Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "The First Successful British Parachute Raid | Operation Biting 1942 | BATTLESTORM WW2 Documentary" video.

  1. A number of German generals after WW2 said to Mountbatten that the raid was the best of WW2. They were astounded at the audacity to land and take back to England a radar even with its operator.
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  2. William Eaton You are always so wrong. The battles of Imphal and Kohima were around April 1944, which inflicted 60,000 casualties on the Japanese - the highest in Japanese history to that point. The USA in 1943 ran out of carriers as the Japanese were sinking them. The British had to loan HMS Victorious to the US Navy in 1943 - painted in US colours so the Japanese would not know the true situation. The nearest the Yanks got to Main islands Japan was 330 miles away in Okinawa, and even that was assisted by the British with their armoured carriers. US carriers had wooden decks. The British fielded an army of 2.6 million against the Japanese, far larger than any US army.
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  3. Ole Nielsen Yes, the Germans thought Crete was not worth it, some even before the attack. It never influenced any campaign as the Royal Navy still controlled the eastern Med. Crete was a pyrrhic victory for the Germans. Churchill said that his biggest mistake was diverting troops from Africa to Greece. The British attempting to keep Crete was was regarded as foolish by some top British officers. Many wanted to take the troops back to Africa where they were needed and leave Greece to the Germans. On Crete and Leros the Germans had massive air support to the point they went in waves unmolested by any British aircraft. The first German invasion fleet to reinforce their paras on Crete was turned back by the Royal Navy. The Germans were pulling out from Crete when a Maori unit turned the wrong way and allowed the Germans to seize an airfield. They then seized the opportunity to land troops by transport aircraft not drop them, which was suicidal, as the British AA guns would shoot the slow planes up with many bodies seen falling out of them. Some top German officers were against seizing the airfield as it may be reinforcing failure. The German lost a lot of equipment and men on the eve of the USSR invasion. It was regarded as foolish to have attacked Crete at that point, as the British could not have gone anywhere from Crete. Ironically the allies and the Germans viewed Crete differently. The British expanded their para forces seeing what the Germans had done and the US created theirs. The Germans contracted their para forces. The allies knew they had men to spare in such types of operations, while the Germans never. Crete was the 1st and last time the Fallschirms were used en-mass. As to William Eaton and his pro-Yank anti-British ramblings, the British paras at Arnhem held off German panzer units for about 11 days. No German paras ever did that. The Germans stated that in WW2 the best soldiers they ever fought were the British paras at Arnhem.
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  4. About the Sten gun. The best hand machine gun of of WW2 must go to the British Sten gun. Simple, light, quick and cheap to make and stamped out to the tune of 2.5 million. It was a piece of pipe with a bed spring. Even the Germans (the MP 3008) and French copied the gun. It was crude but effective - it even had little recoil. It could be made in garden sheds with minimum machine tools and parts (48 in total including standard screws available in any hardware shop). Plans on how to make them were sent to resistance movements. The Sten had initial defects which were ironed out quickly to the point it was very reliable. It was made in Resistance workshops in Denmark, Norway, France, Poland etc. And by Israel where the Arabs had them too. Quite a remarkable weapon that lacked recognition, despite a rush design. The later models were more simpler, and reliable, with less parts. The US evaluated the Sten to copy it. The British Sten gun was trialled along with several other US designs. The Sten gun was the winner of the evaluation, finding it more reliable than the M1. However the US strangely did not copy it mainly due to internal differences. The Sten was ideal for WW2, as long rifles were cumbersome and difficult in street fighting. The Sten was super cheap to make and did exactly what it was supposed to do. You could make a weapon that costed 10 times more to make, took 10 times more in resources and time to make, lasted 10 times longer as well and in function did exactly the same - but what is the point? The Sten was a highly disposable weapon designed to win a war and forgotten. It was stamped out in the millions by the Triang toy factory. The Sterling was a derivative of the Sten.
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  5. William Eaton Again.... "The Germans stated that in WW2 the best soldiers they ever fought were the British paras at Arnhem." Our Wiki warrior is at it again. Market Garden was not a total failure. The part that did fail was the US 82nd not seizing Nijmegen bridge. What a silly list. He even has individual U-Boat kills. I noted you never listed the 600 US ships sunk in the 1st 6 months of the war on the US eastern seaboard because the US Navy ignored British advice. No, the Yanks never won the war, despite what Hollywood tells you. In fact they were quite a mediocre army at that. The Germans easily took 2,000 of your best unit, the Rangers, in Italy and paraded them through Rome. Now run along and polish your gun.
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  6. William Eaton The British Army from mid 1942 was the finest army in the world. It went through a major reformation, new doctrine with new equipment." The so-called invincible Germans army tried and failed, with its allies, for two years in WW2 to defeat the British army in North Africa. 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 was in charge of all armies in Normandy. He 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, the only allied army to be pushed back into a RETREAT in the 1944-45 timeframe. 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 primarily the British - the US forces were impotent against the panzers. Monty assessed the US armies and had to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped to fight tank v tank battles, nor had the experience. On 3 Sept 1944 when Eisenhower took over overall allied command of ground forces from Montgomery everything went at a snail's pace. The fastest advance of any western army in Autumn/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
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  7. William Eaton The SAS are special forces, they get what they like. Even today an SAS man will name what gun, from any nation, and he will get it. There are few SAS men in number. The paras had Stens. The Germans and French copied the Sten. Those sort of weapons win wars, not target range favourites. Even Thompson could not make enough of their gun as they were over engineered - always in short supply. The successor to the Sten was the Sterling (used in combat in WW2) which is still made today. Is the Thompson? No.
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  8. Dieppe was a test of enemy defences, no more. It neither was a success or a failure. The results were to be analysed and learned from.
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  9. The USA would not supply even raw materials, which they supplied in normal peacetime, unless the UK shared their technology secrets.
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  10. The radios at at Arnhem never worked because of the high iron content in the soil.
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  11. William Eaton Not again. The Germans had overwhelming air superiority on Leros, flying from nearby islands. They bombed at will.
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  12. William Eaton Patton was in the Lorraine and advanced 10 miles in three months. The poorly devised Panzer Brigade concept deployed there with green German troops. The Panzer Brigades were a rushed concept to try and plug the gaps while the panzer divisions proper were being re-fitted and rebuilt after the summer 1944 battles. The Panzer Brigades had green crews that never had enough time to train, did not know their tanks properly, did not have any recon elements and didn't even meet their unit commander until his arrival at the front. These were by no means elite forces. 17th SS were not amongst the premier Waffen SS panzer divsions. In fact 17th SS was not even a panzer division but a panzer grenadier division, only equipped with assault guns, not tanks, with only a quarter of the number of AFVs as a panzer division. 17th SS was badly mauled in Normandy and was not up to strength at Arracourt in he Lorraine. Patton never even once faced a full strength Waffen SS panzer division nor a Tiger battalion. 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 3rd Army defeat? In the Lorraine, 3rd Army faced a rabble. Even the German commander of Army Group G in the Lorraine, Hermann Balck, who took over 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 facing a second rate rabble in the Lorraine for the most part. Patton was also neither on the advance nor being heavily engaged at the time he turned north to Bastogne when the German pounded through US lines. The road from Luxembourg to Bastogne was largely devoid of German forces, as Bastogne was on the very southern German periphery. Only when Patton got near to Bastogne did he face 'some' German armour but it wasn't a great deal of armour. The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade wasn't one of the best armoured units, while 26th Volks-Grenadier only had a dozen Hetzers, and the tiny element of Panzer Lehr (Kampfgruppe 901) left behind only had a small number of tanks operational. Its not as if Patton had 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 comparatively 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 the rear and moved westwards to the River Meuse, where they were still 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. 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 (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. There is is no comparison between Mantueffel's failed relief attempt on Stalingrad and Patton's successful relief of Bastogne. Manstein's forces were completely outnumbered by the Soviet forces who had an iron ring around Stalingrad. During Winter Storm, the Soviets outnumbered the Germans roughly 3 times in men and tanks. Manstein's task was also nearly twice the distance of Patton's and through deep snow the whole time. Patton repeatedly lambasted his subordinates. In Sicily he castigated Omar Bradley for the tactics Bradley's II Corps were employing while he also accused the commander of 3rd Infantry Division, Lucian 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" and called the 17th Airborne Division "hysterical" in reporting their losses. It was Patton's failure to concentrate his forces on a narrow front and his own decision to commit two green divisions to battle without adequate reconnaissance that were the reasons for his stall. After the German attack in the Ardennes, US air force units were put under RAF command, Coningham. Coningham, gave Patton massive US ground attack plane support and he still stalled. Patton rarely took any responsibility for his own failures. It was always somebody else at fault, including his subordinates. Read Monty and Patton:Two Paths to Victory by Michael Reynolds
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  13. William Eaton At Caen the Germans had five lines of defence with dug in 88mm's and heavy Tiger and fast Panther tanks for mobility. Operation 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. To do that he was confident British armour could match German armour - US armour would struggle or most likely be overwhelmed. A 12 mile sector around Caen saw more concentrated German armour in all of WW2. Goodwood was not British forces taking territory, as the 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 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". The Bulge was stopped by British 21st Army Group and absolutely the US 1st and 9th Armies were part of that army group under British control. Monty was very diplomatic, wise and clever and never put British armies in the front, putting the US armies up there. But he was clever in putting British forces 'in' the US 9th army under US army command. So, British forces were at the front answerable to US commanders who were answerable to British commanders. Sounds very allied to me. He did not want to humiliate US forces by putting them at the rear, which would have been the sensible thing to do if the armies were of all one nationality. That would be counter to allied cooperation. General Hasso von Manteuffel on the Bulge: ‘The operations of the American 1st 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’. .
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  14. William Eaton When the Germans scythed through US lines in the Ardennes The US 1st and 9th armies had to be put under British control. The 9th army stayed under British control until the end of the war.
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  15. William Eaton I noticed the rebuttals were put down. The rebuttals were from dumb Yanks like you.
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  16. William Eaton The Yanks "inspire"? More the other way around. They supplied a lot of weapons that were no better and in most cases inferior in design. The outdated, ugly, Sherman tank comes to mind. In advanced aircraft the British totally outstripped them. Even the Mustang was a British plane using idle US industry to make it, with a British engine. Again, the WW2 Sterling (the successor of the Sten) is still made. The Sten was a brilliant design using readily available parts from most hardware shops.
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