Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Military History not Visualized"
channel.
-
@williestyle35
Caen! Americans have a thing about Caen. Caen was not a first rate objective. If it could be taken on the first day or two then fine. Monty wanted his forces not to be driven back into the sea in the early days of D-Day. He was not going to to tie up limited resources, resources that were slowly coming ashore on beaches, in street fighting for a 2nd tier objective.
From Nigel Hamilton’s three volume biography of Montgomery:
”To help illustrate his presentation Monty had asked his MA - Lt Colonel Dawnay, to ink colluded phases onto the maps - as Dawnay later remembered: ’I had the maps prepared and drew on them the D-Day targets for the troops along the invasion front. And the dropping zones of the paratroopers. And the after consulting with Monty I drew the D plus 90 line - showing where he felt we should get by D plus 90 - which included Paris and a line back along the Loire.And I asked Monty how I should draw the lines in between. And he said, Well it doesn’t matter Kit, draw them as you like.’ So I said, ‘ Shall I draw them equally, sir?’ And he said ‘Yes, that’ll do.’ In his opinion it was not of any importance where he would be groundwise between D plus 1 and D plus 90, because he felt sure he could capture the line D plus 90 by the end of three months, and he was not going to capture ground, he was going to destroy enemy forces. Using Monty’s presentation notes, Dawnay drew in the arbitrary lines, never dreaming that they would be used in evidence against Monty when the campaign did not go ‘according to plan’…….
In his later memoirs, Tedder reported the same Eisenhower allegation that would so infuriate Monty: ‘When a week had passed since D-Day without the capture of Caen it became clear to us at SHAEF that the hopes of a road breakthrough on the left were now remote.’Yet Monty had never suggested or intended a break-through on the left; only a battle around Caen that would permit him to establish and extend the shield behind which Bradley could take Cherbourg and breakout via St Lo and Avranches to Brittany. Some of the misunderstanding was undoubtedly caused by Monty himself, as his MA, Lt Colonel Dawnay, later recognised: I think he had given the RAF a totally false impression, at St Paul’s and elsewhere, as to when he was going to get the airfields, south of Caen - a totally false impression.
Because when we got there [to Normandy] we realized quite quickly that he didn’t care a damn about those airfields, as long as he could draw all the German armour on to the [eastern] side and give a chance for his right swing to break out!”
-Hamilton, Nigel. Monty, Master of the Battlefield 1942-1944.
”As he explained in a letter that evening to Major-General Simpson at the war Office, Caen was only a name; he did not want to waste British and Canadians lives a la Stalingrad: The Germans are doing everything they can to hold on to CAEN. I have decided not to have a lot of casualties by butting up against the place; so I have ordered Second Army to keep up a good pressure at CAEN, and to make its main effort towards VILLERS BOCAGE and EVRECY and thence S.E. towards FALAISE.”
-Hamilton, Nigel. Monty, Master of the Battlefield 1942-1944.
But this had been stated in an address he had given before D-Day. ”Monty’s actual address, never published before, makes it quite clear that, with the exception of ports, the battle for Normandy would not be conducted with object of capturing towns, but of step by step building up of men and resources until the moment when the Americans would be strong enough to drive south into Brittany and to the Loire. It was a strategy that Monty unfolded with absolute conviction, two months before the new date set for the invasion: the first full moon in June. As in the address to senior officers before Alamein the calm authority with which Monty outlined his plan, the likely enemy response, and the phases through which the battle would go, was almost incredible to those present who did not already know Montgomery. At no point in this military lecture to Brooke, Churchill and Smuts, did Monty ever suggest that Dempsey was to do more than bring the German forces to battle around Caen, however - and when after the war, Eisenhower wrote that ‘in the east we had been unable to break out towards the Seine’, Monty was furious, for this was a complete travesty of the facts. To Churchill Monty had made it quite clear that there was no question of wild break-outs. How could there be when the Allies had only fourteen divisions ashore, many of which, particularly the parachute and first assault divisions, were inevitably running out of steam? As Churchill pointed out to Stalin the battle for Normandy would be a slow and deliberate one:
‘I should think it quite likely that we should work up to a battle of about a million a side, lasting throughout June and July. We plan to have about two million there by mid-August. Eisenhower’s unfortunate obfuscation has coloured the military accounts ever since, polarizing chroniclers into nationalistic camps. This was, Monty felt, a tragedy in view of the fact that the battle for Normandy was, at all stages, an Allied battle, in which Allied soldiers gave their lives, conforming to an Allied plan to defeat the German armies in the West - not to ‘break out towards the Seine’ in some mythical Lancelot charge...Dempsey’s brief then was not to ‘break out towards Seine’, but to play his part in a truly Allied undertaking, bringing to battle the mobile German forces that would otherwise - as Rommel wished - destroy the American assault on Cherbourg.”
-Hamilton, Nigel. Monty, Master of the Battlefield 1942–1944.
1
-
@BobSmith-dk8nw
I prefer facts myself. The US army in the ETO was a poor army, its record speaks for itself. Big and well supplied but poor, especially in leadership. We have had 75 years of US propaganda from Hollywood and TV 'documentaries' making out US forces were key and superior, when the truth is quite the opposite. Any historian looking at the ETO cannot come out with any other conclusion.
The British made them, look what they were - amateurs, especially in leadership. So much the US developed Anglophobia. The mention of Montgomery sends Americans wild. The words ass-hole are liberally used, as they have been told this for 75 years. But just look at my posts on his achievements - the finest general in the world. Even when confronted with facts, like you, they do not believe them the indoctrination is so strong.
Even US screw ups, they point at the Brits, to hide their own embarrassment. Market Garden was planned by Americans, not Monty. He was not involved in its execution. Two US airborne units failed to seize their bridges precluding a bridgehead over the Rhine. US propaganda blames Monty and XXX Corps. XXX Corps never put a foot wrong, having to seize a bridge for the US 82nd. Laughable.
Another is Caen, which is really laughable. A second tier objective of no strategic value. Ports were the priority not cities. At the 11 hour Monty directed a US 82nd jump from Caen to Cherbourg, indicating the priority. Monty ran Normandy bringing it in ahead of schedule with less than predicted casualties.
When the US were by themselves, not with other forces, they were poor. Operation Queen, the Battle of the Bulge (Monty had to take command of two shambolic US armies to save it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvcJfXtkCW8
Then Lorraine when the US myth of Patton said to Bradley on 5 Nov 1944 that he would be over the German Westwall in three days. He never got over it via Lorraine, also moving 10 miles in three months at Metz.
I could go on and on.
1
-
@BobSmith-dk8nw
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.
A million British troops in the Middle East and North Africa, supplied around the Cape - the equivalent to half way around the world, supplied by a massive merchant fleet. 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. After the USSR came into the war the British secured Iran and the British refinery at Aberdan.
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 their Eastern and Pacific fleets against the Japanese, not far off in numbers to the US fleet. The British Pacific Fleet assisted US troops protecting the western coast of Okinawa with its armoured carriers - they could operate way nearer to the coast than wooden decked US carriers, as kamikaze's bounced off them. The fleet also bombarded Japan, Sumatra and Taiwan, sinking one Japanese aircraft carrier and disabling another. The massive British merchant fleet greatly assisted the supply of US forces.
The Australian navy assisted the US navy all through the Japanese war. The USA was in the war for four years, yet it was less than 10 months before the Japanese surrender they actually fielded an entire army against the Japanese. That was in the Philippines. Before that it was just divisions fighting on scattered islands for a month or so at a time. Even the island hopping was heavily assissted by the massive British merchant fleet, over the horizon ready to move in.
In Europe the British planned and ran the D-Day Normandy campaign which came in ahead of schedule with 22% less casualties than predicted, with the British in command of all the air, sea and land forces of all nationalities. Then also destroying 90% of German armour in the west in the process, with constant air raids on German cities and industry culminating with 1,000 bomber raids. The Canadian navy was heavily involved in anti U-Boat operations in the Atlantic. The biggest agents in the defeat of the Nazis and Japanese were the British.
You will not get that information from Hollywood.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@BobSmith-dk8nw
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 wrote of Eisenhower and his ridiculous 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.”
Alanbrooke wrote in his diary about Einsenhower:
“At the end of this morning's C.O.S. [Chief of Staff] 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 down 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 I went to see the P.M. I told him I was very worried."
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!”
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@michaeldunne338
Elsenborn Ridge went onto the 26 December.
To try and spin it that the US forces would have defeated the Germans at the Bulge without British intervention and command, is pure fantasy.
“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.”
“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...”
- Hasbrouck of 7th Armor - “Generals of the Bulge” by Jerry D. Morelock, footnote 91,92, page 298.
1
-
@michaeldunne338
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 inside 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.
The 18,000 men in Bastogne pretty well walked out, even the commander of the US 101st stated that. The Germans had vacated the area heading west.
The commander of the Fifth Panzer Army, Hasso von Manteuffel, aimed a dismissive, indirect critique at Patton’s efforts at Bastogne, writing in his memoirs that the Americans did not “strike with full élan.”
1
-
@michaeldunne338
♦ Only the Americans criticise Monty, in a veiled attempt to disguise their inept performance in Europe. Monty never retreated, not once.
♦ Bradley felt humiliated having two of his three armies taken from him and giving to Monty in the Bulge.
♦ The depleted and demoralised US armies should have been pushed to the rear of the British 21st Army Group. Monty never humiliated them. He kept them at the front.
♦ Monty filled the losses of the two US armies with British troops. British troops under US command with the US command under British command. It worked.
When the US First and Ninth armies were given to Monty at the Bulge, Monty chose the right option. Instead of joining a grindmeat where the Americans lost almost 100,000 and the Germans around 75,000, Monty decided to choose his own ground, and not commit too many of his troops in the Ardennes, using US troops for that.
The result was that more than 100,000 Germans were made casualties in Operation Veritable and Grenade, British and American casualties were less than 20.000. In Operation Plunder the British went further to make 30,000 German casualties, for an remarkable number of only 4,000 allied casualties. Monty's operations were on the offensive, and yet the Germans suffered a gigantic number of casualties compared to the minimum of the British.
Of the three main powers, the British managed the most cost effective advances in the war, while still keeping up the pace, and even facing the majority of the Germans in Normandy, while advancing faster than everyone else after the break out reaching Belgium. Patton was stuck in Metz for three months suffering 50.000 casualties failing to reach the Westwall. Bradley had 42.000 casualties in the Hurtgen Forest defeat.
The Americans were having manpower troubles after the Bulge. - mostly because of their head on tactics and complete lack of interest in keeping their soldiers alive. They counterattacked in the Bulge not because it was the most sane thing to do, but just to try make Bradley and the Americans at large less humiliated. Monty in the Bulge had the same thinking as in Operation Luttich, the German counter-attack against US forces in Normandy. Let the Germans go as far as west as possible while minimizing casualties.
1
-
1
-
@michaeldunne338
Bastogne was merely a southern periphery battle, on the other side of the German 'Bulge'. The majority of the Bulge fighting was by US First Army to the north under the command of Montgomery from the 20th onwards (the 5th day of the battle).
Monty saved the US 7th Armored Division and US 82nd Airborne from annihilation around St Vith. The battles in the north were the most important in the Bulge. St Vith, Stoumont, Stavelot, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize, Marche, Celles, Manhay, Hotton etc etc. This is where the Germans were losing the majority of their men and tanks. Not around Bastogne.
Bastogne wasn't of any great importance for the Germans. The Germans left it behind and marched towards the River Meuse leaving only scratch forces to mop up around Bastogne.
An excellent American lecture on the battle. Search "Corps Commanders of the Bulge: Six American Generals and Victory in the Ardennes" on Utube.
The lecturer is correct when he says:
"The decision to give command to Monty was the best decision Eisenhower made. Montgomery is a better battle manager than Bradley. Courtney Hodges needed adult supervision, he can't manage the thing on his own. Eisenhower sensed that Hodges was going to need close supervising authority. Monty could do that."
"The real reason Ike did it. Monty with his system knew more about what was going on in the Bulge than Hodges knew. He had liaison officers further forward who were giving him reports faster and he started moving XXX Corps down to the Meuse. Monty moved XXX Corps down to the west bank of the Meuse. If you give Monty command of Simpson's Ninth Army and Hodges' First Army then Monty is into the battle full thing and you know damn well that XXX Corps is going to be there as well as emergency backstop if it's needed and that's the real reason Eisenhower did it!"
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@michaeldunne338
Patton was an average US general, no more, after WW2 most German generals had never heard of him. 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 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.
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 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.”
In Normandy, 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 who came in late in Normandy, 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 of master of fast moving armour.
Patton at Metz advanced 10 miles in three months. The poorly devised Panzer Brigade concept was deployed in The Lorraine 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 Normandy battles. The Panzer Brigades had green crews with little time to train, unfamiliar with their tanks, had no recon elements only meeting their unit commander on 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 being below strength at Arracourt in The Lorraine. In The Lorraine, the Third Army faced a rabble full of eyes and ears units. 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 failed to reach the Westwall.
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.
The 18,000 men in Bastogne pretty well walked out, even the commander of the US 101st stated that. The Germans had vacated the area heading west.
Patton's Third Army was almost always where the weakest German divisions in the west where.
* Who did the 3rd Army engage?
* Who did the 3rd Army defeat?
* Patton never once faced a full strength premier Waffen SS panzer division nor a Tiger battalion.
* Patton was not at E Alamein, D-Day or the main area of the Bulge.
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;
Patton rarely took any responsibility for his own failures. It was always somebody else at fault. A poor general who thought he was reincarnated, had incestual relationships and wore cowboy guns. Patton detested Hodges, did not like Bradley disobeying his 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
-
After the fall of France, the Germans had access to the industry of Northern Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, however were not able to use it to match either the Soviets or the British in war production. The success of the Royal Navy blockade was instrumental in starving Germany of vital resources and food both animal and human. French production of planes destined for Germany was minuscule. France was not capable to produce as pre-war as the French imported coal from Britain for its power generation. With the successful Royal Navy blockade the main source of coal was from Germany. Germany could not increase its production to overcome the French shortfall.
The amount of food produced in continental Europe fell. The production of meat and dairy products in countries such as Denmark was dependant on imported grain and animal feed from the Americas. This was now not available. The level of food available from the dairy industry collapsed as did food production in general. In the rest of Europe food production had been based on chemical fertilizer. Huge levels of the chemicals used for fertilizer production were diverted to the manufacturing of explosives. Hence food production fell.
French workers were on subsistence rations. Electricity was widely not available in France. The country had been dependant on motorized transportation. With no fuel and road & rail vehicles seized by the Germans, milk was poured away in farms and other produce put back into the ground unable to reach towns or cities. Most of French oil imports came from abroad. Once France fell oil products came from Romania and synthetic oil made in Germany, and so little it made little difference to the dire situation. The oil output was not enough for the needs of the German forces alone. France reverted to a horse and cart economy. The occupied countries were a drain on the German economy.
The Italian navy threatened to suspend all operations in February 1941, well before the USSR and USA were in the war, unless Germany provided 250,000 tons of fuel oil due to the dire shortage because of the Royal Navy blockade on Europe. One point Prof Adam Tooze mentions, dismissing the myth that the USA provided all with everything, that in 1942 the USSR outproduced the USA.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@looinrims
Most USA production, which was enormous, went to the USA. Get it out if your head that without USA production Britain and the USSR would not have won. Britain' output was phenomenal. Out-producing Germany on most counts, then Empire production on top - Canada's production was nothing sniff at.
The British and Americans told the USSR to not bother with heavy bombers, or ships, as they would do that, so concentrate on the land war.
The British had ample sticks of 100-octane fuel pre and early war, from its own sources, not USA, but the USA expanded its production so much it was not worth producing it in the UK. Britain over imported grain from the US that it created a rat problem. Secial poisons had to be developed to kerb the problem.
Britain provided 31% of USA materials in the ETO, with 71% in 1942. The USA was a liability in 1942. The RAF had to curtail its bombing offensive as the had give bases over to the USAAF.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The Colonel
You are stating the obvious that Percival was a buffoon. It is laughable that anyone quotes anything by Gordon Bennett.
Once the level of thinly spread Japanese forces was known, it was clear they could not invade Australia. The US was guaranteeing Australian protection.
Taking seasoned troops, familiar with the desert, out of that theatre was foolish. The prime enemy was Germany. The level of Japanese industry, and their economy, dictated that were second in line being dealt with firmly when Germany was defeated. Which happened.
Look up the German Mesopotamia plan, to link up with the Japanese after taking the Middle East and its oil. Germany, and Japan, were desperately short of oil. The pair of them linking up, well supplied, had to be stopped. And that meant stopping Germany. That is why London preferred to send tanks to the USSR rather than the Far East.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
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 wrote of Eisenhower and his ridiculous 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.”
Alanbrooke wrote in his diary about buffoon Einsenhower:
“At the end of this morning's C.O.S. [Chief of Staff] 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 down 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 I went to see the P.M. I told him I was very worried."
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!”
1
-
1