Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "TIKhistory"
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@johnlucas8479
"Where is your evidence the road was clear for 40 hours?"
XXX Corps moved from Zon to Nijmegen in 2 hrs 45 mins. But you already know this.
From US Offcial history....
"During the night they installed a Bailey bridge, so that at 0645 (D plus 2, 19 September) the armor rumbled across."
at 0645 (D plus 2, 19 September) the armor rumbled across [the Zon bridge].
US Official history....
Spearheading the 30 Corps ground column, reconnaissance troops of the Guards Armoured Division linked with Colonel Tucker's S04th Parachute Infantry at Grave at 0820 the morning of D plus 2, 19 September. Major formations of the British armor were not far behind.
XXX Corps covered over 26 miles in 2 hr 45 mins.
If the 82nd had not hung around De Ploeg moving directly to the bridge they would have walked on it whistling Dixie. Three men of an 82nd patrol took half the bridge guards prisoner for 45-60 minutes having to let them go because no one turned up.
Use simple sums. XXX Corp reached Zon at 1900 Hours on D-Day plus 1. If it took them 2 hrs 45 mins to run up 26 miles of road, they would have been in Nijmegen at 2145 hrs d-day plus 1, seven miles from Arnhem. If the 82nd had seized the Nijmegen bridge, XXX Corps would have reached the south of the Arnhem bridge probably around 2300 hrs on d-day plus 1.
Eisenhower insisted the operation go ahead on the 17th, irrespective that VIII Corps could not join the fight until the 19th, d-day plus 2. If VIII had joined the fight on d-day, the German counter-attacks on the 101st would have been minimal and the highway free from attack.
Second Army now had three corps along the Meuse-Escaut Canal, but VIII Corps on the right was not yet ready to attack and XII Corps on the left was facing a belt of difficult, marshy country. Moreover, there were sufficient supplies forward to maintain a deep penetration only by XXX Corps.
- The Struggle for Europe by Chester Wilmot
Owing to the shortage of transport for troops and ammunition, XII Corps could secure only one small bridgehead beyond the Meuse-Escaut Canal before the 17th, and VIII Corps could not join the offensive until the 19th. Even then this corps had only two divisions, for the 51st Highland was grounded throughout the Arnhem operation so that its transport could be used to supply the forward troops. On the first two days of MARKET GARDEN Dempsey was able to employ offensively only three of the nine British divisions available, and, as already recorded, the actual break-out was made by two battalions advancing along one narrow road. This was the direct result of Eisenhower’s policy. If he had kept Patton halted on the Meuse, and had given full logistic support to Hodges and Dempsey after the capture of Brussels, the operations in Holland could have been an overwhelming triumph"
- The Struggle for Europe by Chester Wilmot
VIII Corps and XII Corps hardly got above Eindhoven.
But you know all this anyhow.
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@johnlucas8479
Oh No! He is still ion this the British tankers sat down and drank tea after seizing Nijmegen bridge or the 82nd.
"For all the concern that must have existed about getting to Arnhem, only a small part of the British armor was freed late on D plus 4, 21 September, to start the northward drive. As the attack began, British commanders saw every apprehension confirmed. The ground off the main roads was low-lying, soggy bottom-land, denying employment of tanks.
A few determined enemy bolstered with antitank guns might delay even a large force."
since the preceding night the bridge had been open to German traffic. At the village of Ressen, less than three miles north of Nijmegen, the Germans had erected an effective screen composed of an SS battalion reinforced with 11 tanks, another infantry battalion, 2 batteries of 88-mm. guns, 20 20-mm. antiaircraft guns, and survivors of earlier fighting at Nijmegen, all operating under General Bittrich's II SS Panzer Corps. Arnhem lay seven miles north of this screen. The British could not pass.
- US Official History (which you ignore)
Mr Lucas wrote:
"Yet again in your previous post you claim XXX Corp would have cross the same terrain in the dark in 1 hour 15 minutes."
This is where your logic fails you. On d-day plus 4 the Arnhem bridge was free for German traffic, who were sending Tiger tanks south to Elst - as the US Official History states: The British could not pass.
Prior to Frost's men capitulating German forces between the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges were light. On d-day plus 1 they may have taken over a StuG on the ferry.
Get it?
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Robert Mullin
As for 3 fully operational XXX Corps' tanks running onto Arnhem after taking the bridge.
SS man Harmel:
"The four panzers [Carrington's five tank troop] who crossed the bridge made a mistake when they stayed in Lent. If they had carried on their advance, it would have been all over for us.'
But Harmel also contradictory stated:
"what is seldom understood, that the Arnhem battle was lost in Nijmegen. If the allies had taken the [Nijmegen] bridge on the first day, it would have been all over for us. Even if we had lost it on the second day we would have had difficulty stopping them. By the time the English tanks had arrived, the matter was already decided".
♦ 17th at 14.50 hrs, XXX Corps started to roll.
It took them 42 hours to reach the Nijmegen bridge,
Just ahead of schedule.
♦ 19th a.m. XXX Corps reached Nijmegen.
♦ 19th at 20.00 hrs , about eleven hours after XXX Corps
arrived at Nijmegen, the first two Tigers driven in from Germany,
drove up onto the ramp leading to the Arnhem bridge then
systematically shelled houses occupied by the British paras.
The 2 Tigers were hit and taken to be repaired.
♦ 20th at 19,00 hrs, XXX Corps take NIjmegen bridge in the dark
with only five tanks crossing the bridge with two hit by enemy fire.
The British 1st Airborne had already capitulated. Schwere
Panzerkompanie Hummel with 12 Tigers had already ran
south over the Arnhem bridge blocking any route north.
XXX Corps were now 36 hrs behind schedule because they
had to seize the Nijmegen bridge which should have been
done by the US 82nd.
If the US 82nd had taken the Nijmegen bridge on the 1st day, the 17th, XXX Corps would have been over the bridge on the morning of the 19th about 10 hrs before any Tiger entered Arnhem. The 82nd's 6pdr anti-tanks guns could have easily dealt with any German armour that arrived at Lent, the north end of the bridge, in the first 42 hours.
SS Man Harmel who said there was no German opposition between Nijmegen and Arnhem on the evening of the 20th, did not know about the Tiger tanks that ran south. The route to Arnhem was already closed. He never knew this until decades after the war. Five Shermans, with two of them damaged, that crossed the Nijmegen bridge would have been made scrap metal by the 12 Tigers between Nijmegen and Arnhem.
http://www.defendingarnhem.com/schpzkphummel.htm
Harmel had no knowledge this Tiger unit had arrived on the 19th. When he says that nothing was between Nijmegen and Arnhem he was totally wrong. He never knew this until the 1970s.
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Peorhum
"but everything says Monty screwed up after Normandy, including in regards to the scheldt."
The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British. From El Alemein it moved right up into Denmark and not once suffered a reverse taking all in its path. Over 90% of German armour in the west was destroyed by the British. Montgomery had to give the US armies an infantry role as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour. Montgomery stopped the Germans in every event they attacked him:
♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa
♦ October 1942 - El Alamein
♦ March 1943 - Medenine
♦ June 1944 - Normandy
♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - Holland
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were Monty's ground armies pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. The US Army were struggling in 1944/45 retreating in the Ardennes. The Americans didn't perform all that great east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, and vital help from Montgomery and the British 21st Army Group, just to get back to the start line. The Germans took 20,000 US POWs in the Battle of The Bulge in Dec 1944. No other allied country had that many prisoners taken in the 1944-45 timeframe. The USA retreat at the Bulge, again, the only allied army to be pushed back into a RETREAT in the 1944-45 timeframe. When the Germans attacked, the US First and Ninth armies had to be put under Montgomery's control, with the Ninth staying until the end of the war just about.
Montgomery never suffered a reverse from Mid 1942 until May 1945, from Egypt to Denmark. Normandy was planned and commanded by the British which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule and with less casualties than predicted. The German armour in the west was wiped out by the primarily British - the US forces were impotent against the best of the panzers. Monty assessed the US armies giving them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped to fight tank v tank battles. On 3 Sept 1944 when Eisenhower took over overall allied command of ground forces everything went at a snail's pace. The fastest advance of any western army in Autumn 1944/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Americans do not like Montgomery as he, not deliberately, exposed their overall poor performance in Europe. Hollywood says one thing while facts dictate another.
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@owenjones7517
As for Patton's dash across France with no one there. When Patton did meet the Germans near their border, it all stopped big time.
1985 US Army report on the Lorraine Campaign.
Patton does not come out well at all.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a211668.pdf
Combat Studies Institute.
The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September-December 1944.
by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
February, 1985
From the document is in italics:
Soldiers and generals alike assumed that Lorraine would fall quickly, and unless the war ended first, Patton's tanks would take the war into Germany by summer's end. But Lorraine was not to be overrun in a lightning campaign. Instead, the battle for Lorraine would drag on for more than 3 months." "Despite its proximity to Germany, Lorraine was not the Allies' preferred invasion route in 1944. Except for its two principal cities, Metz and Nancy, the province contained few significant military objectives." "Moreover, once Third Army penetrated the province and entered Germany, there would still be no first-rate military objectives within its grasp.
The Saar industrial region, while significant, was of secondary importance when compared to the great Ruhr industrial complex farther north."
Another Patton chase into un-needed territory, full of vineyards like he did when running his troops into Brittany.
"With so little going for it, why did Patton bother with Lorraine at all? The reason was that Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, made up his mind to destroy as many German forces as possible west of the Rhine."
In other words a waste of time.
"Communications Zone organized the famous Red Ball Express, a non-stop conveyor belt of trucks connecting the Normandy depots with the field armies."
They were getting fuel via 6,000 trucks.
"The simple truth was that although fuel was plentiful in Normandy, there was no way to transport it in sufficient quantities to the leading elements. On 31 August , Third Army received no fuel at all."
In short, Patton overran his supply lines. What was important was to secure the Port of Antwerp's approaches, which Eisenhower deprioritised, ordered Monty to halt. Montgomery approached the US leaders of the First Airborne Army who would not drop into the Scheldt.
"Few of the Germans defending Lorraine could be considered First-rate troops. Third Army encountered whole battalions made up of deaf men, others of cooks, and others consisting entirety of soldiers with stomach ulcers."
Some army the Americans were going to fight
"Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over 3 months and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in the entire European war."
The US Army does not think it was a victory. Huge losses for taking unimportant territory, against a poor German army.
"Ironically, Third Army never used Lorraine as a springboard for an advance into Germany after all. Patton turned most of the sector over to Seventh Army during the Ardennes crisis, and when the eastward advance resumed after the Battle of the Bulge, Third Army based its operations on Luxembourg, not Lorraine. The Lorraine campaign will always remain a controversial episode in American military history."
It's getting worse. One third of all European casualties in Lorraine and never used the territory to move into Germany.
"Finally the Lorraine Campaign demonstrated that Logistics often drive operations, no matter how forceful and aggressive the commanding general may be." "Patton violated tactical principles" "His discovered that violating logistical principles is an unforgiving and cumulative matter."
Not flattering at all. And Americans state Patton was the best general they had. Bradley stated later:
“Patton was developing as an unpopular guy. He steamed about with great convoys of cars and great squads of cameramen … To George, tactics was simply a process of bulling ahead. Never seemed to think out a campaign. Seldom made a careful estimate of the situation. I thought him a shallow commander … I disliked the way he worked, upset tactical plans, interfered in my orders. His stubbornness on amphibious operations, parade plans into Messina sickened me and soured me on Patton. We learned how not to behave from Patton’s Seventh Army.”
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When Gavin found out the 508th were not moving, he was livid, expecting them to be moving on the bridge, if there was no opposition. The 508th did send a recon patrol. According to Phil Nordyke’s Put Us Down In Hell (2012) three lead scouts of the troop of 40, were separated making it to the vicinity of south end of the road bridge approaches, not the main steel span. They captured six Germans and also their small artillery gun. They waited about an hour for reinforcements that never arrived, having to withdraw then observed the 9.SS-Panzer recon battalion arriving from Arnhem.
These few scouts that reached the southern end of the Nijmegen bridge just before the 9th SS recon, reached the bridge about an hour before the 9th SS. Joe Atkins in The 508th said, "at the bridge, only a few German soldiers were standing around a small artillery weapon... The Germans were so surprised; the six or seven defenders of the bridge gave up without resisting. We held the prisoners at the entrance to the bridge for about an hour. It began to get dark and none of our other troops showed up. We decided to pull away from the bridge, knowing we could not hold off a German attack. The German prisoners asked to come with us, but we refused, having no way to guard them. As we were leaving, we could hear heavy equipment approaching the bridge." That was the 9th SS. The 82nd men had captured one third of the guards on the bridge.
US Official History, page 163:
Colonel Warren about 1830 sent into Nijmegen a patrol
After around 4.5 hours after landing a patrol of 40 men were sent.
Colonel Warren directed Companies A and B to rendezvous at a point just south of Nijmegen at 1900 and move with the Dutch guide to the bridge. Company C, a platoon of which already had gone into the city as a patrol, was withheld in regimental reserve. Although Company A reached the rendezvous point on time, Company B "got lost en route." After waiting until about 2000, Colonel Warren left a guide for Company B and moved through the darkness with Company A toward the edge of the city. Some seven hours after H-Hour, the first real move against the Nijmegen bridge began.
As the scouts neared a traffic circle surrounding a landscaped circular park near the center of Nijmegen, the Keizer Karel Plein, from which a mall-like park led northeast toward the Nijmegen bridge, a burst of automatic weapons fire came from the circle. The time was about two hours before midnight.
As Company A formed to attack, the men heard the noise of an approaching motor convoy emanating from a side street on the other side of the traffic circle. Enemy soldiers noisily dismounted (the 9th SS now in the town)
No one could have said so with any finality at the time, but the chance for an easy, speedy capture of the Nijmegen bridge had passed. This was all the more lamentable because in Nijmegen during the afternoon the Germans had had nothing more than the same kind of "mostly low quality" troops encountered at most other places on D Day.
Vandervoort's 505th had a number of failed attempts at seizing Nijmegen bridge, unable to get onto the southern approach road.
The 82nd men captured one third of the Guards on the bridge without a fight and also their big gun, probably a 2cm Flak 30. There was a similar gun at the northern end.
They literally got one end of the bridge, well the southern approaches, just before the 9th SS turned up. If they had got there in greater force a few hours earlier, they would have hopped and skipped onto the bridge whistling Dixie.
Regarding Zon, we do not know if the Germans would have blown the bridge if the 101st had got there within minutes. Probably they would not have, as to blow it takes authority, which takes time as an officer would want to know the whole picture before ordering an explosion. It took the Germans four hours to blow the Zon bridge.
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It was easy. Grab the largely undefended bridges with a large para drop, while powering up a largely undefended road.
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.
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@11nytram11
Monty had to deal with egotistical American amateurs.
“At the end of this morning's C.O.S. meeting I put before the committee my views on the very unsatisfactory state of affairs in France, with no one running the land battle. Eisenhower, though supposed to be doing so, is on the golf links at Rheims — entirely detached and taking practically no part in running of the war. Matters got so bad lately that a deputation of Whiteley, Bedell Smith and a few others went up to tell him that he must get dowm to it and RUN the war, which he said he would."
_"We discussed the advisability of getting Marshall to come out to discuss the matter, but we are doubtful if he would appreciate the situation. Finally decided that I am to see the P.M. to discuss the situation with him.”
"November 28th. 1 went to see the P.M. 1 told him I was very worried."_
“I find it difficult to refrain from expressing my indignation at Hodges and Ridgeway and my appreciation of Montgomery whenever I talk about St.Vith. It is my firm opinion that if it hadn't been for Montgomery, the First US Army, and especially the troops in the St.Vith salient, would have ended in a debacle that would have gone down in history.”
-Alan Brooke's Diaries
“I'm sure you remember how First Army HQ fled from Spa leaving food cooking on the stoves, officers' Xmas presents from home on their beds and, worst of all, top secret maps still on the walls... First Army HQ never contacted us with their new location and I had to send an officer to find them. He did and they knew nothing about us...(Montgomery) was at First Army HQ when my officer arrived. A liaison officer from Montgomery arrived at my HQ within 24 hrs. His report to Montgomery is what saved us...”
- General Hasbrouck of US 7th Armor. Generals of the Bulge by Jerry D. Morelock. page 298
Montgomery to Alan Brooke..
"If we want the war to end within any reasonable period you have to get Eisenhower’s hand taken off the land battle. I regret to say that in my opinion he just doesn’t know what he is doing.
Montgomery on Eisenhower:
"He has never commanded anything before in his whole career; now, for the first time, he has elected to take direct command of very large-scale operations and he does not know how to do it."
Montgomery wrote of Eisenhower and his failing broad-front strategy on 22 January 1945:
“I fear that the old snags of indecision and vacillation and refusal to consider the military problem fairly and squarely are coming to the front again . . . The real trouble is that there is no control and the three army groups are each intent on their own affairs. Patton today issued a stirring order to Third Army, saying the next step would be Cologne . . . One has to preserve a sense of humour these days, otherwise one would go mad.”
Bradley doing nothing at the Bulge. Eisenhower did little either. Montgomery stated:
"I do not believe that Eisenhower ever really understood the strategy of the Normandy campaign. He seemed to me to get the whole thing muddled up."
Alan Brooke had to explain a number times what the strategy in Normandy was to Eisenhower. Alan Brooke described in his daily diary that American generals Eisenhower and Marshall as poor strategists, when they were in jobs were strategy mattered. Brooke wrote to Montgomery about his talks with Eisenhower,
“it is equally clear that Ike has the very vaguest conception of war!”
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@bigwoody4704
Monty stopped the Germans taking all the US armies as POWs, by taking control of them in the Bulge. Well the Germans did take 20,000 US POWs and the US took near 100,000 casualties. Monty stopped all that while Ike was holed up in his HQ not communicating with anyone.
I will let the Germans have the first say on the Bulge:
General Hasso von Manteuffel:
‘The operations of the American First Army had developed into a series of individual holding actions. Montgomery's contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough’.
By November 1944, British SHEAF officer, Strong, noted that there was a possibility of a German counter-offensive in the Ardennes or the Vosges. Strong went to personally warn Bradley at his HQ, who said, "let 'em come".
Montgomery on hearing of the attack immediately, without consulting Eisenhower, took British forces to the Meuse to prevent any German forces from making a bridgehead, securing the rear. He was prepared to halt their advance and attack them. This was while Eisenhower and Bradley were doing nothing.
even by 19 December, three days into the offensive, no overall plan had emerged from 12th Army Group or SHAEF, other than the decision to send Patton’s forces north to Bastogne. Overall, the Ardennes battle was in urgent need of grip. General Hodges had yet to see Bradley or receive more than the sketchiest orders from his Army Group commander.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
On 20 December, Montgomery had sent a signal to Alanbrooke regarding the US forces:
"Not good... definite lack of grip and control. I have heard nothing from Ike or Bradley and had no orders or requests of any sort. My own opinion is that the American forces have been cut in half and the Germans can reach the Meuse at Namur without opposition."
Omar Bradley, commander of the 12th Army Group, did very little:
16 Dec, the first day, for 12 hours did nothing.
16 Dec, after 12 hours, he sent two armoured divisions from the flanking Ninth and Third Armies.
17 Dec, after 24 Hours, he then called in two US airborne divisions from Champagne.
18 Dec, he ordered Patton to halt his pending offensive in the Saar.
18 Dec, he had still not established contact with the First Army, while Monty had.
19 Dec, he withdrew divisions from the Aachen front to shore up the Ardennes.
19 Dec, he had still not produced an overall defensive plan.
19 Dec, the Supreme Commander intervened directly late in the day.
20 Dec, Eisenhower telephoned Montgomery telling him to take command of the US First and Ninth Armies
While all this dillying by Bradley was going on, German armies were pounding forward into his lines. Bradley should have been fired. Hodges ran away from his command post.
British officer Whiteley & American officer Betts of SHEAF visited the U.S. First Army HQ after the German attack, seeing the shambles. Strong, Whiteley, and Betts recommended that command of the armies north of the Ardennes be transferred from Bradley to Montgomery. Unfortunately only the two British officers approached Beddel Smith of their recommendations, who immediately fired the pair, claiming it was a nationalistic thing. The next morning, Beddel Smith apologized seeing the three were right, recommending to Eisenhower to bring in Monty.
During the Battle of the Bulge Eisenhower was stuck self imprisoned in his HQ in des-res Versailles near Paris in fear of German paratroopers wearing US uniforms with the objective to kill allied generals. He had remained locked up more than 30 days without sending a single message or order to Montgomery, and that is when he thought he was doing ground control of the campaign, when in effect Montgomery was in control as two US armies had to be put under his control after the German attack, the US First and Ninth armies. Coningham of the RAF had to take control of US air force units. The Ninth stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war, just about.
And yet biased American authors such as Stephen Ambrose said that Eisenhower took control of the Bulge and made the battle his veneering it as an all American victory. Ambrose completely falsified history. The only thing Eisenhower did was tell Monty to get control of two out of control US armies, tell the US 101st to go to Bastogne (who were in northern France after the buffer Market Garden was created) and men under Bradley to counterattack. That is it.
At the end of the Bulge would you believe it, Eisenhower gave Bradley an award.
A shocking state of affairs on the Yankee side Rambo. Truly shocking.
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XXX Corps were NOT slow.
Brereton wrote: “It was the breakdown of the 2nd Army’s timetable on the first day—their failure to reach Eindhoven in 6 to 8 hours as planned—that caused the delay in the taking of the Nijmegen bridge and the failure at Arnhem.” Is this criticism justified?
The Guards, breaking out along one road, met strong opposition nearly all the way to Eindhoven, and yet they drove their armour through these twelve bitterly contested miles in twenty-four hours. When they reached the southern end of the ‘airborne corridor’ on the evening of D plus 1, they were halted for the night by the blown bridge at Zon. This bridge might have been captured intact if the 101st Division had agreed to Montgomery's proposal that it should drop paratroops on either side of the objective, as was done at Grave.
- THE STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE 1954, CHAPTER XXVII. THE LOST OPPORTUNITY, P 588 by CHESTER WILMOT
XXX Corps slowed up when hearing of the blown bridge at Zon. The US 101st failed to take the bridge, not XXX Corps. Brereton lied. XXX Corps were not slow, as facts prove that.
From US Official history....
As night came the British stopped in Valkenswaard, their "formal" objective. The objective of Eindhoven, which General Horrocks had indicated he hoped to reach on D-Day, lay six miles to the north.
XXX Corps brushed aside the heavy German resistance on the Dutch-Belgian border, with "remarkable" progress as the US Official history states.
So, XXX Corps was on schedule meeting their objective. XXX Corps reached Eindhoven at 1230 hrs, [d-day+1] running through without stopping, only to stop at the Zon bridge which the US 101st failed to seize.
US Official history...
at 0645 (D plus 2, 19 September) the armor rumbled across [the Zon bridge].
That is about 19 hours delay - OK knock off an hour for getting through Eindhoven, say 18 hours. An 18 hours delay because the US 101st failed to seize their objective.
US Official history....
Spearheading the 30 Corps ground column, reconnaissance troops of the Guards Armoured Division linked with Colonel Tucker's S04th Parachute Infantry at Grave at 0820 the morning of D plus 2, 19 September. Major formations of the British armor were not far behind.
XXX Corps covered over 26 miles in 2 hr 45 mins. Very fast indeed. They got to Zon at about 1330 hrs d-day+1. So XXX Corps would have reached the 82nd at 1615 hrs d-day+1, at the latest if the Zon bridge had been secured. More like an hour earlier, or as fast as the vehicles could go. If the 82nd had secured the Nijmegen bridge XXX Corps would have linked up with the British paras possibly early evening d-day+1.
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