Posted on 09/10/2014 4:28:44 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
I didn’t get this thin eating hot dogs, I’ll have you know!
You can’t taste the mustard that way.
With all your kids, you must have a resilient waistline.
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yes.
I’d like to be able to have all the wine and pretzels I want without getting fat ... but reality.
Boy, 14 replies about a profile of Omar Bradley and we never got past the mustard. You guys are lucky we’re not having a quiz on today’s news.
Well, I never really liked Karl Malden.
It was that blot on the map at Dijon a couple weeks ago—we never got over it.
Nobody ever gets it correctly.
It was the Siegfried and Roy Line
It appears the Russians have overrun Dracula's Castle in Transylvania, Bran Castle. That must have been an interesting assignment for some German occupiers.
Drew Middleton wrote that Antwerp would soon be open, but we see that today Ike deferred that so Monty could give Market Garden a try. As we have been seeing, supply shortages are starting to bite. Monty really had nothing to complain about his treatment by Ike. The right call would have been to open Antwerp and solve the logistical problems, in my opinion.
http://omg2014.allunited.nl/userfiles/10_nieuws/321_market_garden_history_.pdf
On September 6 Montgomery tabled a new plan — still codenamed “Comet” in which the British 1st Airborne Division would land and capture the bridges at Grave, Nijmegen and Arnhem.
From the bridgehead in Belgium a second army would move out in a double spearheaded action: one would advance Den Bosch while the other headed toward Arnhem-Nijmegen.
On the 7th of September division commanders for both operations received orders to proceed. Unfortunately heavy storms in the English Channel and increasing German resistance resulted in a delay of several days.
On September 10 the operation was called off because Montgomery believed the risks to be too great. He immediately put his staff to work on a new plan with practically the same goals though, this time around, there would be no advance on Den Bosch. However the new plan would in clude two American airborne divisions as a surprise element.
Montgomery strongly believed a “coup de main” could be implemented because the Germans would never expect an airborne landing in Arnhem.
Capturing Antwerp wasn’t the problem. It was clearing the Schedlt River estuary that gummed up the works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Scheldt
Yes, exactly. And Ike and Monty are ignoring that problem right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Scheldt
Today, the battle of the Scheldt is seen[who?] as an unnecessarily brutal one, as the river could have been cleared earlier and more easily had the Allies not seen it as a lesser priority to Operation Market Garden. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decisions have been widely criticized as they pertain to the lack of importance he placed on the opening of the Scheldt. In reality, however, he placed great significance on the opening of Antwerp, and it was Montgomery who pressed the matter in reaching for the Rhine.[citation needed] It should be noted that in early September 1944 victory in the war looked to be very close, which in hindsight proved unduly optimistic, and it was this that resulted in gambling to get a Rhine crossing in September in 1944, largely at the expense of opening up Antwerp. American historian Charles B. MacDonald called (in 1969) the failure to immediately take the Scheldt “One of the greatest tactical mistakes of the war.”[10] Because of the flawed strategic choices made by Montgomery and Eisenhower in early September the battle became one of the longest and bloodiest that the Canadian army faced over the course of the Second World War.
http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=116
Battle of the Scheldt Estuary
2 Oct 1944 - 8 Nov 1944
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
“Capture of the approaches to Antwerp was a difficult operation,” recalled Dwight Eisenhower in his memoirs. However, it was much needed as another port for the war of supply the Allies was fighting in late 1944. After initial delay, Allied advances were now far beyond initial predictions, which was bittersweet as the supplies simply could not keep up with the rapidly advancing troops. The situation was made worst after foul weather on 19 Jun damaged harbors in the Normandy area. The capture of Antwerp on 4 Sep 1944 did not yet bring relief to the supply situation, as the approaches to Antwerp, the Scheldt Estuary, were still under German control. Commonwealth troops under the command of Lieutenant General Guy Simonds were given the task of securing the Scheldt Estuary. Under Simonds’ command was the Canadian 1st Army, consisted of the British 1st Corps and Canadian 2nd Corps (with a Polish armored division and two British divisions).
The terrain this region in Holland and Belgium favored the defenders. The marshlands in the south impeded movement, the isthmus at South Beveland was easily defended, and the island of Walcheren was an island fortress. Defending this terrain was General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen’s 15th German Army. The 15th German Army was beaten and chased by the Allies during the campaign for Antwerp, but a failure in strategy discontinued the chase, giving the German troops the time to further fortify the area. This strategic failure was largely attributed to Bernard Montgomery, who drew men and resources away from the Antwerp region for the failed Market Garden operation. “If I had not attempted the Arnhem operation”, said Eisenhower, “possibly we could have begun the Walcheren attack some two or three weeks earlier.”
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/battle-of-the-scheldt.htm
http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/history/campaigns/northwesteurope/scheldt.htm
That's 170 men. Gone in one night's mission.
If there was a military version of “Dirty Jobs” in WWII, the Canadians would star. Monty loved assigning them to the Canucks.
I gave everybody on the allied side a pass regarding Falaise, because Falaise was a significant victory. The failure to clear the Scheldt Estuary as a top priority, on the other hand, gets no free pass. It was easily the greatest operational failure on the Allied side. The logistic issues are patently obvious to the casual reader of the NYT, and should be more so to Ike and Monty. Antwerp, the largest port in Europe, seized intact, close to the front, and connected to the front by relatively undamaged supply routes, is the obvious solution.
Monty gets the brunt of the blame for failing to open Antwerp when he could. Ike is a close second by failing to override Monty.
I gave everybody on the allied side a pass regarding Falaise, because Falaise was a significant victory. The failure to clear the Scheldt Estuary as a top priority, on the other hand, gets no free pass. It was easily the greatest operational failure on the Allied side. The logistic issues are patently obvious to the casual reader of the NYT, and should be more so to Ike and Monty. Antwerp, the largest port in Europe, seized intact, close to the front, and connected to the front by relatively undamaged supply routes, is the obvious solution.
Monty gets the brunt of the blame for failing to open Antwerp when he could. Ike is a close second by failing to override Monty.
At the now advanced age of 64, and having benefit of knowing how the World Works, I cannot help but believe that Monty’s Market Garden plan was mainly an effort to regain the newspaper headlines from Patton and Bradley.
It’s just too obvious. And you just KNOW that Churchill was whispering in Ike’s ear.
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