Posted on 04/08/2010 11:00:01 PM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
That's no Panzer, it's a Tiger... (well, actually, a T-34) :-)
Thanks for the great perspective.
Easier now to understand both: why Churchill was so gun-shy about Normandy, and why the Brits were so afraid of Churchill!
Makes you wonder, doesn't it -- what did the Americans come to know about amphibious landings that the Brits, especially Churchill, never quite caught onto?
On the whole, British troops did not perform well in World War II. Commonwealth troops did somewhat better.
That's a real sweeper. I think the problem with Britain was the leadership at the upper levels. Tommy is a pretty tough customer.
As far as amphibious landings go, until the Higgins boat was modified with a full width drop ramp bow, assault landings were dicey at best.
The German Decision To Invade Norway and Denmark
by Earl F. Ziemke
A stunning statement, and, let's see, how would we confirm it?
Perhaps with a list of British defeats in one column, and victories in the other...
Hmmmm...
The defeats list is pretty easy... but what about victories?
Does Rommel in North Africa count?
Today the Brits would make up at most 10% of an allied force in operations like Iraq.
In WWII Western Europe, wasn't it more like 40%, which would be punching way above their weight...
Funny, I've never thought of the Brits as not doing their fair share, and much more.
The Battle of Britain, when they were truly alone.
Yes, of course. But remember, PAR35's comment referred to British troops, not their air force or navy.
I'd never thought of it before, but now that he's said it, the case would be pretty easy to make, wouldn't it?
No, they did that on the backs of the Commonwealth troops. The New Zealand troops, after a fairly poor showing in Crete, did pretty well in North Africa, with the Australians and South Africans (and Indians).
I'm hard pressed to come up with much more than that.
You are correct, however. The defeat list is pretty easy. Just start listing out the ground theaters. Norway - Northern France - Malaya - Singapore - Hong Kong - Burma - Tobruk - Sicily (technical victory, not a stellar performance) - Normandy - Arnhem.
At the time of the German invasion, there were over 3 million troops in the Anglo-French force; roughly 200,000 of those were British soldiers. So, on the front end, it would be far shy of 40%.
On the back end, You had the British First Army (but remember that 2 of the 4 Corps were non-British) matched against the US 1st, 3rd, and 7th Armies, and the 1st Canadian. And in Italy, the bulk of the 'British' troops were commonwealth (and don't forget the Poles).
200,000 is an astonishing number, I had not realized.
I was only thinking, let's see, at Normandy we had five beaches -- two American, one Canadian and two British -- and that would be about 40% for the Brits, which in my mind is punching WAY above their natural weight.
But if, as you say, the real number of actual Brits was only 200,000 out of 3 million western allies' troops, then that 6% corresponds pretty close to the Brits recent contributions in operations like Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom.
And it would mean the British contribution has not really declined over the years, only our perception of it!
Well, I suspect you are right, but first some fact-checking is in order.
Without doubt, millions of Brits served during the war.
So, if only 200,000 were available for Normandy, it begs the question: where were all the rest?
To clarify - the 200K number is for the BEF prior to the German invasion of France. I’ll have to dig a bit more for the 1944 - 45 numbers, but it was, I believe, in the range of a couple of corps.
As for the Normandy landings, if you are only looking for pre-breakout numbers, the initial British contribution would be higher. Post breakout, the Americans shouldered most of the load.
Here are some quick numbers from the Normandy landings:
British 2nd Army: 83,115 troops (61,715 of them British)
U.S. 1st Army: 73,000
Thank you. I think you are right. I listened to that part of the audio for an hour trying to divine what that word was.
Lol. Hey, he did end up buying the thing.
“There you go again with the negative vibes, man!”
I'm not willing to unfairly understate the level of Britain's commitment to the war effort, but am not finding specific numbers.
Seems like Britain, a nation of some 50 million souls, would have a war-time military of maybe 5 million total.
Of those, most would be navy and air-force, but surely at least one million were soldiers.
Where did they fight?
No doubt primarily in North Africa, Italy and Northern France.
If in, say 1944, half of Britain's available forces were in Italy, and half in France, that could give them several hundred thousand in each theater...
Well, all these numbers must be available somewhere... just haven't found them yet.
Having the same problem coming up with numbers, and sorting out British from Commonwealth.
The British lost the equivalent of a couple of divisions to the Japanese They had several more divisions tied down in India. They had a division and a brigade tied down in Iran & Iraq. They had units tied down in East Africa. The West Africa command was, I believe mainly native troops.
More digging - looks like a total of 3.5 million men served in the British army in World War II. Compare to 11,200,000 in the US Army (all numbers unverified quick searches. Of course, this isn’t particularly helpful for our ETO discussion.
OK, found them: WWII basics, which I'm pretty sure will be included in Homer's pop quizes AND final exam. Every WWII "buff" has to know stuff like this:
Maximum divisions during the war, for 1943 & 1945:
(not all divisions were created equal, of course, but US & Brits were equivalent.
Typical divisions ran 10,000 to 15,000 troops).
Point is, in terms of army divisions, the British contribution of 39 in 1943 represented about 40% of the 95 US divisions. Or put it another way: of the 134 total divisions, the Brits contributed 29%.
Now, consider the 45 additional divisions supplied by British Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Canada) and allied countries (Free France and Poland), and I'd say the total British contribution to the war effort was not too shabby at all.
Certainly not for a country of barely 50 million people.
Using your numbers, I come up with the British contributing 39 of 179 in 1943, and 31 of 78 in 1945, or a drop from 22% in 1943 to less than 18% in 1945 of the non-Chinese effort. Of course, they went into the war with about 9 divisions, scattered around the world.
Now, if you want to look at groups that were punching above their weight, look at Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Australia's population was about 7 million and they fielded 9 divisions in 1943, or one division for about every 800,000 people.
New Zealand's population was about 2 million and they fielded 2 divisions in 1943, or about one division for every 1,000,000 people.
Canada's population was about 11 million and they fielded 8 divisions in 1943, or about one division for every 1.4 million people.
Great Britain's population was under 50 million and they fielded 39 divisions in 1943, or about one division for every 1.3 million people.
The US population was about 132 million and we fielded 95 divisions, or about one division for every 1.4 million people.
The Soviet population was around 170 million and they fielded 350 division in 1943, or about one division for 500,000 people. But Soviet divisions were considerably smaller than German or western country divisions.
German divisions were drawn from a population around 100 million by 1943, and they fielded 327 divisions in 1943, or about one division for every 300,000 people.
But we should note the Germans by then had little or no Navy beyond U-boats.
In terms of fighting quality, the best German divisions were probably the best in the war, especially when they had adequate air cover. But there were relatively few of these top-line mechanized divisions, and as the war progressed, all German units became progressively degraded.
In 1940, the Brits had sent their best divisions to France, but these performed hardly better than the French Army. However, by the end of 1942 the Brits had learned enough to put in a credible showing against Rommel in North Africa. How many of those troops were actual Brits and how many Commonwealth, I don't know.
The American Army in North Africa in 1943 was hardly better than the Brits had been earlier in the war. But our guys were fast learners, and were blessed with one h*ll of a kick-*ss general, George Patton. ;-)
Bottom line: I've never seen it argued that man-for-man a British or Commonwealth or American soldier was, overall, one better than the other. Yes there were elite units, but on average so far as I know, they all performed about the same.
Comments?
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