Comments by "Barrie Rodliffe" (@barrierodliffe4155) on "War Stories" channel.

  1. Disengage? Patton was facing few Germans so not much to disengage from and it took him 5 days to reach Bastogne most of the way through US held territory and only meeting a small holding company with few tanks at Bastogne.
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  2. Little Blockhead, You really have no idea.
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  3.  @akgeronimo501  You have a very distorted view of WW II, not really surprising since you have been brought up with the Hollywood history.
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  4. Just as you know nothing about Market Garden.
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  5.  @iemjgf  Quite simply to advance on Dunkirk would have cost the Germans plenty, many of their tanks needed maintenance which had to wait for support to catch up and they needed the tanks for the rest of France which did not surrender until later, also the terrain around Dunkirk was unsuitable for tanks. At best it is possible that Germany could have prevented the evacuation but at what cost?
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  6.  @bigwoody4704  Little Blockhead, Montgomery was there not in hiding like Bradley or in the far South like Patton. Montgomery organised the US 1st and 9th armies that fought along with the British and they stopped the Germans and sent them packing while Patton was slowly going to Bastogne just in time to meet a very weak German force with few tanks.
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  7. Little Blockhead British technology given to USA which USA didn't have, Britain took in some scientists but unlike USA we had our own very good scientists.
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  8.  @akgeronimo501  You obviously did not read the full comment. I bet you do not even know that Eisenhower was in command and had rejected Montgomery's plan Comet and insisted that Market Garden go ahead.
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  9.  @bigwoody4704  What Montgomery did was to instill confidence in the troops that they could defeat Rommel and they did, he did much the same for the two US armies he took charge of in the Battle of the Bulge. I guess that you have never read anything ever written by Montgomery. Try reading the book by Chuck Yeager if you really want self serving. At least Patton got himself killed before he could write a book on how he won every battle including the Normandy invasion.
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  10. Little Blockhead, go back to school. Montgomery made the victory at Normandy possible and he went on to save the US troops in the Battle of the Bulge. Maybe Bradley or Patton should have been dismissed for their failures.
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  11. If there was no sea in between then Britain would have had a bigger army.
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  12.  @donalhartman6235  Montgomery did not plan Market Garden, he had planned D Day.
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  13.  @stillsmokntrees  No, he didn't. Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan and his team of British, Canadian and American officers submitted plans in July 1943 In December 1943 Eisenhower was appointed to lead a coalition of allied forces, he was in overall command, he did not do the planning, Montgomery was in charge of the actual invasion and he was more involved in the planning than Eisenhower.
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  14.  @stillsmokntrees  Why? It would not tell me anything new. The simple fact is that Eisenhower rejected every idea Montgomery had come up with until Montgomery proposed Market Garden which Eisenhower not only approved but insisted that it go ahead.
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  15. Yet Montgomery did not plan Market Garden. The planning was done by two US officers and the failure was the result of the US airborne 82nd and 101st failing to take their bridges. It still achieved plenty including saving many thousands of Dutch from starvation.
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  16.  @jormugand5578  Since Montgomery was far more than just a capable commander who did not drop the ball. Market Garden was only proposed by Montgomery and he did so because his other proposed operations were all rejected by Eisenhower. Montgomery did not plan where the airborne divisions were to land. Was Montgomery to blame at all? No, maybe if Eisenhower had accepted another of Montgomery's proposals things would be different, Had Patton done anything to help Market Garden it may have been different. The fact remains that Market Garden which was a good idea was 90 % successful.
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  17.  @nickdanger3802  In Britain, I know it is popular in US circles to claim USA did it all but Britain made thousands of tanks, of course it is quite likely that if a Sherman managed to destroy a British tank it would be the Sherman, highly unlikely to be a Churchill tank
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  18.  @iemjgf  It is not remembered that while Montgomery proposed Market Garden he did not do the planning. If he had been allowed to do the planning he would have made some rather important changes.
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  19. @Johnny Carroll Not so, Montgomery proposed the operation, Eisenhower approved it, Montgomery had no part in the planning for the airborne assaults which were the only failure.
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  20. @Johnny Carroll Montgomery proposed Comet which would involve British and Polish paratroops taking bridges, it evolved into Market Garden with Montgomery excluded from the airborne planning which was done by two US officers.
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  21. @Johnny Carroll The two US officers who did the planning.
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  22. @Johnny Carroll You still don't get it, Montgomery only proposed the idea, it was not his plan.
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  23. @Johnny Carroll You really don't have a clue. Montgomery proposed the operation but did not plan it.
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  24. @Johnny Carroll Since Montgomery was excluded from the planning he had no say in it. Sure he conceived the idea. You just hate Montgomery, maybe because he was British and for you the British could never be regarded as anything but useless.
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  25. What does it feel like to be ignored?
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  26. Little Wally. It just goes to show that Russia had as little idea about Normandy as you.
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  27.  @brianbreen1026  Montgomery took charge of the 1st and 9th US armies and organised them into an effective force, as Montgomery said they fought well. Why do you think Montgomery had to take over? Bradley was hiding in Luxembourg and had abandoned his headquarters leaving maps showing the US positions which fortunately Montgomery found not the Germans. Montgomery had won the invasion of Normandy then when he was no longer in charge of the US Patton got into the Lorraine and even with all of the supplies he was getting Patton was hardly moving. Eisenhower liked the idea of Market Garden and insisted it go ahead and gave the planning to two US officers for the airborne part, the only failure in Market Garden was the US 101st and 82nd failing to take their respective bridges. Overall Market Garden achieved a lot.
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  28. Montgomery can't be blamed for Market Garden, he did not plan it.
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  29. The Germans maintained radio silence on the build up to the Battle of the Bulge, they waited for poor weather and moved at night, the US got caught napping.
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  30. Americans? The British and Canadians took on most of the Germans in Normandy, especially the tanks. There was a bigger concentration of tanks per mile against the British and Canadians than at Kursk.
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  31.  @Mangoshake2021  Really? The Normandy landings were done with mostly British ships, RAF fighter cover and a lot of British equipment. The planning British and if Britain had not supplied USSR with so much equipment then they could have had more British equipment. The fact is that the British did most of the work and fighting in Normandy and didn't get pushed back into the sea. Bradley almost gave up at Omaha Beach, without the British he probably would have.
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  32.  @Mangoshake2021  Maybe you do not know much history, without you Adolf could not do much to us and without us you could not do much to Adolf.
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  33.  @akgeronimo501  I'll bet you don't know that Comet was more likely to be successful since Montgomery wanted to do what had worked so well at Pegasus bridge. US stuff ups do not make any difference to that.
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  34.  @akgeronimo501  It wasn't the 250 Sherman’s but the way the battle was fought.
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  35.  @akgeronimo501  You could have commanded and lost with ten times the force Montgomery had.
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  36.  @cthulhu6697  Too late since Berlin surrendered to the USSR on the 2nd of May, The Germans in Denmark, Holland and the North of Germany surrendered to Montgomery on the 4th of May, the rest of Germany surrendered on the 8th of May.
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  37. I read that too, the small German holding force with few tanks were not much of a force and the 101st were about ready to walk out.
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  38. Patton did very little, fortunately Montgomery was able to stop the Germans in their tracks and send them packing while Patton was moving a short distance and faced very few German troops with almost no tanks, surely that should have been easy, Patton had a 6 to 1 advantage in numbers.
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  39.  @richardredseal3993  I notice you make up a lot, Caen was taken by the British and Canadians who had to take on the best German forces in France. Markey Garden was planned by two US officers, not by Montgomery. Montgomery achieved what hew others have and even saved the US in the Battle of the Bulge.
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  40. Little Blockhead really should try to learn a bit of history.
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  41. The tank battles in the USSR were the biggest but the highest concentration of tanks per mile was against the British and Canadians, the US met few tanks and almost no Tiger tanks.
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  42.  @Arman-jx7hu  Just the truth but you wouldn't know much about that. would you?
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  43. What Tigers? the US hardly ever saw any Tiger tanks, only a very few that had been abandoned broken down. They did meet a few Panthers but not all that many.
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  44.  @Arman-jx7hu  Was i there? No, I wasn't but a lot of soldiers were. Any video? nope, there were no video cameras back then
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  45. Always sleeping while waiting to see who is going to win. It makes sense to join the winners.
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  46. If it is true, but the siege was by a small holding company with few tanks, most of the Germans had carried on with their mission, they were not concerned about Bastogne.
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  47.  @thunderbird1921  Which particular operation?
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  48.  @peterson7082  Really the case, British and Canadians used the Firefly to good effect and took on almost all of the heavy German armour in the West, Tiger, Panther, you name it, the US faced very few tanks and no Tiger tanks.
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  49.  @peterson7082  True not just in Normandy but also for the rest of the war. Lorraine which was after Normandy and Patton faced a very weak German force with almost no tanks. Patton’s Third Army was almost always where the best German divisions in the west were NOT. Who did the 3rd Army defeat? In the Lorraine 3rd Army faced a rabble. Even the German commander of Army Group G in the Lorraine, Herman Black, who took over in September 1944 said: “I have never been in command of such irregularly assembled and ill-equipped troops. The fact that we have been able to straighten out the situation again..... can only be attributed to the bad and hesitating command of the Americans. Within my zone, the Americans never once exploited a success. Often Von Mellenthin, my chief of staff and I, would stand in front of the map and say “Patton is helping us: he failed to exploit another success”. Then at the Battle of the Bulge Patton was neither on the advance nor being heavily engaged at the time he turned north to Bastogne when the Germans pounded through the US lines. The Us 1st and 9th had to be put under Montgomery’s control. The 9th stayed under his control until the end of the war. US Air Force units were put under RAF command-Coningham. Only when Patton got near to Bastogne did he face some German armour but it wasn’t a great deal of German armour. The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade wasn’t one of the best armoured units, while the 26th Volks-Grenadier had only a dozen Hetzers, and the tiny element of Panzer Lehr (Kampfgruppe 901) left behind only a small group of tanks operational. It’s not as if Patton had to smash through full Panzer divisions or Tiger battalions on his way to Bastogne. Patton’s armoured forces outnumbered the Germans by at least 6 to 1. Patton faced comparatively very little German armour when he broke through to Bastogne the vast majority of the German 5th Panzer Army had already left Bastogne, moving westwards to the River Meuse, where they were still engaging forces under Montgomery’s 21st Army group. Leading German elements were engaging the Americans and British under Montgomery’s command near Dinant by the Meuse.
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  50.  @peterson7082  Of course not, the US 1st and 9th were, but they were well commanded by Montgomery along with the British.
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