Comments by "TheVilla Aston" (@thevillaaston7811) on "German Thoughts on the Churchill Tank" video.

@davidhimmelsbach557 'The Bocage never reached the President. The Pentagon LONG decided that they wanted to be in the EAST because most of the intense fighting figured to be along that axis.' So you have changd your mind having previously stated this: 'This issue was a MAJOR bone of contention between FDR and WC. Winnie jammed it down FDR's throat.' 'This is utter nonsense. British RAIL would solve the criss-cross -- same as they did during the actual event. It didn't matter WHERE a unit was stationed, British Rail got the boys to their port and ships. British rail capacity was so great that D-Day was no 'biggie.' All that was necessary was the elimination of some commuter trains.' Err...There was no British Rail in 1944. The railway were run by four compaies, the Great Western Railway, the London Midland Scottish Railway, The London & North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway. The railway network, far from having redundant capacity was under severe strain as peacetime norms for maintence were ignored, the huge demands already being made on the system with maximum effort on the home front, damage caused by enemy action and so on. 'BTW, during this period, Britain was totally locked down. You could NOT MOVE ANYWHERE. You were not to even use public transport. All of the Allied armies were using a fist-full of truck convoys -- and the roads became strictly ONE-WAY under British MPs. This was martial law.' Nope. The only special regulations in place were on the south coast, mainly from the Thames through to West Cornwall, and this was only for a brief period from May through to D-Day. Public transport remained in place throughout this period. Wartime regulations were in place regarding freedom of movement, but this was not martial law. 'British civilians treated the lock-down as a national 'holiday.' But, of course. Said lock-down was brief. It does not show up in common war histories.' Absolutely not. Work continued as before and afterwards, including on the South Coast, despite the temporary cordon imposed on on those areas.
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Doitefy Not really... Dieppe came out of a decision to put a Brgade ashore in France for 24 hours in 1942. The idea being that the raid itself, and the threat of further such raids would draw off a disproportionate number of German troops away from the East.
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@marxel4444 Total rubbish. The Canadians lobbied hard to be given the Dieppe job.
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@davidhimmelsbach557 Tootal rubbish. The US forces were on the West because they had been located in the West of Britain.
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@davidhimmelsbach557 Nope. The airborne plan for Arnhem (Market) was devised by the US General Brereton.
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@MLMILLERZZ Err...No. The intelligence on AFVs in the area came from SHAEF.
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@davidhimmelsbach557 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 P130 'Responsibility for the complex troop carrier role fell to the commander of the IX Troop Carrier Command, General Williams. The overall commander was General Brereton.' P132 'One of the more crucial decisions facing General Brereton and the staff of the First Allied Airborne Army was that of daylight versus night attack. Moving by day, planes and gliders would be exposed to more accurate flak. This was a serious consideration, both because the C-47 (Sky train) troop carrier planes were lowspeed aircraft possessing neither armor nor self-sealing gasoline tanks and because marked increase had been noted recently in antiaircraft guns in the vicinity of the target area. On the other hand, moving by night invited greater danger from enemy aircraft. Although the enemy's daylight fighter force had been reduced almost to inconsequence, his night fighters had retained some measure of potency. In regard to the actual drop, it went without saying that a daylight operation should provide a better drop pattern. To realize what could happen in the dark, one had but to recall the Normandy operation when drop sticks had scattered like windblown confetti. A major factor governing selection of a night drop in Normandy had been a need to co-ordinate airborne and seaborne units. The plan for co-ordination of air and ground efforts in Operation MARKET GARDEN imposed no restrictions. Neither had the Allies at the time of the Normandy drop possessed the unquestioned air supremacy they now had attained. It was an air supremacy that could be maintained through proximity of the target area to bases in England, France, and Belgium. Assured of a comprehensive antiflak program, General Brereton made his decision: by day.' At the the time of Market Garden, the Dutch Underground had been penetrated by the German, leading to the German 'Englandspiel' deception of British intelligence. As a result, all contact perporting to have come from the Dutch Underground at that time was routinely disregarded. Market Garden was no different to any other situation in that regard.
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@davidhimmelsbach557 'This issue was a MAJOR bone of contention between FDR and WC. Winnie jammed it down FDR's throat. The entire US establishment wanted to land in the East. There would be no problem with the ships pulling this off. The fact was -- and remains -- that Alan Brooke KNEW of the bocage. He used to vacation in Normandy. He KNEW that the US Army would have a heck-of-a-time getting through the hedgerows... as did Monty -- his personal buddy going way back. (Alan Brooke got Monty his position as 8th Army commander. He was not Winnie's first pick. That general died in the nick of time for Monty and Brooke.) The British screwed up, for getting to Caen was a sure-fire blood-bath. The British simply could NOT take the casualties it demanded. Caen really crippled British 2nd Army. Winnie was just not going to send any more blood into France. That's why so many Guards units sat out the whole war. Winnie would not let them deploy. (He was saving London from the Americans ? Maybe. Heh.)' Your words. The idea that the whole allied invasion was going to be moved further East is absurd. The Calvados Coast had been settled on as the invasion start point from the earliest days of Overlord planning. The only aternation was made by Montgomery who added UTAH and SWORD Beaches to the plan. In relation to the overall Overlord plan, the Bocage was of limited importance. As was Caen. Guards units left in London!! Absolutely not. During the campaign in Western Europe, two divisions had to be broken up to to provide replacements for other divisions, and troops had to brought across from Italy to bolster 21st Army Group numbers. Where is there a single document showing the Bocage as a matter for discussion between Churchill and Roosevelt?
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@davidhimmelsbach557 'It came from the RAF. In that aspect, the film has it right.' Your words. What came from the RAF?
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@davidhimmelsbach557 'By EAST I meant that the Americans would be using the Eastern Overlord beaches. What in the heck are you coming up with?' Why would they have done that? that would have meant crossing over the British forces in the channel. 'The guns at La Havre made anything further East a total non-starter. Their range established the Normandy line-up.' Another reason why a change of beaches would have been madness.
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@davidhimmelsbach557 'The Bocage never reached the President. The Pentagon LONG decided that they wanted to be in the EAST because most of the intense fighting figured to be along that axis. Marshall rightly figured that the British would no be up to it. They simply had suffered too many casualties already. The US had experienced a nose-bleed. Marshall has been proven right by history.' What were the British not up to? and what was Marshall proved right about?
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@davidhimmelsbach557 Before you bang on any more, you should know that I have already forgotten more about this subject than you will ever know. I have been on it for over 50 years. Not only that, my Uncle was an RN gunner in a Royal Navy ship that bombarded UTAH Beach on D-Day, my father landed on Sword Beach on D-Day with a Churchill Tank Regiment, and he was a life long railway enthusiast. Further, he was in one of those ships 'circling round', in his case in the Channel, for two days, due to D-Day being delayed by 24 hours. It gets worse (For you), the stuff about telephone calls is nonsense. My mother was a telephone exchange supervisor in Surrey. There, only certain places were restricted. My paternal grand parents lived in one of the restricted area, Hove in Sussex.
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@davidhimmelsbach557 'But Brooke and Winston would NOT hear of it. The British were still shaken by Dunkirk, and so figured that there might be a Dunkirk II in their future. WInnie's confidence in Overlord was THAT low. It always had been. He's the reason that Overlord did not begin 5-1-1943 -- the date the AMERICANS wanted from the first.' Nope. The Ameicans (Mainly General Marshall) wanted to invade France in 1942. The British pointed out that there was landing craft for just 5,000 troops and that Britain could only supply seven divisions for such an undertaking. When the Americans were asked how many divisions they could supply, the answer was two and a half. That is nine and a half divisions to take on 25 German divisions already in France. Further, the Battle of the Atlantic was far from won, and the bombing campaign against German infrastructure had only just began. In 1942, the USAAF had not droped a single bomb on Germany. Any invasion attempt would have been crushed by the Germans without the need to take a single soldier away from the eastern Front. WINSTON S CHURCHILL. THE SECOND WORLD WAR. CASSELL & CO LTD REVISED EDITION NOVEMBER 1950. VOLUME IV THE HINGE OF FATE P391 Former Naval Person to President 8 July 42 ‘No responsible British general, admiral, or air marshal is prepared to recommend “Sledgehammer” as a practical operation in 1942. The Chiefs of Staff have reported “The conditions which would make “Sledgehammer” a sound, sensible enterprise are very unlikely to occur. They are now sending their paper to your Chiefs of Staff.’ As for 1943, this from one of Eisenhower's closest coleagues: WITH PREJUDICE The War Memoirs of Marshall of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder G.C.B. CASSELL & COMPANY 1966 P 395 'At Casablanca he [Alan Brooke] had raised the question of a Second Front, suggesting that operations in Italy should be used to divert the Germans from the west in preparation for a full-scale invasion of France. Although this plan was officially adopted, Anglo-American differences reached a sharper pitch on this issue than any other major matter. To General Marshall the continuation of warfare in the Mediterranean was a sign of British Lukewarmness towards the full-scale assault on the Reich through France, which alone could secure the defeat of the main enemy. In Alan Brooke’s eyes the continued lack of American reinforcements to Europe and the preoccupation with Admiral King’s operations in the Pacific, signified America’s lack of perception.’ ‘At this distance of time, there can be no possible doubt that Brooke was right. Not only did we have no hope in 1943 of sufficient picked and trained troops, with a vast armada of shipping and landing craft for a cross-Channel invasion; even more important, we should not possess until the end of the year the air strength which, wisely used in advance of an assault on France, would ensure its success. It seemed clear to me that our right policy was to clear North Africa first, to take Sicily as a springboard for operations in Italy, the weak spot of the Axis, and to cause in the coming months the maximum devastation of German productive capacity.’ As in the 1942, none of the key conditions for a successful invasion of France were in place. 'Had that date been used, the Nazis would not have had any Panthers -- and very few Tigers. They also would've been still reeling from Stalingrad. France would've still had only crippled German units recovering from the Eastern Front. The Sherman tank would've been easily the best tank in the world in May 1943.' In May 1943 the best tank in the world was the T-34, as the Germans acknowledged. The Sherman was a fire hazzard to its troops.
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Steel-XL My father was actually in a Churchill tankk regiment on D-Day. I doubt if he would have agreed with that.
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@tssteelx Err...It was my father.
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@destroyerarmor British tankers probably hated them. I doubt that.
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