued that Alanbrooke was more concerned with explaining why, after The Auk had been replaced, he did not take the job of C-in-C Middle East, than with justifying the decision made to replace Auchinleck.
Danchev & Todman went further, suggesting mischeviously, that Alanbrooke perhaps in later years practised the signature 'Alanbrooke of Alamein,' on scraps of paper! A rather unworthy suggestion, but certainly Alanbrooke had ambitions to be Ground Forces Commander (at least) for D-Day, and resented both the fact that he was not apponted, and thus, by extension, the man who was. The point is that Alanbrooke was not an impartial observer, but an individual rather frustrated by being denied opportunities which he thought ought to have been his.
By the way, Max Hastings was only partially correct about 9th & 10th SS Panzer. The units were indeed in the area, but had been stripped of almost all of their fighting vehicles, other than some PzIII vehicles used for training. As the intelligence officer Brian Uruquhart, was later to write, his concern was not that there was German armour in the area, but that there was a cadre of experienced commanders there who might (and did) react to the situation more quickly that the allies, and in particular Browning and Brereton, anticipated. Interestingly, the first 'German' tank that 1st Airborne actually encountered & destroyed was an olf training vehicle, a French B1. I wonder, given your obsession, whether that would serve much purpose?
In short, apart from the comments I have made above. I do not feel any need to defend Montgomery from the occasional ranter I encounter.
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@bigwoody4704 AlanBrooke,Tedder,Ramsay,Deguingand,Eisenhower,Martin Gilbert John Keegan and the rest of them are not credible ?
Again, I don't recall writing anything of the sort. I simply pointed out that Alanbrooke was known to have resented Montgomery because he believed that Montgomery was given opportunities which he felt ought, rightfully, to have been. I then referred you to a particular book by two academics which explained this.
As I explained by reference to Brian Uruquhart, Max Hastings was only partly correct. The two divisions were indeed there, but their armour was not. At the time, they were waiting to be re-equipped. To take 9th SS Panzer as an example, by the end of June 1944, it had been reduced in numbers from 15,900 to around 7,000 and in early July it was, after suffering heavy losses around Caen, withdrawn into reserve.
After arrival in the Arnhem, the suviving armoured vehicles were sent by train to Germany for service and repair. Only the reconnaissance battalion, of wheeled vehicles and half tracks, was available when Market Garden commenced in September.
You can look up 10th SS for yourself.
By the way, if you feel the need to use insults instead of argument, then that is, of course, entirely your own affair. However, might you try to use more imaginative insults? They used to cause me a degree of amusement, but now they are becoming tedious repetitive.
I don't recall you commenting on the statements made by Maxwell Taylor and Lucien Truscott? I thought I should remind you as you may have forgotten?
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@bigwoody4704 I see the problem here. You think that senior officers played games with each other, in support of ego boosting achievements.
Your response to the comments from Maxwell Taylor and Truscott so far has been to ignore what they said. Please tell me plainly, why did they speak as they did?
By the way, perhaps you are unaware that on 25 July, at a meeting of the two, Montgomery actually suggested that Patton's troops should take Messina. Apparently, at the time, Patton believed that Montgomery wanted the Americans to undertake the bulk of the fighting. It seems in Pattonworld, everything was a cunning plan to undermine his glory. Indeed, he wrote “This is a horse race in which the prestige of the U.S. Army is at stake,” to the 45th Division's commander, Troy Middleton. “We must take Messina before the British. Please use your best efforts to facilitate the success of our race.”
I suppose that a wealthy aristocrat such as George Patton, born to privilege, wouldn't have worried much about casualty levels among his troops when there was an almost limitless supply of suitable cannon fodder available to him?
This fantasy, of course, was demonstrated in the movie, where British troops march into Messina, Montgomery at their head, to be met by a preening, smirking, Patton. What a pity that in the real world, when British troops did arrive in Messina, they were led by a Brigadier, and there was no marching band, with or without bagpipes.
Montgomery wasn't there, either, although he did send Patton a telegram congratulating him.
Clark (no 'e' by the way) undertook three landings? Really? My father was present at Salerno, where he learned precisely how deep was the contempt most US officers felt for the glory hunter. By seeking to be the hero who liberated Rome, he successfully failed to prevent the bulk of Kesselring's army from escaping after Cassino, and effectively mad the Anzio landing irrelevant. He almost single-handedly extended the Italian campaign by over nine months. And you ramble on about territory!
Montgomery was Ground Forces Commander and largely responsible for the plannimng of D-Day. Don't you understand, or is your obsession about him too great, that the point about Caen was that it was a route centre.
It was the pivot which the Germans would use for their armour to counter-attack the beaches before they were properly established. Instead, the Germans became involved in a useless (to them) attritional battle in which eight SS Panzer Divisions & three SS Independent Tiger Battalions were opposed by the British & Canadians, who fought them to a standstill.
I do not intend to rely further to you, by the way. Why not sit back down in your armchair and stick a few more pins in your model of Montgomery?
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