Comments by "Barrie Rodliffe" (@barrierodliffe4155) on "The People Profiles" channel.

Market Garden planning being taken out of Montgomery's hands look at Brereton and Gavin if you want to blame anyone.
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@steveperreira5850 If it was a myth rather than fact that Montgomery took on Rommel and beat him. Montgomery was the ONLY commander in North Africa who had the brains and savvy to realize that you do NOT outrun your supply lines by advancing too quickly. It wasn’t the lack of supplies that was the problem for Rommel. It was the fact that he moved too quickly, over extended himself and made his advances vulnerable to counter-attack. The British made exactly the same mistakes during Operation Crusader. Montgomery never played into Rommel’s hands. From ‘Eight Army’s Greatest Victories’ (Adrian Stewart): Such was Rommel’s own view. ‘Montgomery’ he states, had attempted no large- scale attack to retake the southern part of his line; and would probably have failed if he had. He had relied instead on the effect of his enormously powerful artillery and air force. Added to this, our lines of communication had been subjected to continual harassment attacks by the 7th Armoured Division. There is no doubt that the British commander’s handling of this action had been absolutely right and well suited to the occasion, for it had enabled him to inflict very heavy damage on us in relation to his own losses, and to retain the striking power of his own force. On 1 September, Field Marshal Kesslerling visited the battle-area and Rommel poured out his troubles to him, declaring angrily that: ‘The swine isn’t attacking!’ The ‘swine’ of course was Montgomery. As soon as Montgomery entered the picture in North Africa he only advanced one way. Forward and never backwards. He made sure he NEVER over extended his supply lines in a North Africa as the distances were huge and extremely problematic.
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