Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "History Buffs"
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@zulubeatz1 There was an interesting post on quora a few months ago, from the nephew of Brian Urquhart, the Intelligence Officer shown in the movie giving photos. of German armour to Browning, and being told 'not to worry about them.' In fact, Urquhart didn't ever speak to Browning, and the supposed photos. never existed. Urquhart's real concern was that there were a number of senior experienced German commanders in the area, and he feared that they were capable of reacting more quickly to the operation than the Allies expected, which was actually what happened. Urquhart was the only member of the Intelligence team who was Ultra cleared, and spoke about his concerns to his immediate superior, but could not reveal his source.
Apparently, Urquhart raised the issue of the photos. with Attenborough, but was told that the bulk of the scene would play well in the US, which was the target audience. Likewise, Julian Cook, the officer portrayed by Redford, complained to Cornelius Ryan's widow about the way Redford had played him. Nothing was done, and the tea drinking scene stayed in. Now, of course, because it was in the movie, many assume it to be true.
Incidentally, Urquhart's nephew actually had a photo. of what his uncle told him was the first German tank destroyed by 1st Airborne. It was a Char B1, being used as a training vehicle.
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Where did you get this nonsense from? The 'token' force was actually the entire British field army of the time, including some partly-trained Territorial divisions. 'Pulling out of the line without telling the others?' On 26 May, Lord Gort and the commander of the French 1st Army Group, Blanchard had a meeting at Blanchard's HQ. Blanchard expressed the opinion that, in view of the impending collapse of the Belgian army, Weygand's proposals for a counter-attack were no longer realistic.
The two agreed to withdraw the allied forces behind the line of the Lys. The allies held a line 128 miles long, 97 miles of which were British held. In accordance with the agreement with Blanchard, the decision was made to reduce the defensive line by 58 miles. On the evening of 26 May, Gort ordered Lt. General Adam, commander of the British 3rd Corps, to organise defences for a bridgehead at Dunkirk. This is actually all in the books, however much you may refuse to believe it.
When Belgium capitulated, the hole left in the allied line was actually plugged by the British 3rd Division, which carried out a difficult night transfer in order to stave off disaster.
The British sent more fighter squadrons to France than, in initial planning, they had intended . Additional squadrons also operated from French bases during the day, but returned to home bases at night. Among other things, maintenance for, in particular, Spitfire squadrons could only be carried out by their specialist ground crews. The Spitfire was a rather more technically complex aircraft than the Hurricane. Further transfers stopped when Dowding appealed direct to Churchill that Fighter Command was being crippled by losses in France.
'They begrudgingly agreed to take a token number of French and Belgians.' Really? 120,000 men, or one in three of those lifted, were not British. The vast majority were French, but some were Belgians who had chosen to continue fighting after their leaders had capitulated.
The 'Reconstituted BEF' sent to Cherbourg from 7 June was to have involved the only two properly equipped divisions left in the UK, 52nd Lowland and 1st Canadian, followed by a hastily re-equipped 3rd Division. However, the deployment was terminated when General Weygand informed Alan Brooke that the French army was no longer able to offer organised resistance.
The attack on Mers-el-Kebir took place because the French commander there failed to pass on the full text of the ultimatum to his government. The possibility of sending the French Fleet to the French West Indies, which Darlan might have accepted, was never considered in consequence. The Armistice terms required that the French fleet be placed in French Atlantic ports, under German supervision. Something which, for obvious reasons, the British Government could never accept.
This paragraph :- 'Just to add another point we the US refused to send planes to help the french in Vietthnam but only a few months later we go in ourselves just to allow American interests to take over.' Makes no sense. It seems to be simple gibberish.
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Actually, they knew that an SS unit had been sent there to re-equip, but that it was short of equipment, only having old training vehicles. The first tank destroyed by 1st Para. was bizarrely an elderly French Char B1.
The famous scene where the intelligence officer, Brian Urquhart, shows Browning photos. of German Tiger IIs and is told not to worry about them is entirely fictional. Urquhart, a major, never spoke to anyone more senior than a Brigadier, no such photos. existed, and there were no Tigers in the area. Urquharts information came from his Ultra clearance, and because of this he could not reveal his true source. In fact, the intel. was correct, in that there was no heavy German armour in the area. However, it was also correct in that there were experienced German commanders there, who were able to react extremely quickly.
Far from being sent home, as the movie suggests, Urquhart was later promoted, and had a long and distinguished post-war career. Unfortunately, the film contains a whole host of inaccuracies, evidently intended to show the British, other than the paratroopers, in a bad light, in order to appeal to transatlantic audiences, the worst of all being the Robert Redford 'stopping for tea' scene, to which even the American officer he was pretending to portray actually objected.
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@gingerbaker_toad696 Von Rundstedt did not make the decision 'because he felt like it,' but for sound military reasons. Like several of the senior German Generals, he feared a repeat of the Miracle of the Marne, and was anxious to commence the second stage of the campaign. His armour had covered considerable distance on their own tracks, and needed a brief period of service/repair. Moreover he regarded an army with backs to the sea as trapped. The British, however, had long experience of sea power, and regarded the sea as a highway. Still, don't believe me; read instead the opinion of the American military historian Edward G. Lengel, which is as follows :-
'Just as the advance was ready to resume, however, an order arrived from Army Group A, under General Gerd von Rundstedt: The tanks must halt at the Aa Canal. The destruction of British and French forces around Dunkirk would be left to the Luftwaffe. This order remained in effect for two days while Guderian’s tankers champed at the bit, watching in frustration as 340,000 British and French soldiers prepared to evacuate from Dunkirk right under their noses. The Luftwaffe proved unable to stop the famous Dunkirk armada of destroyers, fishing boats and everything in between from carrying the BEF back to England to fight another day.
The halt order left Guderian “speechless,” and it has sparked debate ever since. Some writers speculated—falsely—that Hitler had given the order out of a misguided sense of mercy, hoping the British were ready to make peace. German generals, in interviews and memoirs, chalked it up as yet another example of Hitler’s outrageous military stupidity, which had prevented them from winning the war.
In truth, there was plenty of blame to go around. On May 23 Field Marshal Hermann Göring had phoned Hitler and demanded his Luftwaffe be given primary responsibility for destroying the Allied forces around Dunkirk. Hitler was noncommittal, but the next day he visited Rundstedt at his headquarters at Charleville in the Ardennes. Some of Rundstedt’s generals had been whispering in his ear that German tank losses were dangerously high. Moreover, although an Allied armored counterattack at Arras on May 21 had failed, many German generals expected another, stronger counterattack.
Worrying that a pellmell thrust toward Dunkirk might cost him more precious tanks and leave his southern flank vulnerable, Rundstedt had already issued a temporary halt order by the time Hitler arrived at his headquarters.
The führer vacillated between insecurity and overconfidence. The rapid advance of the panzers had surprised even him. Like many of his generals, he worried about tank losses and anticipated a long campaign to conquer Paris and the rest of France. The remaining tanks, he knew, must be conserved for future operations. He, too, worried about Allied counterattacks. Göring’s boasts about the Luftwaffe convinced Hitler the British couldn’t escape Dunkirk anyway.
After studying the map, Hitler confirmed Rundstedt’s halt order. He insisted the perimeter around Dunkirk be respected, to allow Göring’s planes plenty of room in which to operate. Guderian and other generals protested, but Hitler stood firm. The panzers held back.
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@amernoori4157 The Germans had, by August, 1940, over 150 medium, heavy, & super heavy batteries on the Channel coast. They began firing at the British CW & CE coastal collier convoys from 12 August. Between August & December, they fired around 1880 rounds, without scoring a single hit.
In fact, during the whole of the war, these fantastic 'technologically advanced' batteries failed to sink a single merchant ship from any of these convoys. During the same period, 531 CW & CE convoys passed up and down the Channel, involving 9097 ships, mainly small colliers or coasters escorted by two older destroyers and one or two armed trawlers. Total losses during this period were 31 vessels, of which 24 were when actually in convoy.
Another Sealion 'Would Have' with no actual knowledge of the history of the period, I observe.
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I quite agree. To be fair, though, the film also missed Admiral Wake-Walker and Captain Tennant, who were also important figures in the evacuation.
In fact, the film almost missed the Royal Navy altogether, suggesting that the evacuation was carried out by the 'Little Ships,' which in reality brought just over 6000 of 323000 men back, and passing over the role of the destroyers (102000 men), minesweepers & trawlers (77000) and transports(88000) altogether.
The RN itself seemed, in the view of the film makers, to have consisted almost entirely of a few helpless vessels wallowing in the Channel, doomed to inevitable destruction unless rescued by a passing Spitfire. Apart, of course, from the 1950s built French destroyer pictured from time to time.
In short, a disappointing film, which seemed to develop into a Spitfire Lovefest. If only they had bothered to involve a real historian as an advisor.
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@ceberskie119 Auchinleck was an outstanding general, who defeated Rommel twice, during Crusader and at First Alamein. He never commanded military operations against the Japanese, although William Slim played fulsome tribute to the behind the scenes efforts of Auchinleck in his autobiography.
Patton? Which one? The Patton of the movie, or the Patton of history? You would need to explain why Bradley was so critical of his antics on Sicily, or why Patton performed so badly in the Lorraine. In terms of casualties, Patton's actions in the Lorraine led to over 55,000 allied (American) casualties, yet the fact is never mentioned. Market Garden led to 17,000 Allied casualties.
The Patton of the movie apparently won a crucial victory over 'Rommel' or at least 'Rommel's plan.' A great deal was made of it, when the reality was that Patton fought an indecisive skirmish again a single German division at El Guettar (the division being 10 Panzer, which was commanded by von Arnim), whilst Rommel's old command, the Afrika Korps, was being defeated at Mareth, and later shattered at Wadi Akarit, by someone else.
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@suityboi2126 'Key background role!' Hardly that. Just over 600 ships, almost all manned by RN & Merchant Navy crews, lifted some 338,000 men from the beaches and Mole. Had you just arrived from a distant planet and seen the film with no prior knowledge, you would have assumed that the troops were lifted almost entirely by the Little Ships. Indeed, there was an occasional glimpse of a larger ship, usually wallowing helplessly until rescued by a passing Spitfire, but their true importance was totally ignored.
Indeed, the final scene, when the Little Ships arrive when all seems lost is quite astonishingly inaccurate. It totally distorts the actual role these ships actually played, and which they began playing from 30 May, which was to ferry troops from the open beaches to the larger vessels offshore, largely because, in this film, there didn't seem to be any larger vessels offshore!
Why would you say that the role of the Royal Navy was boring, whilst seeming to assume that the (actually, intermittent & peripheral) role of the Spitfires was much more exciting?
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@Cl0ckcl0ck Of course it was. Admiral Ramsay was tasked with lifting 40,000 men, and actually lifted 338,000, including over 100,000 men. Belgium surrendered early on 28 May. Montgomery was forced to move his division overnight in order to block a large gap in the allied line left by the surrender. Hardly a betrayal by the British.
Mers el Kebir wasn't murder, but a necessary action. The German navy, after Norway, was tiny & battered, but, with the support of the French fleet, an invasion attempt might just have been attempted. Admiral Gensoul was given a series of options in the ultimatum given to him, he simply chose not to pass these on to his political and military superiors. The British government was willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure survival, and acted accordingly. The pity was that Admiral Gensoul was not bright enough to grasp the seriousness of his situation.
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