[C19fan]

Mr. Beevor is this generation's version of Cornelius Ryan.

[Meadow Muffin]

Monty was typical of most General Officers in WW II, but he had one more trait that many of the others did not have...Monty was an egotistical, stiff necked, vain prick.

Allied body count was nothing for him. He always knew there were more men that could be forced into the grinder.

I look forward to reading this book.

[jalisco555]

Mr. Beevor is this generation's version of Cornelius Ryan.

His books on Stalingrad and Berlin were riveting.

[vetvetdoug]

Montgomery took away troops from the successful landing around St. Trope and drive North into Germany for his idiocy of Market Garden. The Seventh Army was driving into Germany and beating the Germans at every turn and were stopped by Eisenhower to bolster Bradley's 12th Army. They were even told to stop altogether when Bradley was surprised at the Ardennes and Patton's Third Army was rushed to the Bulge.

[abb]

IMO, Monty’s desire for a spectacular mission to grab headlines (Market Garden) caused the Allied Leadership to take their eye off the real prize - Antwerp.

Antwerp proper fell in early September, IIRC, but the Scheldt Estuary wasn’t secured until November. All that while, Antwerp’s docks and facilities sat unusable, while the supplies and gasoline had to trucked hundreds of miles from Normandy.

There was a narrow window of time available in late August to secure the estuary before the Germans dug in on Walcheren. But all Monty could see was his “dagger thrust” into Germany.

Also, IMO, Eisenhower failed miserably when he let Monty do Market Garden, rather than focus on Antwerp. He should have been fired for it.

If the allies had that port in September, the war would have been over by Christmas, 1944.

[Sam_Damon]

Biggest problem for the British paratroopers was the staff work in planning for Market Garden.

By this point in the war, Matt Ridgway and his staff had executed two combat jump operations, and had learned a thing or two from Sicily (pretty much a mess) and Normandy (a mess in places, but much better execution).

So who got chosen to do the airborne ops planning for Market Garden? The British. That’s how 1 Para ended up with a drop zone six and half miles away from their primary objective. I don’t believe Ridgway, Gavin, and Taylor would have come up with that AT ALL. IIRC, Gavin’s response when first briefed on what 1 Para would do was, “Christ, they can’t be serious?” (concerning the drop zones)

For all the grief Americans give Monty, Market Garden was one of the most imaginative offensives planned by the Allies during WW II. But, as the book title runs, it was a bridge too far.