Posted on 09/15/2014 4:18:12 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
That's funny - refreshingly honest.
connecting Nazis to Fabian socialists
I was talking about that with someone here awhile back. I saw similarities and a connection via Engels and Marx whose ideas Hitler apparently admittedly studied and at least partially embraced.
Sorry about that, yet another senior moment strikes yours truly... ;-(
Headline: “Religious Classes Approved in Russia”
Something tells me Stalin’s leniency in this matter will not outlast the war by more than, what? Hours, days, weeks?
If that is in today's news could you point to where it is? I must have missed it.
Baldwin. Page 11.
Thanks, and thanks for pointing it out. I learning so much on these threads, thanks again so much for posting them.
The Baldwin article seems to be in better touch with the need to clear the Scheld estuary than certain of the Allied command at this point, even though I read something about Eisenhower giving top priority to clearing the Scheld estuary but his orders not followed (by Monty?).
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a416387.pdf
SEDUCTION IN COMBAT: LOSING SIGHT
OF LOGISTICS AFTER D-DAY
A thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
MASTER OF MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE
Military History
Is this your work?
No. I just ran across it when I googled up “channel ports after d day.”
He has some interesting conclusions, tho.
http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-quotes-t511.html
“There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.”
- Carl von Clausevitz
“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…”
- Sun Tzu
“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.”
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980
“Logistics is the stuff that if you don’t have enough of, the war will not be won as soon as.”
- General Nathaniel Green, Quartermaster, American Revolutionary Army
I only had time to scan it today but it appears worth a longer read.
In one of yesterday's reports of the airplane meeting, Eisenhower mentioned this priority, and Monty assured Eisenhower that the estuary would be cleared.
I learned something completely new today the linke to the CGSC link: Operation Chastity. This was a plan to build an artificial port in Quiberon Bay in Brittany, capable of offloading 10,000 tons a day and was part of the Overlord plan. Third Army got close to Quiberon, which was lightly defended, but then turned east. When Antwerp was taken, Ike canceled Chastity, whose cherry was never popped.
It would have been another port, but since it was in Western France, the long distances would have to be contended with.
I read a books several years ago about the Battle for Antwerp, but all this discussion has made me curious about who dropped the ball and why regarding the Scheldt.
Obviously, the entire complexion of the war could have been changed had the port been available when first captured in September.
Maybe everyone was paying attention to all the ground being gained across France, and took their eye off the logistics ball?
Winning battles and gaining ground gets you newspaper headlines, but statistics about tonnage shipped and offloaded ain’t very newsworthy.
Clearing the Scheldt will be a dirty, nasty business, involving riverine operations and at time siege-like warfare. Monty, of course, assigned the job to the Canadians.
Lots of discussion here:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Siegfried/Siegfried%20Line/siegfried-ch09.htm
Even before the landings in Normandy, the Allies had eyed Antwerp covetously. While noting that seizure of Le Havre would solve some of the problems of supplying Allied armies on the Continent, the pre-D-Day planners had predicted that “until after the development of Antwerp, the availability of port capacity will still limit the forces which can be maintained.”1 By the time the Allies had broken their confinement in Normandy to run footloose across northern France, the desire for Antwerp had grown so urgent that it had strongly influenced General Eisenhower in his decision to put the weight of the tottering logistical structure temporarily behind the thrust in the north.2
The decision paid dividends with capture of the city, its wharves and docks intact, by British armor on 4 September. (See Map 2.) Yet then it became apparent that the Germans intended to hold both banks of the Schelde along the sixty-mile course to the sea, to usurp the role of Druon Antigon. Antwerp was a jewel that could not be worn for want of a setting.
Had Field Marshal Montgomery immediately turned the Second British Army to clearing the banks of the estuary, the seaward approaches to the port well might have been opened speedily. But like the other Allies in those days of glittering triumphs, the British had their eyes focused to the east. Looking anxiously toward the possibility of having to fight a way across the Maas and the Rhine, the 21 Army Group commander wanted to force these barriers before the Germans could rally to defend them. “I considered it worth while,” Montgomery wrote after the war, “to employ all our resources [to get across the Rhine], at the expense of any other undertaking.”3
That one sent me to Google!
This link goes to Charles MacDonald’s “The Siegfried Line Campaign.” Complete book.
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Siegfried/Siegfried%20Line/siegfried-fm.htm
I am very happy the Center for Military History made so many volumes of the official history available online. I was able to keep up with the Normandy campaign while on vacation by reading “Breakout and Pursuit” on my tablet. And I’ve tried for years to find a copy of “The Lorraine Campaign.” Now it’s on the tablet too.
The histories are very well written by emienent historians. They make great resources.
After seeing your links to those great books a few weeks back, I read ‘em all.
Thank you!
Those who post too. love the links.
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