Hargest Report

Had a few requests for the much exagerrated Hargest Report. Can only load first 10 pages. Rest to follow if this works.
Enjoy!
Dermot

 

Seems to have worked. Still some gaps, sorry. Posting individual images with fat fingers from b&b and runing late. More tomorrow.

 

Important to note that Hargest is not necessarily a trustworthy source and I have serious reservations about his judgement.

The report, where it is going beyond the verifiably factual, is ultimately one person's opinion and needs to be read as such.

All the best

Andreas

 

Agreed. But the big problem is that Hargest didn't say the things other people said he did. He made general statements about army effectiveness that later authors have construed as being specific to the Div. I found one case where a nameless (but very good) historian made a comment about 50 Div citing an earlier nameless (but very good) historian and so onthrough a few more layers before Hargest gets a direct mention in a citation that links his report to the statement in Belfield & Essame's (teensy bit biased) assessment of 50 Div's 'somewhat leisurely advance of Bayeux' (p.64). In that instance two sources had become fused into the idea that 50 Div was broken up because Hargest said it was ineffective, which I don't think he did say.

TBF, I might have misremembered myself. It's 4-5 years ago I tracked that back - either way, it's best to read the sources yourself just to check.

 

No that's fair enough, and always preferable to go back to the sources. See my article on the tank battle on 19 Nov 1941 where everyone quotes everyone else on how many tanks the Germans lost, and nobody ever goes back to the German reports and asks themselves a rather simple question or indeed the British reports and asks themselves who actually was in that fight.

My issue with Hargest is because of his fantasy account of the sinking of Venier.

All the best

Andreas

 

Agreed. I guess it's becasue, even with the sources, it's like wading treacle. I spent a week trying to count how many guns and shells were in the opening fireplan for Veritable and I'm still not sure I got it right.

 

Andreas - I just followed your link to the Crusader quest. Are you still doing ot and still sane? It makes my Veritable venture look like a walk in the park.

 

Wapen,

This is Andreas's latest side show: 1st Alamein - Panzerarmee SitRep translations

 

Oh yeah. First book coming out soon, written with some Italian friends, funnily enough on 1st Alamein, when the very reason I set up the CRUSADER Project was that there's too much on El Alamein already.

All the best

Andreas

 

Well done! I think I'm trapped in NW Europe for the foreseeable but it's the same problem there - the well-worn paths have more data, more interest, and therefore more data...
But let me know if you get any new juice on Outpost Snipe and I'll snap it up. I often use it as an example for work but my sources are stale.

 

"It was armed with a 25pdr and Besa MG"

I can assure everyone that it was not