Comments by "TheVilla Aston" (@thevillaaston7811) on "TIKhistory"
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On the 8th September 1944, the first German V2 rockets landed in London, launched from the Western part of the Netherlands, in the area around The Hague. An urgent signal was sent from London to Montgomery about know what could be done about those attacks. The rockets could not be intercepted once they were in flight, and given they were launched from mobile launchers, usually in built up area, thus the chances of hitting their launch equipment were almost zero. Therefore, the only thing that could be attempted was to stop delivery of rockets to the western part of the Netherlands. When Montgomery met Dempsey on the 10th September, they discussed whether MARKET GARDEN should end at Nijmegen or Arnhem. Montgomery showed Dempsey the signal from London which settled the matter.
Where is the craving for glory in that?
Prior to that, Montgomery had pointed out to Eisenhower that allied logistics only allowed for two of the four allied armies to advance against Germany and that the advance should be by British 2nd Army and the US 1st Army – towards the Ruhr. Failing that decision, Montgomery would agree to British 2nd Army and the Canadian 1st Army being halted, and the resources put to Bradley’s subordinates, Hodges (US 1st Army), and US 3rd Army (Patton), provided that a decision on a single thrust was taken over the available resources being spread out over all four armies – leaving the allies being not strong enough to advance properly anywhere – which is what happened.
Where is the craving for glory in that?
Where is there shred of reliable evidence (contemporary documents, utterances by Montgomery), that 'Monty's main objective was to get HIS troops over the Rhine before Patton'?
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A great post robm9999.
In the American view of the war (Their1942-1945 diet version), its the USA this, USA that. Such as they mention anyone else at all, the British were cowering cowards until the USA turned up. Russia was as bad as Nazi Germany and only sustained by Lend-Lease supplies, US Lend-Lease supplies, British and Canadian supplies to Russia are disregarded.
The Canadians were completely ignored, and the British relegated to some sort of quaint sideshow in the Hollywood film 'The longest Day.' Hollywood went on to steal British history in the film U-571, and to steal Canadian history in the film Argo.
The Canadian part in the war is well liked in Britain. They were with us from the start, and they punched well above their weight in their war effort.
Its just pours out of the USA, as if on a conveyor belt:
Books, films, TV documentaries, lectures... all for an uncritical, chauvinistic audience.
The lectures about the likes of TORCH, HUSKY, AVALANCHE, SHINGLE, OVERLORD, MARKET GARDEN, and so on usually start off with character assasinations of the British commanders involved, while US commaders are spoken of in uncritical, reverential tones.
Ditto, the books, which usually have stars and stripes graphics, and photos of US Generals in tin helmets. They then move on to include character assasinations of the British commanders involved, while US commaders are spoken of in uncritical, reverential tones. The statistics and contemporary documents they cite have normally been in the public domain for about six decades.
The films usually show the British as scheming upper class idiots, Dick Van Dyke style 'gorblimey guv' cockneys, and English rose women falling for the tough, down to earth Americans (a-la, the slapper Kay Summersby).
A few, of the many films to watch out for: Saving Private Ryan, Patton, The Winds of War (Cheesefest), the War and Remembrance (Cheesefest), U-572 (Goes without saying), Anne Frank: The Whole Story, Ike Countdown to D-Day, a Bridge Too Far, Mussolini The Untold Story, Band of Brothers, Pearl Harbour, and so on, and so on. This list is almost endless.
Needless to state in all this, there is a dig at Montgomery at every possible opoortunity.
The upshot of all this... the likes of nickdanger3802, and Para Dave (bigwoody)
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@valerieclark4580
Fault? where did it start? Where did it end? What judgements are being made about people's actions at that time?
Eisenhower: with no combat experience, and little command experience, he failed to make best use of the opportunity that was presented to the allies at the beginning of September 1944, by failing to adopt a forward strategy made best use of the available resources, that led to a series of under resourced operations, of which MARKET GARDEN was but one?
Brereton: with no experience of airborne operations, he created the MARKET airborne plan which failed to meet key airborne forces requirements in order to protect the airforces involved in the undertaking? He then went onto to write his wartime diary after the war?
Browning and Gavin: Between them, decided not to capture Nijmegen bridge on the first day, as discussed here. What fault lies there?..
The US soldier that took a complete set of the MARKET GARDEN plan in a US glider to the combat zone, only to be killed when the glider crashed in a US combat zone: How much fault lies with him?
For me, any opinion about how people acted at that time can only be set against the circumtances that those people were in at that time. I have not been in a war, nor have I attempted to plan and execute an airborne operation. This makes me a bit averse to attributing fault. How about you?
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andrewmay7284
I found this, make of it what you will...
'Lord Carrington again...
the Germans would blow this immense contraption we were to be accompanied by an intrepid Royal Engineer officer to cut the wires and cleanse the demolition chambers under each span. Our little force was led by an excellent Grenadier, Sergeant Robinson, who was rightly awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his action. Two of our tanks were hit not lethally - by anti-tank fire, and we found a number of Germans perched in the girders who tried to drop things on us but without great effect. Sergeant Robinson and the leading tank troop sprayed the opposite bank and we lost nobody, When I arrived at the far end my sense of relief was considerable: the bridge had not been blown, we had not been plunged into the Waal (In fact it seems the Germans never intended to blow the bridge. The demolition chambers were packed with German soldiers, who surrendered), we seemed to have silenced the opposition in the vicinity, we were across one half of the Rhine."
"A film representation of this incident has shown American troops as having already secured the far end of the bridge. That is mistaken - probably the error arose from the film-maker's confusion of two bridges, there was a railway bridge with planks placed between the rails and used by the Germans for [light] road traffic, to the west of the main road bridge we crossed; and the gallant American Airborne men: reached it. When Sergeant Robinson and his little command crossed our main road bridge, however, only Germans were there to welcome him; and they didn't stay."
"The pursuit had ground to a halt. The war was clearly going on. We spent the winter of 1944 in Holland, first near Nijmegen where the Germans had flooded the land between the two great rivers, and there was little activity."
The meeting of the 82nd men and the tanks was 1 km north of the bridge at the village of Lent where the railway embankment from the railway bridge met the north running road running off the main road bridge. The 82nd men did not reach the north end of the actual road bridge, the Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry got there first from the south.
Historians get confused. There are two bridges at Nijmegen. a railway bridge to the west and and road bridge to the east. They are about 1km apart. The 82nd men rowed the river west of the railway bridge and seized that bridge. The railway bridge was not suitable for running tanks over of course. After seizing the north end of the unimportant rail bridge the 82nd men moved along the railway embankment north to where the embankment meets the road approach to the road bridge at Lent.
Heinz Harmel (played by Hardy Kruger in the film A Bridge too Far), the 10th SS Panzer Division commander who was between Arnhem and Nijmegen, says it was the British tanks who raced across the bridge seizing the bridge. Harmel did not know of that three Tiger tanks that had crossed the Arnhem bridge running south, the German communications was disjointed. Harmel stated that there was little German armor between Nijmegen and Arnhem. That was not correct. The three powerful Tiger tanks would have made scrap metal out of the British Shermans. By the time the Guards tanks crossed Nijmegen bridge Johnny Frost and the British paratroopers at the Arnhem bridge were being overrun because of the long delay in seizing the Nijmegen bridge.
Only 4 tanks were available at the north end of the bridge to secure it. No tanks were available to run on any further to Arnhem and any that did would have been sitting ducks on the raised road. The Guards tanks were split up and spread out over 20 miles, supporting the 82nd all over the place around Nijmegen. Which was supposed to have already been taken by the 82nd. All over Nijmegen, Mook, Groosbeek, Grave etc. Some even had to go back down the road towards Eindhoven when Panzer Brigade 107 tried to cut the road.
Only five British tanks were able to cross the bridge that night, and two of them were damaged. 4 tanks initially went across then Carrington's lone tank followed, guarding the northern end of the bridge by itself for nearly an hour before he was relieved by infantry.
Nor did the 82nd take the southern end of the bridge in Nijmegen town. Lt Col Ben Vandervoort of the 82nd was in the southern approaches to the bridge, alongside the Grenadier Guards tanks as the Royal Engineers were removing charges on the bridge. Vandervoort and his men never went onto the bridge to take it. He remained at the southern approaches to the bridge with the rest of the 82nd and also the Grenadier Guards infantry, as Sgt Robinson and his four tanks raced on up the main road, up onto the bridge, and across it. Vandervoort was full of praise for the tankers of the Grenadier Guards. Here are his own words: "The 2nd Battalion 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment was attached to the famed Guards Armoured Division on Tuesday 19th September. We were honoured to be a momentary part of their distinguished company....The clanking steel monsters were a comfort to the foot slogging paratroopers.....Morale was high....For soldiers of different Allied armies it was amazing how beautifully the tankers and troopers teamed together. It was testimony to their combat acumen as seasoned veterans, both Yanks and Tommies...The battalion had fought with tanks before, but never in such lavish quantities. The tanks were the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, the Grenadier Group as a whole being commanded by Lt Col Edward Goulburn....Col Goulburn, a perceptive commander, more or less turned individual tanks loose and let them go. The Guards tanks gave us all the tank support we needed. Some Shermans and their crews were lost as we went along. Usually it happened when the tank was employed too aggressively."
After 2 days fighting, split up, spread out and disjointed, the Guards Armored Division had to regroup, re-arm and re-fuel. It was simply not possible for them to have moved onto Arnhem that night. The task the five tanks that crossed the bridge were given was to defend the bridge and consolidate against enemy attacks. Moffat Burris of the 82nd is mistaken, there was not a 'whole corps' of tanks ready to go.
General Browning, of the 1st Airborne Army, who parachuted into Nijmegen and seeing the bridge untaken told General Gavin of the 82nd on the evening of 18th September that the Nijmegen bridge must be taken on the 19th, or at the latest, very early on the 20th. The Nijmegen bridge was not captured on the 17th because there was a foul up in communication between General Gavin and Colonel Roy Lindquist of the 508th PIR of the 82nd Airborne. Gavin allegedly verbally told Lindquist during the pre-drop talk to take a battalion of the 508th and make a quick strike to the bridge on the 17th and to "move without delay" but Lindquist understood it that Gavin had told him that his 508th should only move for the bridge once his regiment had secured the assigned 508th's portion of the defensive perimeter for the 82nd Division. So Lindquist didn't move his battalion towards the Nijmegen bridge until after this had been done, and by that time it was too late.
This misunderstanding/miscommunication, which had disastrous ramifications for the overall Market Garden operation, has been the subject of much debate and controversy ever since.
This was passing the buck, in an attempt to shift blame due to the 82nd totally failing to take the Nijmegen road bridge, casting aspersions on the British tankers who's job it was to defend the bridge and prevent the Germans from taking it back. Had the 82nd done the job it was supposed to have done, the bridge would have been taken 3 days before and XXX Corps would have reached Arnhem and relived the beleaguered British paras.
Sources:
It Never Snows in September by Robert Kershaw.
The Battle For The Rhine by Robin Neilands.
Reflect on Things Past by Peter Carington.
Market Garden Then and Now by Karel Magry (a Dutchman).
Poulussen (a Durchman), Lost at Nijmegen.
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@davemac1197
Absolutely...
With the Arnhem book, any negative for US forces is understandable, or only to be expected, or the fortunes of war, or, and, as in most cases with him, its all the fault of the British.
With him (A Briton), railway goods wagons become box cars, pigs become hogs, Mustang fighters become P-51s, Achillies tank destroyers becomes the M 10 Achilles, and so on, and so on. Doubtless the Autumn has the Fall.
He is utterly shameless in his pursuit of US book sales, and getting himself onto the US lecture circuit.
As far as I am concerned, he brings nothing new to the subject of Arnhem. He even half admits that in his acknowledgements. He cites the Cornelius Ryan archive, which any one can visit on-line, and the unused material acquired by the US author Rick Atkinson.
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@ninjakid6
'Big Woody That’s not an adequate reply to my point.'
You will not get one. On here, Big Woody also uses the name Clone Warrior. He (or she) is about 17 years old and lives in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Here is an example of his handiwork:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2obwt4n1G0&lc=UgyXsiASB8pi_JS_WfV4AaABAg.9Afuv3FHaYc9BMmj0JXY2u&feature=emcomments
Lead comment:
John Cornell
3 weeks ago (as of 31 07 2020)
Patton should have kept his mouth shut and concentrated on achieving his task of taking Metz, which had been his objective two weeks before Market Garden and yet still hadn't done it 8 weeks after Market Garden.
The 25th reply is the lie:
Big Woody
1 week ago (as of 31 07 2020)
Das Deutsches Afrika-korps: Siege und Niederlage. By Hanns-Gert von Esebeck, page 188 Returning from North Africa with an inflated ego after the comparatively easy defeat of the German Africa Corps, he considered himself to be the greatest commander ever. Later information has revealed that he inflated the number of German casualties to improve his image. At El Alamein he claimed that there were more German casualties than there were German troops all together on the actual front!
This is were Big Woody unwisely took it from:
http://ww2f.com/threads/what-went-wrong-with-operation-market-garden.28468/page-5#post-389603
What went wrong with Operation Market Garden?
Discussion in 'Western Europe 1943 - 1945' started by tovarisch, Feb 2, 2010.
Page 5 of 14 < Prev1←34567→14Next >
RAM
Member
Joined:Dec 11, 2007
Messages:507
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...
'Returning from North Africa with an inflated ego after the comparatively easy defeat of the German Africa Corps, he considered himself to be the greatest commander ever. Later information has revealed that he inflated the number of German casualties to improve his image.
At El Alamein he claimed that there were more German casualties than there were German troops all together on the actual front!' ...
RAM, July 28 2010
...From another opnion in a hack forum, not from 'Das Deutsches Afrika-korps: Siege und Niederlage. By Hanns-Gert von Esebeck' as Big Woody claimed.
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@nickdanger3802
Right ho...
'Throughout May and June, both before the German-French armistice and after it, Mr. Churchill sent to the President many personal telegrams containing specific requests for aid.'
Shall we see what happened to those requests?.. Please, please say yes.
Look on this as a sort of Hors d'oeuvre, in case you say yes...
'forty or fifty of your old destroyers'
That did not happen in July 1940, the ships (46 in total) only started ariving in October of that year, after the USA had been granted base facilities in a signicant number of Commonwealth and Empire locations. By May 1941, not even 30 were fit for sea, by which time, the Flower Class Corvette building programme (10 of which were transferrred to the USN in 1942) had largely solved the problem.
This from Churchill regarding the condition of those destroyers:
WINSTON S CHURCHILL.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
CASSELL & CO LTD
VOLUME II THEIR FINEST HOUR
REVISED EDITION NOVEMBER 1950.
P533
‘Prime Minister to First Sea Lord 14.XII.40’
Let me have a full account of the condition of the American destroyers, showing their many defects
and the little use we have been able to make of them so far. I should like to have the paper by me for consideration in the near future.’
This from the hater of Britain, one Lynne Olsen:
'One British admiral called them the "worst destroyers I had ever seen" '
Fancy some more?
Remember, I never bluff.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
'they ignore these enormous provisions'
Para Dave (aka bigwoody)
Shall we look at those 'enormous provisions' as well?..
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@nickdanger3802
Let me help you some more:
'the British needed for their struggle at sea: they asked the Americans to give them motor torpedo boats for Channel fighting and seaplanes for Atlantic patrol: they wanted the United States Navy to make a show of power by sending units to the Mediterranean and to Iceland: they asked the United States Government to consider whether it was ready to take steps leading to the abolition of the 'combat zones'—for it was a reinforcements of their carrying capacity in dangerous waters that they needed, not only of their fighting strength. They needed at the same time immediate help for the battles they might very soon have to fight on their own soil against invading German armies. They asked for American aircraft for the R.A.F and American rifles, machine guns, field guns and mortars to replace some of the equipment that the B.E.F. had lost in France and to arm the Home Guard.'
Motor Torpedo Boats
656 built for Britain. 102 of those 656 boats built in the USA. None in use by Britain until 1942.
A fat lot of use they would have been in 1940.
Showing of Strength
That didn’t happen apart from US troops moving into Iceland after British troops had bravely brought the place in to allied hands.
Aircraft (Sold to Britain)
What? Apart from what was on order to the British and French governments, which had to be bought, paid for, and collected.
Rifles (Sold to Britain)
500,000 First World War .300 Lee Enfield Rifles that were passed to the Home Guard. Possibly, both of my grandfathers were issued with them. Hope not.
Field Guns (Sold to Britain)
500 French First World War ‘soixante-quinze’ were placed around the 11,073 miles British coastline. Even allowing for concentration at key points on the coast, they were hardly cheek by jowl.
Mortars
Let me know how many the USA sent to Britain in 1940, and 1941, and we can compare that number to the 29,284 mortars that Britain produced in that same period.
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@Eduardo-zg7nf
Market Garden:
There is no evidence of British political interference in the matter of MARKET GARDEN. It too small an undertaking to gain any notice outside of the senior military figures involved in the war in Europe.
Churchill and Alanbrooke were travelling to, attending, and travelling home from the OCTAGON conference in Quebec from before MARKET GARDEN was even proposed, through to the last days of the operation. VCIGS Nye signalled to Montgomery on the 9th September to ask what could be done to stop the Germans from launching V weapons at Britain from the western part of the Netherlands. No reasonable person could take a desire to protect British citizens from rocket attacks as political interference.
Montgomery was as entitled to his opinion on the outcome MARKET GARDEN as anybody else was, or is. He stated this:
'in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain MARKET GARDEN’S unrepentant advocate.’
The ex-SS man, and Nazi Party member, Prince Bernhard, was rightly shown the door by both British and US intelligence services. Only his Royal connections kept him out of prison in the 1970s, in the wake the Lockheed scandal.
How would Antony Beevor know that Montgomery “never wanted to admit that he had been responsible for something going wrong?” I have not seen any evidence that Beevor and Montgomery ever met.
As far as I am concerned, given the situation that allies found themselves at that time, the decision to launch MARKET GARDEN was a quite reasonable one. The rocket attacks on Britain, justified the MARKET GARDEN undertaking, quite apart from the information that allied military saw in regard to available allied logistics, and the state of the German armed forces at that time.
There is no reliable evidence that ‘Montgomery refused to listen when Eisenhower's HQ expressed concern about German strength around Arnhem’, apart from what General Bedell Smith later claimed he said to Montgomery in a private meeting on the 12th September. This would seem to be a strange claim, seeing that Bedell Smith was sent to see Montgomery to offer more resources to ensure that MARKET GARDEN could be started on the 17th September. Also, given what seems to have been known to SHAEF at the that time:
SHAEF Intelligence Summary, 26.08 44:
‘Two and a half months of bitter fighting, culminating for the Germans in a blood-bath big enough even for their extravagant tastes, have brought the end of the war in Europe within sight, almost within reach. The strength of the German Armies in the West has been shattered, Paris belongs to France again, and the Allied Armies are streaming towards the frontiers of the Reich’
SHAEF Intelligence Summary, 04.09 44:
[the German forces facing British 2nd Army] ‘are no longer a cohesive force but a number of fugitive battlegroups, disorganised and even demoralised, short of equipment and arms’
Stephen Ambrose, like Antony Beevor, had zero Second World War experience. Google him. He has been labelled a liar and a plagiarist.
MONTGOMERY
Alan Moorehead
Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 1946
P 214
Arnhem was an incident magnified far beyond its strategic importance by the peculiar and exciting circumstances and poignant tragedy of the stranded parachutists. 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.
MONTY
The Field-Marshal
1944-1976
NIGEL HAMILTON
HAMISH HAMILTON
LONDON 1986
P48
In fact by 10 September Monty had discarded any notion of getting to Berlin in the immediate future. As he said after the war to Chester Wilmot: I knew now [the time of Eisenhower’s visit on 10 September 1944] that we could not hope to get much more than a bridgehead beyond the Rhine before Winter, and be nicely poised for breaking out in the New Year. By the time MARKET GARDEN was undertaken [The revised airdrop on Arnhem] its significance was more tactical than strategic.
Monty’s statement is supported by the evidence of Tedder himself, when interviewed just after the war by the American Official Historian, Dr Pogue: Monty had no idea of going to Berlin from here [Arnhem]. By this time he was ready to settle for a position across the Rhine. In a signal to the British Chief of Air Staff (Air-Marshall Portal) immediately after 10 September meeting, Tedder stated that the advance to Berlin was not discussed as a serious issue.
N.B. Tedder was one of Montgomery’s harshest critics.
CRUSADE IN EUROPE
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LIMITED 1948
P333
‘At the September 10 conference in Brussels Field-Marshall Montgomery was therefore authorised to defer the clearing out of the Antwerp approaches in an effort to seize the Bridgehead I wanted.
Any comparison between bad weather for MARKET GARDEN and the German attack in the Ardennes is spurious. Bad weather was a setback for airborne forces during MARKET GARDEN. Bad weather was an aid to the German advance in the Ardennes. Think it through next time.
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@akgeronimo501
R
'The British Army has struggled, in the main, in the offense. All the way back to the American revolution. Even Lord Wellington would look to the defense. I'm not sure the issue, but it exists. They certainly struggle with large muscle movements. Examples are Sicily, Normandy, the pursuit of the Germans was difficult for them.'
ROTFL
The only mistake in the American sideshow was to send a bunch of Krauts out there.
End of.
In sicily, Patton threw his toys out of Pram and then cleared off from the battle to grab headline with the totally unnecessary attack on Palermo and had to be enticed back into the battle by being given the prize of Messina.
End of.
Normandy. Yea with 84% of German armour facing British 2nd Army, leaving the US forcres to (eventually) tobreak out, all as a campaign plan Montgomery had worked out and briefed Allied leaders on before D-Day.
Even then, the British 2nd Army breakout was just as swift as the US breakout, as evidenced by Eisenhower:
‘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.’
His words.
End of.
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Montgomery was nothing to do with Bastogne.
MARKET GARDEN freed a fifth of the Netherlands, hindered German rocket attacks on London, stretched German defences another fifty miles, and left the allies well placed to attack into Germany in the months ahead. MARKET GARDEN’s casualties (17,000), should be compared to allied failures in the same period at Aachen (20,000 casualties), the Lorraine Campaign (45,000 casualties), and the Hurtgen Forest (55,000 casualties). The threat of V2 Rocket attacks on London, alone justified MARKET GARDEN.
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