Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "TIKhistory"
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@6handicap604
Patton was an average US general, like Simpson, Patch, Hodges, etc, no more. A study of his record shows this. He was a US media creation, elevating the average beyond their status.
"The Allied armies closing the pocket now needed to liaise, those held back giving way to any Allied force that could get ahead, regardless of boundaries – provided the situation was clear. On August 16, realising that his forces were not able to get forward quickly, General Crerar attempted to do this, writing a personal letter to Patton in an attempt to establish some effective contact between their two headquarters and sort out the question of Army boundaries, only to get a very dusty and unhelpful answer. Crerar sent an officer, Major A. M. Irving, and some signal equipment to Patton’s HQ, asking for details of Patton’s intentions intentions and inviting Patton to send an American liaison officer to the Canadian First Army HQ for the same purpose.
Irving located but could not find Patton; he did, however, reach the First Army HQ and delivered Crerar’s letter which was duly relayed to Third Army HQ. Patton’s response is encapsulated in the message sent back by Irving to Canadian First Army; ‘Direct liaison not permitted. Liaison on Army Group level only except corps artillery. Awaiting arrival signal equipment before returning.’ Irving returned to Crerar’s HQ on August 20, with nothing achieved and while such uncooperative attitudes prevailed at the front line, it is hardly surprising that the moves of the Allied armies on Trun and Chambois remained hesitant."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle of Normandy 1944
Patton refused to liaise with other allied armies, exasperating a critical situation.
"This advance duly began at 0630hrs on August 18 which, as the Canadian Official History remarks, ‘was a day and a half after Montgomery had issued the order for the Canadians to close the gap at Trun, and four and a half days after Patton had been stopped at the Third Army boundary’. During that time, says the Canadian History, the Canadians had been ‘fighting down from the north with painful slowness’ and the Germans had been making their way east through the Falaise gap. They were not, however, unimpeded; the tactical air forces and Allied artillery were already taking a fearful toll of the German columns on the roads heading east past Falaise.
Patton’s corps duly surged away to the east, heading for Dreux, Chartres and Orléans respectively. None of these places lay in the path of the German retreat from Normandy: only Dreux is close to the Seine, Chartres is on the Beauce plain, south-east of Paris, and Orléans is on the river Loire. It appears that Patton had given up any attempt to head off the German retreat to the Seine and gone off across territory empty of enemy, gaining ground rapidly and capturing a quantity of newspaper headlines. This would be another whirlwind Patton advance – against negligible opposition – but while Patton disappeared towards the east the Canadians were still heavily engaged in the new battle for Falaise – Operation Tractable – which had begun on August 14 and was making good progress."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle of Normandy 1944
Instead of moving east to cut retreating Germans at the Seine, Patton ran off to Paris. John Ellis in Brute Force described Patton's dash across northern France as well as his earlier “much overrated” pursuit through Sicily as more of “a triumphal procession than an actual military offensive.”
Patton at Metz advanced 10 miles in three months. The poorly devised Panzer Brigade concept was deployed there with green German troops. The Panzer Brigades were a rushed concept attempting to plug the gaps while the proper panzer divisions were re-fitting and rebuilt after the summer 1944 battles. The Panzer Brigades had green crews with little time to train, did not know their tanks properly, had no recon elements and didn't even meet their unit commander until his arrival at the front. These were not elite forces.
The 17th SS were not amongst the premier Waffen SS panzer divisions. It was not even a panzer division but a panzer grenadier division, equipped only with assault guns not tanks, with only a quarter of the number of AFVs as a panzer division. The 17th SS was badly mauled in Normandy and not up to strength at Arracourt in The Lorraine.
Patton's Third Army was almost always where the best German divisions in the west were NOT.
♦ Who did the 3rd Army engage?
♦ Who did the 3rd Army defeat?
♦ Patton never once faced a full strength Waffen SS panzer division nor a Tiger battalion.
In The Lorraine, the 3rd Army faced a rabble. Even the German commander of Army Group G in The Lorraine, Hermann Balck, who took command 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."
Patton was mostly facing a second rate rabble in The Lorraine.
Patton was neither on the advance nor being heavily engaged at the time he turned north to Bastogne when the Germans pounded through US lines in the Ardennes. The road from Luxembourg to Bastogne saw few German forces, with Bastogne being on the very southern German flank, their focus was west. Only when Patton neared Bastogne did he engage some German armour but not a great deal at all. Patton's ride to Bastogne was mainly through US held territory. The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade was not one of the best German armoured units with about 80 tanks, while 26th Volks-Grenadier only had about 12 Hetzers, and the small element of Panzer Lehr (Kampfgruppe 901) left behind only had a small number of tanks operational. Patton did not have 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 very little German armour when he broke through to Bastogne because the vast majority of the German 5th Panzer Army had already left Bastogne in their rear moving westwards to the River Meuse. They were engaging forces under Montgomery's 21st Army Group. Leading elements were engaging the Americans and British under Montgomery's command near Dinant by the Meuse. Monty's armies halted the German advance and pushed them back.
On the night of the 22 December 1944, Patton ordered Combat Command B of 4th Armored Division to advance through the village of Chaumont in the night. A small number of German troops with anti tank weapons opened up with the American attack stopping and pulling back. The next day fighter bombers strafed the village of Chaumont weakening the defenders enabling the attack to resume the next afternoon. However, a German counter attack north of Chaumont knocked out 12 Shermans with Combat Command B retreating once again. It took Patton almost THREE DAYS just to get through the village of Chaumont. Patton's forces arrived at Chaumont late on the 22nd December. They didn't get through Chaumont village until Christmas Day, the 25th! Hardly racing at breakneck speed.
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, just 15km southwest of Bastogne and yet he still took him five days to get through to Bastogne.
In Normandy in 1944, the panzer divisions had been largely worn down, primarily by the British and Canadians around Caen. The First US Army around St Lo then Mortain helped a little. Over 90% of German armour was destroyed by the British. Once again, Patton faced very little opposition in his break out in Operation Cobra performing mainly an infantry role. Nor did Patton advance any quicker across eastern France mainly devoid of German troops, than the British and Canadians did, who were in Brussels by early September seizing the vital port of Antwerp intact. This eastern dash devoid of German forces was the ride the US media claimed Patton was some sort master of fast moving armour.
Patton repeatedly denigrated his subordinates.
♦ In Sicily he castigated Omar Bradley for the tactics Bradley's II Corps were employing
♦ He accused the commander of 3rd Infantry Division, Truscott of being "afraid to fight".
♦ In the Ardennes he castigated Middleton of the US VIII Corps and Millikin of the US III Corps.
♦ When his advance from Bastogne to Houffalize stalled he criticised the 11th Armoured Division for being "very green and taking unnecessary casualties to no effect".
♦ He called the 17th Airborne Division "hysterical" in reporting their losses.
After the German attack in the Ardennes, US air force units were put under Coningham of the RAF. Coningham, gave Patton massive ground attack plane 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. Patton rarely took any responsibility for his own failures. It was always somebody else at fault, including his subordinates. A poor general who thought he was reincarnated. Oh, and wore cowboy guns.
Patton detested Hodges, did not like Bradley disobeying his orders, and Eisenhower's orders. He also hated Montgomery. About the only person he ever liked was himself.
Read:
Monty and Patton: Two Paths to Victory by Michael Reynolds and
Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies by Harry Yeide
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@6handicap604
1985 US Army report on the Lorraine Campaign.
Patton does not come out well.
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. 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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@Robert53area
Oh no! Another one get s his history from Hollywood. Monty moved over 1,000 km in 17 days from El Alemein to Tunisia taking a quarter of a million POWs - more than at Stalingrad. How slow do you want it?
The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British. From Alem el Halfa it moved right up into Denmark, through nine countries, 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, in command of all ground forces, had to give the US armies an infantry role in Normandy as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour.
Montgomery stopped the Germans at every event they attacked him:
♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa
♦ October 1942 - El Alamein
♦ March 1943 - Medenine
♦ June 1944 - Normandy
♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - The Netherlands
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were ground armies, British, US or others, under Monty's command pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. Montgomery moved over 1,000 km in 17 days from El Alemein to Tunisia, the fastest advance for such a distance in WW2. The US Army were a shambles in 1944/45 retreating in the Ardennes. The Americans didn't perform well at all east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat with 33,000 casualties and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months at Metz with over 50,000 Lorraine casualties. Then Montgomery had to be put in command of the shambolic US First and Ninth armies, aided by the British 21st Army Group, just to get back to the start line in the Ardennes, with nearly 100,000 US casualties. 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, was the only allied army to be pushed back into a retreat in the 1944-45 timeframe. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US First and Ninth armies. Coningham of the RAF was put in command of USAAF elements. The US Third Army constantly stalled after coming up from the south. The Ninth stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war just about. The US armies were losing men at unsustainable rates due to poor generalship.
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The Guards tanks seized the Nijmegen road bridge. Not one US soldier was on the bridge when seized.
U.S. 82nd Division records state that the first troop of British tanks, four of them, crossed the Waal road bridge at 1830 hours. Two tanks were hit with the crews taken POW bar one, Sgt Knight. The tanks charged across at full speed approaching 30 mph firing against German guns all the way, with a few hundred high in the girders. Gunner Leslie Johnson in the lead tank said: “They were falling like nine-pins. The incoming fire was so heavy that I swear to this day that Jesus Christ rode on the front of our tank. The Germans were so close that I didn’t bother to look through my sights. We could feel the tracks going over them as we shot them down, and there was blood and gore all over the tank.”
Once the two leading tanks of Pacey and Robinson got past the bridge obstacles at the northern end, Pacey stopped. The War Office report states: “At this point, Pacey stopped, he was not sure where to go as no Americans were seen, so Sergeant Robinson passed him and led on. Much to their surprise, they could not see any Americans so having passed through the concrete chicane they pushed on. Having crossed the road bridge, the four tanks moved down the northern embankment, where they destroyed another anti tank gun. Robinson and Pacey found themselves in a running battle against more guns, and against German infantry who poured out of the church in Lent, and then 1,500 yards further down the road from the bridge, where the main road goes under the railway line, contact was at last made with some Americans, both were very happy to see each other."
The 82nd men at Lent reached Lent following the railway embankment from the riverbank using it for cover. The first American troops that arrived at the bridge approaches/waterside after moving along the riverbank from their river landing point with Burriss’ company of about sixteen men, was at 1915 hours. 45 minutes. after the first tanks had already crossed. This was not the main bridge span, just the raised approach road over land. Official U.S. records confirm that 82nd troops from the 504th arrived at the northern road bridge approaches at 1938 hours. This would be the time they arrived in any real strength to consolidate, one hour 8 mins after the first tank crossed. The records state at 1938 hours:
“All seemed quiet at this point, with the enemy disorganised and in great confusion, suffering heavy losses. Prior to the physical occupation of the northern end of the bridge by 504th PIR, eight British light tanks had [already] crossed. Two of these were destroyed just north of the bridge”. The second troop of tanks crossed at least half an hour after the first. Capt Burris of the 82nd was there under the approach road when the second troop rolled over, thinking they were the first tanks over. Lord Carington's tank was one of them. Five rolled over the bridge, with two hit, being there to consolidate the bridgehead and ensure the Germans did not take the bridge back.
Horrock of XXX Corps in his plan had the 43 Wessex infantry to seize the ground from Nijmegen bridge to Arnhem, destroying anti-tank weapons. It was not tank country. The tanks were to follow behind the infantry. The tanks would have been sitting ducks if they went first. The 43rd Wessex were to do the river crossing in two columns. There was a contingency planned if the bridge was blown. The Wessex were to use dedicated assault boats, which they had in Nijmegen, and DUKW and Buffalo amphibious craft. But to save face as they failed to seize the bridge, Gavin of the 82nd pestered Horrocks for his men to do the crossing, Horrocks agreed. It appears that the 82nd did not know of the Buffalo amphibious craft using collapsible bridge engineers boats to cross the Waal. Or the Wessex did not want to give them fearing the valuable craft would be lost with an 82nd river assault failure - that needs more research.
Not one 82nd man was on the bridge when the first troop of four tanks crossed at 1830, or at 1915 when the second troop of four went over. Official XXX Corps records from the War Office highlight that the successful tank attack on the road bridge was at 1830 hours.
Thirty-four machine guns, an 88mm gun, and two 20mm cannons were found to be on the road bridge itself, and at least six anti-tank guns and a few 88mm guns were situated around the northern end.
All this nonsense of drinking tea by the British tankers disinterested in the battle seems to have started as an American diversion, after inquiries by the Official US historian Charles MacDonald into why the Nijmegen bridges were not taken on the first day.
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@winoodlesnoodles1984
1985 US Army report on the Lorraine Campaign.
Patton does not come out well at all.
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?
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. 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 Patton wasere 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.
Not flattering at all. And many 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.”
Patton was not advancing or being heavily engaged at the time he turned north to Bastogne when the Germans pounded through US lines in the Ardennes. Bastogne was on the very southern German flank, their left flank, their focus being west. The strategic significance of the stand at Bastogne is over exaggerated. The 18,000 inside of artillery, armour and infantry, did not change the course of the battle. The German's bypassed Bastogne, placing a containment force around the town. It was not worth them tying up men for the place.
Only when Patton neared Bastogne did he engage some German armour but not a great deal at all. Patton's ride to Bastogne was mainly through US held territory, with the road from Luxembourg to Bastogne having few German forces. The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade was far from being one of the best German armoured units with about 80 tanks, 26th Volks-Grenadier having about 12 Hetzers, and the small element of Panzer Lehr (Kampfgruppe 901) left behind with a small number of operational tanks. Patton did not have 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 very little German armour when he broke through to Bastogne because the vast majority of the German 5th Panzer Army had already left Bastogne in their rear moving westwards to the River Meuse. They were engaging forces under Montgomery's 21st Army Group near Dinant by the Meuse. Monty's armies halted the German advance pushing them back.
On the night of the 22 December 1944, Patton ordered Combat Command B of 4th Armored Division to advance through the village of Chaumont in the night. A small number of German troops with anti tank weapons stopped the American attack who pulled back. The next day, fighter bombers strafed the village of Chaumont weakening the defenders enabling the attack to resume the next afternoon. However, a German counter attack north of Chaumont knocked out 12 Shermans with Combat Command B again retreating. It took Patton almost THREE DAYS just to get through the village of Chaumont. They didn't get through Chaumont village until Christmas Day. Hardly racing at breakneck speed.
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.
Decades later, Eisenhower recalled how Patton would telephone with frustrating progress reports, saying: “General, I apologize for my slowness. This snow is God-awful. I’m sorry.”
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Hale Hardy
Caen was a nice to have objective, not essential. Operation Goodwood's focus was not specifically tanks, as the Germans had five lines of defence with dug in 88mm's and heavy Tiger and fast Panther tanks for mobility. Goodwood was mostly 'not' bocage but open ground more suitable for tank battles, where the German long range 88mm's would be at an advantage.
Monty's plan was not for British forces to take territory. He specifically wanted to draw in German armour onto British forces to grind them up to keeping them away from the US forces for them to break out (Operation Cobra). That was even stated at St.Paul's school in Fulham in the D-Day planning. To do that he was confident British armour could match German armour - US armour would struggle or most likely be overwhelmed, why the US forces were assigned a primarily infantry role by Montgomery. A 12 mile sector around Caen saw more concentrated German armour in all of WW2, the same as Kursk in around 12 miles, while Kursk was spread over 50 miles. British armour had to run straight at the German armoured lines. On the right flank was US forces and the left flank a canal. Right through them with no flanking actions was the only way. Goodwood was not British forces taking territory, as Monty's plan was for the US forces to do that, Monty specifically states this here in this link in an interview with Edward R Murrow. Transcript....
"The acquisition of territory on the eastern flank of the beachhead in the Caen sector was not really important. What was important there was to draw the maximum number of German divisions, and especially the armour, into that flank. The acquisition of territory was important on the western flank [the US sector]." ...."an accusation drawn at me, that I ought to have taken Caen in the programme on D-Day! And we didn't. I didn't mind about that because....The air force would get very het up because I didn't go further down towards Falaise and get the ground suitable for airfields. I didn't bother about that, it would have meant enormous casualties in doing it and it wasn't necessary."
"I could reply to that criticism that on the American front the line from which the breakout was finally launched was a line the St.Lo-Periers road, should have been captured in the initial plan by the American 1st Army on D-Day plus 5, that was the 11th June. But they didn't actually capture it until the 18th July. But I have never returned the charge with that accusation. ...until now"
"I have never understood why Ike said in his dispatches that, when the British failed to break out towards Paris on the eastern flank. The Americans were able [to break out], because of our flexibility, to take it on, on our western flank. I have always thought that was an unfair criticism of Dempsey and the 2nd British Army."
- Field Marshall Montgomery (1959)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_TB9wHRRSw
The RAF chief Tedder, wanted Monty fired as he wanted open territory to the south towards Falaise to setup his airfields saying Monty was not pursing territory aggressively enough. Monty would have none of it. Operation Goodwood was engaging the massed armoured German defences head on drawing them in to British lines, grinding them up moving slowly. Here is a 1970s objective British Army Sandhurst internal video analysing Operation Goodwood, with even German commanders who were there taking part. At the beginning it specifically states Monty told Generals O'Connor and Dempsey not to run south to Falaise, not to take territory. Look at 6 mins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udW1UvSHXfY
Monty was not too concerned with Caen as it would consume too many resources to take. He was more concerned with grinding up German armour in the field. Although by the time of Goodwood only the southern suburbs were in German hands.
Monty was in charge of all of Operation Overlord. He wanted the German armour away from US forces, to allow them to break out. It worked. That is what he wanted and planned. Monty never saw Caen as important but never criticised US forces..... until 1959 when they were at him about Caen, he criticised them for taking St.Lo a month late - with little German armour around for a month. The Germans did send some armour to St.Lo with the US forces making it worse for themselves to capture the place.
Even Bradley agreed with Monty. Bradley wrote that:
"The British and Canadian armies were to decoy the enemy reserves and draw them to their front on the extreme eastern edge of the Allied beachhead. Thus, while Monty taunted the enemy at Caen, we (the Americans) were to make our break on the long roundabout road to Paris. When reckoned in terms of national pride, this British decoy mission became a sacrificial one, for while we tramped around the outside flank, the British were to sit in place and pin down the Germans. Yet strategically it fitted into a logical division of labors, for it was towards Caen that the enemy reserves would race once the alarm was sounded".
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Ray Barata
First of all the operation was a success, in creating a 60 mile salient (protection buffer) into German territory protecting the vital port of Antwerp and eliminating V rocket sites which were firing at London. And they did use the north of the salient to turn east into Germany. They just never got over the Rhine.
The operation needed all the bridges secured immediately. All were secured at the end of the 1st day except Nijmegen. TIK in his 1st video blamed Gavin of the 82nd for not immediately moving towards the Nijmegen bridge. I agreed with that conclusion and still do.
Browning did not drop into the zone with the troops near the bridge. He was way east on the German border, unlike Gavin who was near the bridge. Gavin was supposed to move on the bridge immediately, specifically Colonel Lindquist of the 508th who were to "move without delay", as ordered by Gavin. Gavin was not monitoring progress close enough as Lindquist dawdled. When Browning saw that the bridge was not secured he told Gavin to move to the bridge.
Browning was no angel for sure. But! He had no part in the delay in not securing the vital Nijmegen bridge immediately on dropping. That falls 100% on General Gavin. If that bridge was seized immediately, XXX Corps would have run over it and onto Arnhem.
Another point is that despite a delay in running over a Bailey bridge at Son, as the US 101st did not seize the bridge with the Germans destroying it, XXX Corps made up the time and got to Nijmegen ahead of schedule only to see the bridge in German hands. As TIK states, XXX Corps had to take the town and the bridge. That vital initial delay, by Gavin (Lindquist), allowed German troops to pour south over the bridge into Nijmegen. There was only about 18 German troops on the bridge when the 82nd dropped. A 82nd 508 patrol took the guards, and their gun, prisoner on the south of the bridge for an hour, then left letting them go when no reinforcements arrived. When Lindquist's main bridge force, led by Colonel Warren, did get to the bridge it was swarming with Germans who had also set up shop in the park south of the bridge and were all over Nijmegen.
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seth1422
Most of what you wrote was drivelous. In the 7.5 hours between ready to march and the first attack on the bridge the 82nd met no tanks in Nijmegen, because none were there. Although General Gavin in his fantasy world thought there was 1,000 of them in the forest. Three 20mm and an 88mm at the bridge? That is sweet nothing to a well trained outfit like the 82nd.
Eisenhower put off clearing the Scheldt, which would not be a short job, to ensure the supplies went to the northern thrust, which was pursuing a defeated enemy and getting a foothold over the Rhine. There was enough supplies for this. Then after under resourced Market Garden was concluded Eisenhower focused on the Scheldt, well about three weeks after. Instead of feeding supplies to the lost cause of the US Third Army and concentrating on the northern thrust and clearing the Scheldt, Antwerp would have been operational much earlier and the Rhine crossed. Eisenhower didn't have much of clue what he was doing, allowing Bradley and Patton to run rings around him, and openly disobey his orders, to the detriment of the total war effort. It was clear Bradley and Patton were attempting to sabotage the northern thrust.
"It should also be remembered that Montgomery was no longer the Allied Ground Force Commander, directly concerned with the implementation of strategy. He was concerned with the progress of events in 21st Army Group. The man responsible for strategy, for the selection of tasks in order of priority, was Dwight Eisenhower. It would not do to pass the buck for strategic decisions to one of his Army Group commanders. However, Eisenhower was currently obsessed with the various moves necessary to implement his broad front policy"
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
I mentioned Poulisson and Magry. Did you notice? Selective amnesia. Neillands is a well respected author who is meticulous in research. You don't like the truth.
Market Garden was under resourced for sure, but failed by a whisker. The failure point was the US 82nd not seizing Nijmegen bridge immediately after landing. That is as clear as day.
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seth1422
Most of what you write is opinionated clap-trap. You mean Poulisson (Dutch), Karl Magry (Dutch) and Neillands do not perpetuate the American move to change history. The facts on the ground are that the US 82nd were far too slow in making an attack on the bridge. It is that simple.
The 101st failed to seize the Son bridge delaying XXX Corps by 12 hours, which they made up. XXX Corps reached Nijmegen on time and instead of rolling over the bridge and onto Arnhem, found the 9th SS infantry in the town and on the bridge fighting the 82nd. Something seriously had gone wrong. XXX Corps took command and flushed out the Germans and seized the bridge themselves. This now put them 36 hours late. Too late to save the British paras at Arnhem.
The 82nd who jumped "unopposed" met no German tanks moving to the Nijmegen bridge.
All from the US Official History:
The European Theater of Operations
THE SIEGFRIED LINE CAMPAIGN
by Charles B. MacDonald
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1993
Page 185.
Page 161:
Colonel Lindquist's 508th Parachute Infantry and of Colonel Ekman's 505th Parachute Infantry had assembled within an hour after the D-Day drop.
Page 162:
General Gavin's understanding, as recalled later, was that Warren's battalion was to move "without delay after landing." On the other hand, Colonel Lindquist's understanding, also as recalled later, was that no battalion was to go for the bridge until the regiment had secured its other objectives, that is to say, not until he had established defenses protecting his assigned portion of the high ground and the northern part of the division glider landing zone. Instead of moving immediately toward the Nijmegen bridge, Colonel Warren's battalion was to take an "assigned initial objective" in the vicinity of De Ploeg, a suburb of Nijmegen a mile and a quarter southeast of the city astride the Nijmegen-Groesbeek highway.
Page 163:
Colonel Warren about 1830 sent into Nijmegen a patrol consisting of a rifle platoon and the battalion intelligence section. This patrol was to make an aggressive reconnaissance, investigate reports from Dutch civilians that only eighteen Germans guarded the big bridge, and, if possible, capture the south end of the bridge.
Colonel Warren directed Companies A and B to rendezvous at a point just south of Nijmegen at I900
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. (2200 hrs)
Page 164:
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.
- page 185
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 bottomland, denying employment of tanks. A few determined enemy bolstered with antitank guns might delay even a large force. Contrary to the information that had been received, Colonel Frost and his men had been driven away from the north end of the Arnhem bridge the afternoon before, so that 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 I I 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.20 Arnhem lay seven miles north of this screen. The British could not pass.
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The Germans had advanced beyond their widest dreams. The panzers were supplied by slow horses behind, unable to keep up supplies. They had overstretched their supply lines. Rommel's Panzer column had been stopped by the British at Arras, using the new Matilda 2 tank, which the German standard anti-tank guns could not knock out. Rommel stated that he thought he had been hit by a force three times the size.
German crews were tired. The truck drivers supporting the tanks were put on speed pills to keep them awake. They lacked sleep, fuel, ammunition, water, food, and maintenance of the vehicles (vehicles then were not like they are today).
In front of them were the British, and French, consolidating at Dunkirk, with the new small, nibble and heavily armoured Matilda 2 tank, which could knock out any German tank, but they could not knock it out unless they levelled an AA gun firing a solid shell. A gun useless in Dunkirk's streets. Added to this, the terrain south of Dunkirk was soft and marshy, not tank country. The fast moving panzers, now pretty well static, were now ineffective in a war of attrition. A form of fighting the Germans were not used to. Faced with this situation they had no option but to stop, consolidate, or be mauled. They stopped for only 24 hours.
Hitler issued Directive 13, which stated, to annihilate the forces inside the Dunkirk pocket. Aided by the Luftwaffe, the German troops and tanks continued the fight. A battle ensued called the Battle of Dunkirk. The British won the battle in the air and on the ground.
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