Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.... sort of.

Before I go on I know that this thread is about Montgomery and that this is lightly off-topic but it addresses a wider issue which is touched upon in this thread. Owen made a comment earlier about Market Garden threads descending into a blame game. With most general discussion about Operation Market Garden, just like discussions about the closing of the Falaise Gap, they descend into inter-Allied squabbling about "who didnt do what",. And its a pity because there are lads on this board who do sterling work researching and discussing elements of Operation Market Garden. It must drive them absolutely bonkers to see threads with good posts getting lost amongst the accusations that the British "Stopped for Tea" or the Americans "couldnt take Nijmegen quick enough". Or whatever!

Certainly I felt the same when Threads on the Eastern Front used to descend into stereotypical rants about how the determined, steely eyed Landsers fighitng bravely to stop the Red Army hordes from overrunning the West. It was almost as if these people wanted the Wehrmacht to win. Because their uniforms looked nice and the tanks seemed sexy. The Eastern Front area is quieter now and you dont seem to get as much of that anymore. But yet bring up Falaise or Market Garden and suddenly the "Allies" start picking on each other!! Its like mentioning the "M" and "P" words that are guaranteed to bring froth to the mouths of otherwise rational members of History Boards, "M" being Montgomery and "P" being Patton.

Americans and British can both hold their heads high with the contributions their country made to the defeat of the Axis Forces. Most of us are regular posters here, we know that Hollywood provides a skewed portait of history. We also know that decisions were made by one Allied Army which impinged upon the other and not always for the best. we also know that there were inidividual leaders who had failings and some who were biased about their own and their nations contributions towards final victory. But the one thing I find most telling of all, no Allied Army got it right all the time. So please remember that when criticising the other guys in the Alliance.

 

Dead Right....
Sapper

 

Tom,

My concerns are less a matter of who was correct or not correct, but your apparent assumption, as indicated by your choice of words, that everything involving or directed by the US is currently and was wrong in the past, all the while failing to look at your own side of the house. I do not agree in toto with your laundry list of offending actions offered above, but that is a discussion for elsewhere. I will say that my disdain for the 15th AG CO is well documented here.

I cannot help, however, to notice that arguments & discussions offered by your contemporaries here show none of the malice toward their allies I regularly see in your posts. I know that many members, including British & Commonwealth veterans, do not necessarily think that all decisions made and operations conducted by the US command were correct. That is fine and makes for good discussion and is done without introducing the rancor often evident in your missives.

I certainly don't think all actions by the US were correct, while those of our allies were all mistakes.-I'd be a fool not to think otherwise.

 

Interesting comments regarding `Monty` I personally do not have an opinion.My late Father and Uncle however could`nt bear the fellow...I think it was something to do with his insistance that `Where ever he goes 50th Div goes too` and that was always at the sharp end!
Some nice quotes attributed to him too ` Well, now I must go to meet God and try to explain all those men I killed at Alamein` is one I recall.
My favourite quote was made long after the war and although it is not at all regarded as Politically correct these days it was his view at the time and I can almost hear him say it,I`ll not go in to detail but the quote ends "this sort of thing may be tolerated by the French, but we're British — thank God`


Verrieres


I cannot see anything in this life that we have to thank God for.

I certainly didn't ask him to put me here.

 

Excellent poem Jobee. Well done mate.

 

Owen -
I do think that others of us also think it's boring - but I always thought that a forum such as this was to help educate those people who don't know what it was all about and strangely enough we do have what appears to be a procession of newcomers - who were NOT there in those times - and wish to learn all about WW2- ergo Dresden - Market Garden - Cassino - Anzio - even the desert struggles will ALWAYS come up as being a part of that great conflict - it's called History which does not appear to be taught at many schools to-day - and I am quite sure that people like Sapper- Gerry - Ron - Niccar and many other veteran members try to assist in this seemingly great desire to learn - thus we bore on - and on ! As you yourself tend to drone on about your visit to Anzio and Cassino at times - what was your intention to go to those places - if not to learn ?
Cheers

Now then Jobee -
as I understand it - Brereton was NOT on the sick list - he was swanning around with another American General in viewing another potential operation - in other words as we called it - "dodging the column" knowing full well that there was an impending disaster about to happen !
Cheers


Thank you Tom, I was not there, but have studied it in detail.

I got the the impression the Americans washed their hands of it.

It was indeed a military clanger of the first magnitude.

I got interested in it because the 82 nd airborne U.S. were stationed on

Braunstone Park Leicester 200 yards from my boyhood home.

3000 left and only 600 returned to Braunstone.

General Gavin their commander was the youngest General in the U.S. Army.

Thank you for confirming my suspicions

 

Thank you Tom, I was not there, but have studied it in detail.

I got the the impression the Americans washed their hands of it.

It was indeed a military clanger of the first magnitude.

I got interested in it because the 82 nd airborne U.S. were stationed on

Braunstone Park Leicester 200 yards from my boyhood home.

3000 left and only 600 returned to Braunstone.

General Gavin their commander was the youngest General in the U.S. Army.

Thank you for confirming my suspicions
If you have studied it in detail why do you need someone to confirm suspicions, if you had studied it in detail then you wouldnt have suspicions, you would have opinions.

A Military clanger of the first magnitude? Please tell me how you came to that conclusion.

 

@ Adam

I am in the same boat that can we move on...I'm enjoying the poems and want to read more. Get posting Jobee.

 

If you have studied it in detail why do you need someone to confirm suspicions, if you had studied it in detail then you wouldnt have suspicions, you would have opinions.

A Military clanger of the first magnitude? Please tell me how you came to that conclusion.


The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
It is our job who lived at the time to search and confirm.

A military clanger of the first magnitude, because only 600 Americans of the 82nd airborne U.S. came back to Braunstone Park Leicester,

3000 started out. We have a memorial service every year on the park in

memory of General Gavin and his men. You are welcome to attend next year.

 

The plan was Monty's, The buck if there is one, stops with him. It failed..So what.... Do you stop fighting when things get rough, sit and your hands and wait for someone else to do it???

No matter the opposition... that golden chance had to be attempted...And everyone involved knew it. That is why we drove on, no matter what the cost.

Sapper
Jobee, It might be your job to search and confirm but here is a testimony from someone who actually was there.

You've decided that Operation Market Garden was a Clanger because 2,400 Americans didnt come back - why are you only mentioning the 82nd, The 101st and the British Airborne were also involved, yet you keep avoiding talking about them. Oh yeah, and XXX Corps also.

you can send my invite to my boards.ie account thanks!

 

Perhaps a scroll through these links will put some pespective on things 1st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division During WW II - Statistics

 

And here are the statistics for the 82nd airborne: 82nd Airborne Division During WW II - Statistics

 

Jobee, It might be your job to search and confirm but here is a testimony from someone who actually was there.

You've decided that Operation Market Garden was a Clanger because 2,400 Americans didnt come back - why are you only mentioning the 82nd, The 101st and the British Airborne were also involved, yet you keep avoiding talking about them. Oh yeah, and XXX Corps also.

you can send my invite to my boards.ie account thanks!




I want to know why all those faces disappeared, the faces I knew.
Youthful memories. I can assure you that Arnem was a mistake, even a childish mistake. Stop trying to cover it up.

 

And don't forget the RAF and the Glider Pilot Regiment and the Poles

Ron...

 

I'm not trying to cover anything up. You on the other hand make generalised statements, you dont even try and offer persuasive arguments. So expose me, tell me what i'm attempting to cover up!! Exactly why was the operation a childish mistake? what was so bad about it? What parts of it were childish? Come on then. You're on a WW2 forum and you are making generalised statements. At least have the bottle to back them up.

 

JOBEE, "I can assure you that Arnhem was a mistake, even a childish mistake. Stop trying to cover it up". I take it these are your words! im curious at the bottom of your poems you have A coy 3 Para, is this a ref to you service and if so I find your view on Arnhem a strange one how many of the Maroon machine would agree with your words. Im afraid you lost me after your Wingate poem

 

Owen

Just picked up your comment above your pic of Monty, namely:
Ron, like this?

Thanks for that, you are spot on, of course, and were it not for the caption it might just have well been the time he spoke to us at Sousse.

While I think of it, another one of his foibles was to see that whenever, whilst in the line, he went out in his Jeep, he always saw that he had with him boxes of cigarettes which he used to drop of at isolated units such as LAA troops manning a Bofor.

I lost track of the number of chaps who told me in Sicily that they had been the recipients of his largesse