A little bit of research into Operation Chastity and the reason it was not carried out might help you understand why the Allies planned to have their own port built on the Atlantic coast. It might also explain ‘who’ abandonned the plan and thus caused the shortages well before Antwerp.
Yes well, the plan was abandoned for several reasons. Not least of which the fact that landing supplies directly onto the beaches using LSTs was far more effective than anyone envisioned…
Also, Antwerp was taken, but the facilities were made useless until November by the Germans holding onto the Scheldt Estuary were finally subsumed in November. It was assumed this was unnecessary…
While I will defend Monty and the Commonwealth forces from baseless attacks from American posters, I will also defend the US forces from baseless attacks.
The reason the Germans put the vast majority of their Panzers on the British and Canadian sectors was mainly due to the fact that it was better tank country than on the US sector. The hedgerows prevented any practical deployment of armor, it was mainly a slogging match between infantry units.
I agree with Redcoat but also think it should be pointed out German Panzer Divisions did not have 22,000 men in Normandy as stated by the Lance Private. I’m not sure if they even did in their heyday. The five SS Divisions average about 17,000 with 1st being strongest at about 19,600. Das Reich had 17200 but was in the process of training 9,000 replacements. 9th and 10th were similar at about 15,800 and nominally strongest was 12th with 22,000 but the replacement and Panzerjager battalion arrived late so it arrives with 17,000. The Army units were slightly weaker with an average of 15,700 men. 2nd and 21st were at full strength, 21st had 16,900 men and 2nd had 16,700. Lehr had 14,700 and 116th was weakest at 13,600.
They were all powerful units but by 44 were short of wheeled transport particularly.
Of course I do. The fact still stands that it was Brit and Cdn forces that did most of the serious fighting.
[QUOTE=Nickdfresh;142398]He had operational command during the Battle of the Bulge for a time, and was key in strategic decisions and planning. There were a lot of Allied generals who had had experience in operational commands that never could have performed Ike’s role…
A rather silly and vast oversimplification. Patton’s actions during Cobra precipitated a complete collapse of the Heer in France.
Why pick on my oversimplification? Brits have suffered some outrgeous oversimplifications and downright lies over the last 60 years.
Come on, name the Panzer divisions Patton took on. He cleared the Heer of second rate formations that were about one tenth as effective as the Panzer divisions, given their lack of tanks and motorized equipment. The Panzers were destroyed round Caen and the breakout was merely a mopping-up operation.
Command at the Battle of the Bulge is hardly is hardly a match for the immense undertaking of Overlord that Montgomery was chief planner and Op commander for. That battle was superbly planned and finished in exactly the time that Monty predicted. That is an incredible achievement. Ike was just a figurehead. Bradley had more to do with the tactical planning and has more claim to be the best all-round US general.
I’m not clear on where and during which periods you claim that the British and Canadian forces did most of the serious fighting.
Could you clarify that, and do so by contrasting it with what the Americans weren’t doing at the same time?
‘Commander’ has different meanings and different functions at different levels of command, not all of which require operational command of units or formations in battle to produce a successful commander.
The American Commander in Chief during WWII was a cripple who had never served in the military let alone commanded in battle. Yet his strategic vision and decisions made a major contribution to Allied victory in WWII. If he’d lived, he’d have won, wouldn’t he?
As for nobody knowing if Eisenhower was a good, bad, or indifferent commander: He won, didn’t he?
Please specify them.
Then please explain why the US forces suffered 5 casualties for every 3 the British and Commonwealth suffered in the Normandy campaign.
While some US posters do underplay the role their Allies played in the defeat of the German forces, your claiming that it was the Brit and Cdn forces which did all the ‘serious’ fighting is totally incorrect and insulting to all the US troops who fought there.
Today there is far too much focus on the bitching between the senior generals over who deserves the most credit for the victory, and not nearly enough on the fact that the co-operation and teamwork between the British and US was on a level never seen before between sovereign nations
As opposed to the Americans and Free forces doing all of the silly fighting!
So? So have the French, and to a lessor extent the Poles, Dutch, Russians, Ukrainians, Belgians, Finns, etc…
You’re plan to remedy all this is too spread more distortions?
I suggest you read up on your Normandy hedgerow fighting…
Come on, name the Panzer divisions Patton took on. He cleared the Heer of second rate formations that were about one tenth as effective as the Panzer divisions, given their lack of tanks and motorized equipment. The Panzers were destroyed round Caen and the breakout was merely a mopping-up operation.
Um, the Panzers most assuredly were not all destroyed around Caen. And part of that destruction is due to the envelopment that the US Army executed! The reason why they didn’t encounter more panzers was because they were mostly bypassed and cutoff. It was the pattern that sort of developed in Italy not long before. One where the German Army holds out to the bitter end offering fierce resistance, then suddenly collapses in a denouement during a hyperviolent, relatively short battle. Patton was in affect chasing the very same troops of mixed units escaping back the the Siegfried Line, many of whom had fought at Caen…
I seriously doubt the Germans really gave a damn who was bombing, shelling, and killing them at that point. But it was only AFTER Operation Cobra that the German forces in France were fully broken. And it was an Allied effort! No one’s blood was any more important that anyone else’s!
Command at the Battle of the Bulge is hardly is hardly a match for the immense undertaking of Overlord that Montgomery was chief planner and Op commander for.
He was far from the only planner! Air Marshal Tedders was key in forcing proper air support. Monty reported to Ike, and Bradley also planned. Not too mention many, many underlings who never have the luxury of being named…
That battle was superbly planned and finished in exactly the time that Monty predicted. That is an incredible achievement. Ike was just a figurehead. Bradley had more to do with the tactical planning and has more claim to be the best all-round US general.
Um, have you actually read about the Battle of Caen? But granted, Monty did achieve his objectives, but it was rather messy and involved precisely the kind of attritional fighting he was seeking to avoid I presume. And it took a lot longer than expected to actually take the city…
And while I think the world of Bradley -and Patton WAS vastly overrated- he was certainly more than just a “cavalry general.” And as for the best generals, too often, it’s the best generals you don’t hear about because they’ve done much of the dirty work but are forced to relinquish credit to the press-whore generals like Monty, MacArthur, Patton, etc…
I think MacArthur’s “fireman,” General Eichelberger is a prime example…
I think William Slim is an excellent example of this. He was likely the best WW2 General the British had. But the snobbish BBC didn’t care for him because of his ‘class’, and he was situated in the less ‘popular’ SE Asian theater.
Nobody did more with less than Slim. Probably the finest overall commander in WWII when you factor in the obstacles he had to overcome. At least from a personal leadership perspective. I’d also put US General Eichelberger up there as well. Overshadowed by MacArthur, the sort that would literally rip the plans out of his subordinate planning generals hands so that he could take complete credit for them, Eichelberger didn’t have the command Slim did, but he turned around a demoralized US Pacific force merely by leading through example and with personal courage. He also never really “lost a battle” and was brilliant tactically speaking…
Lucian Truscott was another US soldier that never got his due publicity. He too took a demoralized US and British force at Anzio and helped consolidate them, and later used them to cut the Wehrmacht’s throat. He should have been put in front of Clark…
Patton was far more than just a “cavalry general.” He was excellent at instilling discipline and fire and certainly was very tactically adept at managing a battle…
He was also an enormous prick. Atkin’s “An Army at Dawn” sort of relays what a complete asshole he could be, on one occasion essentially ordering one of his generals to his death (Orlando Pace - who survived personally leading his infantrymen in a suicidal, poorly planned night attack in the Italian mountains and would return to command in the final push into German after being wounded, then relieved in Italy) and would pass the buck for his failures onto subordinates.
Definitely.
At the same time that Mac told Eichelberger to do or die (adding to Eichelberger’s somewhat surprised chief of staff words to the effect “And that goes for you, too.”) he also told Eichelberger along the lines “Bob, if you win, I’ll release your name to the papers.”. Eichelberger comments on this ironically in his book Our Jungle Road to Tokyo, I think quoting a letter he wrote to his wife at the time, to the effect that Mac thought he had offered Eichelberger an important incentive. In reality, publicity mattered nothing to Eichelberger and everything to Mac.
However, and I know this will be surprising 
, the Wiki link is wrong in saying that “Eichelberger led the Australian-US Advanced New Guinea Force to victory over the Japanese at Buna, in early 1943.”. This implies, as do many American histories which naturally focus on American activities, that Buna was the only event of consequence at the time in that area.
In fact, Buna was one of three elements of the Buna - Gona - Sanananda beachheads which were attacked and eventually conquered in a gruelling campaign in awful conditions in late 1942 - early 1943, but it was primarily an Australian operation on the ground with American forces on the ground being confined to the Buna area where, on one view they performed abysmally but, in my view, performed brilliantly when Eichelberger arrived and by personal example and great leadership converted a hungry, sick, dispirited, ill-equipped, unacclimatised, worn out, ineffective, poorly led, poorly trained and virtually routed if static division into a useful fighting force which played a major part in taking Buna when shortly before its men had virtually laid down their arms and were in many cases, literally, lying about the field refusing to fight. As I’ve said in several threads, Eichelberger’s was an astonishing achievement with any unit in such poor condition, but to do it in the field in a very short time was almost miraculous.
Eichelberger’s name is unknown in popular military history because he was an outstanding military commander who was neither a politician nor a self-promoter under a commander who was an outstanding politician and even better self-promoter who created the myth that he was a military commander the genius of which has visited earth but a few times in human history.