Comments by "TheVilla Aston" (@thevillaaston7811) on "War Stories"
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@kniespel6243
Ah...
So you did not see what Montgomery did at Caen and Market Garden.
Let us look st some of the words from people that were around then
Caen:
‘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.
‘Now I am quite certain no promises were made about Caen’
From Operation Victory, by Major-General Sir Francis De Guingand.
Market Garden:
‘Actually, only a handful of divisions was involved, the over-all losses were small and apart from the magnificent outburst of courage the battle had no more significance than half a dozen actions that were fought that same winter’
From Montgomery, by Alan Moorehead.
'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.'
From Crusade in Europe by Dwight D Eisenhower.
‘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 30th 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.’
From Operation Victory, by Major-General Sir Francis De Guingand.
‘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.’
From The Second World War, by Winston Churchill.
‘those who had planned and inaugurated with complete the first airborne operations of military history, had not now even thought of such a possible action by the enemy…the Allied Airborne action completely surprised us. The operation hit my army nearly in the centre and split it into two parts…In spite of all precautions, all bridges fell intact into the hands of the Allied airborne forces—another proof of the paralysing effect of surprise by airborne forces!’
From a statement by German General Karl Student supplied by Basil Liddell Hart in 1949.
‘Why was Montgomery not given adequate troop and logistic support at least one more division?’
From On to Berlin, by US General James M Gavin.
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@kniespel6243
Oh well, its your funeral...
‘On 21January 1944, we foregathered at Norfolk House under Eisenhower’s chairmanship to compare or impressions. Montgomery, who was to command all the ground forces in the initial stages of ‘Overlord’ said at once that the planned assault by three divisions was insufficient to obtain a quick success. We must take a port at the earliest possible moment. He pressed that the proposed area of assault in Normandy be extended to include an area of the eastern side of the Cotentin Peninsular. The American forces should be placed on the right and he British to the left, the former to capture Cherbourg, and then drive for the Loire ports, while the British and Canadian forces would deal with the enemy’s main strength approaching from the east and south-east.’
Marshall of the Royal Air Force, Arthur Tedder – a ‘vet’
”While Collins was hoisting his VII Corps flag over Cherbourg, Montgomery was spending his reputation in a bitter siege against the old university city of Caen. For three weeks he had rammed his troops against those panzer divisions he had deliberately drawn towards that city as part of our Allied strategy of diversion in the Normandy Campaign. Although Caen contained an important road junction that Montgomery would eventually need, for the moment the capture of that city was only incidental to his mission. For Monty's primary task was to attract German troops to the British front that we might more easily secure Cherbourg and get into position for the breakout.
In this diversionary mission Monty was more than successful, for the harder he hammered towards Caen, the more German troops he drew into that sector. Too many correspondents however had overrated the importance of Caen itself, and when Monty failed to take it, they blamed him for the delay. But had we attempted to exonerate Montgomery by explaining how successfully he had hoodwinked the Germans by diverting him toward Caen from Cotentin, we would also have given our strategy away. We desperately wanted the German to believe this attack on Caen was the main Allied effort.’
US General Omar Bradley – a ‘vet’
The Battle of the Beachead was a period of incessant and heavy fighting and one which, except for the capture of Cherbourg, showed few geographical gains. Yet it was during this period that the stage was set for the later, spectacular liberation of France and Belgium. The struggle in the beachhead was responsible for many developments, both material and doctrinal, that stood us in good stead throughout the remainder of the war.’
‘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.’
US General Dwight D Eisenhower – a ‘vet’
My father was a ‘vet’ of the fighting at Caen. He remembered the bitter fighting there against the mass of German forces.
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In, as far as Market Garden failed to take Arnhem. Montgomery's seem to be in line with Churchill, Eisenhower, the official US Army history of the European campaign, and the German General Student:
WINSTON S CHURCHILL.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
CASSELL & CO LTD REVISED EDITION NOVEMBER 1950.
VOLUME Vl TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY
P174/5
‘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.’
CRUSADE IN EUROPE
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LIMITED 1948
P340
'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.'
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II
The European Theater of Operations
THE SIEGFRIED LINE CAMPAIGN
By Charles B. MacDonald
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY WASHINGTON, D.C., 1993
P199
Field Marshal Montgomery has written: "We had undertaken a difficult operation,
attended by considerable risks. It was justified because, had good weather obtained,
there was no doubt that we should have attained full success."
CHESTER WILMOT
THE STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE
WM. COLLINS, SONS AND CO LTD.
1954
P 586
¹In Gavin's opinion, the performance of Frost's force was " the outstanding
independent parachute battalion action of the war." Frost's " tactical handling " was,
says Gavin, " a model for parachute unit commanders." Gavin, op. cit., p. 120.
¹Montgomery says that " Had good weather obtained, there was no doubt that we
should have attained full success." (Op. cit., p. 186.) Student, when interrogated by
Liddell Hart, did not go quite so far as this, but gave the weather as the main cause of
the failure.
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@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-
MONTY
The Field-Marshal
1944-1976
NIGEL HAMILTON
HAMISH HAMILTON
LONDON
1986
'St Malo fell on 17 August, Brest on 18 September 1944; neither was used. Monty's own chief of administration, 21st Army Group, Maj-General Miles Graham later considered that 'at the period at which the advance would have taken place we were no longer based on the Normandy beaches. The port of Dieppe was opened on September 5 and by the end of the month was dealing with over 6,000 tons a day. Ostend was captured on September 9 and opened on the 28th of the same month. Boulogne and Calais were captured on September 22 and 30 respectively. Meanwhile the depots on the Normandy beaches were being rapidly cleared by rail and road and the new Advance Base established in central and northern Belgium. An additional 17 General Transport companies with a lift of some 8,000 tons and preloaded with petrol and supplies were borrowed from the War Office and arrived in the latter half of September and early October.
`I personally have no doubt from a purely administrative point of view that, based as we were on the Channel ports, it would have been possible to carry out successfully the operation which Field-Marshal Montgomery desired:' Letter to The Times, 24.2.47.’
CHESTER WILMOT
THE STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE
WM. COLLINS, SONS AND CO LTD.
1954
P591-P592
When Eisenhower and Montgomery met in Brussels on September 10th, the Allied supply columns and transport aircraft could deliver from dumps in Normandy and bases in Britain to the front on the Moselle, the Meuse and the Dutch border some 10,000 tons a day for Patton, Hodges and Dempsey. The port of Dieppe was open and by the middle of the month had a daily intake of 3,000 tons, which was more than enough for First Canadian Army. In the last ten days of September with little
help from air transport, the supply capacity was increased to 14,000 tons a day. Of this total 'lift,' 2,000 tons would have been ample to support Third Army if it had assumed the defensive. This would have left 12,000 tons a day to maintain the 20 British and American divisions with which
Montgomery proposed to capture the Ruhr. Even on the basis of Eisenhower's inflated figure, this would have been sufficient, for in the wake of the advancing armies the supply facilities were being steadily improved. The petrol pipe-line from Cherbourg had reached Chartres by September 12th and was being laid at a rate of 25 miles a day. Rail communications were open from the Normandy bridgehead to Sommersous, 100 miles east of Paris, by September 7th, to Liege by the 18th, and to Eindhoven ten days later. At the end of September the port of Dieppe had a daily intake of 6,000 tons and by this time Ostend was also working.’
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@iemjgf
'The Market Garden fiasco was around 5 days. Where would Patton have been in 5 days?' Your words.
Why ask the question?.. We already know the answer.
No allied resources were taken away fronm Patton for Market Garden. He resumed his advance before Market Garden was even conceived.
By the 11th September, Patton was still West of Metz, about 100 miles from the Rhine.
General Hermann Balck, who took command of Army Group G in September, recalled in1979: “Within my zone, the Americans never once exploited a success. Often [General Friedrich Wilhelm von] Mellenthin, my chief of staff, and I would stand in front of the map and say, ‘Patton is helping us; he failed to exploit another success.’” His words.
'With regard to the allocation of vital supplies I would have thought that Eisenhower called the shots? ' Your words.
Perhaps you are right. But he seemed to have stopped at the allocation of 7,000 tons per day for each army group: 21st Army Group (Montgomery), and 12th Army Group (Patton). Leaving, in Bradley's case, the decision to Bradley to give 5,000 tons per day to US 1st Army (Hodges), and 2,000 tons per day to US 3rd Army (Patton).
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