Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Montgomery vs Eisenhower on Operation Market Garden's True Purpose | History Debate" video.
-
18
-
15
-
15
-
13
-
11
-
Market Garden
1. Monty approached the 1st Airborne Army, Brereton, to do a
drop on the Scheld. He said "no", saying was too risky.
Market Garden came about out of Comet, a multi crossing of the Rhine.
2. Market Garden was to run up to the Zuiderzee and just east of Arnhem.
3. Market Garden was to create a buffer between Antwerp and German forces.
4. Advantages are: the German 15th Army is fully isolated in
Holland, Antwerp is protected from German counter-attack,
V rocket launching sites are overrun, a springboard to the Ruhr.
Ardennes Offensive
1. Antwerp was a vital port in the north (the only port taken intact),
even the Germans knew that. They poured more V rockets on
Antwerp than London.
2. If the Germans were to counter-attack in force it had to be to a
point to stop allied supply - Antwerp. It would also isolate the
British to the north.
3. The German attempt to reach Antwerp needed the element
of surprise and light initial resistance. An arc from Antwerp
to the German border gives, Eindhoven, Aachen and the
Ardennes forest. Not much in distance from Antwerp to any
of them. Going through a forest would achieve surprise, not
through the fortified Market Garden salient in Holland. Forcing
through the Market Garden salient would meet up with the
German 15th army in Holland. But that would not necessarily
stop allied resupply via Antwerp. The German idea of going
straight for Antwerp was sound.
The Germans knew the British had superior armour to the USA, having their armour annihilated by the British in Normandy. US forces had performed poorly overall, as the Kasserine Pass, Hurtgen Forest and the Lorraine Campaign had clearly shown. German armour was largely wiped out in the west by the British in Normandy. The Germans would prefer to attack the Americans rather than the British - obviously. The Ardennes had light US forces in front of it - the Germans did run though the forest in 1940. The US assessed no German army would run through it. It was a perfect launch point for the German gamble.
10
-
9
-
9
-
9
-
8
-
8
-
@bigwoody4704
Rambo, just for you..
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. They never entered the war because they attacked another country or were attacked, they went in on principle. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their 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 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 in 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.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading all ground forces, which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule and with less casualties than predicted. The Royal Navy was in command of all naval forces and the RAF all air forces. The German armour in the west was wiped out by primarily the British - the US forces were impotent against massed panzers. Monty assessed the US armies (he was in charge of them) giving them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped, or experienced, to fight concentrated 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/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Then the ignored British naval blockade on the Axis economy, which was so successful the substantial Italian navy could not put to sea in full strength, or even at all on some occasions, because of a lack of oil. Then the British bomber offensive on the German economy, taking the war right into German cities, wiping out Hamburg in one night.
There you go Rambo, there you go.
8
-
8
-
David Olie
Arnhem by-passed the Seigfreid line. Monty wanted a multiple crossing of the Rhine - Operation Comet. Objections mainly by Sosabowski scuppered it. Bradley and Patton were diverting supplies (disobeying orders) away from Hodges, who was on Monty's right flank, so Hodges could not assist Monty going north. Monty wanted a few divisions of Hodges' First Army on his right flank in Market Garden. Bradley and Patton should have been fired. US Corps commanders like Truscott and Collins were better than those two turkeys; they should have been put in those positions.
"The prospective benefits, if this operation was successful, were great. By establishing a bridgehead over the Rhine at Arnhem, the Allies would unhinge the northern flank of the Siegfried Line and gain access to the German Northern Plain. This in turn would set the conditions for a quicker defeat of Germany, either by directly attacking Berlin or by enveloping the Ruhr Valley and then attacking Berlin from the Arnhem bridgehead. It would seal off western Holland from Germany, which would in turn speed the clearing of the approaches to the much needed deep water port at Antwerp. Isolating western Holland also offered the prospect of gaining a second deep water port at Rotterdam, and of ending German V–2 rocket attacks against England."
- SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AIRPOWER STUDIES AIR UNIVERSITY MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA JUNE 1996
"upon approval of MARKET-GARDEN at Brussels on I0 September had been short-lived. Five days later, on I5 September, General Eisenhower himself reopened the wound, perhaps with a view to healing it once and for all through a process of bloodletting. Looking beyond both Arnhem and Antwerp, he named Berlin as the ultimate Allied goal"
- US Official History - THE SIEGFRIED LINE CAMPAIGN, Page 210.
Eisenhower had no proper strategy and kept changing whatever he had. Very amateurish.
8
-
+tigerhunter77
Most Americans have never heard of the Hurtgen Forest defeat. It is conveniently forgotten. Although recently a B movie was made featuring it glorifying individuals and the likes.
A US Army report of the Lorraine Campaign - Patton.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a211668.pdf
From the report 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."
The Brits never said the war would be over by Xmas.
"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, like he did when running one third of his force 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. Monty approached the US leaders of the First Airborne Army and they would not drop into the Scheld.
"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 Yanks 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."
Huge losses for taking unimportant territory, against a poor German army. How clever.
"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. The US Third Army had one third of all its 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.
7
-
7
-
Montgomery was in charge of all ground forces in Normandy. It came in ahead of schedule with less casualties than expected. Eisenhower, supreme commander, a political job with enough to do in that position, then also took on the ground forces job. He had to much on his plate. He was inexperienced for the role. All went pear shaped with his broad front, which stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea. There was not enough punch anywhere all along the line to force through. Eisenhower was out of his depth.
"Returning to his theme in a letter to Eisenhower, written on 18 September, Montgomery stated — yet again — that time was of the essence, that there was not enough logistical support to sustain such a big effort [broad front], that one route, preferably the northern one, must have priority"
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Monty wanted divisions of the US First Army on his right flank at Market Garden. This was rejected. It amounted to three corps with only one above Eindhoven. An absolute disgrace.
"By the evening of 14 September, the day V and VII Corps of the US First Army opened their attacks, Patton had established half a dozen crossing points over the Moselle, and was heading east, consuming great quantities of fuel and ammunition. The outcome was that Patton did not stop until brought to a halt by the German army in front of Metz. It should be noted that this move, designed by Bradley and Patton to check Montgomery, actually had a dire effect on Bradley’s other contingent, the US First Army, which was starved of fuel and artillery ammunition at Aachen."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley and Patton were conspiring, in disobeying orders, to scupper a fellow allied commander. Unbelievable.
"On 16 September, when Eisenhower told Bradley that logistical priority must go to First Army and Patton must stop, Patton again told Bradley that the Third Army must get involved ‘at once’ and asked Bradley to ignore this order and ‘not to call me until after dark on the nineteenth."
"On 17 September, again defying his Supreme Commander and with the backing of his Army Group commander, Patton launched an all-out attack on his two prime objectives, sending XX Corps against Metz and XII Corps in a drive for the Rhine. Success can justify such actions, but neither attack succeeded."
"Bradley now faced a considerable dilemma. By favouring Patton at the expense of Hodges he had ensured that neither Army could actually achieve anything — and he had undermined Eisenhower’s current strategy at the same time. By 20 September, the Allied armies had to face the unpalatable fact that the days of rapid advances against a retreating foe were over."
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Eisenhower should have fired Bradley and Patton. The US had excellent corps commanders like Collins and Truscot who would have done better jobs.
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
@agentmulder1019
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. They did not enter because they attacked another country or were attacked. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their 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 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 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 - The Netherlands
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were ground armies, British or US, under Monty's command 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 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 with over 50,000 casualties.
The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, with Montgomery in command of them and the British 21st Army Group, just to get back to the start line, with nearly 100,000 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, 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. 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.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading all ground forces, which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule and with less casualties than predicted. The Royal Navy was command of all naval forces and the RAF all air forces. 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 (he was in charge of them) and had to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped, or experienced, to fight concentrated 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 the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Then the ignored British naval blockade on the Axis economy, which was so successful the substantial Italian navy could never put to sea in full strength, or even at all on some occasions, because of a lack of oil. Then the British bomber offensive on the German economy, taking the war right into German cities, wiping out Hamburg in one night.
You need to give respect where it is due.
.
5
-
5
-
5
-
@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
5
-
5
-
@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.”
5
-
5
-
@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.
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
@agentmulder1019
Caen was strategically unimportant.
Caen had more German tanks per mile than Kursk. In just a dozen miles or so right Panzer divisions in a very small area of front. Caen had the highest concentration density of German tanks ever seen in WW2, pitted against British armour. At Kursk the panzer divisions were spread out over a much wider area and were not concentrated as densely as around Caen. Caen saw the densest concentration of German armour ever seen in WW2. At Kursk the Germans were attacking over a near 50 mile front. There were certainly not right panzer divisions within 12 miles.
There were EIGHT Panzer Divisions in the Caen area by end of June 1944 and FIVE lines of anti-tank guns. The Germans kept sending more and more panzer divisions around the Caen area as June went on and into July. These were the panzer divisions deployed to the Caen area.
♦ 21st Panzer Division (117 Panzer IVs).
♦ Panzer Lehr Division ( 101 Panzer IVs, 89 Panthers).
♦ 2nd Panzer Division (89 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
♦ 116th Panzer Division (73 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers). In reserve just behind the front.
♦ 1st SS Panzer Division (98 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
♦ 9th SS Panzer Division (40 Stugs, 46 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
♦ 10th SS Panzer Division (38 Stugs, 39 Panzer IVs)
♦ 12th SS Panzer Division (98 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
♦ Tiger Battalion SS101 (45 Tigers).
♦ Tiger Battalion SS102 (45 Tigers).
♦ Tiger Battalion 503 (45 Tigers)
Source. Bernages Panzers and the Battle For Normandy and Zetterling's Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness.
On 12th June 1944 the British had no room to sidestep any German divisions before Caen because the Germans totally blocked them. This is why a wide right hook on Caen was attempted. To the south of Panzer Lehr's sector in the vicinity of Villers Bocage there was thought to be an area devoid of German forces, and so this wide right hook was attempted on the morning of 13th June (any wider and it would have overrun into the American lines). Unfortunately, unknown to the British, Schwere SS Panzer Abteilung 101 turned up into this area on the night of the 12/13th June and blocked this right hook with their Tigers and closed the door on Caen.
There was no other room to manoeuvre onto Caen. All attempts had to go right through the German panzer divisions through the rest of June and early July, with the Germans having excellent defensive country (fields broken up by hedgerows everywhere) with which to utilise to their advantage.
The Germans had over 1,500 tanks and assault guns in the British/Canadian sector, including Tiger and Panthers. Even the King Tiger and Jagdpanther made their WW2 combat débuts around Caen in July.
The Americans, who were not equipped, or experienced to face massed German armour, were given primarily an infantry role by Montgomery - the Americans met very little armour in WW2. The US forces didn't face any German armour until June 13th, and that was only a mere battalion of assault guns. The British destroyed about 90% of German armour in the west.
4
-
4
-
+Dave Inportland
"It wasn't Churchills idea to appoint an American Supreme Commander."
It was Churchill's idea to appoint an American, to get them to adopt Germany First. I think it was at Casablanca. In hindsight a dumb thing to do. Eisenhower was clearly not up to the job. He was a colonel only in mid 1942. Most US generals would never make it in the British army. Alan Brooke chief of the British Imperial General Staff wrote: "Ike knows nothing about strategy and is quite unsuited to the post of Supreme Commander. It is no wonder that Monty's real high ability is not always realised"
The US never supplied all the men and materials. The USA supplied 11% of total UK needs, mainly raw materials and food and machine tools, and 5% of the USSR's. 400 tons per day (enough to feed only Bradford). The British had to heavily contribute to feeding and housing the millions of Americans that came over. For Normandy the UK provided the vast majority of the naval forces and air forces and more Brits landed on D-Day than Yanks. Monty in Normandy was in charge of all armies, US and British.
The US was taking heavy losses after Eisenhower took US forces from Monty after Normandy on 2 Sept 1944. 52,000 casualties in the Lorraine when Patton moved 10 miles in three months. 33,000 at the Hurtgen Forest defeat. 100,000 at the Bulge. The USA started to pour men in as their losses were horrendous due to naive and incompetent generals. At this time the British were building up a 2.6 million man army to march into Burma. The US were sending men who were allocated for the Far East to Europe, because of their horrendous losses. The British never suffered such losses, apart from Normandy where the British did most of the heavy fighting.
At May 1945 US manpower in Europe outnumbered British as the US was fearful of further large losses of men. It was envisaged that more British would be in Europe and more US men in the Far East. The the reverse occurred.
After the Germans scythed into the US armies at the Bulge, Monty had to take control of two US armies to stop the advance and turn it back, the 1st and 9th. He had control of the 9th until the end of the war.
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
Shandwen
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their 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, 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 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 - The Netherlands
♦ 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 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 with over 50,000 casualties. 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. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US 1st and 9th armies. The 9th stayed under his control until the end of the war just about.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading, 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 (he was in charge of them) and had to give 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/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
@Ivan Karaschuk
All you wrote are drivel, especially this..... "Patton’s forces who turned back the Ardennes offensive."
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 being 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, leaving 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.
Look at who stopped the German advance, preventing them crossing the Meuse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvcJfXtkCW8
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
@11B Retired
Patton was an average US general, like Simpson, Patch, Hodges, etc. No more. "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.
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
3
-
3
-
Burlats de Montaigne
Montgomery, having been a general since 1917, knew about soldiers and how they thought and reacted. He understood them and cared about all the men under him, British, US, Canadian, Auss, NZ, Indian, etc. He knew in time of battle their morale was essential. He observed in WW1 that men seeing their own men being killed in large numbers would demoralise quite quickly, reducing their fighting capability. Preserving their lives was essential to Monty on many levels. This was paramount in his mind. If Monty could muster all available forces and push forwards minimising casualties, he would - only a fool would not.
The Canadians had the same view. They invented the modern armoured personnel carrier during the Battle of Normandy. They asked the British to convert a Churchill tank by removing its turret and fitting a door. They did and the Canadians called it the Kangaroo because it could jump men to the place where they should be, rather than go across open ground and half of them get killed. The British took this up.
The British and Canadians were far more efficient than the over-bloated green US armies. The did not need as many men for the same punch. In fact far less.
3
-
@donupton5246
What drivel!
Two American Air Force Generals, Brereton, in command of the First Allied Airborne Army, and Williams, USAAF, were the reason why the Market Garden plan was flawed. Nevertheless, despite their failings, the operation failed to be a 100% success by a whisker. It was Brereton and Williams who:
♦ Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy;
♦ Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps;
♦ Who rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-Day on the Pegasus bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet;
♦ Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges;
♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports and thereby not hindering the German reinforcements. Ground attack fighters were devastating in Normandy;
♦ Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that would prevent the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of "possible flak".
The job of the Airborne was to capture the bridges with as Brereton said 'thunderclap surprise'. Only one bridge, at Grave, was planned and executed using Airborne tactics of surprise, speed and aggression - land as close to the objectives as possible and attack the bridge simultaneously from both ends. General Gavin of the 82nd decided to lower the priority of the the biggest road bridge in Europe, the Nijmegen road bridge, going against orders compromising the operation. To compound his error, lack of judgement or refusal to carry out an order, he totally ignored the adjacent Nijmegen rail bridge, which the Germans had installed wooden planks between the rails for light vehicles to move on. At the time of the landings by the 82nd there were only 20 Germans guarding both bridges with a few troops in the town. There were no bridge defences such as ditches and barbed wire. This has been confirmed by German archives.
Gavin sent only two companies of the 508 seven hours after they had landed to capture the bridges. They arrived at 2200, eight hours after being ready to march. Company A moved towards the bridge while Company B got lost. In the interim eight hours the 19 guards had been replaced by Kampfgruppe Henke with 750 men and then a brigade of the 10th SS Panzer Division (infantry) setting up shop in the park adjacent to the south side of the road bridge at 1900 hours, five hours after the jump. The Germans occupied the town, which was good defensive territory being rubble in the centre as the USAAF had previously bombed the town in March 1944 by mistake thinking they were in Germany, killing 800.
XXX Corps Guards Division's aim was to reach Arnhem at 15.00 on D-Day+2. They arrived at Nijmegen in the morning of D-Day+2, with only 8 miles to go to Arnhem. Expecting to cross the road bridge they found it in German hands with Germans fighting 82nd men in the town, seeing something seriously had gone wrong. The 82nd had not captured either of the bridges or cleared out the Germans from Nijmegen town itself. XXX Corps then had to seize both bridges and clear the Germans from the town, using some 82nd men in clearing the town, seizing the bridge themselves. What you see in the film 'A Bridge Too Far' is fiction. It was the Grenadier Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry who seized the Nijmegen road bridge.
If the 82nd had seized the road bridge, immediately on landing, as ordered, XXX Corp's Guards Division would have reached Arnhem well within time relieving the British 1st Airborne men on the north side of Arnhem bridge. The German archives state quite clearly that failure to capture the Nijmegen bridge on d-day was the reason for XXX Corps not making a bridgehead north of the Rhine. A failure responsible by General Gavin. Even the US Official War record confirms this.
Charles B. MacDonald wrote the US Official history on Market Garden: https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_19.htm
3
-
@donupton5246
Eisenhower prioritized the northern thrust over other fronts:
"On 4 Sept, the day Antwerp fell, Eisenhower issued another directive, ordering the forces north-west of the Ardennes — 21st Army Group and two corps of the US First Army — to take Antwerp, reach the Rhine and seize the Ruhr"
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Eisenhower did not know Antwerp had fallen when he issued the directive. Montgomery wanted a thrust up and over the Rhine prior to Eisenhower's directive, devising Operation Comet to be launched on 2 Sept, being cancelled due to German resistance and poor weather.
Eisenhower's directive of 4 Sept had divisions of the US 1st Army and Montgomery's view of taking multiple bridges on the Rhine from Arnhem to Wesel. The British 2nd Army needed some divisions of Hodges' US 1st army and the First Allied Airborne Army (which Monty controlled anyhow). Hodges' would protect the right flank. the Canadians would protect the left flank from the German 15th army. It was to chase a disorganized retreating enemy preventing them from manning the German West Wall, gaining a footing over the Rhine, consolidating and then clearing the Scheldt to open up the port of Antwerp. A sound concept which even the German generals agreed would have worked.
"the evidence also suggests that certain necessary objectives on the road to Berlin, crossing the Rhine and perhaps even taking the Ruhr, were possible with the existing logistical set-up, provided the right strategy to do so was set in place. Montgomery’s popular and astute Chief of Staff, Freddie de Guingand, certainly thought so: 'If Eisenhower had not taken the steps he did to link up at an early date with Anvil and had held back Patton, and had he diverted the resources so released to the north, I think it possible we might have obtained a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter - but not more.' "
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
"Perhaps not more then, but that much alone would have been very useful — and much more than was actually achieved. This view was confirmed after the war in interviews with the senior surviving German commanders, von Rundstedt, Student, Blumentritt and Rommel’s former chief of staff, General Speidel. They were unanimous in declaring that a full-blooded thrust from Belgium in September would have succeeded in crossing the Rhine and might have ended the war in 1944, since they had no means of stopping such a thrust reaching the Ruhr. In the event, largely due to the faulty command set-up [by Eisenhower] and lack of grip, even a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter was still a dream in 1944."- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley was starving Hodges' First Army of supplies, against Eisenhower's orders, giving them to Patton who was running off into unimportant territory - again. This northern thrust over the Rhine obviously would not work with the resources starved First Army, so a lesser operation was devised by Montgomery, Market Garden, eliminating the divisions of US First Army, with only ONE crossing of the Rhine. Market Garden would also eliminate V rocket launching sites, of which London wanted eliminating ASAP giving a 60 mile long salient buffer between German forces and the important port of Antwerp. This would only have one corps above Eindhoven, a disgrace considering the forces in Europe at the time. Eisenhower had no grasp of the situation as it was and no strong strategy to advance.
Montgomery, although not liking Eisenhower's broad front strategy, making that clear continuously since the Normandy breakout, being a professional soldier he always obeyed Eisenhower's orders keeping to the laid down strategy, unlike Bradley who also allowed Patton to disobey his own orders.
Montgomery after fixing the operations objectives with Eisenhower to what forces were available, gave Market Garden planning to others, mainly General Brereton, an American, of the First Allied Airborne Army. Brereton, who liked the concept, agreed to it with even direct input. Brereton ordered the drops will take place during the day and Brereton oversaw the troop carrier and supply drops schedules. A refusal by Brereton and the operation would never have gone ahead, as he earlier rejected Montgomery's initial plan of a drop into the Scheldt at Walcheren Island.
Montgomery left all the planning to his generals to plan and execute: Brereton, Williams, Browning, Urquhart, Gavin, Taylor, Horrocks, etc. Monty gave them a free run at it with their own discretion not interfering. Montgomery had no involvement whatsoever in its execution. Montgomery was an army group commander, in charge of armies. The details were left to 'competent' subordinates.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
General Eisenhower had agreed at the conference with his commanders in Brussels on 10 September to defer the Antwerp operation while awaiting the outcome of Operation MARKET-GARDEN. "The attractive possibility of quickly turning the German north flank led me to approve the temporary delay in freeing the vital port of Antwerp . . .," the Supreme Commander wrote later.
- US Official History, BREACHING THE SIEGFRIED LINE
(Page 209).
Antwerp is way inland - 35-40 miles up a narrow, dredged and winding river that needed mine-sweeping and maybe dredging. Ships navigating the river are open to air attack being pretty static targets. If one or two ships are sunk in the river channels, the whole port of Antwerp is out of action. Monty stated that he needed three Pas de Calais ports, right on the coast to supply the armies. The prime aim was to get the ports directly on the coast for obvious reasons.
On September 9, the 2nd Canadian Infantry occupied the port of Ostend. Although fortified, was not defended by the Germans. The harbour installations, had been partly demolished which delayed its opening. On September 28, stores and bulk petrol began flowing through the port.
The damage to the port of Boulogne, taken by the Canadians, was severe and the facilities were not available until November, after Antwerp had been opened.
The Canadians, Czechs and Poles failed to take Dunkirk. It was decided not to pursue Dunkirk as the port installations were too far destroyed. The German garrison was left isolated at Dunkirk until the war's end.
So to get the awkward to access port of Antwerp operational, the Scheldt had to be taken to allow ships up the 40 miles of narrow river. Rail lines were being brought into use from Normandy.
Only when enough Channel ports could not be secured was full attention focused on clearing the Scheldt to gain access to Antwerp. Montgomery as a part of Operation Comet, requested Brereton, an American who was head of the First Allied Airborne Army, to drop into the Scheldt. He refused. Operation Comet morphed into Market Garden with the aim of creating a buffer between Antwerp and German forces who may attempt to retake the port, and also to overrun V weapon sites which were being aimed at London.
Those who say Monty was too slow in not clearing the Scheldt need to look deeper.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
RED S7VN
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their 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, 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 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 - The Netherlands
♦ 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 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 casualties. 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. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US 1st and 9th armies. The 9th stayed under his control until the end of the war just about. Parts of the USAAF had to be put under RAF control.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading, 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 (he was in charge of them) and had to give 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/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
2
-
@robert goodman
Chip on the shoulder I see.
The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. They never entered the war because they attacked another country or were attacked. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their 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 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 had to give the US armies an infantry role as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour.
After France 1940 Germany never had a significant campaign victory over the British Commonwealth ever again in WW2. The Germans FAILED:
♦ To win the Battle of Britain in 1940;
♦ To win the Battle of the Atlantic in 1940/41;
♦ To control the eastern Atlantic ;
♦ To control the Mediterranean in 1940/41;
♦ To control North Africa and the Middle East in 1940/41
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 - The Netherlands
♦ 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 in 1944/45 was retreating in the Ardennes. The Americans didn't perform well at all east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat with 34,000 casualties and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months with over 50,000 casualties. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, with Montgomery having to be put in command of the US First and Ninth armies, adding 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. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US First and Ninth armies. The Ninth stayed under his control until the end of the war just about. Parts of the USAAF had to be under the control of the RAF.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading all armies, which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule and 22% 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 (he was in charge of them) and had to give 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/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Then the ignored British naval blockade on the Axis economy, which was so successful the substantial Italian navy could not put to sea in full strength, or even at all on some occasions, because of a lack of oil. Then the British bomber offensive on the German economy, taking the war right into German cities, wiping out Hamburg in one night. First 1,000 bomber raid was just after the USA were in the war.
2
-
2
-
2
-
@novelistgrandiose8281
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. They never did not enter because they attacked another country or were attacked. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their 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 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 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 - The Netherlands
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were ground armies, British or US, under Monty's command 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 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 with over 50,000 casualties. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, with Montgomery in command and the British 21st Army Group, just to get back to the start line, with nearly 100,000 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, 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. 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.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading all ground forces, which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule and with less casualties than predicted. The Royal Navy was command of all naval forces and the RAF all air forces. 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 (he was in charge of them) and had to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped, or experienced, to fight concentrated 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/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Then the ignored British naval blockade on the Axis economy, which was so successful the substantial Italian navy could not put to sea in full strength, or even at all on some occasions, because of a lack of oil. Then the British bomber offensive on the German economy, taking the war right into German cities, wiping out Hamburg in one night.
You need to give respect where it is due.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@jimclark6256
Britain was key in WW2. Britain fought on every front, being in the war on the first day up to the last - the only country at the surrender of Japan in September 1945 to do so - Britain’s war actually ended in 1946 staying on in Viet Nam using Japanese troops alongside British troops to defeat the Viet Minh, but that is another story. Britain was not attacked or attacked anyone, going into WW2 on principle.
The Turkish ambassador to the UK stated that the UK can raise 40 million troops from its empire so will win the war. This was noted by Franco who indirectly said to Hitler he would not win, fearing British occupation of Spanish islands and territory if Spain joined the war. Spain and Turkey stayed out of the war. The Turkish ambassador’s point was given credence when an army of 2.6 million was assembled in India that moved into Burma to wipe out the Japanese.
From day one the Royal Navy formed a ring around the Axis positioning ships from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Arctic off Norway, blockading the international trade of the Axis. This deprived the Axis of vital human and animal food, oil, rubber, metals, and other vital resources. By 1941 the successful Royal Navy blockade had confined the Italian navy to port due to lack of oil. By the autumn of 1941 Germany's surface fleet was confined to harbour, by the British fleet and the chronic lack of fuel.
A potential German invasion from the the USSR in the north into the oil rich Middle East entailed expanded British troop deployment to keep the Germans away from the oil fields, until they were defeated at Stalingrad. Throughout 1942 British Commonwealth troops were fighting, or seriously expecting to be attacked, in:
♦ French North Africa;
♦ Libya;
♦ Egypt;
♦ Cyprus;
♦ Syria: where an airborne assault was expected, with preparations to reinforce Turkey if they were attacked;
♦ Madagascar: fighting the Vichy French to prevent them from inviting the Japanese in as they had done in Indochina;
♦ Iraq;
♦ Iran: the British & Soviets invaded Iran in August 1941.
Those spread-out covering troops were more in combined numbers than were facing Japan and Rommel in North Africa. The British Commonwealth fielded over 100 divisions in 1942 alone, compared to the US total of 88 by the end of the war. The Americans and Soviets were Johnny-come-late in WW2, moreso the Americans.
Before the USSR entered the conflict the Royal Navy’s blockade had reduced the Italian and German surface navies to the occasional sorties because of a lack of oil, with the British attacking the Germans and Italians in North Africa, also securing Syria, Iraq, the Levant and ridding the Italians from East Africa. The Germans were on the run by the time the USA had boots on the ground against the Axis. The Germans had been stopped:
♦ in the west at the Battle of Britain in 1940;
♦ in the east at the Battle of Moscow in 1941. In which Britain provided 40% of the Soviet tanks. The Germans were on the run after the simultaneous battles in late 1942 of:
♦ El Alemein;
♦ Stalingrad;
The Battle of El Alemein culminated in a quarter of a million Axis prisoners taken in Tunisia - more than taken at Stalingrad. Apart from the US Filipino forces that surrendered in early 1942, the US had a couple of divisions in Gaudalcanal after August 1942, and one in New Guinea by November 1942.
In 1943 the US managed to get up to six divisions in the Pacific, but still not matching the British or British Indian armies respectively. Until late 1943 the Australian Army alone deployed more ground fighting troops against the Japanese than the USA. The Americans never put more ground troops into combat against the Japanese at any point than just the British Indian Army alone, which was 2.6 million strong. The US had nowhere near 2.6 million men on the ground against the Japanese. The Soviets fielded about a million against the Japanese.
Most Japanese troops were put out of action by the British and Soviets, not the USA. At the battles of Khohima and Imphal the Japanese suffered their worst defeat in their history up to that point. Then the British set the Eastern and Pacific fleets against the Japanese, not far off in numbers to the US fleet.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Bob Finkenbiner
Only one blame as that goes to Gavin who never went for the bridge immediately.
Gavin was supposed to get to the bridge as soon as landing. He failed too. Market Garden failed to be a 100% success by a whisker. Because the 82nd did not seize the Nijmegen bridge immediately. They were ready at 2 pm on the jump day and never moved to the bridge. The gigantic bridge was guarded by 19 guards. Germans occupied the bridge at 1900 hrs. Six hours after the 82nd were ready to march.
Events on the 1st day:
♦ "At 1328, the 665 men of US 82nd 1st Battalion began
to fall from the sky." Poulussen, R. Lost at Nijmegen.
♦ "Forty minutes after the drop, around 1410, _the
1st Battalion marched off towards their objective,
De Ploeg, three miles away." Poulussen,
♦ "The 82nd were digging in and performing recon
in the area looking for 1,000 tanks in the Reichswald
- Neillands, R. The Battle for the Rhine 1944.
♦ The 82nd were dug in and preparing to defend their
newly constructed regimental command post, which
they established at 1825. Then Colonel Lindquist
"was told by General Gavin, around 1900, to move
into Nijmegen." Poulussen
Events on the evening of the 1st day:
♦ Having dug in at De Ploeg, Warren's battalion wasn't prepared
to move towards Nijmegen at all. Poulussen,
♦ Once Lindquist told Lieutenant Colonel Warren that his
Battalion was to move, Warren decided to visit the HQ
of the Nijmegen Underground first - to see what info the
underground had on the Germans at the Nijmegen bridge.
- Poulussen,
♦ It was not until 1830hrs that he [Warren] was able to send
a force into Nijmegen. This force was somewhat small,
just one rifle platoon and an intelligence section with a
radio — say forty men.
- Neillands. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
♦ This was not a direct route to the bridge from Warren's
original position, and placed him in the middle of the town.
It was also around 2100 when "A" Company left to attempt
to capture the Nijmegen road bridge.
♦ "B" Company was not with them because they'd split up
due to it being dark with "visibility was less than ten yards".
- Poulussen,
♦ The 82nd attacks were resisted by the Germans until the
next day.
Events of the 2nd day:
♦ Gavin drove up in a jeep the next morning and
was told by Warren that although they didn't have the bridge
yet, another attack was about to go in.
♦ Gavin then told Warren to hold because the Germans were
attacking in the southeast portion of the 82nd perimeter.
♦ At around 1100, Warren was ordered to withdraw from
Nijmegen completely. - Poulussen
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@mgt2010fla
"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.”
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
2
-
@mgt2010fla
There has been a tradition in the world of downgrading Britain's contribution to WW2, especially in the USA. The British fought a highly technological and industrial war and did so very efficiently. Britain used not only her vast empire but her even larger trading empire to great effect - an army of 2.6 million marched into Burma - the US had nowhere near that many ground troops against the Japanese. The British, with its massive navy, surrounded the Axis, from the Med (cutting off both entrances to the the Med) to the Eastern Atlantic, starving them of food, natural resources and oil, and ensuring where the battles would be fought.
Steel not flesh was the slogan. The British assessed that having massive armies is highly inefficient. The larger the army the higher the casualties. Britain deliberately chose to keep numbers of front line troops as low as possible building machines and using technology advances instead - the BEF in France was the first army were men never marched - fully motorised. The Kangaroo was the first armoured personnel carrier developed in WW2 from adapted tanks, saving many lives, in contrast to the horrendous US casualties. The policy worked, despite fighting for the duration, the only major country to do so, and all around the globe, the country had only lost around 440,000, which is half the British dead of the 1914-1918 war, which lasted two years less. Germany and the USSR lost considerably more troops than they had in WW1.
From the war came amazing British inventions: the cavity magnetron, electronic computer, the world’s most advanced jet engines, anti-submarine electronics, the proximity fuse, as well as the Liberty ship (a Sunderland design), to name but a few. Massive developments in manufacturing, with a staggering 132,500 aircraft and over one million military vehicles. Canada alone produced more wheeled vehicles than Germany.
From the first American servicemen arriving in Britain in 1942, until VE Day, the British provided the USA with 31% of all their supplies in the European Theatre of Operations. Britain's war effort was astonishing – backed by their insistence in continuing the fight in 1940. The British made an enormous contribution to winning the war, being the key agents. This had a positive effect on the future of the world. The declinist view of Britain in the war must be dispelled for good.
2
-
2
-
@thevillaaston7811
Montgomery gave the end time of Normandy, which came in ahead of schedule, the bits between were put in by his planners, who needed something to fill in. Monty allowed them to puts some in. Caen was strategically unimportant.
"the timings, when all this was going to happen. The answer is again found in the strategic plan, which states that the Allied armies would have driven the Germans back to the Seine on or about D plus 90, say September 1. Various intermediate targets – phase lines – were introduced into the plan but these were largely, as stated above, for administrative reasons, to give the logistical planners some time frame. Indeed, when Lt Colonel C. P. Dawnay, Monty’s military assistant, was helping his chief prepare for the first presentation of plans on April 7, 1944, eight weeks before D-Day, he asked Montgomery where the phase lines should be drawn between D-Day and D plus 90?
Monty replied, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter, Kit – draw
them where you like’. ‘Shall I draw them equally, Sir?’,
asked Dawnay. ‘Yes, that’ll do’, replied Montgomery.
Montgomery knew that whatever was intended two months before the landing would be altered the minute the troops went ashore. Even so, two other points need explaining. The first is that changes in plan in the course of the battle were only to be expected – and hardly matter if the overall aim of the campaign is kept broadly on track.
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle of Normandy 1944
"The ground force plan for Overlord had been drawn up by Montgomery – and approved by Eisenhower and the Combined Chiefs-of-Staff – and in that plan the city of Caen was to be taken – or effectively masked – on D-Day"
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle of Normandy 1944
"The Second Army plan states ‘The capture and retention of Caen is vital to the Army plan.’ This intention is confirmed when the final Army plan for D-Day – Order No. 1, was issued on April 21. ‘I Corps will capture Caen’.
Then matters grow cloudy. The orders issued by I Corps do indeed restate that the capture of Caen is vital to the Army plan and confirm that ‘the task of 3 British Division is to capture Caen and secure a bridgehead over the river Orne at that place’, which could hardly be more definite. However, the detailed order goes on to state that, ‘3 Brit Inf Div should, by the evening of D-Day, have captured or effectively masked Caen, and be disposed in depth with brigade locations firmly established, north-east of Bénouville in support of 6th Airborne Division ... having taken over the Bénouville–Ranville crossing ... and north-west of Caen, tied up with the left forward brigade locality of 3 Cdn Inf Div’.
So far so good, but the order goes on: ‘Should the enemy forestall us at Caen and the defences prove to be strongly organised, thus causing us to fail to capture it on D-Day, further direct frontal assaults which may prove costly will not be undertaken without reference to I Corps. In such an event, 3 Brit Inf Div will contain the enemy in Caen and retain the bulk of its forces disposed for mobile operations outside the covering position. Caen will be subjected to heavy air bombardment to limit its usefulness to the enemy and make its retention a costly business.’
This is, in fact, what actually happened and it is interesting that this counterproposal was made well before 3rd Infantry Division went ashore. It therefore appears that the major unit most directly concerned with the capture of Caen on D-Day – Lieutenant-General Crocker’s I Corps – already had an alternative strategy in place to that of the Allied Commanders, Eisenhower and Montgomery but only should the defences prove too strong. This again seems sensible – no plan survives the first contact with the enemy etc."
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle of Normandy 1944
2
-
@mgt2010fla
Of the 46 antiquated, leaking, rusting and hardly operational WW1 destroyers supplied to Britain by the USA, few were ever used being scrapped. The few used, taking valuable and considerable shipyard time to get into use antiquated junk, were given to the USSR, France, Poland and Norway. They were given to the UK as a political ploy, to hide the that the US was demanding, and getting, territory to help the British. For which the British were paying.
2
-
2
-
Montgomery was in charge of all ground forces in Normandy. It came in ahead of schedule with less casualties than expected. Eisenhower, supreme commander, a political job with enough to do in that position, then also took on the ground forces job. He had to much on his plate. He was inexperienced for the role. All went pear shaped with his broad front, which stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea. There was not enough punch anywhere all along the line to force through. Eisenhower was out of his depth.
"Returning to his theme in a letter to Eisenhower, written on 18 September, Montgomery stated — yet again — that time was of the essence, that there was not enough logistical support to sustain such a big effort [broad front], that one route, preferably the northern one, must have priority"
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Monty wanted divisions of the US First Army on his right flank at Market Garden. This was rejected. It amounted to three corps with only one above Eindhoven. An absolute disgrace.
"By the evening of 14 September, the day V and VII Corps of the US First Army opened their attacks, Patton had established half a dozen crossing points over the Moselle, and was heading east, consuming great quantities of fuel and ammunition. The outcome was that Patton did not stop until brought to a halt by the German army in front of Metz. It should be noted that this move, designed by Bradley and Patton to check Montgomery, actually had a dire effect on Bradley’s other contingent, the US First Army, which was starved of fuel and artillery ammunition at Aachen."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley and Patton were conspiring, in disobeying orders, to scupper a fellow allied commander. Unbelievable.
"On 16 September, when Eisenhower told Bradley that logistical priority must go to First Army and Patton must stop, Patton again told Bradley that the Third Army must get involved ‘at once’ and asked Bradley to ignore this order and ‘not to call me until after dark on the nineteenth."
"On 17 September, again defying his Supreme Commander and with the backing of his Army Group commander, Patton launched an all-out attack on his two prime objectives, sending XX Corps against Metz and XII Corps in a drive for the Rhine. Success can justify such actions, but *neither attack succeeded.*"
"Bradley now faced a considerable dilemma. By favouring Patton at the expense of Hodges he had ensured that neither Army could actually achieve anything — and he had undermined Eisenhower’s current strategy at the same time. By 20 September, the Allied armies had to face the unpalatable fact that the days of rapid advances against a retreating foe were over."
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Eisenhower should have fired Bradley and Patton. The US had excellent corps commanders like Collins and Truscot who would have done better jobs.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
John Cornell
US Official History...
The priority on gasoline which had been assigned the First Army, in consequence of General Eisenhower’s decision to make the main Allied effort in the north, left the Third Army virtually immobilized from 1 to 5 September.
During the period 26 August–2 September the gasoline received by the Third Army averaged 202,382 gallons per day. 51 Since Patton’s tanks and trucks had habitually consumed between 350,000 and 400,000 gallons a day during the last phases of the pursuit, and since some 450,000 gallons per day would be needed east of the Moselle, there could be no real question of mounting a fullscale attack against the Moselle line until the supply situation improved. On 2 September the gasoline receipts at Third Army dumps reached the lowest figure of the entire arid period—25,390 gallons. But finally on 4 September the gasoline drought started to break, only a day later than General Bradley had predicted to General Patton. On this date the Third Army was issued 240,265 gallons; during the next three days 1,396,710 gallons arrived, and by 10 September the period of critical shortage was ended.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Christian Noll
No armour was near Arnhem.
http://www.airpowerstudies.co.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Arnhem.pdf
"the composition of the German forces at Arnhem was far more complex than most published histories of Market Garden had tended to suggest. The two SS panzer divisions had been operating far below their full strength on the eve of the operation and, while 1st Airborne was ultimately confronted by armour in considerable strength, hardly any tanks were actually present in the Arnhem area on 17 September. The vast majority deployed from Germany or other battle fronts after the airborne landings" - ARNHEM - THE AIR RECONNAISSANCE STORY by the RAF
Some low level pictures of a few Panzer IIIs and IVs were taken in early September for operation Comet. Ryan on speaking to Urquhart got it wrong. "Urquhart’s account is therefore somewhat perplexing. Further problems arise if we seek to document the events he described. Several extensive searches for the photographs have failed to locate them. Ostensibly, this might not seem surprising, as most tactical reconnaissance material was destroyed after the war, but Urquhart insisted that the Arnhem sortie was flown by a Spitfire squadron based at Benson; this would almost certainly mean 541 Squadron. Far more imagery from the Benson squadrons survived within the UK archives, but no oblique photographs showing tanks at Arnhem. In addition, although the Benson missions were systematically recorded at squadron and group level, not one record matches the sortie Urquhart described."
"The low-level missions targeting the bridges on 6 September were scrupulously noted down, but all other recorded reconnaissance sorties over Arnhem were flown at higher altitudes and captured vertical imagery. Equally, it has proved impossible as yet to locate an interpretation report derived from a low-level mission that photographed German armour near Arnhem before Market Garden." "As for Brian Urquhart’s famous account of how a low-level Spitfire sortie took photographs of tanks assumed to belong to II SS Panzer Corps, the reality was rather different. In all probability, the low-level mission that Urquhart recalled photographed the bridges and not the tanks" - ARNHEM - THE AIR RECONNAISSANCE STORY by the RAF
2
-
John Cornell
Neillands is clear that Bradley and Patton, against Eisenhower's orders, were siphoning off supplies from the US 1st army. Also clear it was to reduce Monty's power. A conspiracy theorist could go wild on Market Garden.
♦ A US general, Gavin, does not go for his prime target immediately.
♦ A US general, Taylor, does not seize one of his prime
targets immediately.
♦ US paras do not take boats in terrain full of rivers and canals.
♦ Gavin thinks there is a 1,000 tanks in a forest with no firm proof.
♦ Brereton, an American, comes up with odd landing zones.
♦ Brereton refuses to jump into the Scheldt.
♦ USAAF forbid fighter-bombers.
♦ Bradley and Patton siphon off supplies, ensuring Market
Garden would be under resourced.
2
-
2
-
2
-
@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!”
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@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.
2
-
2
-
2
-
@Stephen Prince wrote:
" Eisenhower ordered Montgomery to take the Scheldt Estuary with his entire 21st Army Group"
Eisenhower never. Eisenhower put back the Scheldt to concentrate on the Northern Thrust. He only told Monty to dedicate all his forces on the Scheldt on 6 October, as he though the existing supply lines could cope in the interim. Monty by then had the Canadians taking Channel ports and moving on the Scheldt anyhow. Eisenhower was ground forces commander, not Monty. He directed.
Montgomery was in no race against egotistical amateurish US generals. He had more experience than all of them combined - literally. Most US generals, inc' Eisenhower, were only colonels only a few years previously. Montgomery saw it was a nationalistic thing for the Americans rather than focus resources on defeating the Germans ASAP with the fewest of casualties. This greatly irritated him being a 100% professional solider. He said to Eisenhower he would even operate under Bradley if all armies are focused on the northern thrust. Montgomery wanted to get tanks north of the Ruhr (the north German plains) in open flat land suitable for tanks and get to Berlin ASAP.
The prime thrust into Germany over the Rhine in 1945 was via the British 21st Army Group.
BTW, in Monty's memoirs he cut the Bulge section short so as not to upset Americans, saying:
"I think the less one says about this battle the better, for I fancy that whatever I do say will almost certainly be resented. All those with whom I was associated during the battle have now retired—Bradley, Hodges, Simpson, Ridgway, Collins, and Gerow. And Patton is dead. So I will just mention the highlights as they appeared to me at the time."
- Montgomery of Alamein Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery
Montgomery should have told it as it was, as it was irresponsible of him not to.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@jthunders
Rambo,
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 focus being west. The strategic significance of the stand at Bastogne, is over exaggerated. The 18,000 did not change the course of the battle.
The German's bypassed Bastogne, placing a containment force around the town.
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.
Read:
Battle of the Bulge by Charles Whiting
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Neil Wilson
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. 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. 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’.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@redserpent
Montgomery never planned or was involved in the execution of Market Garden, only proposing the concept. Eisenhower, approved under rescourcing the operation. Two American Air Force Generals, Brereton, in command of the First Allied Airborne Army, and Williams, USAAF, were the prime culprits of why the Market Garden plan was flawed. The Market part was planned by mainly Americans while Garden mainly the British. Nevertheless, despite their failings, the operation failed to be a 100% success by a whisker. It was Brereton and Williams who:
♦ Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy;
♦ Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps;
♦ Who decided that there would only be one airlift on the first day, despite there being multiple airlifts on day one on Operation Dragoon weeks previously. The RAF offered to man the US planes for a second lift but were refused;
♦ Who rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-Day on the Pegasus bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet;
♦ Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges - RAF were partly to blame here by agreeing;
♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports and thereby not hindering the German reinforcements. Ground attack fighters were devastating in Normandy, yet rarely seen at Market Garden;
♦ Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that would prevent the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of "possible flak". The job of the Airborne was to capture the bridges with as Brereton said 'thunderclap surprise'. Only one bridge, at Grave, was planned and executed using Airborne tactics of surprise, speed and aggression - land as close to the objectives as possible and attack the bridge simultaneously from both ends.
General Gavin of the 82nd decided to lower the priority of the biggest road bridge in Europe, the Nijmegen road bridge, going against orders compromising the operation. To compound his error, lack of judgement or refusal to carry out an order, he totally ignored the adjacent Nijmegen rail bridge, which the Germans had installed wooden planks between the rails for light vehicles to move on. At the time of the landings by the 82nd there were only 19 Germans guarding both bridges with a few troops in the town. There were no bridge defences such as ditches and barbed wire. This has been confirmed by German archives.
Gavin sent only two companies of the 508 seven hours after they had landed to capture the bridges. They arrived at 2200, eight hours after being ready to march. Company A moved towards the bridge while Company B got lost. In the interim eight hours the 19 guards had been replaced by Kampfgruppe Henke with 750 men and then a brigade of the 10th SS Panzer Division (infantry) setting up shop in the park adjacent to the south side of the road bridge at 1900 hours, five hours after the jump. The Germans occupied the town, which was good defensive territory being rubble in the centre as the USAAF had previously bombed the town in March 1944 by mistake thinking they were in Germany, killing 800. An easy taking of the bridge had now passed.
XXX Corps Guards Division's aim was to reach Arnhem at 15.00 on D-Day+2. They arrived at Nijmegen in the morning of D-Day+2, with only 7 miles to go to Arnhem. Expecting to cross the road bridge they found it in German hands with Germans fighting 82nd men at the edge of the town, seeing something seriously had gone wrong. The 82nd had not captured either of the bridges or cleared out the Germans from Nijmegen town itself.
XXX Corps then had to seize both bridges themselves and clear the Germans from the town, using some 82nd men in clearing the town, seizing the bridge themselves. What you see in the film 'A Bridge Too Far' is fiction. It was the Grenadier Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry who seized the Nijmegen road bridge. If the 82nd had seized the road bridge, immediately on landing, as ordered, XXX Corp's Guards Division would have reached Arnhem well within time relieving the British 1st Airborne men on the north side of Arnhem bridge. The German archives state quite clearly that failure to capture the Nijmegen bridge on d-day was the reason for XXX Corps not making a bridgehead north of the Rhine. A clear failure by General Gavin.
Even the US Official War record confirms this. Charles B. MacDonald wrote the US Official history on Market Garden: https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_19.htm The Market part of Market Garden failed. The Garden part was a success. XXX Corps hardly put a foot wrong.
"it was not until 9 October, more than a month after the fall of Antwerp, that General Eisenhower told Montgomery to devote his entire attention to the clearance of the Scheldt. By that time Monty had the Canadians cleared it, or were investing in many of the Channel ports"
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Eisenhower prioritized the northern thrust over other fronts:
On 4 Sept, the day Antwerp fell, Eisenhower issued another directive, ordering the forces north-west of the Ardennes — 21st Army Group and two corps of the US First Army — to take Antwerp, reach the Rhine and seize the Ruhr
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Eisenhower did not know Antwerp had fallen when he issued the directive. Montgomery wanted a thrust up and over the Rhine prior to Eisenhower's directive, devising Operation Comet to be launched on 2 Sept, being cancelled due to German resistance and poor weather.
Eisenhower's directive of 4 Sept had divisions of the US 1st Army and Montgomery's view of taking multiple bridges on the Rhine from Arnhem to Wesel. The British 2nd Army needed some divisions of Hodges' US 1st army and the First Allied Airborne Army (which Monty controlled anyhow). Hodges' would protect the right flank. the Canadians would protect the left flank from the German 15th army. It was to chase a disorganized retreating enemy preventing them from manning the German West Wall, gaining a footing over the Rhine, consolidating and then clearing the Scheldt to open up the port of Antwerp. A sound concept which even the German generals agreed would have worked.
"the evidence also suggests that certain necessary objectives on the road to Berlin, crossing the Rhine and perhaps even taking the Ruhr, were possible with the existing logistical set-up, provided the right strategy to do so was set in place. Montgomery’s popular and astute Chief of Staff, Freddie de Guingand, certainly thought so: 'If Eisenhower had not taken the steps he did to link up at an early date with Anvil and had held back Patton, and had he diverted the resources so released to the north, I think it possible we might have obtained a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter - but not more.' "
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
"Perhaps not more then, but that much alone would have been very useful — and much more than was actually achieved. This view was confirmed after the war in interviews with the senior surviving German commanders, von Rundstedt, Student, Blumentritt and Rommel’s former chief of staff, General Speidel. They were unanimous in declaring that a full-blooded thrust from Belgium in September would have succeeded in crossing the Rhine and might have ended the war in 1944, since they had no means of stopping such a thrust reaching the Ruhr. In the event, largely due to the faulty command set-up [by Eisenhower] and lack of grip, even a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter was still a dream in 1944."
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley was starving Hodges' First Army of supplies, against Eisenhower's orders, giving them to Patton who was running off into unimportant territory - again. This northern thrust over the Rhine obviously would not work with the resources starved First Army, so a lesser operation was devised by Montgomery, Market Garden, eliminating the divisions of US First Army, with only ONE crossing of the Rhine. Market Garden would also eliminate V rocket launching sites, of which London wanted eliminating ASAP giving a 60 mile long salient buffer between German forces and the important port of Antwerp. This would only have one corps above Eindhoven, a disgrace considering the forces in Europe at the time. Eisenhower had no grasp of the situation as it was and no strong strategy to advance.
Montgomery, although not liking Eisenhower's broad front strategy, making that clear continuously since the Normandy breakout, being a professional soldier he always obeyed Eisenhower's orders keeping to the laid down strategy, unlike Bradley who also allowed Patton to disobey his own orders.
Montgomery after fixing the operations objectives with Eisenhower to what forces were available, gave Market Garden planning to others, mainly Genl Brereton, an American, of the First Allied Airborne Army. Genl Brereton, who liked the plan, agreed to it with even direct input. Brereton ordered the drops will take place during the day and Brereton oversaw the troop carrier and supply drops schedules. A refusal by Brereton and the operation would never have gone ahead, as he earlier rejected Montgomery's initial plan of a drop into the Scheldt at Walcheren Island.
Montgomery left all the planning to his generals to plan and execute: Brereton, Williams, Browning, Urquhart, Gavin, Taylor, Horrocks, etc. Monty gave them a free run at it with their own discretion and did not interfere. Montgomery had no involvement whatsoever in its execution. Montgomery was an army group commander, in charge of armies. The details were left to 'competent' subordinates.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@davidhimmelsbach557
My oh my!
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. _
You do not get the above from Hollywood fillms.
1
-
1
-
@davidhimmelsbach557
What a lot of disjointed babble!
Browning never laid out the drop zone all by himself.
Cornelius Ryan spent most of his time with Patton's Third Army. His book, A Bridge Too Far is highly inaccurate in parts. He also leaves out large parts. Not worth bothering with.
Montgomery did not plan Market Garden or was in involved in its execution. Eisenhower starved the operation of resources.
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.”
Montgomery to Alexander on July 19th 1943. A letter regarding to Patton and Messina in Sicily: " ..when the Americans have cut the coast road north of Petralia, one American division should develop a strong thrust eastwards towards Messina so as to stretch the enemy who are all Germans and possibly repeat the Bizerte (Tunisia) manoeuvre (i.e cut them off)"
Monty wrote in his diary:
"the Seventh American Army should develop two strong thrusts with (a) two divisions on Highway 120 and (b) two divisions on Highway 113 towards Messina. This was all agreed"
Pages 140/141 of Monty and Patton: Two Paths To Victory by Michael Reynolds.
"[Monty] sent a message to Patton inviting him to come and discuss the capture of Messina. He offered, “Many congratulations to you and your gallant soldiers on securing Palermo and clearing up the western half of Sicily.” Privately, of course, he believed Patton’s Palermo escapade had been a completely wasted effort."
"Patton met Monty at Syracuse airfield on the 25th. Expecting the worst and mistrusting his comrade’s intentions, he was astounded when Monty suggested that the Seventh Army should use both the major roads north of Mount Etna (Highways 113 and 120) in a drive to capture Messina. In fact, Monty went even further and suggested that his right hand, or southern, thrust might even cross the inter-Army boundary and strike for Taormina, thereby cutting off the two German divisions facing the Eighth Army; the latter would “take a back seat.”
by Michael Reynolds author of Monty and Patton: Two Paths To Victory
‘Montgomery was heading for Messina too, but the German forces still on the island threw up a tough defence line and it was late July before Montgomery worked his way through them and resumed his advance. Fans of the movie ''Patton'' think they know what happened next. Montgomery marched into Messina at the head of his triumphant troops - to find a smirking Patton waiting for him. Mr. D'Este assures us it didn't happen that way. Patton was indeed trying to beat Montgomery to Messina, but Montgomery would not make a race of it. He wanted only to keep the Germans from escaping and realized Patton was in the best position to accomplish that. In fact he urged Patton to use roads assigned to the Eighth Army.’
- New York Times
www.nytimes.com/1988/11/27/books/the-finish-line-was-messina.html
In Sicily Patton was moving in the west over ground the Germans had abandoned and still made heavy going of it. It was arranged that Patton gets to Messina first with Montgomery. His troops did take the easy route while the British slogged it out with the Germans, reaching Messina only a few hours after Patton.
"Although Brig. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the artillery commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, described the provisional corps’ advance into northwestern Sicily as “a pleasure march, shaking hands with Italians asking, ‘How’s my brother Joe in Brooklyn?’ Nicest war I’ve ever been in!” it was in fact extremely unpleasant for many of the GIs who had to march over 100 miles through very rugged country in stifling heat and swirling dust."
by Michael Reynolds author of Monty and Patton: Two Paths To Victory
Bradley:
“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.”
The reference to amphibious operations was in relation to three landings made on the north coast of Sicily during the advance to Messina, known to the Americans as end runs. Patton did not in fact interfere in the first successful landing, but he ordered the second to take place earlier than Bradley and Truscott wished, ending in a minor disaster, and he ordered the third to take place despite the fact that the 3rd Division had already advanced beyond the landing site!"
by Michael Reynolds author of Monty and Patton: Two Paths To Victory
More amateur garbage from the Americans, taking towns unnecessarily slowing down the operation:
"On July 19, Monty had signalled Alexander, outlining his axes of advance around either side of Mount Etna and suggesting that “when the Americans have cut the coast road north of Petralia, one American division should develop a strong thrust eastwards towards Messina so as to stretch the enemy who are all Germans and possibly repeat the Bizerta manoeuvre [i.e., cut them off].”
"This made complete military sense, but by the 17th Patton had persuaded Alexander to allow him to drive toward the northwestern part of the island. When Alexander tried to restrain Patton by sending him a new directive on the evening of the 19th, it was too late. The directive, in accordance with Monty’s suggestion, ordered Patton to first cut the coastal road north of Petralia and only then to move on Palermo. However, the Seventh Army Chief of Staff, Brig. Gen. Hobart Gay, kept the first part of the message from Patton, ensured that the remainder took a long time to be decoded, and then asked for it to be repeated on the grounds that it had been garbled! By the time this problem had been resolved, the advance guard of Keyes’ provisional corps was already in Palermo and Monty’s idea of an American division helping him, at least in the short term, had been frustrated."
by Michael Reynolds author of Monty and Patton: Two Paths To Victory
"The Seventh U.S. Army, once on shore, was allowed to wheel west towards Palermo. - It thereby missed the opportunity to direct its main thrust-line northwards in order to cut the island in two: as a preliminary to the encirclement of the Etna position and the capture of Messina."
- Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery by Montgomery of Alamein.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@davidhimmelsbach557
Patton was an average US general, like Simpson, Patch, Hodges, etc. No more. "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
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Frank Hoffman wrote:
" I don't know anyone who is minimizing the British role in the war."
The errors and miscalculations that permitted the Ardennes breakthrough were entirely American in origin and could not be blamed either on Montgomery or the British Second Army’s frequently alleged ‘timidity’, ‘caution’ or ‘slowness’. Fortunately for the US commanders, Monty soon came to their rescue,
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
reading the memoirs of the American generals and the comments passed from one to another, any friend of the USA is constantly saddened by how thin-skinned the US generals seemed to be, how eager to find fault and pass the blame for any failure to their British allies — undisturbed in most cases by the evidence. This attitude certainly affected the conduct of the European war and the decisions taken during the campaign.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
but in the autumn of 1944 his [Eisenhower] strategy was little short of lamentable: to pretend otherwise is a denial of the facts. On the evidence presented during the months between the Normandy breakout and the end of the Bulge, the facts suggest that Eisenhower was a superb Supreme Commander but an indifferent field commander. The central command and strategy argument having been extensively aired, it would be as well to look at some of the peripheral factors that seem to have played an important role in the post-Normandy campaign, and the first of these is Anglophobia. Any recent love-in between the Anglo-American peoples should not conceal the fact that Anglophobia was a patent factor in their relations during the Second World War. Most US histories admit that Anglophobia was rife in Washington and at SHAEF, and the British are freely and frequently criticised in the memoirs of US commanders — criticism that is sometimes fully justified but is all too often based on a selective interpretation of the facts.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
on 12 May 1945, four days after the war in Europe ended, Montgomery concluded: "And so the campaign in North West Europe is finished. I am glad. It has been a tough business. When I review the campaign as a whole I am amazed at the mistakes we made. The organisation for command was always faulty. The Supreme Commander had no firm ideas as to how to conduct the war and was blown about in the wind all over the place. At that particular business he was quite useless."
"The Deputy Supreme Commander [Tedder] was completely ineffective; none of the Army Commanders would see him and growled if he appeared on the horizon... and SHAEF were completely out of their depth all the time. And yet we won. The point to understand is that if we had run the show properly the war could have been finished by Xmas, 1944. The blame for this must rest with the Americans. And yet, to balance this, it is merely necessary to say one thing; if the Americans had not come along and lent a hand we would never have won the war at all."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
Frank Hoffman
Eisenhower was totally unsuited to ground commander of any troops. As Monty wrote: The Supreme Commander had no firm ideas as to how to conduct the war and was blown about in the wind all over the place. At that particular business he was quite useless. I would go along with that.
It took 11 months. Monty planned and was in control of Normandy - it was basically a British operation in navy, air force, etc.
Monty was pissed off with the amateurish way the Americans were running matters. Just before the German attack in the Bulge the Americans were talking of crossing the Rhine in May 1945. The Rhine was only reached, not crossed, on two points. The British got to the Rhine in September at Arnhem and the French at Strasbourg on 23 November, with 28,000 US and French casualties.
Every effort by the Americans all along the broad front was failing: Patton, Patch, Hodges, Bradley, the lot.
Eisenhower pointed out that some gains had been made but the Field Marshal was unconvinced and repeated his arguments in a letter to the Supreme Commander on 30 November: "We have definitely failed to implement the plan contained in the SHAEF directive of 28 October, as amended on later dates. That directive ordered the main effort to be made in the north, to defeat decisively the enemy west of the Rhine, to gain bridgeheads over the Rhine and Ijssel rivers and deploy in strength east of the Rhine preparatory to seizing the Ruhr. We have achieved none of this and have no hope of doing so; we have suffered a major strategic reverse."
One of the most irritating things about the Field Marshal — and especially irritating to his critics — is that what he said was often true. So it was here; the 28 October offensive had failed in all its stated objectives and Eisenhower had indeed suffered a major strategic reverse. Even more irritating to the American commanders was the fact that this failure could not be laid at Montgomery’s door
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Monty saved the US at the Bulge when the Germans expended their armour and soon after collapsed.
1
-
1
-
Frank Hoffman wrote:
"Apparently, the liberation of Paris and of France in general, were small matters to you."
They were small as few Germans were there.
The Bulge attack failed because Monty was effectively in charge. He took control of two US armies, the First and Ninth. Parts of the USAAF was put under RAF command. Monty's constant criticism of the amateurish way the war was being run by the ground forces commander, Eisenhower, was vindicated.
The 21st Army Group commanded by Montgomery stopped the Germans at the Bulge pushing them back to their start line, depleting them of their armour. In a round about way Monty got what he wanted, defeat of the German army. Instead of a thrust to Berlin, running at the Germans, the Germans came to him. At Caen, grinding them up in a static manner allowing the Germans to enter the British grinder, he did not take territory. Caen allowed the territory to be released and taken by US armies as Monty planned. After the Bulge the territory was taken by the Soviets, which Monty did not plan.
Please do not compare Montgomery with MacArthur, that is as idiotic as comparing Patton to Montgomery.
Frank Hoffman wrote:
"People who see things through a filter of heavy bias invariably see themselves as fair and objective."
I couldn't agree with you more.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Frank Hoffman
Montgomery's record speak for itself. Neillands, a highly respected author of many books over decades, say it as it is.
Montgomery is a much-criticised man, at least in US military circles, but according to the American historian Harold R. Winton, ‘Monty was a better general than many historians, particularly American historians, are willing to admit.’
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
it would be as well to look at some of the peripheral factors that seem to have played an important role in the post-Normandy campaign, and the first of these is Anglophobia.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Anglophobia was a patent factor in their relations during the Second World War. Most US histories admit that Anglophobia was rife in Washington and at SHAEF, and the British are freely and frequently criticised in the memoirs of US commanders Among the US officers at SHAEF Montgomery became the lightning rod for the more open manifestations of Anglophobia, but it seems to have been deeply engrained in many American officers and surfaces constantly in their post-war accounts. Anglophobia, open or covert, undoubtedly affected attitudes towards their British colleagues and to any British proposal on the conduct of the campaign, whatever its merit.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
The British may not have viewed their American allies as supermen or have been warmed by that glow of self-esteem with which many American generals and historians choose to surround themselves, but one will search widely to find evidence of any deep rooted anti-American feeling among the British.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
This author would also like to record that in over a quarter of a century of interviewing American and British front-line veterans he has However, reading the memoirs of the American generals and the comments passed from one to another, any friend of the USA is constantly saddened by how thin-skinned the US generals seemed to be, how eager to find fault and pass the blame for any failure to their British allies — undisturbed in most cases by the evidence. This attitude certainly affected the conduct of the European war and the decisions taken during the campaign.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Frank Hoffman wrote:
"Eisenhower's broad front strategy resulted in German surrender in just about a year. Anyone, like Neillands, can say that the war could have been won sooner. It's easy to be an armchair General. The actual result, however, speaks for itself."
Monty said it would have been over sooner. I take his view than any, or all, or the US generals, whose overall performance was mediocre at best, and some downright amateurish. Monty was a master of strategy and the world's best general at the time for sure as his performance showed.
In December 1944 the US generals at a meeting were putting a date of May 1945 to cross the Rhine. Monty accelerated the end of the war by stopping the German advance in the Ardennes and pushing them back. If Monty had not taken control the Germans would have overran the US armies, and been stopped by the British 21st Army Group waiting for them at the Meuse. They would have stopped them at that point. If Monty had not gained control there would have been a stalemate for a time as the German line would have been further west and two US armies wiped out, probably with the war running into 1946.
Montgomery was no egotist like MacArthur - having worked with many Americans unfortunately they promote and thrive on ego. They all want to be big shots. MacArthur was another general who should have been fired. He did have a sense of humour, or did he? He called his kid Arthur, Arthur MacArthur.
1
-
1
-
Frank Hoffman
Neillands was a highly reputable historian. After decades of reading books in research he got fed up with Americans writers and ex generals, aided by Hollywood, overtly distorting history. He put the record right somewhat.
Neillands gives credit where it is due. He says Monty could not have done the Supreme Commanders role like Eisenhower as that was diplomatic. Commanding many army groups is where Monty's skills lay, he had a prior record of achievement. Eisenhower was very poor at that with Bradley and Patton running rings around him, which held up progress. As Neillands constantly emphasized, Eisenhower never had a grip on his subordinates. He rarely had knowledge of the big picture of what was going on all along the front, with no firm strategy and what he had was being constantly changed.
After WW2 Montgomery was very diplomatic with the Americans. He could have told it as it was and laid into them for their poor performance. Monty, being a hard nosed professional, wanted to go the best way to win the war, the Americans were only feeding their own egos with not too much thought when the conflict ended. May 1945 to cross the Rhine? What a joke.
After all most US generals had been rapidly promoted from pretty lowly ranks and were on a big-shot high. And boy they were amateurish a lot of the time. Most would never make it to general in the British Army. Monty did like some US generals, but they were in charge of corps or divisions. Collins was his favourite, who Monty used to good effect in the Bulge.
The Americans to hide their own inadequacies and the poor performance of their top brass in WW2, have constantly attempted to change history and denigrate the finest general in WW2 - Montgomery. Montgomery made them look like most of them were - amateurs.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Monty was called for by the Americans, and literally saved the situation for them at the Bulge. Instead of thanking the great man, they immediately ridiculed him and have not stopped since.
In his Memoirs Montgomery states that ‘the battle of the Ardennes, which began on 16 December 1944 and continued to 16 January 1945, has aroused such bitter feelings between the British and Americans that I cannot disregard it.’ Montgomery adds later: ‘I think the less one says about this battle the better, for I fancy that whatever I do say will almost certainly be resented’
Montgomery’s Memoirs did not appear until 1958 and most of those ‘bitter feelings’ he refers to appeared before that time, shortly after the war, in the published memoirs of the American commanders, accounts which never fail to condemn the Field Marshal for his various failings, personal and professional. On the matter of the Ardennes, their allegations are that Monty’s interventions in the battle were by no means as important as he claimed, that he attempted to hog the credit for an American ‘victory’ and generally behaved like his usual arrogant self when dealing with the US Army commanders — and Bradley. The sub text of all this is an ill-concealed fury that during the battle Montgomery was placed in command of two American armies by the Allied Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower.
The Ardennes offensive — the Battle of the Bulge — contains many myths, the largest of which is the one peddled by the media and the film industry that the battle was a ‘victory’. If so, it was a victory of the Phyrric kind.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
Unlike Rommel, Aukinleck, Patton, etc, Monty never outran supplies. If you did with the Germans you were in danger of an encirclement counter attack taking the leading men. And in a plain head on counter-attack you will not have enough supplies to counter. You always need a reserve of supplies at any time. A 1985 US Army document castigated Patton for outrunning supplies. The Americans had a habit of expending far too much ammunition, which made matters even worse. Patton does not come out well.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a211668.pdf
From the document is in italics:
"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. He discovered that violating logistical principles is an unforgiving and cumulative matter.
- Combat Studies Institute. The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September-December 1944. by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel February, 1985
Montgomery did not believe in ad-hoc, make-it-up-as-you-go-along strategies, but dealing with the logistical problem did entail periodic pauses. These gave the Americans an excuse for that endless bitching and whining about Montgomery’s ‘caution’ and ‘slowness’ which has haunted his reputation ever since. The record shows that the US armies also paused; the difference is that Montgomery slowed before he outran his supplies, while Patton and his ilk stopped because they had outrun their supplies.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I will let the Germans have a say on the Bulge:
Genral Hasso von Manteuffel:
‘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’.
By November 1944, British SHEAF officer, Strong, noted that there was a possibility of a German counteroffensive in the Ardennes or the Vosges. Strong went to personally warn Bradley, who said, let 'em come.
Montgomery on hearing of the attack immediately 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.
British SHEAF officer Whiteley and American officer Betts visited the U.S. First Army HQ 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 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.
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 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. Eisenhower promoted Bradley after the Battle of the Bulge. No kidding.
During the Battle of the Bulge Eisenhower was stuck self imprisoned on 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. The Ninth stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war, just about. Coningham of the RAF had to take control of US air force units.
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.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@davidhimmelsbach557 wrote:
"Patton and Bradley both were enraged by Ike's stop order."
Those two turkeys should have been fired for insubordination.
"Post-Normandy Bradley seemed unable to control Patton, who persistently flouted Eisenhower’s directives and went his own way, aided and abetted by Bradley. This part of their relationship quickly revealed itself in matters of supply, where Hodges, the commander of the US First Army, was continually starved of fuel and ammunition in order to keep Patton’s divisions rolling, even when Eisenhower’s strategy required First Army to play the major role in 12th Army Group’s activities."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley was starving Hodges' First Army of supplies, against Eisenhower's orders, giving them to Patton who was running off into unimportant territory - again, and being bogged down - again. The resources starved First Army could not be a part of northern thrust as Bradley and Patton, against Eisenhower's orders, were syphoning off supplies destined for the First army. This northern thrust over the Rhine, as Eisenhower envisaged, obviously would not work as he thought.
1
-
@davidhimmelsbach557 wrote:
"You do realize that the drop was delayed by a fateful three days so as to allow 2,000 American GMC trucks to be brought to Monty?"
"The situation was not helped by the discovery in [early] September that no fewer than
1,500 three-ton lorries [Austin K5] supplied to the British Second Army to tackle the transportation problem had faulty pistons and could not be used at all."
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
These trucks were fixed on site quite quickly with even men from the Austin factories sent to Normandy. It was a piston ring problem. 2,000 US trucks were needed to supply the priority, the Northern Thrust. Your father was in a low priority area, hence why he sat about. They never had enough fuel for rides in the French countryside, as nice as it is.
"A further problem arose over the transportation of petrol. The Allied armies took no fewer than 22 million jerry cans to France in June, yet by August about half of these had disappeared, either sold to French farmers or stolen. The result, says Martin van Creveld, was that ‘the loss of this humble item limited the entire POL ( Petrol, Oil and Lubricants) supply system.’ "
-Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
1
-
Desmond O'Brien
You have been looking at too many Hollywood films haven't you?
Patton?
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 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 not means elite forces.
17th SS were not amongst the premier Waffen SS panzer divisions. The 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. 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 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 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 Germans pounded through US lines.
The road from Luxembourg to Bastogne pretty well devoid of German forces, as Bastogne was on the very southern German flank. Only when Patton got near to Bastogne did he engage some German armour but it was not a great amount at all. The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade wasn't one of the best German armoured units, while 26th Volks-Grenadier only had a dozen Hetzers, and the small 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, he never. 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 where 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. Monty's armies halted the German advance and pushed them back.
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.
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 US ground attack plane support and he still stalled. It was Patton's failure to concentrate his forces on a narrow front and his decision to commit two green divisions to battle without adequate reconnaissance that were the reasons for 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 Eisenhowers 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
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
RED S7VN
"Monty’s abrasive character brought on a no-win situation with his American colleagues. His habit of reducing his orders to simple terms inevitably produced criticism, not least from American historians, that he was patronising his US subordinates. This is not a complaint often heard from those subordinates —including, in moments of stress, subordinates like Simpson or Hodges during the Bulge — or even Bradley in Normandy. The first two generals appreciated the fact that Montgomery was a regular visitor to their headquarters and was always ready with help or advice — if needed. Neither American general has accused Monty of condescension, but it has to be accepted that one barrier to renewing the appointment of Montgomery to the post of Ground Commander was the widespread dislike he had incurred at SHAEF."
"The command styles of these two generals were clearly very different, and that should not be a matter for surprise. The British and US armies had different traditions, experiences and training, and these differences should have been accommodated. The problems arose — and the arguments have continued since 1945 — because the Americans believed, and still believe, that there were only two military command styles, that of the US army, which was the right one, a one-size-fits-all doctrine suitable for every occasion, and all other doctrines which were, quite simply, not just different but wrong. The American experience in a number of post-1945 wars, including Korea and the one that concluded with that unseemly scramble into helicopters from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon, have not greatly dented this perception."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Eisenhower prioritized the northern thrust over other fronts:
"On 4 Sept, the day Antwerp fell, Eisenhower issued another directive, ordering the forces north-west of the Ardennes — 21st Army Group and two corps of the US First Army — to take Antwerp, reach the Rhine and seize the Ruhr"
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Eisenhower did not know Antwerp had fallen when he issued the directive. Montgomery wanted a thrust up and over the Rhine prior to Eisenhower's directive, devising Operation Comet to be launched on 2 Sept, being cancelled due to German resistance and poor weather.
Eisenhower's directive of 4 Sept had divisions of the US 1st Army and Montgomery's view of taking multiple bridges on the Rhine from Arnhem to Wesel. The British 2nd Army needed some divisions of Hodges' US 1st army and the First Allied Airborne Army (which Monty controlled anyhow). Hodges' would protect the right flank. the Canadians would protect the left flank from the German 15th army. It was to chase a disorganized retreating enemy preventing them from manning the German West Wall, gaining a footing over the Rhine, consolidating and then clearing the Scheldt to open up the port of Antwerp. A sound concept which even the German generals agreed would have worked.
"the evidence also suggests that certain necessary objectives on the road to Berlin, crossing the Rhine and perhaps even taking the Ruhr, were possible with the existing logistical set-up, provided the right strategy to do so was set in place. Montgomery’s popular and astute Chief of Staff, Freddie de Guingand, certainly thought so: 'If Eisenhower had not taken the steps he did to link up at an early date with Anvil and had held back Patton, and had he diverted the resources so released to the north, I think it possible we might have obtained a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter - but not more.' "
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
"Perhaps not more then, but that much alone would have been very useful — and much more than was actually achieved. This view was confirmed after the war in interviews with the senior surviving German commanders, von Rundstedt, Student, Blumentritt and Rommel’s former chief of staff, General Speidel. They were unanimous in declaring that a full-blooded thrust from Belgium in September would have succeeded in crossing the Rhine and might have ended the war in 1944, since they had no means of stopping such a thrust reaching the Ruhr. In the event, largely due to the faulty command set-up [by Eisenhower] and lack of grip, even a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter was still a dream in 1944."
- Neillands, The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley was starving Hodges' First Army of supplies, against Eisenhower's orders, giving them to Patton who was running off into unimportant territory - again. This northern thrust over the Rhine obviously would not work with the resources starved First Army, so a lesser operation was devised by Montgomery, Market Garden, eliminating the divisions of US First Army, with only ONE crossing of the Rhine. Market Garden would also eliminate V rocket launching sites, of which London wanted eliminating ASAP giving a 60 mile long salient buffer between German forces and the important port of Antwerp. This would only have one corps above Eindhoven, a disgrace considering the forces in Europe at the time. Eisenhower had no grasp of the situation as it was and no strong strategy to advance.
Montgomery, although not liking Eisenhower's broad front strategy, making that clear continuously since the Normandy breakout, being a professional soldier he always obeyed Eisenhower's orders keeping to the laid down strategy, unlike Bradley who also allowed Patton to disobey his own orders.
Montgomery after fixing the operations objectives with Eisenhower to what forces were available, gave Market Garden planning to others, mainly General Brereton, an American, of the First Allied Airborne Army. Brereton, who liked the concept, agreed to it with even direct input. Brereton ordered the drops will take place during the day with Brereton overseeing the troop carrier and supply drop schedules. A refusal by Brereton and the operation would never have gone ahead, as his earlier refusal rejecting Montgomery's initial plan of a drop into the Scheldt at Walcheren Island.
Montgomery left all the planning to his generals to plan and execute: Brereton, Williams, Browning, Urquhart, Gavin, Taylor, Horrocks, etc. Monty gave them a free run at it with their own discretion, not interfering. Montgomery had no involvement whatsoever in its execution. Montgomery was an army group commander, in charge of armies. The details were left to 'competent' subordinates.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
John Cornell
It was clear Eisenhower only had half a clue what he was doing.
"I explained my situation fully. I told him about the V2 rockets which had started to land in England, and from whence they came. He said he had always intended to give priority to the Ruhr thrust and the northern route of advance, and that this was being done. I said that it was not being done. He then said that by priority he did not mean “absolute priority,” and he could not in any way scale down the Saar thrust. I told him that enemy resistance was stiffening on the line of the Albert Canal; that there was a steady consumption of petrol and ammunition; and that we were outstripping our maintenance. It was becoming clear that I would not be able to launch the large-scale operation towards
Arnhem as soon as I had hoped and that this would give the enemy more time to recover."
"Since crossing the Seine my headquarters had moved northwards, and Bradley's eastwards. The land battle was becoming jerky and disjointed. I said that so long as he continued with two thrusts, with the maintenance split between the two, neither could succeed. I pointed out that Antwerp, and the approaches to the port which we had not yet got, lay behind the thrust on the left flank which I had advocated on the 23rd August—nearly three weeks ago.
There were two possible plans—Bradley's and mine. It was essential “to back” one of them. If he tried to back both, we couldn’t possibly gain any decisive results quickly. The quickest way to open up Antwerp was to back my plan of concentration on the left — which plan would not only help our logistic and maintenance situation but would also keep up the pressure on the stricken Germans in the area of greatest importance, thus helping to end the war quickly.
"
- Montgomery of Alamein. Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery
Neillands on Eisenhower and the debating point with Monty......
"This is baffling. If the Allied armies could actually do all this, then there was no logistical problem — though everyone said there was. Then, having come out in favour of a broad front strategy, Eisenhower said that he still intended to give priority to the northern route — though with his resources so widely dispersed it is hard to see how he could do so."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
.
1
-
John Cornell
"Post-Normandy Bradley seemed unable to control Patton, who persistently flouted Eisenhower’s directives and went his own way, aided and abetted by Bradley. This part of their relationship quickly revealed itself in matters of supply, where Hodges, the commander of the US First Army, was continually starved of fuel and ammunition in order to keep Patton’s divisions rolling, even when Eisenhower’s strategy required First Army to play the major role in 12th Army Group’s activities."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
Bradley was starving Hodges' First Army of supplies, against Eisenhower's orders, giving them to Patton who was running off into unimportant territory - again - being bogged down - again. The resources starved US First Army could not be a part of northern thrust as Bradley and Patton, against Eisenhower's orders, were syphoning off supplies destined for the First army. This northern thrust over the Rhine, as Eisenhower envisaged, obviously would not work as he thought.
A lesser operation was devised by Montgomery, Market Garden, eliminating the divisions of US First Army, with only ONE crossing of the Rhine. Market Garden would also eliminate V rocket launching sites, of which London, and Monty, wanted eliminating immediately, giving a 60 mile long salient buffer between German forces and the important port of Antwerp.
This under-resourced operation would only have one corps above Eindhoven, a disgrace considering the forces in Europe at the time. Eisenhower had no grasp of the situation as it was and no strong strategy to advance. Eisenhower should have fired Bradley and Patton for sabotaging the vital Northern Thrust operation.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1