August & September 1944 - In a Global Context

[@FlytheW11216]

It’s incredible to think about how much is happening around the world in such a short period of time. Alan did an excellent job summarizing the events and delving into the key points throughout the lecture. I thoroughly enjoyed this one!

[@Thumpalumpacus]

As much as I love your deep dives into specific battles or campaigns, these contextual episodes are great. WWII was interlocked across the globe in a way WWI simply wasn't. ETA: As an American, I see the British offers of BPF and Tiger Force as honest and sincere expressions of wanting to be in at the end. Never mind the egos of the leaders, the UK suffered as much humiliation at the hands of the Japanese as us Americans and wanted in on the end. It's very understandable to me from that angle as well. If someone punches me in the face, I don't want my big friend to kick his ass without my help. I'd prefer to do it myself, but if they're already halfway home with the job, I'd still want to jump in and get my licks.

[@NigelPreisner]

I gather the BPF was actually useful a couple of times around Sumatra, and another time when the kamikaze forces hit hard and the Royal Navy offered to stretch max and provide 5 days of full air activity - a gratefully accepted offer I gather. Tiger Force for RAF bombers, never actually happened and not sure what it really would have added.

[@whitby910]

Brilliant. A whole new understanding on the reasons for Market Garden. Speaking with my 100 year old Mum, a red cross nurse, she remembers the tiredness 'of war'. Almost everyone in late '44 had started making plans for what they were going to do when it ended. These all had to be revised.

[@NigelPreisner]

This podcast makes the point superbly that both British manpower, energy, finances and endurance are all starting to rub low and the influence of Great Churchill is now seriously on the wane. Britain is desperate to end the war in Europe early...and it ties in with Montgomery's last throw of the dice (and chance to prove he can be dynamic and ambitious too)

[@standyl2268]

Contemporary WWII history at its finest. One of the absolute best WW2TV presentations to date!

[@michaelfleming6420]

I appreciate the whats going on aspect as it illustrates the geographic width of WW2 and the politics in play. Keep up the great work.

[@MrFrikkenfrakken]

Just top shelf. Brilliantly done Alan and Paul.

[@KevinJones-yh2jb]

Another great presentation from Alan on WW2TV, always a joy to listen to him. Many thanks Alan and Woody

[@mjinoz1677]

Brilliant assessment of global strategy. Fabulous stuff!

[@bradleynorton3365]

Very interesting presentation and discussion by Mr. Allport and Mr. Woodadge.

[@willierobertson862]

Very nice to have Alan and Woody discuss what is going on around the world at the same time. Sometimes we often get distracted by specific campaigns and forget other things are happening around the same time.

[@georgecooksey8216]

Thank you Paul and Alan for the excellent presentation and discussion.

[@NigelPreisner]

Another point worth mentioning is that Britain allowed a large strategic bomber force to be built up, which by 1944 was peobably bigger than it needed to be and was absorbing many of the finest young men the nation had, who were needed in the Army and Infantry

[@Chiller11]

Very stimulating presentation summarizing the state of affairs at the end of summer ‘44. Placing Market Garden in context of all of the events happening around that time is a valuable exercise. In modern terminology Market/Garden was a thunder run. Historically some have been rather dramatically successful, Baghdad 2003, many have not, first Russian attack on Grozny 1994. They can offer high rewards but are always high risk endeavours.

[@johnlucas8479]

Another excellent presentation and discussion. Especially the Global picture at the time.

[@DaveGordon-up5ln]

Masters level presentation, thanks Alan, Paul!

[@ladydunraven]

Catching up again on the ones i have missed - what a talk, so much information I think my brain is totally fried..... thank you Alan and Woody for the education as always.

[@StevenSeiller]

What an amazing retrospective! I’d love to hear more of these big picture reviews. 🌟

[@Na808Koa]

Well presented and interesting discussion about the global view of WWII during this period in time, thanks Alan and Woody. Also have to say I love the poster behind Alan YNWA.

[@Unreliablecaptionbot]

This was a great presentation, showing the wider strategic picture, and giving context to the operation

[@lisakurkowski9131]

Fantastic, as always 😊

[@PaulScott_]

Great stuff and will to go back and listen again to catch all the details. I found it interesting when Alan discussed the relevance of Airborne/Special Forces. If one puts the emotions aside and you just look at the ledger books - what is the cost and what is the benefit - it gets difficult to support their existence. Alan mentioned the point that you are taking very good soldiers, very good NCO's who are needed to make new troops better in bog standard units and instead put them into a unit where they are just another soldier. Best bang for the buck? This would make a very good panel discussion especially if it included former military personnel. Thank again Paul for bringing awesome guests with great information and new points to consider!

[@michael_nelson]

Here for the Die Hard references! Thanks Alan & Paul.

[@TomMullen-hn7wc]

Great show. I am running out of superlatives to describe recent shows. Tom Mullen, Geneva, IL USA

[@fionaempke7151]

This was brilliant. The amount going on around the world was extraordinary. We have to remember that we are looking at everything in hindsight while in 1944 no one really knew what was going to happen next.

[@richardbinkhuysen5224]

Really sorry I've missed out on this one and I'll have to reply in parts. The 'Plot' had another effect: To many Germans, especially the youth, it was some sort of explenation why the French campaign had gone wrong and gave certain generals and high ranking officers the blame for that. And now that they had been removed things would go better. Also the V1 wonder weapon had entered as prommised and more was to come. Little did any one know about the effect, but it surely both restored their dented superior moral. As later the Arhem and the first V2 launches that were visable for the German troops in Holland to would too.

[@jrdj87]

This is brilliant (as ever) from Alan. The point about a bigger disaster as XXX Corps go into the Rhine is excellent and often not something thought about. It's as if we feel going through Holland means a complete collapse and not think about about the forces there defending the Reich. We fall for that film too much I feel.

[@davidlavigne207]

Thanks for a thought provoking, and interesting look at the summer and fall of WW2 globally and how Market Garden fit in to the overall picture. Some many more discussions came up in the sidebar that might make a good video on their own.

[@mikemerritt1443]

Fantastic presentation!!

[@abrahamoyevaar2226]

Sorry I wasn't there live. ( Think it was 3:30 am here) Because this was great like having a chat in a cafe or a pub..thanks Lads x

[@jaydee3993]

Great overview! Thank you!!

[@joeblow9657]

A brilliant strategic overview!! I'd love to hear more about the British army's force structure, manpower issues and strategy in WW2.

[@cameronsimpson-ld8nk]

A brilliant episode.....great global context

[@EnigmaCodeCrusher]

Thanks!

[@sparkey6746]

Thank you

[@russellchapman4167]

High class chat from these 2.

[@gmdyt1]

Excellent, thank you

[@peterbrown1208]

Very well done. The norm.

[@pamelanelson36]

Very, very interesting episode.

[@Rhubba]

There's a variation on the Market-Garden plan which I want to test with some wargamers I know in a Kreigsspiel game where 1st Airborne is assigned the Eindhoven bridges because they can use coup de mains operations to seize the bridges before demolition, 101st and 1st Polish Airborne Brigade land at Nijmegen with the Poles assigned to take the Waal bridge and the 82nd held in reserve for a follow up drop either to reinforce Nijmegen or if the Germans are drawn away from Arhnem to deal with the threat at Nijmegen then the 82nd can drop at Arnhem. This way there's enough transport aircraft to drop 2 divisions and one brigade intact on day one. If the coup de main at Eindhoven is successful, XXX Corps is considerably closer to Nijmegen on day 1 than what happened in reality. This alternative plan arose from a discussion about whether the 3 airborne divisions were not used where their particular skills would have been best employed. This plan relies on there being no Brereton nor Browning to screw up the planning with vetoing coup de mains missions or obsessions with the Reichwald.

[@davemac1197]

Alan asked a couple of questions I'm surprised he didn't know the answer to: 1. Why Arnhem instead of Wesel? Strategically, as well as a Rhine crossing, Arnhem offers a wider envelopment of all German forces in the western Netherlands by advancing to the Zuider Zee (Ijsselmeer) coast and establishing bridgeheads on the river Ijssel. These forces include 15.Armee on the Scheldt estuary, 1.Fallschirm-Armee, and most of the WBN occupation forces on the Dutch coast and river defence lines. Tertiary objective also cuts the V-2 rocket supply lines to suspected launch sites on the Dutch coast - this became a political issue in London from 9 September, the day before COMET was cancelled and SIXTEEN/MARKET created to upgrade it. Wesel only gets you a Rhine bridgehead. 2. Why 1st Airborne to Arnhem instead of one of the American divisions? Because the British airborne establishment (including the British equipped Polish Brigade) had more and heavier anti-tank guns, whereas the US divisions were weak on AT guns and had more and heavier field artillery. 1st Airborne had a total of 52 x 6-pounder and 16 x 17-pounder guns, with the Polish AT Squadron another 16 x 6-pounder (15 taken by air). By a remarkable coincidence, the total of 84 anti-tanks guns in the British and Polish units matches the figure of 84 operational panzers on Model's 5 September returns in his entire Heeresgruppe B front (Allied estimates was 50-100). The US Airborne Divisions had 24 x 6-pounders in their AAAT Battalion to support the three Parachute Regiments and a further 12 in the Glider Regiment, giving a total of 36. The decision to send 1st Airborne to Arnhem (at one point the 101st were slated to drop there) makes sense as that was where the majority of the intel reports on German armour were concentrated, although it was not appreciated until later that reports of German armour in the Reichswald was the Hohenstaufen SS Division in transit to Arnhem at the time COMET was being prepared. Gavin realised this in 1966 when collating TA Boeree's research for Cornelius Ryan, but Ryan didn't put it in his book. The political consideration you pointed out is also very valid, but the reason COMET was cancelled was because of the build-up of German armour reports and Montgomery realised COMET was not strong enough to deal with them and the 1st Airborne Division needed to be concentrated where the threat was greatest and not split between Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave as COMET had planned.

[@WW2TV]

You missed the point though. He has answers to the questions, he is asking us to answer the questions

[@OldWolflad]

@@WW2TV Not entirely convinced Woody. It was an excellent general overview but when it came to Market Garden it left me wanting more. Bit disappointed by the lack of clinical depth about MG itself but I do appreciate its just a single historian view / overview so perhaps my criticism is a bit unjust. No one seriously thought the war would be over by Xmas by the time MG commenced, not sure why that was even suggested. As DaveMac said above, there were clear, well established political reasons why Arnhem was selected over Wesel. Don't think you could define it as a purely British op following the input of Brereton and Williams either. It was fundamentally changed. Why does he presume 1st AB Division was the weakest? Don't get me wrong, the 82nd and 102st AB were very good but they had weaknesses inherent within too (508th PIR). In 1st AB , you might argue 4th Para Brigade had limited experience but they had some, 1st Para Brigade formed the nucleus of a group of highly experienced paratroopers. I think he is seeing things politically and tactically that didn't truly exist at the time. Is he seriously saying 1st AB were lambs sent to slaughter? Its just left me feeling slightly aggravated and uneasy, and no better informed about Market Garden itself. Very good speaker though. And what would have happened had MG succeeded? Who knows. Its purely conjecture.............perhaps in the event of Operation Market Garden fully succeeding, with British 2nd Army reaching the Zuiderzee, it has to be questioned whether they had had sufficient strength to progress into Germany? Or would the Germans still have had enough force to crush any Allied advance, resulting in a more sinister outcome for the Allies? It should be acknowledged that the British not only potentially had 30 Corps as the speaker inferred, there were the airborne divisions available, but also 8 and 12 Corps who were gradually making slow progress behind them. This was undoubtedly a substantial force if supplies to them could be concentrated adequately. However, The Germans would undoubtedly have brought back units from the east when the Ruhr was threatened, and the remnants of the 15th Army would also still have been present. It is possible that the Battle of the Bulge would instead have taken place further north rather than in the Ardennes, with all Allied forces being transferred to the Ruhr for a large-scale confrontation.

[@RubinoffPrague]

I have Dutch friends who are still pissed off that the British didn't go for Zeeland and the Scheldt estuary instead.

[@OldWolflad]

you mean Eisenhower didnt?

[@garyaugust1953]

Terrific presentation. Alan gave an in-depth analysis of the global ramifications during this period, the good and the not so good. MG and its creator are still a bit of a marmite operation. Will we ever know whether Montgomery was politically pressured into changing his normal strategy to a more adventurous one, mistakenly surmising an earlier end to WW2, or was it that his ego got the better of him?

[@NigelPreisner]

An excellent quality podcast. Would be good hearing more regarding Operation Bagration that dwarfed even Falaise. I have deep respect for Arnhem, Sicily, Dragoon, all of these but all relatively small by titanic Eastern Front standards.

[@WW2TV]

We did a week on Bagration back in June - check the past shows

[@extrahistory8956]

I'll argue that Operation Cobra, Totalizer and the Falaise Pocket were the operations in the Western Front that were much more similar in scope and scale to the sort of thing going on in the Eastern Front than the vast majority of other operations. The second of these would also be the crossing of the Rhine in March and April of 1945.

[@jwjohnson9547]

Another home run. Loved the show. Also, enjoyed the discussion on Market Garden. A lot of great points, especially about what may have happened if XXX corps had made it in time. I'm not trying to be a homer because we made errors throughout the war, but the effort of some folks to blame the failure on Gavin strikes me the wrong way. While I'm not sure I'll be able to livestream the future shows on MG, I'm content that rational minds will effectively analyze the operation.

[@WW2TV]

I definitely think Gavin made some poor decisions at Nijmegen, but was that the sole reason for failure? Clearly not. It was a bad plan from the outset

[@davemac1197]

I agree with Paul in that there's rarely one reason, because someone would have probably caught it. It's usually a chain of failures, like the causes of a plane crash. In this case I think politics in 1st Allied Airborne Army saw a lot of Browning's original concept for COMET and replacement operation SIXTEEN got thrown out by Brereton and Williams (either one of them or both of them), then further compromised by the divisional plan for Nijmegen with a couple of Gavin's decisions, and after discarding a British request to drop a battalion on the northern end of Nijmegen bridge his choice to assign Colonel Lindquist to the Nijmegen mission backfired on him, as Lindquist had not performed well in Normandy and he failed to follow Gavin's instruction to move his 1st Battalion to the Nijmegen bridge immediately after landing. In his interview with Cornelius Ryan (Box 101, Folder 10, Cornelius Ryan Collection at Ohio State Univerisity) Gavin was quite open about he and Matthew Ridgway (82nd CO in Normandy) not trusting Lindquist in a fight and also that Ridgway would not promote him. In fact, he said Ridgway had a problem in that he couldn't really promote another colonel in the division over Lindquist because Lindquist had seniority in the grade. It may be that Gavin had the same problem when Ridgway went up to US XVIII Airborne Corps and Gavin inherited the division, he didn't replace himself as assistant divisional commander for the same reason and was doing both jobs during MARKET GARDEN. One of the reasons the conventional narrative established by A Bridge Too Far has enormous inertia is the fact that Williams and Lindquist barely get a mention in the book and the film does not cast Brereton, Williams or Lindquist, which puts a lot of pressure on Browning as the assumed villain of the piece, because it's hard to blame someone the audience does not know even exists and Gavin is played as the hero trying to save the operation, but although Gavin complained of being hamstrung by the contraints of Brereton's inflexible air plan, he is responsible for his own decisions. The missing scene from both book and film is the one where Gavin receives a report from 508th liasion officer Captain Chet Graham that Lindquist has not sent the 1st Battalion to the bridge as instructed in the pre-flight briefing and is waiting until the drop zone is cleared first. Gavin, said Graham, was as mad as he'd ever seen him, and they both went to the 508th CP to get him moving, but it was too late to beat 10.SS-Panzer-Division to the bridge. (Put Us Down In Hell - The Combat History of the 508th PIR in WW2, Phil Nordyke 2012) I think Gavin is at the centre of this drama, but it's a much bigger and more complex story than many people realise and at least three other officers were complicit.

[@WW2TV]

I knew Chet Graham pretty well and recall how quickly he became agitated when Nijmegen came up in the conversation

[@davemac1197]

@@WW2TV - oh wow, he was a key witness to the most controversial parts of Phil Nordyke's combat history of the 508th - Put Us Down In Hell (2012), along with Ben Delamater (XO 1st Battalion at Nijmegen) and Mark Alexander (2nd Battalion CO at Hill 95 in Normandy). I got the feeling they got a lot off their chest in telling their stories. Lindquist did not come out of those episodes well.

[@KimBowen-oz3gz]

Market Garden is repeatedly called a "bad plan" and Montgomery continues to take a lot of stick because of it's failure to achieve it's ultimate aim. However Monty only provided the concept, he did none of the actual planning, that was done at First Allied Airborne Army headquarters, which had only existed for a few weeks and was not fit for purpose. It was at this level that the majority of the flaws that caused the failure crept in. Montgomery was not overseeing or involved in the process and, by the time he became aware of some of the issues, such as the lack of coup de main landings at the main targets, the drops on only one side of these targets, the position of the DZ's and LZ's and particularly the multiple lifts needed at Arnhem, he was unable to get the plan altered in any way. The bad plan put together at First Allied Airborne Army and the failure to concentrate on and capture the absolutely key objective at Nijmegen Bridge led to the doom of 1st British Airborne Division. Montgomery's concept was sound in my view and, despite the pitfalls in the actual plan to carry it out, Market Garden very nearly succeeded. It was not lost at Arnhem as many believe, it was lost at Nijmegen.

[@OldWolflad]

Totally agree. The lack of mention of any of these factors in the presentation left a somewhat sour taste.

[@WR25_JL22]

fantastic stream. Alan's point about sending the 1st airbourne in at Arnhem as opposed to the 82nd or 101st is a good one and/or could it have also been thought that the other more experienced airborne forces stood a better chance of taking all the bridges? Also was it a mistake to have the drop zones far from the bridges

[@OldWolflad]

The 82nd Ab were experienced at this point, the 101st had experience from Normandy only as far as I can see. Elements of 1st AB were highly experienced so I'm not entirely sure this point is valid.

[@briandenison2325]

It would be interesting to see had Market Garden succeed, how would the Soviets react?

[@billyshakespeare17]

Another refulgent presentation from Paul and Alan. General Clark's star has been burnished recently by historians. Could the same happen for MacArthur? Thank You Gentlemen.

[@ethanmckinney203]

How much did the purge reduce the effectiveness of the German military?

[@jimwalsh1958space]

Hey, every other ww2 channel anywhere, follow that i dare you ! Thank you Allan Allport looking forward to your book publication.

[@ethanmckinney203]

Dragoon wouldn't have been possible without the occupation of Sardinia and liberation of Corsica, which wouldn't have been possible without the invasion of Italy, which wouldn't have happened without the invasion of Sicily, which the United States really, really didn't want to do.

[@timbrown1481]

Well? No one had a crystal ball about the ETO. Did ULTRA play a role in the decision to go with Market-Garden? 19:52

[@davemac1197]

I believe the intercepts that II.SS-Panzerkorps had moved into the eastern Netherlands influenced Montgomery to cancel COMET, because it was not strong enough (with just one airborne division) to deal with it, and it came at about the same time the Dutch resistance reported heavy armour in the Reichswald and 1st Airborne Division were making their final plans for Nijmegen accordingly. It was only later found after the replacement expanded operation MARKET had landed that the Reichswald was empty and in 1966 Gavin realised in correspondence with Cornelius Ryan that the reports on the Reichswald was the Hohenstaufen division in transit to Arnhem.

[@timbrown1481]

@@davemac1197 thanks. Info helped greatly

[@davemac1197]

@@timbrown1481 - another thing I would add is that when I mention Montgomery there seems to be a question mark on how influencial Miles Dempsey (British 2nd Army commander) was in the decision, because I'm currently reading James Daly's Proposed Airborne Operations books and Dempsey was more involved in airborne planning than previously thought and some sources suggest he was concerned by the intel and persuaded Montgomery to cancel COMET. Dempsey and Montgomery would be the only people privvy to ULTRA because no one below Army commander was cleared for it, and not even Brereton in FAAA, possibly because he was only a Lieutenant General, which was nominally a Corps commander rank. Another point is that because ULTRA intel could not be revealed to even exist below Army HQ level, it had to be 'sanitised' before it could be disseminated to lower formations by stripping out the details and making it vague like local resistance sources. I have a series of books on the 1st Airborne Anti-Tank Battery troops sent to Arnhem and they were briefed to expect "heavy armoured counter-attacks from the first day", including Panther and Tiger tanks, removing any unit identifications, but it's still a steer that a 1944 panzer division and corps heavy tank battalion may be in the area. As Cornelius Ryan says in his book published the same year ULTRA was declassified (1974), the presence of Bittrich's SS panzer troops was a complete surprise to the paratroops, but apparently not the presence of tanks per se, at least not to the anti-tank units sent to Arnhem. Gavin was also given a similar steer that a "regiment of SS" (the reduced condition of the 10.SS-Panzer-Division 'Frundsberg') may be in Nijmegen's barracks facilities and this was because the division could not be precisely located.

[@timbrown1481]

Analogous to a corporation board of directors ousting the founder and CEO of that corporation because stocks prices are not performing well. Giving him/her the boot with a handshake and a have a good life send off. 1:13:00

[@adamedwards1937]

Is the lack of resolution of views on Market Garden mostly sustained by a wishful thinking as to what if it had succeeded rather than an actual dispassionate analysis? Is this level of wishful thinkngi seen in American, or other country, historians?

[@WW2TV]

Yep that's part of it I think. You get a similar thing with Gettysburg in the CW

[@davemac1197]

I think it's inertia. The conventional narrative was established by Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far and cemented into popular culture by the Hollywood film, but more recent works have revised the conventional narrative and probably represents the second cut at getting the history right. The first challenge came from Dutch researcher RG Poulussen (Lost in Nijmegen, 2011), and some critical information on the mising Nijmegen story from American historian John C McManus (September Hope - The American Side of A bridge Too Far , 2012), who did excellent analysis on the bridge versus ridge debate, and 82nd Airborne historian Phil Nordyke's dispassionate combat history of the 508th PIR (Put Us Down In Hell, 2012). Overall, I think the best update of Cornelius Ryan's work so far, using unpublished documents and interviews he left out of his book held in the Cornelius Ryan Collection at Ohio State University, is Swedish historian Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944 - An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020). My only complaint with Bergström's volumes is that he presented a couple of sidebars on the German order of battle in reverse chronological order and they're taken from Robert Kershaw's somewhat out of date, but pioneering work, It Never Snows In September (1990), which also needs an update.

[@Chiller11]

Interesting perspective.

[@therealuncleowen2588]

​@@WW2TVThis is a very good point. American civil war buffs sympathetic to the South go over and over Gettysburg. As an American with no Southern heritage who even grew up in PA, my views on Gettysburg are very clear. The battle was decided on day 2 at Little Round Top. If the Rebels capture the hill, I think Meade would have seen his position as untenable and withdrawn overnight, yielding the field and the Rebels would have had their victory on northern soil. This would, perhaps, have allowed them to convince Britain to increase their support. Day 3 at Gettysburg was never going to go well for the South. Day 2 at Little Round Top was the closest our Republic came to unraveling and I'm grateful to the men who held it in those desperate hours. 🇺🇸 Having said all that, given our political divisions today, if the red hat states wanted to secede, my mates and I would happily help them move house.🙄 Now if the sane among us can just win this election, the worst might be averted. If we lose, I'm concerned that much worse times are yet ahead. Sorry to get political.

[@bradleynorton3365]

Thanks!