Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "TIKhistory"
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Bastogne was not critical at all. It was so critical for the Germans they bypassed it rather than expend men on it. It was on their extreme left flank. The Germans slowed Patton down. He was very slow. Patton had less than 20 km of German held ground to cover during his actual 'attack' towards Bastogne, with the vast majority of his move towards Bastogne through American held lines devoid of the enemy. His start line for the attack was at Vaux-les-Rosieres, 15km southwest of Bastogne and yet he still took him five days to get through to Bastogne.
After the German attack in the Ardennes, US air force units were put under Coningham of the RAF, who gave Patton massive ground attack support and he still stalled. Patton's failure to concentrate his forces on a narrow front and his decision to commit two green divisions to battle without adequate reconnaissance resulted in his stall. US historian Roger Cirillo said, "Patton launched attack, after attack, after attack, after attack, that failed. Because he never waited to concentrate".
The 18,000 men in Bastogne pretty well walked out, even the commander of the US 101st stated that. The Germans had vacated the area heading west.
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The state of play on the 17th, D day, was:
1) the road from Eindhoven to Arnhem was 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) then 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 the bridge.
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 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.
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*****
I am not saying the 82nd did nothing while on the far bank. The 82nd did killing number of Germans fleeing the rail bridge as they were under fire from the British from the south. I would not deny that the odd one or two 82nd men were 'near' the north bank of the bridge, but none of them were on the bridge at all. A lot of them were 1km north in Lent.
Sergeant Peter Robinson, of the of the Guards Armored Division who led the charge over the Nijmegen bridge clears it up, stated:
"The Nijmegen bridge wasn’t taken [by the 82nd] which was our objective. We reached the far end of the bridge and immediately there was a roadblock. So the troop sergeant covered me through and then I got to the other side and covered the rest of the troop through. We were still being engaged; there was a gun in front of the church three or four hundred yards in front of us. We knocked him out. We got down the road to the railway bridge; we cruised round there very steady. We were being engaged all the time. Just as I got round the corner and turned right I saw these helmets duck in a ditch and run, and gave them a burst of machine gun fire. I suddenly realised they were Americans. They had already thrown a gammon grenade at me so dust and dirt and smoke were flying everywhere. They jumped out of the ditch; they kissed the tank; they kissed the guns because they’d lost a lot of men. They had had a very bad crossing."
Sgt Robinson again....
"Well, my orders were to collect the American colonel who was in a house a little way back, and the first thing he said to me was "I have to surrender"
"Well I said, 'I'm sorry. My orders are to hold this bridge. I've only got two tanks available but if you'd like to give me ground support for a little while until we get some more orders then we can do it. He said he couldn’t do it, so I said that he had better come back to my wireless and talk to General Horrocks because before I started the job I had freedom of the air. Everybody was off the air except myself because they wanted a running commentary about what was going on - So he came over and had a pow-wow with Horrocks. The colonel said 'Oh very well’ and I told him where I wanted the men, but of course you can't consolidate a Yank and they hadn’t been there ten minutes before they were on their way again."
The 82nd men wanted to surrender! And never gave support which was what they were there to do.
Captain Lord Carrington's own autobiography entitled 'Reflect on Things Past':
"At that stage my job - I was second-in-command of a squadron - was to take a half-squadron of tanks across the bridge. Since everybody supposed the Germans would blow this immense contraption we were to be accompanied by an intrepid Royal Engineer officer to cut the wires and cleanse the demolition chambers under each span. Our little force was led by an excellent Grenadier, Sergeant Robinson, who was rightly awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his action. Two of our tanks were hit not lethally - by anti-tank fire, and we found a number of Germans perched in the girders who tried to drop things on us but without great effect. Sergeant Robinson and the leading tank troop sprayed the opposite bank and we lost nobody, When I arrived at the far end my sense of relief was considerable: the bridge had not been blown, we had not been plunged into the Waal"
Carington again..
"*A film representation of this incident has shown American troops as having already secured the far end of the bridge. That is mistaken* - probably the error arose from the film-maker's confusion of two bridges, there was a railway bridge with planks placed between the rails and used by the Germans for [light] road traffic, to the west of the main road bridge we crossed; and the gallant American Airborne men: reached it. When Sergeant Robinson and his little command crossed our main road bridge, however, only Germans were there to welcome him; and they didn't stay."
The meeting of the 82nd men and the tanks was 1 km north of the bridge at the village of Lent where the railway embankment from the railway bridge met the north running road running off the main road bridge. The 82nd men did not reach the north end of the actual road bridge, the Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry got there first from the south.
Nijmegen: U. S. 82nd Airborne Division - 1944. Chapter Nine
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wfsFWW86mzUC&pg=PT187&dq=Nijmegen:+U.+S.+82Nd+Airborne+Division+-+1944+Lent&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj45eLh2a3PAhWoAMAKHS-_Ay8Q6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=Nijmegen%3A%20U.%20S.%2082Nd%20Airborne%20Division%20-%201944%20Lent&f=false
This goes on about Moffat Burris and the likes, which Carington says never happened
*Shrinking Perimeter
By Martin Bowman*
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2JTwAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&dq=Nijmegen+bridge+lent&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9sbed1K3PAhWLKcAKHZqSAesQ6AEIMDAC#v=onepage&q=Nijmegen%20bridge%20lent&f=false
Bowman says three 82nd men were at the north end (that would be where the bridge ramp meets the ground) and the rest of them up in Lent. What three of them were doing by themselves in an area full of Germans God only knows.
It is clear that no 82nd men were on the Nijmegen road bridge at all and only three of them at the north end which was a long way from the main structures over the Waal.
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General Eisenhower had agreed at the conference with his commanders in Brussels on 10 September to defer the Antwerp operation while awaiting the outcome of Operation MARKET-GARDEN. "The attractive possibility of quickly turning the German north flank led me to approve the temporary delay in freeing the vital port of Antwerp . . .," the Supreme Commander wrote later.
- US Official History, BREACHING THE SIEGFRIED LINE
(Page 209).
Antwerp is way inland - 35-40 miles up a narrow, dredged and winding river that needed mine-sweeping and maybe dredging. Ships navigating the river are open to air attack being pretty static targets. If one or two ships are sunk in the river channels, the whole port of Antwerp is out of action. Monty stated that he needed three Pas de Calais ports, right on the coast to supply the armies. The prime aim was to get the ports directly on the coast for obvious reasons.
On September 9, the 2nd Canadian Infantry occupied the port of Ostend. Although fortified, was not defended by the Germans. The harbour installations, had been partly demolished which delayed its opening. On September 28, stores and bulk petrol began flowing through the port.
The damage to the port of Boulogne, taken by the Canadians, was severe and the facilities were not available until November, after Antwerp had been opened.
The Canadians, Czechs and Poles failed to take Dunkirk. It was decided not to pursue Dunkirk as the port installations were too far destroyed. The German garrison was left isolated at Dunkirk until the war's end.
So to get the awkward to access port of Antwerp operational, the Scheldt had to be taken to allow ships up the 40 miles of narrow river. Rail lines were being brought into use from Normandy.
Only when enough Channel ports could not be secured was full attention focused on clearing the Scheldt to gain access to Antwerp. Montgomery as a part of Operation Comet, requested Brereton, an American who was head of the First Allied Airborne Army, to drop into the Scheldt. He refused. Operation Comet morphed into Market Garden with the aim of creating a buffer between Antwerp and German forces who may attempt to retake the port, and also to overrun V weapon sites which were being aimed at London.
Those who say Monty was too slow in not clearing the Scheldt need to look deeper.
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