Market Garden

[Triple C]

Sirs,

I have one question: Putting into consideration the limited capability of British mobile forces, how would you evaluate Montgomery's cautiousness? Could it be argued that Montgomery's aversion to risks was a reasonable solution to the strengths and weaknesses of his 21st AG--unsatisfactory armored divisions and weak manpower reserves?

In other words, would you agree with John Keegan's assessment that asking the British Army to out-German the Germans was a recipe for disaster, and the reality that by July 1944 GB was done scraping the bottom of their manpower barrel made a certain caution in his generalship inevitable?

[Monash]

Forgive me for intruding into this discussion gentlemen but I my limited reading on the topic indicated that two significant factors affected the British forces abilities to achieve their objectives during Market-Garden.
One was poor intelligence re: the strength and combat readiness of the forces confronting them and the other was a run of bad weather which slowed down the advance of the relief forces. Do these factors in any way ameliorate any failure on Monty's part?

[Mihais]

There were than 2 problems with the British.Among others their comms fell.The planners had enough intel to make them either bit cautious(as in cancelling the drop)or even more daring(as in dropping the paras right on the bridge,Flak be damned),but they chose to silence the opposing views and close the eyes.
Weather sucked,but the last Bde and 1st Polish Para Bde were not really essential.30th Corp pushing its men to the limit was more important.They pushed,but not as hard as the situation required.

[Albany Rifles]

My thinking on this is the British had shot their bolt manpower wise by summer 1944. They could not repalce what they were losing (I may be wrong but i believe they were starting to disband some formations to provide repalcements to their NW Europe forces in fall 1944).

The stratgeic failure was the failure to open up the Scheldt as the primary mission for 21 AG.

[cape_royds]

All the Western allies were experiencing shortages of trained riflemen by the fall of 1944.

It was less a problem of manpower availability than a problem of manpower allocation.

Part of this was a result of macro-level manpower policies which under-prioritized the army, and within the army, under-prioritized the infantry. Such "scientific" manpower policies were themselves a reaction against the lack of such policies in the Great War, which had left the Allies scrambling to demobilize skilled workers who had been allowed to enlist in the infantry during the great volunteer rush.

So in late 1944 the Western allied armies started to cannibalize some combat units (such as anti-aircraft) and "combing out" the rear echelon to obtain more riflemen. Canada, for instance, even converted an armoured reconnaissance regiment into infantry.

Also, assumptions about wastage rates underestimated infantry losses and hence replacements fell short of demand. Again using Canada as an example: we adopted British wastage assumptions which were based on 1941 North African experience, and as a result, seriously underestimated the wastage rate of infantry.

Now it is true that the British started breaking up divisions in 1944, so they were facing a more acute problem than the US or their own dominions. It's also true that Canada had political issues in that we only sent volunteers for combat duty overseas (New Zealand perhaps also had the same policy?).

At any rate, the Western Allies were much better off than the Germans, who had begun "combing out" in early 1942. By late 1944 the Germans were creating special battalions of troops with hearing or stomach problems, just in order to fill the line--definitely they were down to their "B Team."

[aktarian]

My thinking on this is the British had shot their bolt manpower wise by summer 1944. They could not repalce what they were losing (I may be wrong but i believe they were starting to disband some formations to provide repalcements to their NW Europe forces in fall 1944).

The stratgeic failure was the failure to open up the Scheldt as the primary mission for 21 AG.

I was under the impression that British set limit to level of casualties and didn't recruit more because of it, not that they were running out of bodies (as Germans and Soviets to a degree) and that they set an upper limit to size of forces they were willing/able to field

Besides, infantry took a heavy toll in every army, simply due to nature of combat so the low levels of riflemen were present afterevery bigger fight

[Albany Rifles]

I was under the impression that British set limit to level of casualties and didn't recruit more because of it, not that they were running out of bodies (as Germans and Soviets to a degree) and that they set an upper limit to size of forces they were willing/able to field

Besides, infantry took a heavy toll in every army, simply due to nature of combat so the low levels of riflemen were present afterevery bigger fight

Britain had reached total mobilization. The barrel had been scraped, the corners brushed, out every last scrap utilized.

In and industrialized society, by rule of thumb, you can only place into military service about 10% of the population. Britain exceeded that...look at the very wide range of services provided by women outside of the traditional wartime roles.

Brittania gave her all. And she did not depend on enlistments...conscription started before the war started...and included women 21 - 30.

[zraver]

Britain had reached total mobilization. The barrel had been scraped, the corners brushed, out every last scrap utilized.

In and industrialized society, by rule of thumb, you can only place into military service about 10% of the population. Britain exceeded that...look at the very wide range of services provided by women outside of the traditional wartime roles.

Brittania gave her all. And she did not depend on enlistments...conscription started before the war started...and included women 21 - 30.

With a population of 47 million the British Army, less than half of the Greater Reichs, and 1/3 of the European Axis, the UK managed to field the second largest navy, around 100 ground divisions for virtual tie with the US in 3rd place behind the USSR and Germany and the 3rd largest air force behind the US and USSR. This is without counting Commonwealth, Empire and Dominion contributions.

[Triple C]

Yeeep! While Britain had allocation problems, their manpower pool was bone-dry. They could comb their HQ staffers, clerks and drivers. They could and did cannibalize regiments. But Britain could not mobilize anymore than it had. The strength of British Armies actually decreased after the summer of 1944.* Unless Churchill risked the "rainy day fund"--reserves for the minimal number of troops needed post-War to protect the colonial holdings, the 2d Army was the last Britain could give.

Which leads to my question: Given the constraints, did Monty perform well?

*This is a different situation from America. The US mobilized a tiny percentage of its population in comparison to other combatants and put to the field an army of 90 divisions, small in comparison to America's total population. The Army had just 90 divisions with extravagant divisional slices and a small military manpower pool by design. Later lots of technical personnel and later officer cadets were hastily converted to infantry.

[dalem]

Which leads to my question: Given the constraints, did Monty perform well?

No.

Give Monty a million men and 10,000 tanks and he was still Monty. Overly cautious, terribly afraid of the Germans, dismissive of his allies and peers, and unable to act decisively in a pinch.

-dale

[S2]

Back On Track

By 1915hrs Wednesday 20 September, the first British tanks were across the Waal in Nijmegen. According to Michael Reynolds in SONS OF THE REICH-II S.S. Panzer Corps,

"...With the remnants of the beleaguered 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem, less than 18 km away to the north, the Americans naturally expected British armour to move rapidly to their rescue-but nothing happened...

...It would be eighteen hours before the advance was resumed and yet for five hours, from 1900 until midnight, there was virtually nothing to stop an advance up the Elst-Arnhem road...The plight of those at the Arnhem bridge and in Oosterbeek seems to have taken second place to worries about the XXX corridor south of Nijmegen...Whilst it is certainly true that it would have been difficult to assemble quickly the Battalion which had secured the southern bank of the river (it had already suffered heavy casualties), this was certainly not true of the two infantry companies sent across the Waal 'as soon as the Grenadiers captured the bridge' , or of their 'Battalion HQ and the other companies...comfortably and securely lodged in a large school south of the river.' This Battalion had been in reserve for forty-eight hours..."

Further, these forces weren't the only available. Too, pressure on the Eindhoven-Nijmegen corridor was periodically heavy but sporadic out of the west and the Reichswald to the east. Finally, while trafficability along the corridor and through heavily-bombed Eindhoven wasn't easy, boats had been prioritized to move forward and conduct the 82nd Airborne's assault across the Waal.

What would be the point without rapid exploitation? Bittrich still didn't possess the Arnhem bridge further north and moving his troops south to block an allied advance was limited to ferries further east from Arnhem along the lower Rhine as well as limited immediately available reinforcements. Most of what he'd had available had already been sent south to Nijmegen and defeated.

Horrocks, Adair, and (to a lesser extent) Browning appear to have been unprepared to exploit the opportunity to advance north toward Arnhem despite the perilous condition of British forces there and adequate time to consider the ways and means.

[Imperator~]

imho, Market Garden was flawed form the git go. Operationally it truly was as the man said a bridge to far, AND, against a very crafty opponent who excels at handling exactly that type of tactical hit and run, intuitive battlegruop employment.

Patton, Napoleon or God could have been running that op, I don't think it would have mattered.

[S2]

Imperator~ Reply

"imho, Market Garden was flawed form the git go."

[Imperator~]

:))such as it is...I don 't have a monopoly on opinion...

[S2]

Imperator~ Reply

"...I don 't have a monopoly on opinion..."

Nobody does and you know what they say about opinions. Still, feeling free to toss a little meat behind your opinion to flesh out the skeleton would be cool.:)

By 0500 hrs on the morning of 21 September, organized British resistance had ended inside the Arnhem bridge perimeter. Oosterbeek, with most of the remaining 1st Airborne Division troops was surrounded on three sides but holding (tenuously) in hopes that they could act as a bridgehead for XXX Corps.

Shortly after midnight on the early morning of the 21st, German reinforcements began arriving north of Nijmegen and established positions across the main roadway leading north to Elst and Arnhem. These included about 1 1/2 panzergrenadier battalions, 16 Mk IV and StuGIII from the Pannerdern ferry crossing east of Arnhem. With the collapse of the Arnhem bridge perimeter, Bittrich was free to further reinforce those elements and sent south by noon of the 21st Kampfgruppe Knaust along with two platoons of Mk III & Mk IV tanks.

Guards Armoured Division? They didn't move out of the Nijmegen bridgehead until 1330 hrs 21 Sept and within 3 km had made contact with the Germans, losing three Shermans in the process. That afternoon, two days behind their drop schedule, the Polish Airborne Bde. finally began its jump. Because the Arnhem bridge had not been secured by 1 Airborne Div, their DZ was moved west along the south side of the Rhine towards Driel. 41 C-47s turned back and another 5 were shot down. Of 1568 troops, only about 1,000 were landed.

Meanwhile a ferry operating west of Oosterbeek at Heveadorp since the initial jump on Sunday (the 17th) was finally cut by Dutch operators that same day as the Polish drop onto a new DZ literally next to the ferrysite. It could have gotten 1 Airborne onto the south side of the river and enabled a simultaneous attack against the Arnhem bridge from both sides but was never discovered until too late. The ferry also, if secured, could have provided a means for the Poles to reinforce the Oosterbeek perimeter.

The German commander of 191 Artillery Regiment reacted to the Poles immediately, putting a machine gun battalion along with another four battalion-sized groups totaling about 3300 men east of their drop-zone where it could protect the Nijmegen-Arnhem railroad bridge while also bringing the fires of that artillery regiment onto the Poles. Sosabowski was left with few alternatives short of moving his men to the available cover of the river dike and hunkering down.