Comments by "TheVilla Aston" (@thevillaaston7811) on "War Stories"
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'-Montgomery's victory in El Alamein was nothing to write home about. Rommel was short on fuel and half of his armored force were useless Italian tanks. Of course Monty won the battle, any commander with such an advantage is going to win, isn't he? Your words.
Appointed to command of the ground forces in ‘Torch’, Montgomery was moved across to command Eighth Army after the death of Gott. In his first big command, Montgomery acted quicky and decisively as he reorganized and rejuvenated Eighth Army to make it fit to take on and defeat the Axis forces led by Rommel. There is plenty of evidence of Montgomery’s effect on his new command, here is some:
‘I have always considered that Montgomery’s first two or three days with his Army was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and the way in which he put over his personality, right through the Army, was really remarkable. Besides talking to the staff and laying down what he called his ‘military philosophy’, he met all Commanders and their troops and, of course, examined in great detail the ground now held and that over which we would have to fight.’
DE GUINGAND
‘I was dumfounded by the rapidity with which he had grasped the situation facing him, the ability with which had grasped the essentials, the clarity of his plans , and above all his unbounded self-confidence—a self-confidence with which he inspired all those that he came into contact with.’
ALANBROOKE
‘Everybody said what a change there was since Montgomery had taken command. I could feel the truth of this with joy and comfort.’
CHURCHILL
Montgomery, with four divisions defeated Rommel with his six divisions at Alam-el-Halfa and then defeated Rommel again at the Second Battle of El Alamein.
For Alamein, Montgomery set about re-training the entire Eighth Army, regrouping divisions that had been broken down into smaller units and creating an armoured reserve to exploit a breakthrough in the enemy front. Further, he resisted political pressure to attack before he was satisfied that everything he required for victory was in place – including extensive medical care facilities for his troops.
Alamein ended the war in North Africa as a contest at the cost of 13,500 (6.9%) casualties. Victory in North Africa freed up a million of allied shipping for use elsewhere and led to the campaign in Italy, which together with the allied threat to the Balkans tied down 50 German divisions. Troops that the Germans could not deploy in Normandy or Russia.
Further, Montgomery showed how the allies could beat the Germans in the future: thorough preparation and concentration of resources, which paid off in Normandy and would have paid off in the autumn of 1944 in the advance on Germany if Eisenhower had heeded these lessons instead of allowing political considerations to dictate strategy.
'-Montgomery bungled his pursuit of Rommel - almost any other general, with more fuel, more troops, chasing a defeated foe, could have brought the Afrika Korps to bay. He just herded the enemy along.' Your words.
Cairo to Tripoli by Road is 1600 miles. The same London to Moscow.
Rommel outran his supply lines. Montgomery did not make that mistake.
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'-Montgomery's only objective was to capture the town of Caen. He and his forces were repelled three times and when they finally entered the town the Germans had already left for a higher defense position. He was supposed to drive toward Germany in the left flank of the allies and caused more delays for the Americans to get to Germany.
-Montgomery utterly failed in Market Garden. Lots of things went wrong but ultimately Monty needs to take the blame here. And Monty’s refusal to admit that German panzer divisions were in Arnhem was all on him. Market Garden was Monty’s brainchild. How do you forgive him for that mess?' Your words.
France 1944 (Operation Overlord)
The then existing plan for Overlord that Montgomery saw comprised three invasion beaches with a target date of 1st May 1944 for D-Day. Montgomery immediately urged that the plan be expanded to five beaches by the addition of Utah and Sword beaches. This was agreed to, but the change created a one-month delay to the start of the operation as the additional shipping was gathered for the additional landings.
Montgomery presented his plan for the land campaign to allied leaders at St Paul’s School in West London on 15th May 1944. The plan showed British 2nd Army holding down the bulk of German forces on the allied left while the US 1st Army broke out on the allied right to capture Cherbourg and other ports, leading to the allies reaching the river Seine by D+90. Overlord began on the 6th June (D-Day), with all allied beaches liking up within a week, despite US mistakes at Omaha beach. Montgomery’s plan coped with the delay to the allied build-up caused by the great storm of 19th-20th June which wrecked the US ‘Mulberry Harbour’, the vast concentration of German forces in front of British 2nd Army, the delay to the US 1st Army break-out which led to the need for several operation in the Caen sector to keep Germans off balance, and the constant badgering of glory hungry, greenhorn US generals.
Montgomery inflicted a defeat of the Germans as big as Stalingrad and that ended with 22% fewer than expected allied casualties, and ahead of schedule, on D+78.
CRUSADE IN EUROPE
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LIMITED 1948
P282
‘Knowing that his old antagonist of the desert, Rommel, was to be in charge of the defending forces, Montgomery predicted that enemy action would be characterized by constant assaults carried out with any force immediately available from division down to a battalion or even company size. He discounted the possibility that the enemy under Rommel would ever select a naturally strong defensive line and calmly and patiently go about the business of building up the greatest possible amount of force in order to launch one full-out offensive into our beach position. Montgomery’s predictions were fulfilled to the letter.’
P288
‘Montgomery’s tactical handling of the British and Canadians on the Eastward flank and his co-ordination of these operations with those of the Americans to the westward involved the kind of work in which he excelled.
P333
‘All along the front we pressed forward in hot pursuit of the fleeing enemy. In four days the British spearheads, paralleled by equally forceful American advances on their right, covered a distance of 195 miles, one of the many feats of marching by our formations in the great pursuit across France.’
‘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 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 which while we trampled 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.’
From Omar Bradley's book A Soldier's Story
Market Garden
With the allied advance at a standstill, with the Germans still reeling from their defeat in France and with V weapons being launched at Britain in sight of British troops. Montgomery sought to depoly the First Allied Airborne Army that Eisenhowert had made available for Montgomery's use, without Montgomery having full control of.
The operation was a risky undertaking, but Eisenhower and Bradley agreed that the possible gains were worth taking the chance. Montgomery had no final say in the airborne (Market) part of the operation, which was under the control of the US General Brereton. Virtually all of the problems with the operation came out the airborne plan. There is a body of opinion that the weather, which defied allied forecasts was the decisive factor in Arnhem not being taken:
'The attack began well and unquestionably would have been successful except for the intervention of bad weather. This prevented the adequate reinforcement of the northern spearhead and resulted in finally in the decimation of the British airborne division and only a partial success in the entire operation. We did not get our bridgehead but our lines had been carried well out to defend the Antwerp base.'
EISENHOWER
‘Heavy risks were taken in in the Battle of Arnhem, but they were justified by the great prize so nearly in our grasp. Had we been more fortunate in the weather, which turned against us at critical moments and restricted our mastery of the air, it is probable that we should have succeeded.'
CHURCHILL
German General Karl Student gave the weather as the main cause of the failure at Arnhem.
Market Garden did not succeed in reaching Arnhem but it did free up to a fifth of the Dutch population, stretched the German forces another 50 miles, hindered V weapon attacks on Britain and gave the allies a launching point for Operation Veritable in early 1945. The losses incurred (17,000) should be compared to allied failures in the same period at Aachen (20,000 casualties), Metz (45,000 casualties) and the Hurtgen Forest (55,000 casualties).
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@aesop8694
As an army and army group commander, Montgomery won in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, The Scheldt, the Northern half of the Bulge and the Rhine.
As a single division commander, Montgomery had performed with distinction in trying circumstances in France in 1940. Montgomery served in the front line in France in the First World War, being wounded twice, and being awarded the DSO.
Eisenhower had zero personal combat experience, he had not even seen a dead body until April 1943. He made a mess of US operations in Tunisia, having to seek help from Alexander, he made a mess of the invasion of Italy. He kept out of the way in Normandy and the Germans suffered a defeat as big as Stalingrad. Eisenhower took over the land battle in September 1944 and the allies went nowhere.
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@WardenWolf
Not really...
British Aircraft in the Berlin airlift:
Avro Lancaster 2, Avro Lincoln 1, Avro York 209, Avro Tudor 5,
Avro Lancastrian 15, Bristol Type 170 Freighter2,
Douglas DC-3 (Dakota) 107 (All brought, and paid for),
Handley Page Hastings 32,
Handley Page Halifax / Halton 41,
Short Sunderland 12,
Vickers VC.1 Viking 2
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MONTY
The Field-Marshal
1944-1976
NIGEL HAMILTON
HAMISH HAMILTON
LONDON
1986
P64
'General Browning, Corps Commander of the three and a half divisions designated to participate in the carpet-drop on Zon, Vegel, Graves, Nijmegen and Arnhem, is supposed to have remarked to Monty that Arnhem might be a 'bridge too far'. This is inherently unlikely, since Browning saw Dempsey, not Monty, on the day the revised 'Comet' operation, re-named Operation 'Market Garden', was resurrected.'
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@lyndoncmp5751
The Lorraine Campaign:
An Overview,
September-December 1944
by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
February, 1985
THIRD ARMY
Introduction
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.
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.
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.
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.
Finally the Lorraine campaign demonstrated that Logistics often drive operations, no matter how forceful and aggressive the commanding general may be.
He discovered that violating logistical principles is an unforgiving and cumulative matter.
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