Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Imperial War Museums"
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This is very poor.
♦ Japan thought Germany would definitely defeat the USSR.
♦ The German defeat at Moscow would ensure Germany would not defeat the USSR.
♦ The Japanese entered WW2 on a presumption they would be linking up with Germany. Transpiring they were alone fighting two massive powers with another pinning their forces down in the north, eventually fighting all three. Not what they wanted or planned.
Japan would not attack the British empire, Dutch empire and the US unless Germany declared war on the USA. If Germany said no to declaring war on the USA, Japan would never have attacked and there would be no Pacific war. The two theatres were linked.
Japan did not want to face alone the USA and the British empire. The worst case scenario. And that is what happened. The Germans attempted to get the Japanese to attack the British in the Far East to divert the British away from Europe. The UK was amassing a large air fleet and also had the world's largest navy. The British would not sit by for long only fighting in the desert. The reason Germany attacked the USSR was to get their resources to fight the coming air war with the British. The Japanese repeatedly refused to declare war. Only when the Japanese thought the USSR was about to fall they joined in. The USSR kept 40 divisions opposite the Japanese Kwantung army all though WW2. With superior armour to the Japanese.
Japan received assurances from Germany in the Spring of 1941. that they would declare war on the USA. Japan, economically could not sustain war of any length of time against any major power by itself, either the UK or the USA. Especially a war strung over a vast front. They imported most raw materials with their industry primarily artisan based, with little mass production. If going it alone, what the hell attacking the USA and British Empire was to achieve with no back up occupation force at Pearl Harbor defies belief. The Pearl Harbor attack was to fend off the US navy while they gain as much resource rich territory as possible in the south while the USSR threat is moved away from their north in China by the Germans. To Japan the key was the defeat of the USSR, which by Oct/Nov 1941 they thought was a foregone conclusion.
All through WW2 the Soviets had approx 40 divisions (most armoured) in Siberia and the Soviet Far East facing the Japanese. Without Germany fighting the USSR anticipating a quick German win, the Japanese would never had attacked the USA and the British Empire. It was madness to do so unilaterally and would entail certain defeat - even the Japanese knew that.
The Japanese were to eliminate the US Pacific fleet. The US Atlantic fleet would be occupied by the German U-Boats. The carriers got away at Pearl Harbor. If the carriers were sunk, they would not have been on the defensive by June 1942, giving them far more breathing space and lots more with the anticipated defeat of the USSR within months by the Germans. If the US carriers were sunk along with the US Pacific fleet, and the USSR defeated by summer 1942 by the Germans, Japan would be in very strong position.
The Japanese gained far more territory than they gambled on. They were one day away in Singapore from surrendering, but the British beat them to the white flag. They were expecting more protracted battles in Malaya/Burma and even maybe in the Philippines.
Using some common sense tells you the Japanese were not banking on being alone fighting the world's two largest economic powers. They were expecting at least the USSR to be neutralised or eliminated. And then some military aid from the Germans would be nice if it came. The link was enacted with 41 U-Boats operating from Penang. The Germans then would engage the British diverting them away from fighting the Japanese in Burma. Getting rid of the British and the Soviets was a major prize for Japan, and Germany could do the latter and both they thought the former. So was the notion.
Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze in quotes:
♦ The tripartite pact was signed in Sept 1940. If one is attacked the others come to their aid.
♦ "The real nightmare of German strategy was the possibility that Japan might come to terms with the United States, leaving Germany to fight Britain and maybe America alone. To forestall this possibility, Hitler had offered to declare war on the United States in conjunction with Japan already in the Spring of 1941."
♦ Germany had offered to declare war on the US before the June 1941 attack on the USSR.
♦ "But the Japanese had refused to commit themselves and instead entered into a last round of negotiations with the USA."
♦ "It was not until October and the fall of the Konoe government that Berlin could feel sure that the Japanese-USA talks were going nowhere."
♦ "When in November 1941 Tokyo began to signal that Japan was about to commit itself against the West, it was the cause of relief, bordering on euphoria in Berlin. Finally Hitler and Ribbentrop had the chance to complete the global strategic alliance they had been hoping for since 1938. And they did not hesitate."
♦ The Germans immediately started to revise the Tripartite pact, knowing of the Japanese commitment to war, at the German's insistence.
♦ "Without prior knowledge of the Japanese timetable for a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration of war on the United States."
♦ 7 Dec 1941, Japanese attack the USA at Pearl Harbor and British territories in Malaya and Hong Kong.
♦ The amended Tripartite pact was signed by all, between the 7 Dec 1941, the attacks on the USA and British Empire, and Germany declaring war on the USA on 11 Dec 1941.
♦ 11 Dec 1941 Germany declares war on the USA.
Wages of Destruction is clear that the Germans were informed by the Japanese in November 1941 that they were to declare war. The attacks on the US and British Empire was no surprise to Hitler.
Wages of Destruction also states that Germany was repeatedly attempting to get Japan to declare war on the British empire. The Japanese knew exactly what the Germans wanted and what they would do. It all fits.
As it turned out:
♦ The USSR was not defeated and maintained a large army opposite the Japanese - the Japanese had already been mauled by the Soviets in Manchuria in 1939.
♦ Japan was facing the worst case scenario, the scenario it feared - fighting alone against the British empire and USA, the world's two largest economic superpowers.
♦ This was not in the forecasting. The German army defeated militarily superior France within weeks and since June 1941 were mauling the USSR so badly it was obvious to the Japanese in late 1941 the USSR would be defeated.
♦ The week in which the Japanese attacked the USA and British Empire, the Soviets counter attacked at Moscow with a battering ram of superior T-34 tanks pushing the Germans back taking 30,000 prisoners, ending any chance of Germany defeating the USSR in one swoop. A protracted war against the USSR would ensue. Not what Japan wanted.
♦ In Spring 1941, the Germans feared fighting the USA and the British alone - a worst case scenario for them. They were desperately worse off, fighting the British, USA and the USSR alone.
♦ If the Soviet counter attack had been one month earlier the Japanese would not have attacked the British and the USA - and almost a probability certainty signed a pact with the USA which was in ongoing talks virtually to the attack on the British, Dutch and Americans.
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Pre WW2 Britain was on two paths:
1) The axial-flow air compressor by Griffiths;
2) The centrifugal air compressor by Whittle.
Griffiths' 1926 seminal paper laid down axial-flow. His paper actually outlined a turbo prop. He did not believe at the time the engines could produce enough thrust, but could turn a propeller. He got Metrovick to develop an axial-flow turbojet in 1938, who started the groundwork of the F.2 axial-flow in 1940, having an engine first spin in 1940, with a successful test bed spin in 1941. Whittle's patent was in 1930, which laid down the turbojet. All this info was available to the Germans.
Whittle went for centrifugal, as it was a simpler way of compressing air. Whittle wanted a simple air compressor to establish his turbo jet design quickly. In short, he was interested more in establishing the back end of the engine, the thrust, rather than the front. Once the back end was perfected then he could improve the front, the air compression. This was the sensible approach. The centrifugal compressor was perfectly adequate to prove the rear thrust side of the engine.
As post war engines proved the centrifugal was taken to higher limits. Axial-flow compression was a series of turbine fans on one shaft, with successive fans passing air to the next fan to increase air compression. This added complexity in many ways.
Griffiths went for the more complex axial-flow. He also laid down a contra-rotating compressor, but Metrovick did not go down that road. The more powerful F.2 was used to fly the Meteor plane but considered unreliable at that stage, so Whittle's centrifugal engine was used. The F.2 was more reliable, and powerful, than the German Jumo, but the British would never put a plane in the air with such an unreliable under-developed engine. Wiggin in Birmingham were commissioned to develop high temperature resistant alloys as the jet engines were being developed. The Germans had no such programme. The F.2 ended up as the post war Sapphire being built under licence in the USA as the J65, powering the: Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Grumman F-11 Tiger, Martin B-57 and the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak.
It took the French a wasted eight years to get the German design reliable, which by that time they had discarded many of the German engine concepts. The French airliner the Sud Aviation Caravelle, used Rolls Royce Avon engines the French engines based on the German designs were so good.
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Pre WW2 Britain was on two paths:
1) The axial-flow air compressor by Griffiths;
2) The centrifugal air compressor by Whittle.
Griffiths' 1926 seminal paper laid down axial-flow. His paper actually outlined a turbo prop. He did not believe at the time the engines could produce enough thrust, but could turn a propeller. He got Metrovick to develop an axial-flow turbojet in 1938, who started the groundwork of the F.2 axial-flow in 1940, having an engine first spin in 1940, with a successful test bed spin in 1941. Whittle's patent was in 1930, which laid down the turbojet. All this info was available to the Germans.
Whittle went for centrifugal, as it was a simpler way of compressing air. Whittle wanted a simple air compressor to establish his turbo jet design quickly. In short, he was interested more in establishing the back end of the engine, the thrust, rather than the front. Once the back end was perfected then he could improve the front, the air compression. This was the sensible approach. The centrifugal compressor was perfectly adequate to prove the rear thrust side of the engine.
As post war engines proved, the centrifugal was taken to higher limits. Axial-flow compression was a series of turbine fans on one shaft, with successive fans passing air to the next fan to increase air compression as air went along the compressor. This added complexity in many ways.
Griffiths went for the more complex axial-flow. He also laid down a contra-rotating compressor, but Metrovick did not go down that path. The more powerful F.2 was used to fly the Meteor plane but considered unreliable at that stage, so Whittle's centrifugal engine was used. The F.2 was more reliable than the German Jumo, but the British would never put a plane in the air with such an unreliable under-developed engine. Wiggin in Birmingham were commissioned to develop high temperature resistant alloys as the jet engines were being developed. The Germans had no such programme. The F.2 ended up as the post war Sapphire being built under licence in the USA as the J65, powering the: Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Grumman F-11 Tiger, Martin B-57 and the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak.
It took the French a wasted eight years to get the German design reliable, which by that time they had discarded many of the German engine concepts. The French airliner, the Sud Aviation Caravelle, used Rolls Royce Avon engines the French engines, based on German designs, were so good.
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Caen, the full Order No 1 transcript:
(I Corps Operations Order No. 1, WO 171/258)
3 British Division
a) The task of 3 British Division is to capture CAEN and secure a bridgehead over the R ORNE at that place.
b) The enemy may develop his counter-attack--
i) Through CAEN
ii) Across R ORNE at RANVILLE - BENOUVILLE having established himself in the area East of R ORNE from which he can dominate the beaches West of OUISTREHAM and the Northern approaches to CAEN.
iii) West of Caen, between R MUE and the CAEN Canal
iv) Any combination of the above
In cases (ii) and (iii) using CAEN as a pivot, if he succeeds in forestalling us there.
c) To counter these enemy measure 3 British Division should, before dark on D-Day, have captured or effectively masked CAEN and be disposed in depth with brigade localities firmly established.
i) North-West of BENOUVILLE, in support of 6 Airborne Division operating East of R ORNE (having relieved the airborne troops West of the canal and taken over the defence of the BENOUVILLE-RANVILLE crossings.
ii) North-West of CAEN, tied up with the LEFT forward brigade locality of 3 Canadian Division.
Should the enemy forestall us at CAEN and the defences prove to be strongly organised thus causing us the fail to capture it on D-Day, further direct frontal assaults which may prove costly will not be undertaken without reference to I Corps. In such an event 3 British Division will contain the enemy in CAEN and retain the bulk of its forces disposed for mobile operations inside the covering position. CAEN will be subjected to heavy air bombardment to limit its usefulness and to make its retention a costly business."
- Richard Anderson - "Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day"
So the intention in the Order is quite clear. Take Caen if possible, but if German resistance ensure that the enemy doesn't use it as a means of counter-attacking. Mask it off then let the RAF deal with Caen. Caen was not the prime aim. It was to draw the German Armour reserves onto the Second Army then grind them down, with also an aim to prevent them from interfering in Bradley's breakout into Brittany and the seizing Cherbourg. The Germans kept approximately 90% of their armour on Monty's left flank against the British and Canadians including ALL the elite Panzer Divisions, and kept all the heavy armour away from the US armies.
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In an interview with Maj Gen G. E. Prier-Palmer, British Joint Services Mission in Washington, in 1955, General Browning said the Grave and Nijmegen Bridges must be seized "as soon as possible", although the wooded Groesbeek Heights on the route to the bridge must be held.
Field Order 11 of 13 Sept is clear in section 2 a), putting the bridges first in the writing, that they were to be seized, then the high ground secured and then the roads. Order 1, of 13 September, written by Lindquist of the 508th, states he will wait at the high ground for a Division Order to move from the Heights to the bridge. In short, wait for an Order from Gavin to move.
The heights near De Ploeg, which are really pretty flat being a wooded area but high for Holland, are pretty well between the Drop Zone (DZ) and bridge. The 508th would go through the Heights to reach the bridge. Browning and Gavin naturally did not want German troops between the LZ and the bridge, so the Heights had to be occupied and secure. The 508th CP would be established at the Heights.
Gavin understood the priorities in sending the 508th to the bridge and Groesbeek heights immediately, with Coln Warren's battalion of the 508th assigned the bridge. To get to the bridge from the DZ you have to pass the Groesbeek Heights, so any enemy at the Heights naturally had to be subdued, then secure the area, which could take time, then send Warren's battalion to the bridge.
It took the 665 men of 508th a painfully slow 3.5 hours to march a few miles from the DZ to the heights, reaching the Groesbeek heights at 1730. They encountered only a few Labour troops in opposition. There were no Germans at the Groesbeek Heights as forward scouts relayed back the situation. So, on route Coln Lindquist the head of the 508th could have sent Warren's A and B companies directly to the bridge, bypassing the Groesbeek Heights, immediately via the riverbank as instructed by Gavin. The rest of the battalion could move to the empty Groesbeek Heights setting up defences at De Ploeg on the heights. Dutch resistance men informed the 508th that the Germans had largely cleared out of Nijmegen with only 19 guards on the bridge. So all was easy and fine, so the two companies assigned the bridge could move immediately to their objective without a diversion via the Groesbeek Heights.
Despite hearing the good news from the Dutch Underground, Lindquist in command of the 508th was not moving at all, keeping all his men static at De Ploeg. Lindquist was waiting for a Divisional Order from Gavin informing him that the DZ was secure, then send Warren's battalion to the bridge. When Gavin found out Lindquist was static via a liaison officer he was livid, running over to De Ploeg in a Jeep telling Lindquist to get moving to the bridge. Even then, took Lindquist another two hours to send men in force to the bridge.
Three stray men from a forty man patrol sent to the bridge immediately by Warren to confirm what the Dutch Underground told them on reaching DePloeg, took the guards on the south end of the bridge prisoner. They left when no one turned up. When leaving they saw hundreds of Germans pour from the north onto the previously lightly guarded bridge. Later, a company of Warren's main force became lost when they eventually moved towards the bridge. By the time Warren's two companies did reach the bridge in force, the Germans had reinforcing the bridge with hundreds of men. Too late. The first attack on the bridge was just before midnight, 10.5 hours after landing.
* The 82nd were expecting German resistance from the east, however it came from the north via the Nijmegen bridge.
* Gavin was expecting Lindquist to secure the Groesbeek heights, which were devoid of enemy forces, then immediately move to the bridge, which meant sending Warren's battalion immediately.
* Lindquist was expecting Gavin to notify him that the DZ was clear.
Gavin was expecting Lindquist to go to the bridge when it was obvious the Groesbeek heights, on the way to the bridge, were secure. As no Germans were about, the heights were naturally secure. Regarding Lindquist's expected clearing of the LZ before moving from DePloeg. Lindquist did write a Field Order for the 508th on 13 September copied to Gavin, stating that once the heights were secure he would wait for a Divisional Order [from Gavin] to move. Two days later at the jump briefing Gavin verbally overruled Lindquist's Field Order, using a map he told him that he should move to the bridge "without delay". Poor command communications by Gavin.
Poulussen, in Lost at Nijmegen discovered that the 508th jumped without any written offensive orders from Gavin. All was verbal from Gavin to Lindquist of the 508. Chester Graham, the 82nd liaison officer, was at the pre jump meeting in England. He said there was no ambiguity amongst anyone there that the bridge was the prime target.
In 1945 Historical Officer, Capt. John Westover of the US Army Centre of Military History, was wanting confirmation that if the capture of the Nijmegen bridge had been part of the objectives. In response, dated 25 July 1945, General Gavin was clear: "About 48 hours prior to take-off, when the entire plan appeared to be shaping well, I personally directed Col Lindquist, commanding the 508 PIR to commit his first battalion against the Nijmegen Bridge without delay _after landing but to keep a close watch on it in the event he needed to protect himself against the Reichswald and he was cautioned to send the battalion via the east of the city.
"_General Browning never knew men were static at De Ploeg. Like Gavin he was expecting men to be seizing the bridge. Being corps commander, he was busy attempting to communicate with all three parachute divisions. The 82nd did launch a few failed attacks on the bridge. In the afternoon of the next day, 18th, Gavin asked permission to launch another attack. Browning, seeing the bridge was well defended, and the failed attacks, refused, opting to wait for XXX Corps to arrive to seize the bridge. Inexplicably Gavin moved all his men out of Nijmegen town completely to the heights and DZ, giving the town back to the Germans. This made matters worse when XXX Corps arrived who had expended vital time, and ammunition, in flushing them out.
On page 162 of the U.S. Official History: "many documents regarding the extensive combat interviews were conducted with personnel of the 508th Parachute Infantry, they are inexplicably missing from Department of the Army files."
Read:
1) Put Us Down In Hell - A Combat History Of The 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment In World War II by Phil Nordyke.
2) Arnhem 1944 by Christer Bergström.
3) Market Garden, Then and Now by Karl Magry.
4) Lost at Nijmegen by R Poulusson
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The state of play on the 17th, D day, was:
1) the road from Eindhoven to Arnhem was largely clear;
2) there were concentrated German forces on the Dutch/Belgian border facing the British on the front line - naturally;
3) there were around 600 non-combat troops in Nijmegen;
4) a few scattered about along the road;
5) there was no armour in Arnhem.
That was it.
i) XXX Corps would deal from the Belgium border to Eindhoven;
ii) 101st from Eindhoven to Grave;
iii) 82nd from Grave to north of Nijmegen;
iv) British and Polish paras from north of Nijmegen to north of the Rhine;
XXX Corps moved off on H hour on d-day meeting stiffer resistance than they expected. The US official history states they made remarkable progress. The US 101st took 3-4 hours to move about 2 km to the Zon bridge with little opposition. The Germans blew the bridge. If they had done a coup de main or moved faster to the bridge, the 101st would have secured it.
XXX Corps heard that the bridge ahead was blown so slowed up, getting the Bailey bridge ready. Urgency had gone out of the advance until a bridge was erected. XXX Corps were delayed 10-12 hours at Zon while they themselves ran over a Bailey bridge. In this gift of a time window the Germans were running armour into Arnhem, and towards the road, which would make matters worse.
XXX Corps moved out of Zon on D-day plus 2 first light. It took them 2hrs 45 mins to travel 26 miles on that road. It was clear except for some Germans on the road in the gap between the southern 82nd perimeter and the northern 101st's perimeter. The two airborne units were to lay a continuous carpet for XXX Corps to power up. They never met up.
The road was still largely clear from Zon to Arnhem 40 hours after the first jump. XXX Corps reached Nijmegen about 0820hrs on d-day plus 2, making up the delay at Zon. They reached Nijmegen seeing the Germans still on the bridge when arriving. A bridge the 82nd were supposed to have secured for them to speed over. If the 101st and 82nd had seized their bridges immediately, XXX Corps would have been at the Arnhem bridge on d-day plus one in the evening. Game, set, and match.
On arriving at Nijmegen XXX Corps took control, then immediately worked to seize the bridge themselves, after the 82nd tried again and failed again. This delayed them another 36 hours. This was now a total delay of nearly two days. In this massive and unexpected gift of a time window, the Germans ran armour into Arnhem from Germany overpowering the British paras at Arnhem.
XXX Corps could only reach the southern end of Arnhem bridge on the Rhine, only yards away from their objective. A bridgehead was precluded because two US airborne units failed to seize their bridges - easy to seize bridges at that, if they had bothered to move with any speed.
According to the official AMERICAN Army historian, Forrest Pogue, he stated that the failure of US 82nd Airborne to assault the lightly defended Nijmegen bridge immediately upon jumping 'sounded the death knell' for the men at Arnhem.
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The American post war version of events is one that attempts to whitewash their failure at Nijmegen to capture the bridge on the first day. The film A bridge Too Far, made when Browning had already died, only cemented the false narrative in the minds of the public. Since then many researchers have uncovered the real facts.
The 508th did launch some patrols into Nijmegen. A patrol from the 3rd Battalion almost reached the bridge - but only after being delayed by the enemy with the bridge being reinforced in company strength by the time they reached it.
Warren's 1st Bn had launched a patrol or two patrols, yes, just patrols. Nordyke notes two versions from Warren and his exec' officer. It, or they, were led by the Bn S-2 Intelligence Section, then joined by Lt. Weaver's 3rd Platoon of the Bn reserve C Company, plus two squads from the HQ Company LMG Platoon and C Company's SCR-300 radio set and operator, for communication back to the Battalion. Weaver's patrol met German resistance, withdrawing when they heard the Bn were sending A and B companies to take the bridge. They only went to the bridge because Gavin ran to Lindquist's CP at De Ploeg in a Jeep, screaming at him to get moving when he found, after many hours, he was not moving to the bridge.
"I knew all of the division staff and the other regimental commanders, and was included in the planning of operations and briefings. I was ‘bigoted.’ [This is a WWII military term for being read into/briefed on missions.]
Prior to the Holland jump, I sat in a high-level briefing at division headquarters. Colonel Lindquist was told by General Gavin to move to the Nijmegen Bridge as soon as Lindquist thought practical after the jump. Gavin stressed that speed was important.
After we were dropped in Holland, I went to the 508th Regimental CP and asked Colonel Lindquist when he planned to send the 3rd Battalion to the bridge. His answer was, “As soon as the DZ (drop zone) is cleared and secured. Tell General Gavin that.” So I went cross-country through Indian country [slang military term for enemy territory] to the Division CP and relayed Lindquist’s message to Gavin.
I never saw Gavin so mad. As he climbed into his jeep, he told me to, “Come with me — let’s get him moving.” "On arriving at the 508th Regimental CP, Gavin told Lindquist, “I told you to move with speed.”
- by Chester E Graham, liaison officer between the 508th and the 82nd Division Headquarters.
Three stray men of an 82nd patrol, were separated reaching the Nijmegen bridge. They captured about the German bridge guards and their small artillery weapon on the south end of the bridge. They waited an hour until dark at around 7:30 pm, withdrawing as no one turned up. They could hear heavy equipment approaching from Arnhem, being the SS-Panzer Recon Battalion 9, who crossed the bridge at Arnhem just missing Frost's men at 7pm.
- Demolition Platoon, 508th by Zig Burroughs.
Look at Frost's progress in Arnhem, where his whole battalion following A Company moved away from the Germans, through people's houses, over walls and back yards, carrying all their equipment, by-passing German positions, reaching the Arnhem bridge. The British First Airborne landed half an hours after the 508. They had an extra 4 or 5 miles march, met more resistance, yet reached the Arnhem bridge before the US 82nd reached the Nijmegen bridge.
General Gavin gained promotion, 505th PIR command to Assistant Divisional commander for Normandy. He was promoted again to Divisional commander for Holland. Gavin inherited Lindquist as commander of the 508th, who were the least experienced regiment in the Division. Yet Gavin gave the least experienced regiment the prime task. Gavin says that in England he told Lindquist to go for the bridge "without delay." Lindquist denied Gavin said this.
Gavin chose the most experienced regiment, the 504th, who had just returned from Anzio, to secure the Grave bridge, because it was on the Division's supply line. Without the Grave bridge secured, the 82nd would be in trouble. The next most experienced regiment was Gavin's old unit the 505th, giving them the defensive task of securing the landing zones from counter-attack from the Reichswald.
The intelligence picture by SHAEF, on 16 September, suspected II.SS-Panzerkorps was drawing new tanks from a depot in the Kleve area of Germany. Gavin had this mythical 1,000 tanks in the Reichswald, so he gave the least experienced 508th the task of securing Nijmegen and its bridges. This was a unit, better suited to a defensive role. The 508th, and Lindquist, were well dug-in on the Groesbeek ridge at De Ploeg when Gavin was informed they were not moving on the bridges in Nijmegen. They were not following Gavin's divisional plan, Lindquist was waiting for a division order from HQ before moving into Nijmegen. This was a clear communications failure between Gavin and Lindquist.
Ridgway had no role to play in Market Garden as his two divisions of XVIII Corps were attached to the British First Airborne Corps for the operation, under Browning. Ridgway got into a Jeep riding up from Belgium, when XXX Corps made contact with the the 82nd, paying a visit to Gavin's CP to see why they had not secured the bridge. Gavin entered to find Ridgway in the CP studying a map. Gavin ignored him and immediately left without even acknowledging Ridgway's presence.
The fact is there were no German combat troops in Nijmegen on the jump day. None. The low grade aged troops were scared stiff of meeting well armed aggressive paras. The German HQs moved out immediately. Dutch Resistance men informed Linquists at De Ploeg that the bridge had 19 guards with most Germans evacuating Nijmegen.
Regarding Harmel, the German commander who was in command of the 'island' between Nijmegen and Arnhem, when interviewed by Kershaw in the 1970s, he said there was no German armour between the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridge when XXX Corps secured the Nijmegen bridge. This was incorrect as German records show German tanks, inc' Tigers, were already crossing south on the Arnhem bridge to form a line at Elst - the British First had capitulated on the Arnhem bridge running out of ammunition, at the same time XXX Corps crossed the Nijmegen bridge. Harmel never knew this, as communications was skant in a fluid situation. After, the last thing they were thinking of was where and what time, as they saw the allied in a few days had punched a 60 mile salient right into their lines on the German border, taking the largest road bridge in Europe at the time.
▪ Put Us Down In Hell - A Combat History Of The 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment In World War II by Phil Nordyke.
▪ Arnhem 1944 by Christer Bergström
▪ Market Garden, Then and Now by Karl Magry.
▪ Lost at Nijmegen by R Poulusson
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The gains from MARKET GARDEN have been noted by: Eisenhower:
'The attack began well and unquestionably would have been successful except for the intervention of bad weather. This prevented the adequate reinforcement of the northern spearhead and resulted in finally in the decimation of the British airborne division and only a partial success in the entire operation. We did not get our bridgehead but our lines had been carried well out to defend the Antwerp base.'
Major-General Sir Francis De Guingand:
‘It is interesting to consider how far we failed in this operation. It should be remembered that the Arnhem bridgehead was only a part of the whole. We had gained a great deal in spite of this local set-back. The Nijmegen bridge was ours, and it proved of immense value later on. And the brilliant advance by 30th Corps led the way to the liberation of a large part of Holland, not to speak of providing a stepping stone to the successful battles of the Rhineland.
MONTY The Field-Marshal, NIGEL HAMILTON:
‘General Student, in a statement after the war, considered the ‘Market Garden’ operation to have ‘proved a great success. At one stroke it brought the British 2nd Army into the possession of vital bridges and valuable territory. The conquest of the Nijmegen area meant that the creation of a good jumping board for the offensive which contributed to the end of war.’ Student was expressing the professional admiration of an airborne commander - ‘those who had planned and inaugurated with complete the first airborne operations of military history, had not now even thought of such a possible action by the enemy…the Allied Airborne action completely surprised us. The operation hit my army nearly in the centre and split it into two parts…In spite of all precautions, all bridges fell intact into the hands of the Allied airborne forces—another proof of the paralysing effect of surprise by airborne forces!’ As for hindsight, the only part of that would interest me would be to judge the actions of those people at that time in the situation that they found themselves in. As far as MARKET GARDEN was concerned, the German V-2 rockets on London alone justified the attempt, even without the other, good reasons for making the attempt.
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@ThePalaeontologist
Inland Caen was not prime target. ports were. Pre Orders were that if Ceen had stiff resistance the RAF would deal with it. In the early days it was vital to secure the beachhead not get bogged down in fighting for a non-port small city.
"The Battle of the Generals" by General Blumenson makes it clear that Bradley, not Montgomery, ordered Patton to stop at Falaise;
▪ Bradley, on his own initiative, ordered Patton to stop on August 12 (page. 206-207);
▪ Bradley's post-war effort to blame this on Montgomery was "dishonest and anti-British" (page. 211);
▪ Despite Bradley stating he ordered it. Patton was running off to Paris, but Bradley failed to stop him from making a long hook encirclement of the Germans towards Dreux at the Sein (page. 223);
▪ This was in clear contradiction to Montgomery's suggestion that he do so (page. 218).
The U.S. Army Official History - Martin Blumenson's Breakout and Pursuit - attributes the decision not to close the gap to Bradley. Thus the title of the section is BRADLEY'S DECISION (pages 506-509). He states directly: "Montgomery did not prohibit American advance beyond the boundary." And on page 509: "Bradley himself made the decision to halt."
The British Official History - L. F. Ellis, Victory in the West, Vol. 1 - attributes the decision to Bradley on page 429.
In Bradley's memoir A Soldier's Story he says on page 377, "Monty had never prohibited and I never proposed that U.S. forces close the gap from Argentan to Falaise." He gives a number of reasons for not pushing north from Argentan, but Monty forbidding it is not one of them.
Nigel Hamilton, Monty's official biographer, states in The War Years that the decision was Bradley's. "Dempsey's diary record of his meeting with Monty and Bradley proves there was certainly no plot to deny Patton glory, since Dempsey specifically recorded: `So long as the Northward move of Third Army meets little opposition, the two leading Corps will disregard inter-Army boundaries'" (page. 788).
There are plenty of secondary sources that pin the blame on Bradley.
▪ Russell Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants" page. 216: "Bradley, having set the stage by urging Eisenhower and Montgomery to grasp the opportunity of a short envelopment at Falaise-Argentan, failed to persist in completing his own design. He abandoned the short envelopment before its potential was achieved, and meanwhile he had delayed the long envelopment at the Seine.";
▪ Peter Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe page. 171: "Bradley was slow to concentrate sufficient force to close the Falaise Gap from the south when he had the opportunity to do so.";
▪ Robin Neillands, The Battle of Normandy 1944 page. 358: "Bradley's memoirs and the British Official History make it abundantly clear this decision was Bradley's."
There are many more sources where these came from.
Carlo D'Este states on page 444, "When Dempsey met Bradley and Montgomery there was apparently no restraint placed on further northward movement by XV Corps... the fact that the Third Army did not move north of Argentan appears to have been Bradley's choice rather than a prohibition by Montgomery." On page 448 he writes, "The assertion that Montgomery made no effort to close the gap is without foundation." D'Este also dismisses the view of Strafford on page 451. No reasonable reading of D'Este on Falaise could possibly support blaming Montgomery. The US Official History, the British Official History, BRADLEY HIMSELF (twice!) and a multitude of secondary sources say Monty did not order Patton to halt. Neither Bradley himself, nor Montgomery, nor the senior British Army commander, nor the British or American official historians think Montgomery ordered Bradley to stop. THERE WAS NO HALT ORDER by Monty.
Chester Hanson and Ralph Ingersoll promoted that Monty halted Patton at Falaise were Anglophobes. Ingersoll had Communist leanings who wrote in order to convince people to trust the Russians and hate the British "imperialists".
Bradley himself said it was his decision. In A General's Life Bradley writes:
"Montgomery had no part in the decision; it was mine and mine alone. Some writers have suggested that I appealed to Monty to move the boundary north to Falaise and he refused, but, of course, that is not true... I was determined to hold Patton at Argentan and had no cause to ask Monty to shift the boundary."
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