[PapaNew]

ridiculous and embarrassing plan to cross the Rhine

Another screw up? I must have missed the details on that one. I knew he was in the northern section of the front doing something and Page 6 of today's Times says in the War News Summarized that Monty may be preparing "a new offensive", which made me wonder, "How long does it take for this guy to prepare for something?" What happened?

[colorado tanker]

It's the contrast. Patton put together a river crossing on the fly and got across with almost no casualties and before Monty. Monty, on the other hand, treated crossing the Rhine almost like another Normandy invasion. The airborne component that Monty insisted on was unnecessary in my opinion and led to heavy casualties in the 17th Airborne due to anti-aircraft fire.

Monty also had a habit of assigning nasty jobs to non-UK forces under his command, such as clearing the Scheldt to the Canadians and as we are just now seeing, the Ruhr to the U.S. Ninth Army.