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5 comments:
Yea, paras vs elements of 2 SS Panzer divisions isn’t really conducive to a win.
Clusterfuck.
Clusterfuck indeed. Bad intelligence, bad logistics, a plan with zero slack in it -- and worst of all, Montgomery in the driver's seat.
The 82nd and 101st did pretty well under the circumstances.
Gonna disagree there, Deadstick. Monty and Ike together cobbled up this abortion and caused the failure by not keeping the German troops, mostly cutoff when Antwerp fell, from escaping. The plan was decent, a major secondary objective was capturing V-2 launch areas and reducing the civilian bombardment of London, and that was generally accomplished.
The 101st did OK, but one bridge was blown, and another wasn’t captured before the ground forces arrived. The ground assault made up the lost time, but the bridges the 82nd 2as assigned were also not captured, and caused about a 72 hour delay. That delay spelt doom for the 1st and the Poles in Arnhem, and made the operation a general failure.
The whole thing was ambitious, and pushed by Monty in good part because of those V-2 attacks, and because it tickled his combined arms fancy. Ike doesn’t get the blame he deserves, generally because Patton made better stories for the war correspondents, and Patton hated Monty. Monty also hurt his own reputation by having a tendency to justify actions based upon some previous supreme plan that he hadn’t mentioned, perhaps he didn’t like admitting mistakes? On the military front, Monty was very important in developing close coordination of ground, armored and flight activities, something that the U.S. Army learned quickly and put to good use.
Per Strategy and Tactics of War..."In the event the bulk of the operation was a success, with the British Guards Armoured Division punching through on the ground to link with the U.S. 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions at Eindhoven and Nijmegen respectively, but the forces at Arnhem were just too far away. In addition, the 1st Airborne had been dropped too far away from the objective and, although a small group did take and hold the bridge for a short time against tremendous odds, the rest of the force was trapped in fierce fighting which made any attempt at breakout towards the relieving forces impossible to coordinate."
"The 9th and 10 SS Panzer Divisions had unfortunately chosen the Arnhem area in which to refit.."
2400 of the original 9000 1st Airborne soldiers made it back.
Bear in mind the author was British. An army couldn't take many more successes that costly.
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