Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "What was the Greatest Allied Mistake during World War II? Military and Sociological Analysis" video.
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Logistics was the major issue in Eisenhower's mind after the Normandy breakout, so focused on Antwerp. But Antwerp wasn’t the only option. If Eisenhower had let Monty go for a Rhine crossing in late August/early September supported by US divisions, his pursuit operation Operation Comet, they could have got Rotterdam and even Amsterdam instead.
Antwerp was an awkward port, being 80 km inland reached by a winding river, with a warren of tidal inlets, islands and estuaries covering the approaches. Many armies came to grief in that part of the world, including a British army in 1809, of which Monty was aware of. Monty was all for bypassing the problems of Antwerp and its approaches, going for Rotterdam. The Germans were still in disarray. The First Allied Airborne Army were on standby and there was fuel in the British tanks. Rotterdam was possible, stopping to open up Antwerp was always going to take too much time.
Eisenhower wanted to concentrate on Antwerp as the logistical supply head before pressing on. Antwerp needed protecting from German counter-attack and artillery securing Noord Brabant. Operation Market Garden was that plan. Once Noord Brabant was secure then the approaches to Antwerp could be opened which will take time.
Antwerp would not be fully open to allied shipping until early January 1945. The first ships entered in October 1944, but the majority of supplies would come from Normandy until November. Le Havre was operational in October supplying the US armies to the east. Le Havre was not too far away in distance than Antwerp, so there was an over focus on Antwerp. That was around three months from Antwerp's capture. By that time the French railway service had been largely rebuilt and stores coming in from Normandy and Le Havre for Bradley’s 12th Army Group, and through Marseilles for Devers’ 6th Army Group.
In August 1944 Monty was for pushing on with a 40 Division thrust. Eisenhower was for caution with his broad-front. Eisenhower's caution allowed the Germans breathing space to reinforce, gifting them an opportunity to counter-attack. Eisenhower's caution only made it easier to supply those armies to force the Germans back.
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@michaelkenny8540
“Patton finally began receiving adequate supplies on September 4, after a week’s excruciating pause”
- Harry Yeide
"Eisenhower. He had now heard from both his Army Group commanders — or Commanders-in-Chief as they were currently called — and reached the conclusion that they were both right; that it was possible to achieve everything, even with lengthening supply lines and without Antwerp. In thinking this Ike was wrong."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
“It was commonly believed at Third Army H.Q. that Montgomery's advance through Belgium was largely maintained by supplies diverted from Patton. (See Butcher, op. cit., p. 667.) This is not true. The amount delivered by the ' air-lift ' was sufficient to maintain only one division. No road transport was diverted to aid Montgomery until September16th. On the other hand, three British transport companies, lent to the Americans on August 6th " for eight days," were not returned until September 4th.' “
- CHESTER WILMOT
THE STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE. 1954
P 589
"Despite objections raised to Montgomery's plan of an assault on a 40 division front, it was more sensible than Eisenhower's insistence on the entire front being in motion at all times, for no better reason than he could not abide the thought that the two American army groups would not participate as entities in the anticipated victory. Not only did Eisenhower fail to heed Montgomery's suggestions, but also he never seemed to understand the possible benefits. He was evidently unable to understand that to supply 40 divisions attacking on one front would have been an easier task than to supply first one army and then the other as each in turn went over to the offensive. It was this concentration of effort which Eisenhower failed to understand and to implement"
- Eisenhower at the Art of Warfare
by DJ Haycock, page 182.
Land supplies were not taken from Patton and given to Monty. It is a complete myth to claim otherwise. Monty didn't even have a full army for his attack at Market Garden, just a Corps and supporting elements, with much flow in from England.
Market Garden was not a very large ground operation. It was limited in size. The American attack into the Hurtgen Forest started when Market Garden was going on. The US advance on the Hurtgen Forest by First US Army 9th Infantry Division began on 14th September, 3 days before Market Garden began, and was continuing to try and advance into the Hurtgen even when Market Garden began 3 days later, but it was halted by the Germans however.
This was soon followed up by a larger advance by US First Army towards Aachen at the start of October. Market Garden didn't make a notable dent in allied supplies seeing as the US was able to put on a LARGER ground attack right afterwards. According to Bradley in his own book there was parity of supplies between the three allied armies, Second British, First and Third US by mid September 1944 and according to the official US Army History as cited in Hugh Cole's book, The Lorraine Campaign page 52... "by 10th September the period of critical (gasoline) shortage had ended". This was a whole week before Market Garden took place. The gasoline drought was the end of August/beginning of September. It was over by the time of Market Garden.
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@andym9571
The state of play on the 17th was that the road from Eindhoven to Arnhem was clear. There was concentrated German forces on the Dutch/Belgian border facing the British on the front line - naturally. There were around 600 non-combat troops in Nijmegen. Then a few scattered about along the road. There was no armour in Arnhem. That was it.
XXX Corps moved off on H hour on d-day meeting stiffer resistance than they expected. The US official history states they made remarkable progress. The US 101st took 3-4 hours to move about 3 km to the Zon bridge with little opposition. The Germans blew the bridge. If they had done a coup de main or moved faster to the bridge, the 101st would have secured the bridge.
XXX Corps heard that the bridge ahead was blown so slowed up, getting the Bailey bridge ready. Urgency had gone out of the advance until a bridge was erected.
XXX Corps were delayed 10-12 hours at Zon while they themselves ran over a Bailey bridge. In this gift of a time window the Germans were running armour into Arnhem, and the road, which would make matters worse.
XXX Corps moved out of Zon on D-day plus 2 first light. It took them 2hrs 45 mins to travel 26 miles on that road. It was clear except for some Germans on the road in the gap between the southern 82nd perimeter and the northern 101st's perimeter. The two airborne units were to lay a continuous carpet for XXX Corps to power up. They never met up. The road was still clear from Zon to Arnhem 40 hours after the first jump.
XXX Corps reached Nijmegen about 0820hrs on d-day plus 2, at the planned expected time, making up the delay at Zon. They reached Nijmegen seeing the Germans still on the bridge when arriving. A bridge the 82nd were supposed to have secured for them to speed over.
If the 101st and 82nd had seized their bridges immediately, XXX Corps would have been at the Arnhem bridge on d-day plus one in the evening. Game, set, and match.
On arriving at Nijmegen XXX Corps took control, then immediately worked to seize the bridge themselves. This delayed them another 36 hours. This was now a total delay of nearly two days. In this massive and unexpected gift of a time window, the Germans ran armour into Arnhem from Germany overpowering the British paras at Arnhem.
XXX Corps could only reach the southern end of Arnhem bridge on the Rhine, only yards away from their objective. A bridgehead was precluded because two US airborne units failed to seize their bridges - easy to seize bridges at that, if they had bothered to move with any speed.
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@Sharon Whiteley
Montgomery never planned or was involved in the execution of Market Garden, only proposing the concept. Eisenhower approved, under resourcing 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:
1) Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy;
2) Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps;
3) 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;
4) 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;
5) Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges - RAF were partly to blame here by agreeing;
6) 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;
7) 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 judgment 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. The Market part of Market Garden failed. The Garden part was a success. XXX Corps hardly put a foot wrong.
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General Bodo Zimmermann, Chief of Operations, German Army Group D, said that had the strategy of Montgomery succeeded in the autumn of 1944, there would have been no need to fight for the West Wall, not for the central and upper Rhine, all of 24 which would have fallen automatically.
Indeed, had Monty's idea for a 40 division concentrated thrust towards the Ruhr been accepted by Eisenhower instead of messing about in the Lorraine, Alsace, Vosges etc, it would have all been over for the Germans in the west.
"The best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Germany's strength is in the north. South Germany was a side issue. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open. There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin.
By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and 1st Parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Mass and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany."
- Gunther Blumentritt in, The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart
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@pfarden5836
The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British under Montgomery. 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;
A list of Montgomery’s victories in WW2:
i) Battle of Alam Halfa;
ii) Second Battle of El Alamein;
iii) Battle of El Agheila;
iv) Battle of Medenine;
v) Battle of the Mareth Line;
vi) Battle of Wadi Akarit;
vii) Allied invasion of Sicily;
viii) Operation Overlord - the largest amphibious invasion in history;
ix) Market Garden - a 60 mile salient
x) created into German territory;
xi) Battle of the Bulge - while taking control of two shambolic US armies;
xii) Operation Veritable;
xiii) Operation Plunder.
Montgomery not once had a reverse.
Not on one occasion were ground armies, British, US or others, under Monty's command pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. Monty's 8th Army advanced the fastest of any army in WW2. From El Alamein to El Agheila from the 4th to 23rd November 1942, 1,300 km in just 17 days. After fighting a major exhausting battle at El Alemein through half a million mines. This was an Incredible feat, unparalleled in WW2. With El Alamein costing just 13,500 casualties.
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 casualties, with the Lorraine campaign being a failure. 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. Hodges, head of the US First army, fled from Spa to near Liege on the 18th, despite the Germans never getting anywhere near to Spa. Hodges did not even wait for the Germans to approach Spa. He had already fled long before the Germans were stopped. 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 involved in planning, with also 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.
You need to give respect where it is due.
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@pfarden5836
"The Battle of the Generals" by General Blumenson makes it clear that Bradley, not Montgomery, ordered Patton to stop at Falaise;
1) Bradley, on his own initiative, ordered Patton to stop on August 12 (page. 206-207);
2) Bradley's post-war effort to blame this on Montgomery was "dishonest and anti-British" (page. 211);
3) Despite Bradley stating he ordered it. Patton was running off to Paris, but Bradley failed to stop him from making a long hook encirclement of the Germans towards Dreux at the Sein (page. 223);
4) This was in clear contradiction to Montgomery's suggestion that he do so (page. 218).
In Bradley's memoir A Soldier's Story he says on page 377, "Monty had never prohibited and I never proposed that U.S. forces close the gap from Argentan to Falaise." He gives a number of reasons for not pushing north from Argentan, but Monty forbidding it is not one of them.
In A General's Life Bradley writes, "Montgomery had no part in the decision; it was mine and mine alone. Some writers have suggested that I appealed to Monty to move the boundary north to Falaise and he refused, but, of course, that is not true... I was determined to hold Patton at Argentan and had no cause to ask Monty to shift the boundary."
Nigel Hamilton, Monty's official biographer, states in The War Years that the decision was Bradley's. "Dempsey's diary record of his meeting with Monty and Bradley proves there was certainly no plot to deny Patton glory, since Dempsey specifically recorded: `So long as the Northward move of Third Army meets little opposition, the two leading Corps will disregard inter-Army boundaries'" (page. 788).
There are plenty of secondary sources that pin the blame on Bradley.
a) Russell Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants" page. 216: "Bradley, having set the stage by urging Eisenhower and Montgomery to grasp the opportunity of a short envelopment at Falaise-Argentan, failed to persist in completing his own design. He abandoned the short envelopment before its potential was achieved, and meanwhile he had delayed the long envelopment at the Seine."
b) Peter Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe page. 171: "Bradley was slow to concentrate sufficient force to close the Falaise Gap from the south when he had the opportunity to do so."
c) Robin Neillands, The Battle of Normandy 1944 page. 358: "Bradley's memoirs and the British Official History make it abundantly clear this decision was Bradley's."
There are many more sources where these came from.Carlo D'Este states on page 444, "When Dempsey met Bradley and Montgomery there was apparently no restraint placed on further northward movement by XV Corps... the fact that the Third Army did not move north of Argentan appears to have been Bradley's choice rather than a prohibition by Montgomery." On page 448 he writes, "The assertion that Montgomery made no effort to close the gap is without foundation." D'Este also dismisses the view of Strafford on page 451. No reasonable reading of D'Este on Falaise could possibly support blaming Montgomery. The US Official History, the British Official History, BRADLEY HIMSELF (twice!) and a multitude of secondary sources say Monty did not order Patton to halt. Neither Bradley himself, nor Montgomery, nor the senior British Army commander, nor the British or American official historians think Montgomery ordered Bradley to stop. THERE WAS NO HALT ORDER by Monty.
Chester Hanson and Ralph Ingersoll promoted that Monty halted Patton at Falaise were Anglophobes. Ingersoll had Communist leanings who wrote in order to convince people to trust the Russians and hate the British "imperialists".
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@andym9571
The narrative from the US since WW2 was that Monty planned Market Garden. Massed panzers were in Arnhem being ignored. The radios never worked. The British tankers sat around all day drinking tea. That the reason for the failure was that XXX Corps was too slow. All false.
Montgomery never planned or was involved in the execution of Market Garden, only proposing the concept. Eisenhower approved, under resourcing 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:
1) Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy;
2) Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps;
3) 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;
4) 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;
5) Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges - RAF were partly to blame here by agreeing;
6) 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;
7) 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 judgment 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 650 men and then a brigade of the 9th SS Panzer Division (recon 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 XXX Corps 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. The Market part of Market Garden failed. The Garden part was a success. XXX Corps hardly put a foot wrong.
The Germans did not consider that they had some sort of victory in Market Garden. Far from it. A 60 mile salient was rammed between German armies right up to the Rhine in a few days, right on the German border. The Salient was fleshed out to the Meuse. Not one mm of territory was retaken by the Germans. A buffer was created to protect Antwerp keeping the port from artillery range and counter-attack. V weapons could not operate in that salient, or in NW Holland.
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General Bodo Zimmermann, Chief of Operations, German Army Group D, said that had the strategy of Montgomery succeeded in the autumn of 1944, there would have been no need to fight for the West Wall, not for the central and upper Rhine, all of 24 which would have fallen automatically.
Indeed, had Monty's idea for a 40 division concentrated thrust towards the Ruhr been accepted by Eisenhower instead of messing about in the Lorraine, Alsace, Vosges etc, it would have all been over for the Germans in the west.
"The best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Germany's strength is in the north. South Germany was a side issue. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open. There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin.
By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and1st Parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Mass and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany."- Gunther Blumentritt in, The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart
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@trevorhart545
The allies had the armour, air forces and men to just steamroll north and onto the North German plains using Monty's plan. The British had destroyed over 90% of the German armour in Normandy.
Market Garden
The state of play on the 17th was that the road from Eindhoven to Arnhem was clear. There was concentrated German forces on the Dutch/Belgian border facing the British on the front line - naturally. There were around 600 non-combat troops in Nijmegen. Then a few scattered about along the road. There was no armour in Arnhem. That was it.
XXX Corps moved off on H hour on d-day meeting stiffer resistance than they expected. The US official history states they made remarkable progress. The US 101st took 3-4 hours to move about 3 km to the Zon bridge with little opposition. The Germans blew the bridge. If they had done a coup de main or moved faster to the bridge, the 101st would have secured the bridge.
XXX Corps heard that the bridge ahead was blown so slowed up, getting the Bailey bridge ready. Urgency had gone out of the advance until a bridge was erected.
XXX Corps were delayed 10-12 hours at Zon while they themselves ran over a Bailey bridge. In this gift of a time window the Germans were running armour into Arnhem, and the road, which would make matters worse.
XXX Corps moved out of Zon on D-day plus 2 first light. It took them 2hrs 45 mins to travel 26 miles on that road. It was clear except for some Germans on the road in the gap between the southern 82nd perimeter and the northern 101st's perimeter. The two airborne units were to lay a continuous carpet for XXX Corps to power up. They never met up. The road was still clear from Zon to Arnhem 40 hours after the first jump.
XXX Corps reached Nijmegen about 0820hrs on d-day plus 2, at the planned expected time, making up the delay at Zon. They reached Nijmegen seeing the Germans still on the bridge when arriving. A bridge the 82nd were supposed to have secured for them to speed over.
If the 101st and 82nd had seized their bridges immediately, XXX Corps would have been at the Arnhem bridge on d-day plus one in the evening. Game, set, and match.
On arriving at Nijmegen XXX Corps took control, then immediately worked to seize the bridge themselves. This delayed them another 36 hours. This was now a total delay of nearly two days. In this massive and unexpected gift of a time window, the Germans ran armour into Arnhem from Germany overpowering the British paras at Arnhem.
XXX Corps could only reach the southern end of Arnhem bridge on the Rhine, only yards away from their objective. A bridgehead was precluded because two US airborne units failed to seize their bridges - easy to seize bridges at that, if they had bothered to move with any speed.
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@rabbit251
Thx.
Read what I wrote. The operation "failed" by a whisker.
1) The road was clear from Zon to Arnhem;
2) The two bridges the US paras failed to seize were easy bridges to secure.
3) The road was still clear from Zon to Arnhem 40 hours after the first jump.
4) The Germans were is disarray;
5) The bridge were not properly defended, few tank traps or barbed wire.
6) German resistance only increased when they used the generous time window given to them by the failings of the two US para units.
Market Garden was a success:
♦ It kept Antwerp out of German artillery range.
♦ It split German armies in two, largely isolating their 15th army on the Dutch Coast.
♦ The largest road bridge in Europe was in allied hands on the German border.
♦ It created a 60 mile buffer between Antwerp and German forces. Antwerp was the only port taken intact. This buffer proved itself in the German Bulge attack right through US lines. The German went through a forest rather than the direct route, which would have been through the Market Garden salient.
♦ It created a staging point to move into Germany at Nijmegen, which was used.
♦ It eliminated V rocket launching sites aimed at London.
♦ It isolated the German 15th army in Holland.
♦ They reached the Rhine.
♦ The salient was fleshed out to the Meuse.
♦ The Germans never retook one mm of ground taken.
♦ It captured the important Philips radio factory at Eindhoven.
To flesh out the salient the US 7th Armor was sent into Overloon. They were so bad they were extracted with British forces sent in to take the town.
The Germans never thought Market Garden was a failure. It punched a 60 mile salient right into their lines in a few days, right on their border. They saw it as a staging area to jump into Germany - which it was. In late '44/early '45, the longest allied advance was the 60 mile Market Garden advance. The only operation to fully achieve its goals in that time period was Monty's clearing of the Scheldt.
'It is interesting to consider how far we failed in this operation. It should be remembered that the Arnhem bridgehead was only a part of the whole. We had gained a great deal in spite of this local set-back. The Nijmegen bridge was ours, and it proved of immense value later on. And the brilliant advance by XXX Corps led the way to the liberation of a large part of Holland, not to speak of providing a stepping stone to the successful battles of the Rhineland.'
- OPERATION VICTORY by MAJOR-GENERAL DEGUINGAND, 1947, page 419.
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@dmbeaster
"Eisenhower. He had now heard from both his Army Group commanders — or Commanders-in-Chief as they were currently called — and reached the conclusion that they were both right; that it was possible to achieve everything, even with lengthening supply lines and without Antwerp."
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
“ It was commonly believed at Third Army H.Q. that Montgomery's advance through Belgium was largely maintained by supplies diverted from Patton. (See Butcher, op. cit., p. 667.) This is not true. The amount delivered by the ' air-lift ' was sufficient to maintain only one division. No road transport was diverted to aid Montgomery until September16th. On the other hand, three British transport companies, lent to the Americans on August 6th " for eight days," were not returned until September 4th.' “
- CHESTER WILMOT
THE STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE. 1954
P 589
"Despite objections raised to Montgomery's plan of an assault on a 40 division front, it was more sensible than Eisenhower's insistence on the entire front being in motion at all times, for no better reason than he could not abide the thought that the two American army groups would not participate as entities in the anticipated victory. Not only did Eisenhower fail to heed Montgomery's suggestions, but also he never seemed to understand the possible benefits. He was evidently unable to understand that to supply 40 divisions attacking on one front would have been an easier task than to supply first one army and then the other as each in turn went over to the offensive. It was this concentration of effort which Eisenhower failed to understand and to implement"
- Eisenhower at the Art of Warfare
by DJ Haycock, page 182.
Market Garden was not a very large ground operation. It was limited in size. The well supplied American attack into the Hurtgen Forest started when Market Garden was going on. The US advance on the Hurtgen Forest by First US Army 9th Infantry Division began on 14th September, 3 days before Market Garden began, and was continuing to try and advance into the Hurtgen even when Market Garden began 3 days later, but it was halted by the Germans however.
This was soon followed up by a larger well supplied advance by US First Army towards Aachen at the start of October. Market Garden didn't make a notable dent in allied supplies seeing as the US was able to put on a LARGER ground attack right afterwards.
According to Bradley in his own book there was parity of supplies between the three allied armies, Second British, First and Third US by mid September 1944 and according to the official US Army History as cited in Hugh Cole's book, The Lorraine Campaign page 52..."by 10th September the period of critical (gasoline) shortage had ended". This was a whole week before Market Garden took place. The gasoline drought was the end of August/beginning of September. It was over by the time of Market Garden.
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@dmbeaster
General Bodo Zimmermann, Chief of Operations, German Army Group D, said that had the strategy of Montgomery succeeded in the autumn of 1944, there would have been no need to fight for the West Wall, not for the central and upper Rhine, all of 24 which would have fallen automatically.
Indeed, had Monty's idea for a 40 division concentrated thrust towards the Ruhr been accepted by Eisenhower instead of messing about in the Lorraine, Alsace, Vosges etc, it would have all been over for the Germans in the west.
"The best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Germany's strength is in the north. South Germany was a side issue. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open. There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin.
By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and1st Parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Mass and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany."
- Gunther Blumentritt in, The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart
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@dmbeaster
A prime strategic problem for SHAEF in September 1944 was opening up the approaches to Antwerp and keeping it from German counter-attack - the logistics problem to supply all allied armies. It was:
1) Take Noord Brabant, the land to the north and northeast of Antwerp, or;
2) Take the Schedlt.
Eisenhower had a Northern Thrust strategy. Taking Noord Babant fell in line with the desires for both SHEAF and Eisenhower.
Noord Brabant had to be taken before the Scheldt, as it was essential. It was taken with limited forces, with forces also sent to take the Schedlt. Market Garden had to go ahead regardless of any threat or Northern Thrust strategy, actually being a success. To use Antwerp and control the approaches, the Scheldt, everything up to the south bank of the lower Rhine at Nijmegen needed to be under allied control.
The low-lying lands, boggy ground between Arnhem and Nijmegen with land strewn with rivers and canals, is perfect geography as a barrier against a German counter-attack towards Antwerp. Without control of Noord Brabant German forces would have been in artillery range of Antwerp, and with a build up of forces and supply directly back to Germany in perfect position for a counter-attack.
Market Garden was the offensive SHEAF wanted to secure Antwerp, a prime port for logistics for all allied armies. It made sense as the Germans were in disarray, so should be easy enough to gain. Monty added Arnhem to form a bridgehead over the Rhine to fall in line with Eisenhower's priority Northern Thrust strategy at the time. It made complete sense in establishing a bridgehead over the Rhine as an extra to the operation.
You needed Arnhem for an easier jump into Germany. Everything up to Nijmegen was needed if you wanted to do anything at all - that is, protect Antwerp and have a staging point to move into Germany. Gaining Noord Brabant, was vital, and was successfully seized. Fighting in the low lying mud and waterways of the Schedlt, which will take time, while the Germans a few miles away and still holding Noord Brabant made no sense at all.
SHEAF got what they wanted from a strategic point of view.
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@pfarden5836
You have comprehension problems. Again for you......
"The Battle of the Generals" by General Blumenson makes it clear that Bradley, not Montgomery, ordered Patton to stop at Falaise;
1) Bradley, on his own initiative, ordered Patton to stop on August 12 (page. 206-207);
2) Bradley's post-war effort to blame this on Montgomery was "dishonest and anti-British" (page. 211);
3) Despite Bradley stating he ordered it. Patton was running off to Paris, but Bradley failed to stop him from making a long hook encirclement of the Germans towards Dreux at the Sein (page. 223);
4) This was in clear contradiction to Montgomery's suggestion that he do so (page. 218).
In Bradley's memoir A Soldier's Story he says on page 377, "Monty had never prohibited and I never proposed that U.S. forces close the gap from Argentan to Falaise." He gives a number of reasons for not pushing north from Argentan, but Monty forbidding it is not one of them.
In A General's Life Bradley writes, "Montgomery had no part in the decision; it was mine and mine alone. Some writers have suggested that I appealed to Monty to move the boundary north to Falaise and he refused, but, of course, that is not true... I was determined to hold Patton at Argentan and had no cause to ask Monty to shift the boundary."
Nigel Hamilton, Monty's official biographer, states in The War Years that the decision was Bradley's. "Dempsey's diary record of his meeting with Monty and Bradley proves there was certainly no plot to deny Patton glory, since Dempsey specifically recorded: `So long as the Northward move of Third Army meets little opposition, the two leading Corps will disregard inter-Army boundaries'" (page. 788).
There are plenty of secondary sources that pin the blame on Bradley:
a) Russell Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants" page. 216: "Bradley, having set the stage by urging Eisenhower and Montgomery to grasp the opportunity of a short envelopment at Falaise-Argentan, failed to persist in completing his own design. He abandoned the short envelopment before its potential was achieved, and meanwhile he had delayed the long envelopment at the Seine."
b) Peter Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe page. 171: "Bradley was slow to concentrate sufficient force to close the Falaise Gap from the south when he had the opportunity to do so."
c) Robin Neillands, The Battle of Normandy 1944 page. 358: "Bradley's memoirs and the British Official History make it abundantly clear this decision was Bradley's."
There are many more sources where these came from. Carlo D'Este states on page 444, "When Dempsey met Bradley and Montgomery there was apparently no restraint placed on further northward movement by XV Corps... the fact that the Third Army did not move north of Argentan appears to have been Bradley's choice rather than a prohibition by Montgomery." On page 448 he writes, "The assertion that Montgomery made no effort to close the gap is without foundation." D'Este also dismisses the view of Strafford on page 451. No reasonable reading of D'Este on Falaise could possibly support blaming Montgomery. The US Official History, the British Official History, BRADLEY HIMSELF (twice!) and a multitude of secondary sources say Monty did not order Patton to halt. Neither Bradley himself, nor Montgomery, nor the senior British Army commander, nor the British or American official historians think Montgomery ordered Bradley to stop. THERE WAS NO HALT ORDER by Monty.
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Logistics was the major issue but Antwerp wasn’t the only option. If Eisenhower had let Monty go for a Rhine crossing in late August/early September - Operation Comet - with the intent of making the inland sea in Holland they could have got Rotterdam and even Amsterdam instead.
Antwerp was an awkward port, being 80km inland with a warren of tidal inlets, islands and estuaries covering the approaches. Many an army came to grief in that part of the world - a British one was destroyed there in 1809. If Monty was all for bypassing the problems of Antwerp and gaining Rotterdam it wouldn't have been the worst judgement, it was very sound. The Germans were still reeling, the paras were on standby with fuel in the tanks. Rotterdam was possible. Stopping to open up Antwerp was always going to take considerable time. Eisenhower, felt it was better to concentrate on Antwerp as the supply head before pressing on - operation Market Garden was that plan. And then the endless operations from Hurtgen Forest to Walcheren.
Antwerp would not be fully open to allied shipping until early January 1945. The first ships entered in October 1944, but the majority of supplies would come from Normandy until November. That was three months from Antwerp's capture. Twice the time it took to break out of Normandy. By that time the French railway service had been largely rebuilt with stores coming in from Normandy and LeHavre, for Bradley’s 12th Army Group, and Marseilles, for Devers’ 6th Army Group. The supplies could be shifted faster.
Monty was for pushing on in early September,, Eisenhower was cautious. Eisenhower's caution allowed the Germans breathing space to reinforce gifting them an opportunity to consolidate then strike back. Pushing Monty into Holland and then going for caution was sound - you get Rotterdam and possibly Antwerp .
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In The Lorraine, the Third Army faced a German rabble full of eyes and ears units. Patton move 10 iles in three months at Metz. 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 in the Lorraine.
Below is from:
The Lorraine Campaign, An Overview, September-December 1944,
by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel,
February, 1985,
U.S Army Command and General Staff College.
The document states:
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. 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. He [Patton] discovered that violating logistical principles is an unforgiving and cumulative matter.
The US Army study highlighted Patton's tendency to overstretch his supply lines, then stall.
The American armored elements in Lorraine were not at their best either.
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Patton's reluctance to mass his armor came as a pleasant surprise to the Germans, who believed that their panzer divisions were just as useful in creating breakthroughs as they were in exploiting them.
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In addition, American tank crews repeatedly paid a heavy price for a doctrinal decisions made before the war that declared tanks to be offensive weapons not intended as defensive combat against other tanks. As a result of this official policy, the M-4 Sherman tanks in Lorraine were badly outgunned by German panzers that mounted superb anti-tank pieces. The tank-stopping task was officially assigned to the tank destroyers, which were supposed to be thinly armoured, highly mobile, heavily armed anti-tank destroyers.
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Third Army didn't need an antitank reserve in Lorraine because German tanks usually appeared a few at a time.
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