I have read Canadian and Polish veteran accounts of their fighting at the Mont Ormel ridge. The Polish defense of their position was extraordinary and really deserves to be better known.
@Lord.Kiltridge The speech made during the battle is also great. *"Gentlemen, all is lost. I do not think that the Canadians can come to our rescue. We have only about 110 able-bodied men left. Five shells per gun and 50 bullets per man. That's very little, but fight all the same. Surrender to the S.S. is futile; you know that. I thank you. You have fought well. Good luck, gentlemen. Tonight we shall die for Poland and for civilization! . . . each tank will fight independently, and eventually each man for himself"* They had the winged hussars spirit in them that day!
My uncle served in the Polish 1st Armoured Division and was there on hill 262 Mont Ormel the Canadians who arrived after the battle put up a sign " A Polish battlefield. My dad was in Italy serving with the Polish ll Corps. Thankyou for your acknowledgement of these Brave Hero's.
To give credit, Call of Duty 3 (iirc), back when CoD was good, gives this battle a focus and has you play as the Poles defending Mt Ormel and the Canadians coming to relieve them. It may not be entirely historically accurate but it did get me interested enough in the battle to read into it.
What people forget about the Normandy campaign is the allies still reached Paris on the planned day. So yeah mistakes were made but they adapted and kept pushing
Thanks to proper preparation. Intelligence works provided the best location for landing and diverted the Nazi Germany into thinking that the landing were to be commenced on different beaches (read "Operation Mincemeat")
@@gh87716 If you still finish the campaign 2 weeks earlier than predicted ( August 30th) all of that means nothing. The Normandy campaign finished in 76 days.
It is even more positive then that. Hitler was, here as in nearly every other instance, wrong to advocate a static defense. Note how lopsided the casualties here are in favour of the Allies. We don't see that again in the west until very late in the war with the complete collapse of the Germans. This kind of static fighting favours the Allies - it is pretty much a straight up firepower contest with the Allies being able to tap into their phenomenal logistical advantages, their complete air superiority and their complete naval superiority. No other kind of campaign plays so strongly into Allied strengths while so completely minimizing Germany's advantage in veteran forces. Does not matter how much experience you have in war - there is not much you can do about being carpet bombed.
My Dad was in the German army, in an armoured unit. He was captured in the Falaise Gap by the Canadians, he was one of the lucky ones. He became a POW in the UK and never went back to Germany after the war.
So you are British, born and bred? An old friend of mine is the grandson of a German POW who also remained in the UK after the war. He married an Englishwoman and never saw Germany again.
@@HowlinWilf13 yes, British born and bred. There was a German/Italian POW camp not far from our town and a number of kids I was at school with had German surnames as their fathers too had stayed on after the war and married British ladies. The POW camp is still there (or was 20 years ago) and I visited it with my Dad and it still had the wartime chapel decorated by the prisoners.
@@anthonyschell9225 Fascinating! Germany's loss and Britain's gain, haha. My grandfather served in the North African campaign and was wounded at the siege of Tobruk but survived the war. Had your father and my grandfather not been so lucky, we wouldn't be having this conversation! The quirks of fate! All the best to you.
The Geneva Convention required all POWs be returned to their country. The popular meme of POWs staying in the country that captured them is false. All were returned, though some came back later.
Thanks for creating this mini documentary on the Falaise pocket … this was one of the earliest major allied victories in Continental Europe. Very important bit of history, thanks for your hard work.
Thank you for this. My dad arrived in Normandy on July 6th 1944 - I long thought that this meant he didnt face much danger. How wrong I was. He was a driver in the Royal Engineers tasked to drive an Intelligence Officer around. he witnessed the massacre of Falaise from a distance and then accompanied the British infantry up into N. France, Belgium, Holland and eventually N Germany.
Ok just to avoid this turning into another giant pissing contest that always typically starts over who did more (which i know it does on these WW2 comment sections, and it's pointless) i'll just say this. The strategy as agreed between the SHAEF high command Eisenhower, Monty, Bradley, Brooke etc that played out was simply another concept of the "Hammer and Anvil." The role of the British, Canadian and Polish forces was to act as a shield for the Allied landings, constantly sucking the German armour on to a great "Anvil" on the left flank, and constantly grinding the Germans down with punishing blows from artillery, tanks and Allied aircraft. As the anvil held the bulk of the German armour in it's position, this would open the way for the Americans to wield a great "Hammer" in the west, on the right of the Allied lines, smashing through the German defences, where the Americans led by Lightning Joe Collins and Patton, could run free. The role of the British, Canadians and Poles would thus not be a glamorous one like the Americans, but a tough battle in a punishing cauldron of attrition. In the end it worked, the Germans were pinned down and outflanked on two sides and Panzer Army West, the German Seventh army and the German 15th Army were all gutted as fighting formations losing over 400,000 men and 2,400 tanks in Normandy.
Yeah, the British, Canadians and Poles fought hard battles. I give them great credit for their effort and personal bravery. It's Montgomery who let them down.
@@JALRML1251 There's always one f-knuckle isn't there. Looks like you are it on this occasion. D-Day and everything after IT WAS MONTY'S STRATEGY RIGHT FROM THE GET GO. Can't you get that tiny fact through your scone? Monty KNEW more than anyone on earth that no plan survives the first shot so he had contingencies and built up forces probing for a breakthrough accordingly while allowing the US forces on the flank (THE HAMMER) to also build up ready to sweep forward to create the hammer. Anvils stand still, hammers smash down. Have you got that?
@JALRML1251 How did Montgomery let them down? He correctly predicted a 3 month fight to attain Paris. Not only was this target met but his forces were 400km ahead of schedule and liberating Brussels Belgium...and overall casualties were lower than expected.
@thevillaaston7811 The Canadians weren't sitting on their hands. It was the Americans who refused to close the gap. There is some debate on whether it was Patton or Bradley who refused to attack. With a conscript army (66% draftees) the Americans were loathe to take casualties as it would be political suicide. The Poles were supposed to link up with the Americans and Patton but he never came.
I had my my most memorable moment in Normandy visiting the museum on the hill where the allies fought closing the pocket, it was great feeling and local guides were really good explaining the harshness of the moment, many owing the stories from their own parents that were living in the villages nearby
I really enjoyed this well done overview. I've read "Caen, Anvil of Victory" and a book on Operation Cobra, but there were so many events and moves and limited maps, that is was very hard to undetstand what went on when and how the two battles unfolded. This video cleared it all up! Great job and thank you.
Call of Duty 3’s Campaign lets you play through the whole offensive to close the Falaise pocket. It’s done a bit like a documentary too, where they’ll give you almost like a news reel overview of what’s going on, with old pictures and videos and maps. Decent story, but has great characters, definitely the most underrated COD campaign out there.
Yep I remember this battle from Call of Duty III :) Poles standing their ground against two side attack of German SS Divisions. Thats crazy! And the music when Canadians comes to help! Good times.
The Polish Army was definitely more adept at fighting then the french free army...hell two toddlers are more fearsome than the french free army!!! Everyone knows that!!!
@@matthewtang9290 I am french and I don't understand we are taking a free hit here... But indeed it is recognized that polish were fierce fighting the germans
Fascinating. I'd heard of the battle of falaise but didn't know how it actually played out but this video does a great job of explaining the complexities.⚛
I have my grandfathers flight logbook from his time in the RCAF. There is an entry in there that reads "Big day in the Falaise Pocket!" with further comments detailing the ground targets destroyed by his group.
Polski wkład? Gdyby nie Polacy nikt nie zamknąłby tego kotła, amerykanie mieli za daleko obchodząc pozycje niemieckie od południa i już byli za bardzo rozciągnięci, a Kanadyjczykom nie śpieszyło się do zamykania kotła bo wiedzieli co ich tam może czekać, chyba nawet jeden z ich wysokich oficerów został zdymisjonowany bo jego działania były zbyt opieszałe i zachowawcze w decydującym momencie bitwy, przez co 20-50 tys. Niemców uciekło z kotła, co później odbiło sie aliantom czkawką podczas niemieckiej ofensywy w Ardenach
@@Melior_Traiano As opposed to 'Whitman', the famous Indian last name? It's still German no matter what spelling. Just like how Meyer, Myer, and Meier are all German and pronounced the same way.
@@AstinCrow As a native German speaker, I can tell you that "Whitman" has a distinct English sounding tone to it. Its like "Schmidt" and "Smith" and not like "Meier" and "Meyer". But we can follow your logic and just anglicize the names of people. I'll start with: Albert Onestone and Michael Shoemaker. How about we germanise some names just for the fun of it: Isaac Neustadt and Oliver Kromquell. So why don't we just naturalise the names of famous people to our respective native tongue and then use those names when communicating in English, I am sure that wouldn't be confusing at all. Or, I don't know, we could just call people by their given names...
That is why good commanders - tactical or strategic - have alternate plans in place. At a tactical level, section/troop commanders always have alternate plans to their activities whether in the defense, withdrawal or advance. They never charge off into the sunset without them and this is true all the way up the chain, Monty included. Monty was the most experienced land commander who had faced some of the biggest axis formations with the exception of those on the Eastern front so the combination of experience and an in depth knowledge and use of Ultra, Monty alone knew all facets of the looming challenge that was D-Day.
@@DaveSherry-z1w And, it would have been Montgomery's head on the chopping block if the Allies hadn't got off the beaches. He was initially in overall charge of ground operations. Eisenhower didn't take overall control of ground operations until early September I think. Accusations of caution often seems to be based on people's personal animosity toward him as an individual. Overwhelming superiority, another thing he is "accused" of, is a good thing, not a bad thing. Grinding down the enemy in the battle for Caen while still managing to build up overwhelming superiority with one Mulberry harbour out of action was no mean feat. It led to Falaise. It was also a good way of concealing ULTRA, the cracking of German codes. The Germans, if outnumbered and defeated wouldn't necessarily question whether their codes had been broken. I don't think people realise just how worried the Allies were of the Germans realising their codes had been broken. Men and material were sent to their deaths to keep it a secret. Montgomery had serious faults as a human being and was a credit grabber, but he was a good general.
@@eric934 Thank goodness - someone who understands, However, if you have met any Generals at all you'll note they are all "superior" but Monty had no more "serious faults" than anyone else. Supreme confidence in his own abilities and experience is NOT a "serious fault as a human being".
I have walked the terrain of Normandy. The terrain around Caen is a defenders dream. Long featureless sloping fields with excellent fields of fire for the Germans. South of Caen is the Bocage. Small, high hedge fields - again a defenders dream. Monty knew his British citizen army was no match for the SS divisions in mobile warfare. Viller Bocage proved that. So, Monty fought an attritional war with metal rather than flesh. No mention though of Canadian General Crerar's night attack with infantry in converted carriers which blew the Germans off the ridges around Caen....THIS WAS A WORLD FIRST for the western allies and it succeeded brilliantly.
@reconn9056 "Monty knew his British citizen army was no match for the SS divisions in mobile warfare. Viller Bocage proved that." That was just an ambush though, i'd look a bit closer at the performances of the 11th armoured division and VIII Corps under Richard O Connor. The 11th Armoured Division stopped the counter-attacks of the 12th SS Panzer Division during Operation Epsom and managed to capture Hill 112 from the Germans.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- and the Canadian advance during Operation Totalise was nobbled because the USAAF bombed the leading Canadian troops in yet another case of blue on blue, having done that to their own American forces at St Lo, killing McNair in the process. It was because of these two incidents that Monty was to write that the USAAF must NEVER be allowed to bomb near an attack. In Phase 1 of Totalise, the RAF had shown that they were more accurate with their bombing at night than the USAAF was in broad daylight! Norden bombsight or not, the USAAF just simply wasn't accurate enough. (To be fair, the RAF also had their fair share of incidents, too, but not on that scale!)
@@sean640307 On the other hand I think that Operation Goodwood could have been planned a little better, General O'Connor knew that things would get difficult upon reaching the Bourguebus-Verrieres Ridge. A little more organisation regarding Tactical Air Support would have helped as well as some Armoured Personnel Carriers and infantry to support the tanks. Plus the fact that the Panther battalion of the Leibstandarte reached the Ridge undetected leaves me with the impression that a little bit of Air Reconaissance would have helped.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- I agree VB was an ambush - but it was a microcosm of the crux of my point. It just showed the gulf in class. The British column tentatively crept forward, instead of moving with flair and confidence. And then with nothing in front of them, they stop dead with the whole column strung out back to VB, instead of polling down the dead straight Roman road which beckoned before them. Wittmann, just one field away, sleeping under his tiger tank is awoken by the sound of British engines. Moving with flair and confidence against a numerically far superior force he annihilates virtually the whole column from the top of the hill at the crossroads all the way down the hill and back into the village itself where eventually his Tiger is rendered kaput. I don't doubt the courage and heart of Monty's men, but at VB Wittman was top of the premier league and the British Army wasn't. No doubt the Brits learned the hard way - but as I say Monty knew his army was no match for the match fit premier league SS Divisions.
1:28 How the hell was there a chance of a quick breakout when the Americans hadn’t captured Cherbourg or St lo and the Allies had only fourteen divisions ashore, many of which, particularly the parachute and first assault divisions, were inevitably running out of steam?
A really fantastic presentation of the Falaise Pocket. Seeing some footage that is new to me. The whole war is fascinating but this 6 - 8 week period is so compelling to study.
Nothing said about the poor sods clinging on the to east of Caen. That's of a lot of interest to me, especially after I found out in the summer of 2023 that my late dad's late, Irish boss, Private D. Anton, flew in no. 3 glider to Pegasus Bridge.
Nothing went particularly wrong after DDay. The Caen sector was always intended to be the pivot and draw all of the German armour and heavy divisions as the DUKE forces were far more experienced in dealing with them than the Americans. Factor in the storm, losing the mulberry and the associated supplies and divisions, plus the fact that Germans had a fairly decent battle tested army and I'd say Monty's men did a decent job and allowed US forces to breakout. On day 100 Monty was exactly where he said he would be.
@@tedcopple101 Totally agree. Considering the Germans unexpectedly reinforced Normandy in the months leading up to the landings, making the original objectives more difficult and in the case of Caen unrealistic, they did alright. The British and Canadians followed successfully the plan to hold the bulk of the German divisions in place. The Americans followed successfully their objectives to break out west and north. More Montgomery bashing in the comments. He may have been arrogant, a self promoter and didn’t play well with others, but served in WW1 and saw the slaughter and had that constantly in his thinking along with the fact British troops had been fighting since 1939 with loses accordingly. It’s easier to be bolder and take risks when your population isn’t war weary and you have the vast resources of men to throw at the enemy or in the case of the Soviet Union, men are plentiful and expendable.
No it was not. Montgomery wanted to take Caen. He only said it was a pivot after he failed to take it, to the anger of all the American commanders. Quite laughable of you to suggest the Brits were low on supplies--they were not. Especially compared to the Germans. Plus, they had naval and air support in excess, along with more men. And no, Monty was never exactly where he wanted to be. The allies actually wanted the war over by Christmas.
Not true, there were tons of fails. Brits were planned to take Caen on D-Day, that was why the 6th Paras landed and took Pegasus Bridge. But as always Monty failed to achieve the goals and for 4 weeks did nothing to fix it. As a result the planned airfield construction could NOT be enacted, and only 2 small ones were built. Thus air support was minimal!! That forced the US 1st Army to fight through the Bocage under intense enemy pressure causing 70,000 casualties! US forces had to create their breakout because Monty did not get into the open fields beyond Caen. After the Operation Cobra, (more failures), Patton started his advance through the German southern sector. Half his force was sent to clear Brittany, (another fail), and he sent the rest south and then east. His advances ripped through the broken and disorganized German lines and he then moved north to setup the trap. Bradley moved 1st Army to protect his rear at Mortain, and Ike and Bradley went to see Monty. He was disinterested but stated he would close trap at Argentan. Once again he failed, and over 30,000 Germans escaped.
The whole Normandy Campaign - 1944, actually lasted only 77 days, finishing almost 2 weeks ahead of the 90 days originally allotted for its completion by SHAEF (From D-Day on the 06/06/44 till 21/08/44, inclusive), the date when the first British & Canadian units crossed the Seine River in the hot-pursuit of the escaping German Forces then retreating headlong eastwards towards the German border. This Allied advance was then commonly known to Commonwealth Forces, who had served there then, as the “Great Swan,” which only stopped some three weeks afterwards roughly at the Dutch-Belgian border & in the easternmost provinces of France in Alsace-Lorraine! Paris was also liberated shortly later on the 25/Aug/1944 jointly by US & Free French Forces!
I think it is unreasonable to say that the campaign in the Bocage was due to any failure of planning or training or ability. These troops were trained and trained and trained for one purpose, to secure a bridgehead off the beaches. To not do so would be unthinkable failure, so absolutely everything else played second fiddle. And because goal 1 was achieved then the training deficit WRT goal 2 suddenly becomes 'someone's fault' - no, it was the cost of achieving goal 1.
It must be said that though Monty did his part taking on O.B. West, the bulk of the German forces. Things went very badly for the Americans. A fact often overlooked in in the shadow of Monty's success. The Cotentin Peninsular was the easy job, defended by German 3rd Rate "Static Divisions" with no armour and little artillery. This should have been a walk over. But a mixture of poor planning and leadership led to a disaster. Bradley lost 129,000 men, almost double of what Monty lost fighting the largest concentration of German forces of the NW Europe Campaign. The performance of the two Army Groups could not have been more different.
@@billballbuster7186 They were both unique challenges in their own way, for the Americans they turned the region's sunken lanes into trenches and fortifications. The hedgerows-some more than five feet in height and several feet thick-became traps concealing riflemen, machine guns, and infantrymen armed with antitank weapons. The countryside in the British and Canadian sectors-a relatively open, flat, dry expanse stretching from Caen to Paris-was more favorable for offensive warfare. Paradoxically, those conditions made fighting there perhaps more difficult than in the American sector. The nature of the ground and the strategic importance of the area compelled the Germans to mass the bulk of their panzer units and their best troops in the path of Montgomery's forces. They turned the checkerboard of villages that dotted the region into an interlocking, mortar-and-concrete version of the bocage.
I had to stop watching this, it was too frustratingly misleading. Right at the beginning the suggestion is made that the actions of Michael Wittman were a large part of the 'stalling of the advance'. As if the loss of a handful of tanks in one engagement would deter the progress of two entire armies. There were so many factors that slowed the Allies before Cobra that to cite one small dust-up is disingenuous. Come on IWM, I'd expect better from you.
Too funny. I am 4 seconds in and already paused and came to the comments. He started off by saying in “July 1944 the allies were in trouble.” Really bro? Maybe they didn’t advance as far as they wanted in the west but to suggest the allies were in trouble in July 1944 is funny.
It is said that the falaise road was seen with what everyone thought was black smoke for miles ,was really thousands of flies circulating around the stench of dead bodies and blown up equipment
Air burst 26 feet above ground from 25 pounder over enemy armour penetrates engine decks knocking the tanks out. Most German armour was lured into 25 pounder fire.
I did some more reading. By this time, each British pattern regiment had 3 batteries of 8 guns each. All towed by Canadian built CMP FAT 3 ton 4X4 trucks. This gives a division 72 guns. Also, the new proximity fuses were coming online. 25 pounders did have AP and by this time APBC for anti tank direct fire, both using super charges of powder, requiring the use of a muzzle brake. Each gun was given 20 rounds of anti tank shells. Canada designed and built the first set of gun laying radar for the Allies.
An accurate description of the battle, but woeful conclusions. The battle plan said it would take a year to win the war. This implies it was not going to be a walk in the park. The battle for Normandy was expected to last 3 months. Monty expected it to be a hard scrap. That is what it took. By the beginning of September, the Allies were in Belgium so why say it went wrong?
And yet after the falasie gap was closed and they arrived in Belgium, monty's ego grew and thus lead to the fable: Operation Market Garden...and the disastrous "A Bridge Too Far"
@@boyscouts83712 Germany starts using the V2. It had to be designed for something better than a ton of TNT a dirty nuclear bomb perhaps. I think the decision to take Arnheim came from Washington to deprive the Germans launch sites to hit London. It’s interesting that neither Patton or Bradley had a bad word to say about it. Check out what was happening in Norway and the concerns they caused.
@@boyscouts83712 well no, that is wrong. it wasnt his ego, it was the americans always pushing to take all the glory and try keep brittian away. market garden was monties plan, however he had very little involvment in it. after setting up the border plan, he was kept out of any future plans, they didnt tell him about the extra german reinforcments, US didnt give the equipment that was needed. Monty would never have gone along with the opperation market garden they had not kept intelligence aweay from him and they had not ignored germna SS troops in the area. porblem was us and their glory hounding generals, and then came battle of the bulge were Monty was given command of the americans in the northers sector and lead them to victory
While it’s regularly claimed that the British lost more than 400 tanks, compared to 75-100 German tank casualties, this is massively exaggerated. The German losses *only *include total write-offs or captured vehicles, with vehicles recovered and repaired not counted; while the Allied losses include all those damaged but repaired. Figures for Allied tank *total *losses hover around 130-150. The British, while running low on manpower, had 3,500 tanks on the eve of Goodwood. Some 150 permanent losses were something they could easily absorb.
Which tanks did the British have ? Who paid for them ? ARTICLE V The Government of the United Kingdom will return to the United States of America at the end of the present emergency, as determined by the President, such defense articles transferred under this Agreement as shall not have been destroyed, lost or consumed and as shall be determined by the President to be useful in the defense of the United States of America or of the Western Hemisphere or to be otherwise of use to the United States of America.
@@nickdanger3802 The British paid for them. The first Shermans were actually constructed in a factory in the United States which had been paid for by the British. The Lima Locomotive Works, Inc in Ohio was a manufacturer of steam engines. In February 1941 the British government signed a contract for them to make and supply 400 tanks, and as part of the deal the UK provided the funding for a new 11,600 square metre manufacturing facility, with all the tooling and equipment necessary to produce 50 tanks per month. Britain spent it’s massive US currency reserves during 1939-41 on things like paying for US factories to tool up to make tanks and aircraft on their behalf and helping to pull the US out of depression. _The facilities chosen to build the Grants were in various states of disrepair, none more so than Pressed Steel Car's "Ghost Plant" in the Hegewisch neighborhood of south Chicago. This factory, which had been used for the manufacture of railroad cars, had stood empty since the Great Depression, and had "no roof, no floor, no machinery." The British Production Orders provided funds to add to, refurbish and equip the plants, including a late addition in February, 1941, the Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio, originally contracted to produce 400 Grants. The montage above shows the progress at the Hegewisch plant from February through April, 1941._ When the US government set up the Lend-Lease programme, the British government agreed to sign over its ownership share of the Lima Locomotive Works to the US, in return for a promise that the US would supply them with tanks free of charge for the duration of the war.
M3 medium yes, M4 no. In August, 1940, Dewar and the British Purchasing Commission submitted the list reproduced above to the US War Department showing the manufacturers they might use for production of what would become the Grant. Ultimately, Baldwin Locomotive and Pullman Standard were awarded contracts a few months later. Pressed Steel Car was not on Dewar's list, but the company's President, John MacEnulty, contacted the BPC, and "sold" them. On October 25, 1940, PSC was awarded a $28,455,000 contract to produce "501 M3, 28 ton tanks, commonly known as the "General Grant."" A few months after the passage of the Lend Lease Act on March 11, 1941, the Ordnance Department took over responsibility for the existing British contracts in the US. The original agreement had been for "cash & carry," but with Lend Lease, the materiel could be provided and shipped "free." In partial exchange, British purchased plant and equipment was transferred to the US as Reverse Lend Lease. British M3, M3A2, M3A3 and M3A5 Grants Has ! Not secure warning Over the whole period from March 1941 to September 1945, the balance in favour of the United States in the mutual aid books24 was in round terms about $21,000 millions. But by the settlement of 1945 Britain was required to pay no more than $650 millions, or £162 millions sterling. page 547 British War Economy Britain actually paid for less than 1/3 of M4's that were total write offs.
Glad you did a quick change of the title, I find the word FAILED in conjunction with any aspect of the heroic efforts of the Allies to defeat the Axis, highly offensive to the memory of those who fell trying their damnedest to bring about a Victory. They may have struggled to meet targets and deadlines under strenuous circumstances, but overall, they accomplished their goal, the defeat of Nazism in Europe. For those wondering, the original title was "How the Allies FAILED after D-Day."
Agreed - they changed it as I watched. So many of those German divisional symbols shown moving off to the east were actually smashed remnants nowhere near divisional strength.
@@PatGilliland Smashed remnants? Panzer Lehr 15,000 men, 12th SS Panzer 20,000 men, 1st SS Panzer also 20,000 men, 9th SS Panzer 15,000 men etc. How are these smashed exactly? Panzer Lehr alone had 208 tanks and 674 half tracks a long with 42 field howitzers, 18 flak guns, and a self-propelled tank destroyer battalion.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Panzer Lehr had 20 tanks and TDs not 200 at the end of August 44. So yeah - Shattered. Can't be arsed to dig through the rest but 12 HJ had to be rebuilt from scratch after losing 8,000 men and boys, 80% of its armour and 60% of its artillery.
Falaise was NOT a failure. Sure, tens of thousands of Germans got away, but they did so without the vast majority of their equipment and with many units utterly destroyed, so they were an army in name only. A school friend's father was one of the first (if not THE first) allied soldiers to go into the pocket after the shooting stopped. He was a Coldstream Guardsman who had been wounded and afterwards given a non-combat role as a despatch rider, and having a motorcycle that could travel off-road he was sent in to "take a shufti" and report back. What he saw was apocalyptic, with mile after mile of destroyed or abandoned German vehicles and artillery, thousands of dead horses, and of course many, many German dead.
Indeed If the pincher failed and/or the German army made a coordinated retreat, even more men and material would be waiting at the Siegfried line So, the initial breakout didn't exactly go according to plan, but we can always point to Brig. Gen. Picket When asked why his charge failed he stated: “I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”
@Kevin-mx1vi: Almost NONE of the panzers committed to the Normandy campaign were successfully extracted. That fact alone says everything one needs to know about the sorry state of the German units which escaped only as remnants.
Normandy was a great victory that some would say was squandered when Eisenhower adopted his "Broad Front" strategy which allowed the Germans to re-group and prepare for the battle of the Bulge.
Indeed, had things gone the Germans' way, they'd have never had to get nearly surrounded in the first place. Comparing "half your army trapped and destroyed" versus "all of your army trapped & destroyed" is just different degrees of defeat.
@@wyldhowl2821 Yes Normandy was a major disaster for the Germans. Not one aspect of their battle plans was a success. They failed at every level, as was said at the time - they arrived in Tiger tanks and left with hand carts!.
Outstanding visualisation of the dynamics of war. Great! The choises of keeping the narritive simple with a few well known topics such as Wittman winning the battle on his own are clever. This provides a healthy manic oversight also to professional historians who sometimes lose track of the forrest through the trees. Leaving out who it was that ordered Patton to halt is also justified. Top notch channel!
The title of this video SHOULD be 'how Hitler got the German panzer army trapped in the Falaise Pocket'. While tens of thousands of German troops eventually escaped encirclement, their armor and heavy equipment was wrecked.
He was kind of right though as withdrawing the whole army as Rommel and Rundstedt wanted would have meant the Allies overruning the whole army as they had way more vehicles and had complete air superiority.
@@kerotomas1 Not necessarily. Both Generals were adept at executing fighting withdrawals. I believe they recommended a retreat to a defensible position, the Seine.
@@kerotomas1 No, he wasn't. He bound his forces into a bloody attrition that then cost them a huge amount of heavy equipment, and denied them a controlled fall back that could have fought for longer. There was no chance at victory, but a well managed withdrawal would likely have made the push through the rest of France and into Germany slower. Or, Hitler might have made another stupid decision down the line instead and cost that anyway.
@@kerotomas1 which as you said happened, to the extent that the allies cut off their own supply lines by pushing top far when they took the rest of France. Allies (USA and UK) were a lot more mechanized and were a lot more mobile because of it.
@@Hatypusit wasn't stupid, he was right in his assessment that IF the Germans could keep the allies pinned they could defeat the allies in France. Problem was the lack of manpower. Wrong? Sure. Stupid? No. A slow withdrawal wouldn't have given Germany victory in the war..
As American historian Roger Cirillo wrote of Normandy: _Constant movement, or the threat of constant movement, was the only true “fixer” to keep enemy divisions in place, and the fact that this worked throughout the campaign indicates that Montgomery’s plan, though not gaining significant ground, was working..._ _Unexperienced in such operations,Eisenhower accused the British of not fighting and was content to have his staff openly criticize British operations. Sensitive to American losses, Eisenhower never made such charges against Bradley, never noted the slowness of American divisions to adapt to the bocage, never commented that Bradley faced the lowest quality and fewest numbers of the enemy, and never mentioned that Bradley had been warned about the difficulty of the bocage and that extensive intelligence had been provided by the British…._ _With Dempsey launching probes along his front, the German defensive depth remained in the east until it was too late to prevent a rupture. Montgomery who had refused to attack enemy strength through its entire depth had been proven operationally correct. The battle in depth, had, as in the the Great War, always been dependent upon the enemy’s operational reserve and the ability to use it.The battle around Caen had both fixed that reserve and ground it up. SHAEF, however, painted a different story._ _Monty’s double assault on the 25th (July) leftEisenhower with gripes but no substantial case_
At 15.35 of vid linked below; "most of them British-Tedder, Morgan, Coningham-were becoming extremely impatient with General Montgomery and critical of his methods." Week 254 - The Destruction of Army Group Center - July 8, 1944 ua-cam.com/video/xVJzPlO8B_8/v-deo.html
@@nickdanger3802 Yeah, Morgan was upset about the way Montgomery had criticized and changed his original plan, Tedder was still angry with Montgomery about the way he had changed the plan for Sicily, including focusing on capturing ports instead of airfields, and was anti-army. Coningham was frankly jealous.
Montgomery was one of the worst tactical planners, and military leaders(personality wise), of WW2. It never ceases to amaze me how the British put this man in charge. His beef with Patton and his pride will always be his greatest downfall. He's the guy who takes all the credit and none of the blame. Monty's plan for Normandy was the British were to be the main offensive and break out having the Americans cover the flank and clean up the rear, but tactically blundered and failed to push ending up in a bogged down stalemate. It was then that the Americans took some initiate to break out. Him stopping Bradley from closing the gap on the German army delayed the allies by months leaving more of Europe in Soviet hands. He did the same thing in Sicily as well to Patton. And dont even get me started on Operation Market Garden and Arnhem
The bombing of Caen killed many civilians. The whole terrible war everywhere left civilians dead. Even today, some 80 years later, it is the same. Young and middle aged soldiers dying in wars. Very sad.
The absolute best and most honest short video on this battle. As mentioned by Mike Tyson, everybody has a plan "til they get punched in the face. Ike and Monty's PLAN: get ashore (no sure thing) Buildup forces, Breakout, Destroy the fighting ability of the Germans. They succeeded. Controlling the outcomes of battles is like trying to control the weather. My Dad (1st Infantry) who rarely spoke of the war, told me about this battle and his words were close to what IKE said: "They were bulldozing body parts into giant burial pits. Nothing but dead Germans and Cows."
The comments are interesting and generally follow the usual UK vs US jabs. The weather, terrain, logistics and abilities of units is completely disregarded by 'armchair generals'. The terrain around Caen is ideal for German armour and AT guns in defensive, longer sighting range (better optics) evolution. The UK armour suffered horrendous losses as described in the presentation from this in Goodwood and Epsom. Montgomery would have loved to 'level the playing field' with air support and arty but weather and supply issues slowed his plans-and politics seems to have entered into the mix when the USA 3rd Army (Patton) entered the theater. In the Bocage (hedgerows) the German armour was not as effective in a defensive roll as smaller, easily concealed infantry units. Just because the USA faced less troops in number negates the need to look at force multipliers of terrain. As far as Patton's 'uncaring' nature to casualties GSP was a student of history (kinda weirdly so but show me a general that didn't have some 'quirks' in his personality). He took pages from the American Civil War, RE Lee's thinking about the trap of being a general-that he loved his army yet has to order the death of it (paraphrasing). We all have to 'play with the cards we are delt.'
Moderm research shows that British losses were tainted by German propaganda. At Goodwood 352 British were listed as missing, not lost. Of these only 131 were actual write-off, the rest were back in service a day or two later. British casualties were remarkably light considering they did the bulk of the fighting. In contrast Patton in the US has a magnificent reputation for tank warfare. Yet in North Africa he fought only one battle at El Guettar, which was going badly until British 8th Army attacked von Arnims rear. In Normandy his contribution to victory was minimal. While at Lorraine - Mefz he suffered 26,000 dead and 85,000 wounded. While his vastly inferior enemy was undefeated and retired to join the troops preparing for the Bulge. At the Bulge Patton arrived at Bastogne 10 days after the attack, the German armour had gone. So one has to wonder what exactly was his reputation based on?
Yeah, as usual. On the one hand, the allied high command knew Patton was this sort of guy. They knew "Don't let him grand-strategize too much, but turn him loose if you have a situation where you need a guy who is going to dash in headlong" - which is basically what took place. The careful but relentless general in the east gets the hardest fighting with his most experienced & dangerous soldiers (British & Canadian), up against the toughest Germans, and they managed to either advance in nasty steady fighting or else hold off the German counterattack. Meanwhile in the west, once you have secured the beachhead as a starting place, you let the "manoeuvre" go out there and manoeuvre, with speed as his priority to get around the enemy. Saying this whole thing was a "failure" is wrong - because in fact it succeeded. Indeed, given how much of their advantages were negated by bad weather, they still held up their end, just more slowly. Saying Falaise was a failure is wrong too - maybe they could have closed it off better, but they also could have done a hell of a lot worse. Indeed, if the German generals had free reign to act logically (without Hitler's interference), they might never have gotten into the kind of pocket where so many did get trapped, so imagine the same battle front only with twice or three time as many German soldiers escaping to keep fighting later. Patton grumbled about Montgomery, but so what? He grumbled about everybody, beside him or above him, even those US commanders who wisely prevented him from getting himself in trouble. Eisenhower hardly gets any mention here, but have no doubt that he knew all the guys on his team, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their personalities.
I thought factual statistics showed that proportionally, units under Patton's command actually suffered fewer casualties than those under any other Allied commander...
@@billballbuster7186 Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German Army, stated that Patton "was the American Guderian. He was very bold and preferred large movements. He took big risks and won big successes."[279] Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring said that Patton had developed tank warfare into an art, and understood how to handle tanks brilliantly in the field. I feel compelled, therefore, to compare him with Generalfeldmarschall Rommel, who likewise had mastered the art of tank warfare. Both of them had a kind of second sight in regard to this type of warfare.[279] Referring to the escape of the Afrika Korps after the Battle of El Alamein, Fritz Bayerlein opined that "I do not think that General Patton would let us get away so easily."[279]
My Father passed through the area of the Falaise Gap a few days after the battle. He said the stench of the bodies baking in the hot August sun was unbearable & that he actually felt pity on the German soldiers after witnessing the carnage.
I have read the key take aways is: The Goodwood attack was conceived as a way to pin German resources in one place. Sure it would be great to break through. But not essential . It was a winning ploy. I read the 'timetable ' for advanced was a concept guide , not a timetable as such. It almost was dropped from the operation plan. But was left in to give strategic direction. I
I understand why the British and Canadians were the force chosen to contain the up to 10 panzer divisions around Caen while the Americans were meant to be allowed to break out from the west only facing one or two panzer division. The British and Canadian forces were much more experienced and less likely to break under pressure while the inexperienced Americans might have but I am bored with the constant American claims of plodding by the British and Canadians who were facing well prepared positions of an experienced army that was well equipped, knowing that if they could stop the allies at Caen they could be pushed back into the sea . I often imagine if the roles were reversed , less experienced Americans but with generals who treated their men like cannon fodder and more experienced British facing less determined opposition in my opinion would have resulted in a faster closing arm from the west with a more suicidal attack from the north by the Americans could have gone either way . After Falaise the British advance was anything but slow and only contained by lack of material . As for Monty , although a egotistical , narcissistic man , he was the most competent Allied commander on offer and if I was a soldier I would rather have a commander who at least valued my life and sacrifice my life only as a last resort , than a Patton type who was prepared to fight to the last American.
Nice animations but expect more from IWM. Very click-baity and repeats the tropes that modern historians are fighting against. Disappointing that Britain's national war museum starts off with Michael xxxx Wittman and Villers Bocage, which was never going to be a breakthrough (they knew the SS were moving in) and is best described as a 'score draw'. Do you get more clicks from just mentioning Wittman's bit part role? At least this video mentions the huge disparity of forces facing the British and Canadians around Caen. Makes too much of frustration at SHAEF over Monty's progress - Bradley and Eisenhower knew the plan and knew why things were going slowly, like the effect of the Great Storm. Most of the annoyance with Monty was over his BS and Churchill was more frustrated than Ike. This was clearly an expensive video to make but if the hope was to create a new canon summary of the Normandy campaign, it's only reinforcing myths. Shame to waste those maps though - maybe breaking it down and doing more focussed videos would be a good idea?
The plan was to take Saint Lo and Caen near simultaneously with Operation Cobra and Goodwood but Monty initially messed up and should have been replaced by Ike.
@@markgarrett3647 The issue with Goodwood was that it was supposed to occur at the same time as Operation Cobra in the American sector as part of a double attack, but the US forces were not yet ready, so in order to keep the Germans on the back foot, Goodwood went ahead on its own.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Indeed, and while admittedly the British forces did not do well on the attack in the bocage, the US forces fared similarly in battles around St. Lo. Simply put, Normandy's terrain heavily favours the defenders: the hedges make not just for great cover but funnel heavy support onto narrow roads where chokepoints can easily be formed, which is part of why the heavy tanks at Villers-Bocage could actually do as much damage as they did (it wasn't even a single tank operating because even Wittman wasn't THAT stupid). Also, villages where soldiers are dug in or hide in the houses are a nightmare to clear out. There were countermeasures for that, like bulldozer blades on tanks that could open passageways inside the hedges, but the terrain simply favoured the Germans. However, it's also part of why the beaches were protected so little, hence why despite the terrain the attack was still pressed on. And once the breakthrough happened, you can see that even when initial progress is slow, it's unstoppable in the long term. Now, there is ONE aspect in which the British did shoot themselves in the foot. In order to keep morale up high on the home front, Montgomery kept telling the press that British operations were supposed to lead to breakthroughs, rather than a way to keep the Germans busy while the US forces prepared a much bigger shot at a breakthrough. This however led to criticism as none of the operations were successful on the expected scale. The public got way too many flashbacks to the Great War and it really contributed to the popularity of Monty dropping, which was only accelerated during Market Garden.
This is a great video. I recently ready two books one by an American author the other by a British author; I learned more about this subject by watching this 20 minute video. The moving map worked very well to do that
Les than 50,000 (perhaps only 20,000) German troops escaped Normandy to the east, and next to no armour. In contrast, Normandy cost the Germans 450,000 men and 2,400 tanks, assault guns and tank destroyers. Few of these survivors were combat troops and many who got away were wounded. 20-50,000 Germans escaping is nothing of significance when they just lost nearly ten times that number. It was a shattering defeat for the German armies in the West.
Great video. Did not know the Nebelwerfer had such a big effect (rather like what the German's were on the receiving end of with Katyushas on the Eastern Front). Very clear maps and well explained background that does not skip into usual shortcuts.
The problem in Normandy was the German army, for some reason they decided not to make it easy for the allies. Instead of the worn out criticism of Monty etc etc, try praising all the allied troops for defeating such a formidable enemy. Oops sorry I got that all wrong it was of course all Monty’s fault…..
What people forget about the normandy campaign. is that they faced 2 green divisions; and there elite das reich div full of new recruit's en children, sinds they lost more then 50% of their troops fighting against the russians; it was 1944 after al most was already done by russia; where there were 490+ divsions fighting each other.
@@cedricvanhove7716 There were msny great German Divisions in Normandy, The elite 21st Panzer Division and 12th SS Panzer Division were on the British sector since day one. Later with O. B. West there was Wehrmacht, Panzer Lehr, 2nd Panzer Division, 9th Panzer Division and 116th Panzer Division. The SS divisions were 1st SS Leibstandarte, 2nd SS Das Reich, 9th SS Hohenstaufen, 10th SS Frundsberg and the 101st and 102ns SS Heavy Tank Battalions. All these 11 Divisions served on the British secter around Caen . In July Panzer Lehr with 68 working tanks wad sent to St Lo.
“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy” or as Mike Tyson succinctly put it “everyone has a plan until he gets a punch in the mouth”. It’s how you adapt to the oppositions tactics that matters and the allies did that very well.
Please dont do these clickbait titles anymore Edit: They changed it quite soon after people were writing about it. The original was something like: "How the Allies FAILED after D-Day"
A few days before this video was posted, I was there. I drove through Villers-Bocage, found the exact spot where Michael Wittman's tank ground into a halt, and parked my car on the spot. I had lunch at a Bistrot nearby and exchanged a few words with the locals in my simple French vocabulary. Have to be a bit careful with what you say these days, even if you are by no means a Nazi. I wish I was economically independent. I would have spent three months just cruising through Normandy, stopping at every family owned bed & breakfast, eating loads of local food, drinking biere blonde, calvados and even Normandy whisky. Outside all the souvenir shops and monuments, there is a world of discovery and a wonderful atmosphere. A shame that there are very few remains from the Great War though. All my love to Normandy from a Scandinavian. But hey, we founded it over a millennia back. 🙂♥
The Allies prevailed in Normandy using Monty’s invasion plan and his ground strategy. This was a great success. Montgomery had envisioned a 90 day battle with all forces reaching the Seine. He emphasized Cherbourg, making it clear that the British would hold as many German divisions as possible in Caen or it’s outskirts while the Americans take Cherbourg and go south to break the front without any German Panzer divisions nearby. Result? Pretty much that. It happened ahead of schedule and with 22% less casualties than predicted. _Not even Stalingrad could match the strategic scale of the German defeat in Normandy……._ _….By containing the bulk of the enemy armour and best infantry opposite Dempsey, and giving Bradley time and space to bring the greater numerical strength of the American divisions into battle on the western flank, Monty had out-generalled von Rundstedt, Rommel, Hausser and von Kluge who, limited by the edicts of Hitler, had insufficient strength to defend British, American and Pas de Calais sectors in equal strength. Compared with Hitler’s conduct, the impatience of Eisenhower, Tedder and Churchill had proved merely tiresome to the Ground Forces Commander, and had not affected the course of the battle. Montgomery’s victory was, without doubt in even Hitler’s mind, the decisive battle of the war: ‘the worst day of my life,’ as Hitler remarked on 15 August 1944 as the true dimensions of the catastrophe in Normandy became apparent._ -Hamilton, Nigel. Monty, Master of the Battlefield 1942-1944. In Normandy the Allies captured twice the number of troops taken by the Russians at Stalingrad, and all were German. Of the 2,400 German armoured fighting vehicles thrown into Normandy, barely two dozen escaped. Two armies were annihilated: by any reckoning a stunning victory.
and yet silly Americans hate Monty and think nothing he did worked, they forget about his victories or are just ignorant of what impact he really had, it was Monty that Dwight David Eisenhower brought in to bolster the northern American sector when during the battle of the bulge as he know Monty could handle static defence battle better than any of his American generals, it was his plan for D-Day and yes there was the failure of Market garden, but what most forget is he outlined the original plan, after that it was handed over and he had no further part in the battle, new intel was gathered and not past on to the general in charge of the plan after Monty and his orginal plan was not modified to to fit the situation on the ground by the time the opperation was meant to take place.
The Falaise pocket was kept open because Bradley did not believe that Patton, who had run out of supplies, could hold against determined German opposition. That might be a correct judgement, considering that German opposition had stiffened considerably.
How had the German resistance stiffened, they were down to less than 100 tanks by the time Patton entered the fight. Explain also how Patton who had just entered the battle was alreadt "out of supplies".
It's before the US Third Army had supply troubles and the real reason why Brad didn't allow Patton to go for the kill at Argentan was because he didn't want a similar friendly fire incident that happened earlier that a lot of US 36th. Division and General McNair lost their lives.
@@markgarrett3647 moron alert IT was the bombs that got McNair and that is not what was going to happen at ARgentan/ Do any of you people know ANYTHING?
"I've got some good news and bad new for ya, boys. The Canadians've taken the Laison River. The Poles have moved into Vimoutiers from the north. Bottom line, Jerry's boxed in pretty good. We've got them fallin' back towards Chambois" "So, whats the bad news?" "Chambois... is where we're going next" "*groaning*"
"What REALLY went wrong after D-Day?" Well, for the Germans, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Monty's trade mark, careful, meticulous planning with plans B through Z in place was like a tsunami. A relentless build up of forces that could not be resisted that did not allow the Germans to build up forces yet at the same time sucked them into a deep dark pit. yep there sure were tactical errors and omissions as THERE ALWAYS ARE IN COMBAT. However, this was not a time for reckless Pattonesque charges into the hinterland nor for timidity Lucasesque hunkering down. The relentless build up post-June 6th was totally necessary in terms of strategy, resourcing and, exclusive to Monty's army, husbanding human resources. Given that the German didn't turn and run on 6th June but fought tooth and nail hampered by their own leadership, with 20/20 hind sight Monty's strategy rolled out perfectly.
You do realize that Monty only had a minor role in planning DDay. Now I consider his best act was insisting on a five division assault force instead of three.
@@johnhallett5846 LOL! Monty had THE role in the direction and execution of the whole D-Day operation. His plan and his execution as Commander on the day and for many day thereafter. His insistence on 5 divs is an example of that he would not have got his way if he didn't have overall command and control of the operation. Churchill saw to ti that Monty's attention to detail was utilised in the correct please. Not a single one of the US commanders could have pulled the planning and preparation of this operation - only Monty had the experience of an operation of this scale - including knowing Rommel as well as he did. Patten's arrogance would have seen the operation founder in glorious rampages across the countryside, the other US commanders experience ranged from limited WW1 to none at all.
@@DaveSherry-z1w Monty's excellent planning resulted in untold numbers of casualties for his armies, although much of this is a result of the skilled warriors of the Germans.
With a lot fewer casualties than previously considered likely. Montgomery was under enormous pressure from Churchill (who just could not help himself interfering at ever possible juncture) Monty was aware he had a citizen's army with very little of the pro's he helped make in N. Africa as available to him.
A tadge unfair to the British. They were facing a greater concentration of the best Panzer divisions in the German Army anywhere. The Germans made big mistakes too and suffered the same disadvantages when they attacked. Especially from Commonwealth artillery both Army and Naval. What did the Germans escape with and what did they have to leave behind?
I'd say what really went wrong after D-day would be the rest of the war for the Germans. As for the allies, war is hard, logistics isn't easy and that particular part of France where they fought was not as conducive for war of movement as the open deserts in Africa or the lands in Russia.
What REALLY went wrong after D-Day? Not much: Allied forces captured Paris many days ahead of the rough pre-invasion schedule - and with fewer casualties.
ironically de Gaulle played a key role in that. becuase he more or less forced Eisenhower to grant leclerc permission to race to paris as fast as possible.
Read Keegens "Six Armies in Normandy" ( if you haven't already). It covers this very well. Basically, LeClerc was told to hear for Paris regardless of orders.
The liberation of Paris wasn't even an objective. The Allied trough Eisenhower wanted to advanve quickly to Germany and for doing that it gets faster if you avoid big cities.
D-Day plus 90 was 4 September 1944. Monty said Paris would be liberated on D-day plus 90. It was liberated on D-Day plus 80. General Miles Dempsey took Brussels, 183 miles from Caen, on D-Day plus 89. Dempsey took Antwerp, 253 miles from Caen, on D-Day plus 90.
@@nickdanger3802 Monty did not plan Market Garden. A team headed by a US General planned Market Garden and planned it without having an Airborne General on his team I believe. It was riddled with errors some major, many small but contributing. The one error which could not be overcome was the US 82ND Airborne failure to capture the Bridge at Nijmegen. They did not even attempt to until it was too late. At the time of them landing there were a couple of dozen defenders on that bridge - they did everything except attack it - go figure!
@@Scaleyback317 1st AB took 4 hours to travel 4 miles/6k from LZ Z to the rail bridge and arrived just in time to see it destroyed. Before 740 men had even arrived at the north end of the last intact bridge in Arnhem area, 82nd had captured the 500m bridge north of Grave and the last intact bridge over the Maas Waal canal and the Heights for Brownings' useless HQ brought in by 38 of 1st AB's gliders with capacity for about 1,000 infantry (including pilots). When XXX Corps arrived at Grave at 0820 on day 3 they were about 25 miles/40k from Arnhem, well over 1/3 the distance from Joes Bridge to Arnhem with 11 hours of daylight remaining. "The essential plan was not dead, however, and on the 10th September 1944, Montgomery personally briefed Browning for Operation Market Garden. The objectives remained the same, but now the American airborne divisions entered the equation, and the areas around Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem respectively became the responsibility of the 101st, 82nd and 1st Airborne Divisions with the Poles under the command of the latter. Browning, having asked Montgomery how long the 1st Airborne would have to hold Arnhem and being told two days, replied that they could hold it for four." Pegasus Archive Browning
@@Scaleyback317 "The 82nd Airborne Division, however, certainly does not deserve any particular criticism for this as their priorities appear to be a further product of the blind optimism that dogged Operation Market Garden, of which everyone involved was guilty. At Nijmegen, as with everywhere else, the assumption was that resistance would be light and so the main concern of the airborne units was to make the advance of the ground forces as rapid and as uncomplicated as possible, instead of devoting all their attention to primary objectives. Furthermore, it should be understood that the 82nd Airborne Division had by far the most complicated plan of any of the Airborne units involved with Market Garden, their troops being required to capture numerous objectives over a considerable expanse of terrain." Pegasus Archive 30. Reasons for the Failure
@@nickdanger3802 Completely disagree. Whilst 82nd had, "Other responsibilities" or so it seems as they went chasing imaginary armoured forces in the hills and forest above the valley completely neglecting the very reason for their being dropped into Holland in the first place - to take and hold the bridge in order for XXX Corps armour to cross with minimum Germany interference. Some sources claim Gavin ordered (belatedly) the bridge taken yet other sources claim he did nothing of the sort. You know as well as I or anyone else with even the slightest interest in the why and when it all unravelled that Gavin should have prioritized that bridge or what was the point in them being there. He must also have known as an experience airborne commander how vulnerable his and the British light infantry would be if faced with armour and artillery in large numbers with no armour cover of their own. Had that bridge been in allied hands Arnhem was within reach for XXX Corps. Gavin would have figured that out for himself. Yet he allowed the bridge defences to be hugely strengthened before making his move. At the time his men hit their DZ's there were less than two dozen defenders on that bridge. I find that unfathomably stupid (and Gavin was a long way from stupid). I cannot help but wonder who and why would not wish that bridge to have been taken immediately. Call me suspicious if you wish........
This narrative of failure is bizarre and, well, old-fashioned. Yes, it was an attritional battle. It was always going to be, but attrition favoured the western Allies and in end two German field armies were destroyed, regardless of whether or not the "gap" at Falaise was fully closed in time.
It was extremely fortunate that the Germans had become trapped. Replacing experienced troops was even harder for them than replacing their equipment. This was a near total victory, regardless of the demoralized Germans who managed to escape. It is madness for the video to imply this was anything but. Had the reverse happened to the allies, it would have been a catastrophe, delaying the war substantially and would have resulted in Germany being the first country to be the victim of an atomic bomb instead of Japan.
the whole "Villers Bocage" thing is so blown out of proportion. It cost the Germans more than it cost the British. That initial attack, against a dismounted column, was spectacularly successful but the subsequent attacks and counter-attacks had a far more damaging effect on the Germans as they lost equipment they couldn't replace (including Wittman's own Tiger)
It really is a testament to German resilience that, less than a year before total defeat, with 300 Soviet divisions hurtling down upon them, could still resist in the West so stubbornly and effectively.
@@scottmccrea1873 Not sure that is correct, and there are two situations on war that are often referenced as exceptional, but are actually pretty common: 1. That it is “amazing” to rebuild war damaged areas or cities quickly. But if there are people and at least some functional government or equivalent…most cities repair war damage fairly quickly. 2. That it’s “amazing” that desperate or motivated men fight well. If facing an invasion to your country or if there is a good risk of death if captured, then it’s impressive and hard, but not uncommon, for even outnumbered men to fight well. And the Germans had the added incentive of facing hanging and disgrace if they tried to escape the fight as further motivation.
Rather than repeatedly showing footage from the Battle of the Bulge or other unrelated battles, the Imperial War Museum should consider using authentic still-photographs from Normandy, and not just sticky-tape any old war footage to this. If you watch "The New Zealand Wars" by James Belich, or "The Civil War" by Ken Burns, you can see how effective still photography can be when you lack video footage entirely. Otherwise, I enjoyed this video, cheers :-) J
My mother was in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and one of six secretaries to the CIC, 21st Army Group. As such, she was one of the first women to land in Normandy following D DAY. She got there before my father, who was in the Royal Engineers and who had been working on PLUTO and had missed the original landings, something he very much regretted. My parents didn't talk much about their experiences, but my mother did say that, during the advance following the destruction of the German forces at Falaise, she and her female colleagues were diverted around the area, as it was deemed to be too horrible for them to encounter. She was 23 at the time and had joined up in 1939.
It still blows my mind how under-discussed the hedgerows themselves are. I think people understand the breakout and the weird/necessary tech used to break through, but imagine staring down these mazes from the outside as a leader/commander, not knowing if your men who entered would return. And how relieved they mustve felt to move on from them.
It's all well and good to look at maps. I rode my bicycle all over Normandy last summer. Actually experiencing the lay of the land was revealing. Riding a bicycle was far better than going by car, as you took your time traversing areas where the Allies had trouble advancing. I was also able to experience even the slightest changes in slope which would require a slightly lower gear and slower speed. Close to the coast there is wide open terrain where it would be hard to hide large formations. Even the slightest height of land would give huge advantages to the defenders. Riding from Courselles-Sur-Mer to Caen gave us a sense of the gradual slope of the terrain over that interval of land. The Falaise area is a different matter entirely though. The hilly, complex, wooded area of Suisse Normande allowed small formations of the 12th SS to keep the larger formations of the Canadians and Poles at bay. This (now) beautiful area of Normandy is very different than the coastal area. The neck of the pocket was kept open largely because closing the neck was extremely difficult given the terrain. I'm so glad that I truly got to experience the lay of the land first-hand.
@@johndawes9337 clearly another who has been overdosing on the Patton kool-aid. It's a shame that a large pocket of the world has been spoon-fed a lot of rubbish by a couple of movies, but that's the way it goes! As for "moving out of the way", isn't it funny how as soon as Eisenhower took over the role of "land commander", the entire ETO battle came to a grinding halt? Coincidence? Nope!!
I'm a care worker and recently I attended a man who I found out took part in the encirclement at Falaise. He told me that his unit were ordered to be the rear guard and so they got to leave later than everyone else and so they spent the morning loading their trucks with supplies but when it came to around midday they were ordered to unload their trucks and advance forward, they found some 400 dead men in a field who they had to transport back.
Villas Bockage had no strategic impact: the German tanks were destroyed and the town retaken within hours. It certainly didn’t hold up the wider allied advance as suggested.
@@reconn9056 The Germans proved to be predictable in Normandy, push them off of a hill or out of a village, dig in and wait for their counter attacks to arrive and destroy them. This happened time and time again. They had no awnser for it.
is there anyway to find out where my cousin Rifleman Ken Thompson Canadian 2nd Corps was KIA on August 24 at the Gap? Our family was told that he was killed by a sniper? Any additional info would be appreciated!
I must stop watching WW2 documentaries when I see the immense cost of suffering and sacrifice, which brought us the freedom and liberty we have had since 1945, and then look at today's UK. I become sad and embittered by how it is being given away and those freedoms eroded.
The importance of keeping initiative and violence of action cannot be understated. That said, its one thing to write about, something very different in the field
The manpower shortage was so severe that some people conscripted were sent down the coal mines. In my neck of the woods, a fire on a council rubbish tip was left for months to burn itself out. No men were available and the women were employed in the factories.
@@spidos1000 yes but as said an advantage for the americas on the western area. Thanks to all the guys who helped to liberate europe. I say this a german thankfully to be born in a free europe.
@@spidos1000 I just don't see how a population of 44 million people over half of them male take another half of that of fighting age i just don't know why we had manpower shortages in WW2.
The biggest problem was a lack of clear information from the front to rear commanders. Montgomery and Bradley both wanted a breakthrough, but their planning was not flexible enough and this allowed the Germans to hold until late July.
Monty adapted his strategy to sute the conditions and this was successful. It was the Americans that wanted a rigid plan written in stone, no doubt a result of their inexperience. After Normandy the Americans lost horrific casualties adhering to rigid plans at Lorraine, Metz and Hurtgen Forest.
I have read Bradley''s book "A Soldier's Story." He says in simple terms that the plan had always been that Montgomery would keep the Germans busy while the Americans cut the peninsula and would go on to capture Cherbourg. There were plenty of Germans in the cut off area and if the Germans has been allowed to move their armor into the peninsula it might have made efforts to capture the port city nearly impossible. And keep in mind, they had decided on a one front policy that would keep the Germans from getting strong in one area and getting into the rear of the Allied armies. There are many reasons why this worked, the biggest was the deception that Patton's fictitious army would invade at a later date somewhere to the east of Montgomery and that kept the 15th Army out of the war until it was too late to stop the Allies.
the big problem was much stiffer german resistance than expected in the days after operation overlord. also the other big problem was in some way especially with canadians the initial landings hand in someways been too successful and they need to delay their advance slighty to wait for logistics to catch up. also the other thing that made things a lot more problematic was the misuse of allied bombing raids which often missed their targets and incured large scale friendly fire.
Caen, the full Order No 1 transcript: _(I Corps Operations Order No. 1, WO 171/258)_ _3 British Division_ *a)* _The task of 3 British Division is to capture CAEN and secure a bridgehead over the R ORNE at that place._ *b)* _The enemy may develop his counter-attack--_ _i) Through CAEN_ _ii) Across R ORNE at RANVILLE - BENOUVILLE having established himself in the area East of R ORNE from which he can dominate the beaches West of OUISTREHAM and the Northern approaches to CAEN._ _iii) West of Caen, between R MUE and the CAEN Canal_ _iv) Any combination of the above_ _In cases (ii) and (iii) using CAEN as a pivot, if he succeeds in forestalling us there._ *c)* _To counter these enemy measure 3 British Division should, before dark on D-Day, have captured or effectively masked CAEN and be disposed in depth with brigade localities firmly established._ _i) North-West of BENOUVILLE, in support of 6 Airborne Division operating East of R ORNE (having relieved the airborne troops West of the canal and taken over the defence of the BENOUVILLE-RANVILLE crossings._ _ii) North-West of CAEN, tied up with the LEFT forward brigade locality of 3 Canadian Division._ _Should the enemy forestall us at CAEN and the defences prove to be strongly organised thus causing us the fail to capture it on D-Day, further direct frontal assaults which may prove costly will not be undertaken without reference to I Corps. In such an event 3 British Division will contain the enemy in CAEN and retain the bulk of its forces disposed for mobile operations inside the covering position. CAEN will be subjected to heavy air bombardment to limit its usefulness and to make its retention a costly business."_ - Richard Anderson - _"Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day"_ So the *intention* in the Order is quite clear. Take Caen if possible, but if German resistance ensure that the enemy doesn't use it as a means of counter-attacking. Mask it off then let the RAF deal with Caen. Caen was not the prime aim. It was to draw the German Armour reserves onto the Second Army then grind them down, with also an aim to prevent them from interfering in Bradley's breakout into Brittany and the seizing Cherbourg. The Germans kept approximately 90% of their armour on Monty's left flank against the British and Canadians including *ALL* the elite Panzer Divisions, and kept all the heavy armour away from the US armies.
From end of June to end of August 1944, the German Army lost more than 500.000 soldiers on the Eastern Front (its line going through Finland, the Baltic States, Soviet Union, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania). Most of the German ground forces were on that front. Squeezed between east and west, the Germans were like a candle burning at both ends.
Most engagements between tanks, even tigers and panthers (which were incredibly, INCREDIBLY rare on the western front until December) were ended in the first shot. Usually whoever shot first won. Even the 75mm Sherman could pierce the front plate of the Tiger if it hit straight on at 200 yards or closer. The main issue was AT guns and ambushes, not Panthers and Tigers.
Most of the history I have read of the British and Canadian sector made reference to constant contact with panther tanks. Well documented in the regimental diaries.
I have read Canadian and Polish veteran accounts of their fighting at the Mont Ormel ridge. The Polish defense of their position was extraordinary and really deserves to be better known.
@Lord.Kiltridge The speech made during the battle is also great.
*"Gentlemen, all is lost. I do not think that the Canadians can come to our rescue. We have only about 110 able-bodied men left. Five shells per gun and 50 bullets per man. That's very little, but fight all the same. Surrender to the S.S. is futile; you know that. I thank you. You have fought well. Good luck, gentlemen. Tonight we shall die for Poland and for civilization! . . . each tank will fight independently, and eventually each man for himself"*
They had the winged hussars spirit in them that day!
"da kanadians, kanadians are coming..."
My uncle served in the Polish 1st Armoured Division and was there on hill 262 Mont Ormel the Canadians who arrived after the battle put up a sign " A Polish battlefield. My dad was in Italy serving with the Polish ll Corps. Thankyou for your acknowledgement of these Brave Hero's.
To give credit, Call of Duty 3 (iirc), back when CoD was good, gives this battle a focus and has you play as the Poles defending Mt Ormel and the Canadians coming to relieve them. It may not be entirely historically accurate but it did get me interested enough in the battle to read into it.
I feel bad for the Poles. What were they fighting for here? Just for their country to end up behind the Iron Curtain?
What people forget about the Normandy campaign is the allies still reached Paris on the planned day. So yeah mistakes were made but they adapted and kept pushing
@@Geoff31818 then the french got involved.
But they didn't reach Cherbourg or Caen on the planned date. And actually the war was meant to be over by the new year, which it wasn't/
Thanks to proper preparation. Intelligence works provided the best location for landing and diverted the Nazi Germany into thinking that the landing were to be commenced on different beaches (read "Operation Mincemeat")
@@gh87716 If you still finish the campaign 2 weeks earlier than predicted ( August 30th) all of that means nothing. The Normandy campaign finished in 76 days.
It is even more positive then that. Hitler was, here as in nearly every other instance, wrong to advocate a static defense. Note how lopsided the casualties here are in favour of the Allies. We don't see that again in the west until very late in the war with the complete collapse of the Germans.
This kind of static fighting favours the Allies - it is pretty much a straight up firepower contest with the Allies being able to tap into their phenomenal logistical advantages, their complete air superiority and their complete naval superiority. No other kind of campaign plays so strongly into Allied strengths while so completely minimizing Germany's advantage in veteran forces. Does not matter how much experience you have in war - there is not much you can do about being carpet bombed.
My Dad was in the German army, in an armoured unit. He was captured in the Falaise Gap by the Canadians, he was one of the lucky ones. He became a POW in the UK and never went back to Germany after the war.
Lucky man. I’m glad he was able to forge a new life for himself in peace.
So you are British, born and bred? An old friend of mine is the grandson of a German POW who also remained in the UK after the war. He married an Englishwoman and never saw Germany again.
@@HowlinWilf13 yes, British born and bred. There was a German/Italian POW camp not far from our town and a number of kids I was at school with had German surnames as their fathers too had stayed on after the war and married British ladies. The POW camp is still there (or was 20 years ago) and I visited it with my Dad and it still had the wartime chapel decorated by the prisoners.
@@anthonyschell9225 Fascinating! Germany's loss and Britain's gain, haha. My grandfather served in the North African campaign and was wounded at the siege of Tobruk but survived the war. Had your father and my grandfather not been so lucky, we wouldn't be having this conversation! The quirks of fate! All the best to you.
The Geneva Convention required all POWs be returned to their country. The popular meme of POWs staying in the country that captured them is false. All were returned, though some came back later.
Thanks for creating this mini documentary on the Falaise pocket … this was one of the earliest major allied victories in Continental Europe. Very important bit of history, thanks for your hard work.
Thank you for this. My dad arrived in Normandy on July 6th 1944 - I long thought that this meant he didnt face much danger. How wrong I was. He was a driver in the Royal Engineers tasked to drive an Intelligence Officer around. he witnessed the massacre of Falaise from a distance and then accompanied the British infantry up into N. France, Belgium, Holland and eventually N Germany.
Thanks for sharing this.
Ok just to avoid this turning into another giant pissing contest that always typically starts over who did more (which i know it does on these WW2 comment sections, and it's pointless) i'll just say this.
The strategy as agreed between the SHAEF high command Eisenhower, Monty, Bradley, Brooke etc that played out was simply another concept of the "Hammer and Anvil."
The role of the British, Canadian and Polish forces was to act as a shield for the Allied landings, constantly sucking the German armour on to a great "Anvil" on the left flank, and constantly grinding the Germans down with punishing blows from artillery, tanks and Allied aircraft.
As the anvil held the bulk of the German armour in it's position, this would open the way for the Americans to wield a great "Hammer" in the west, on the right of the Allied lines, smashing through the German defences, where the Americans led by Lightning Joe Collins and Patton, could run free.
The role of the British, Canadians and Poles would thus not be a glamorous one like the Americans, but a tough battle in a punishing cauldron of attrition. In the end it worked, the Germans were pinned down and outflanked on two sides and Panzer Army West, the German Seventh army and the German 15th Army were all gutted as fighting formations losing over 400,000 men and 2,400 tanks in Normandy.
Yeah, the British, Canadians and Poles fought hard battles. I give them great credit for their effort and personal bravery. It's Montgomery who let them down.
@@JALRML1251 There's always one f-knuckle isn't there. Looks like you are it on this occasion. D-Day and everything after IT WAS MONTY'S STRATEGY RIGHT FROM THE GET GO. Can't you get that tiny fact through your scone? Monty KNEW more than anyone on earth that no plan survives the first shot so he had contingencies and built up forces probing for a breakthrough accordingly while allowing the US forces on the flank (THE HAMMER) to also build up ready to sweep forward to create the hammer. Anvils stand still, hammers smash down. Have you got that?
"Ok just to avoid this turning into another giant pissing contest " I'll start it!
few if any are critiquing the soldiers themselves... its one particular guy whose mouth was a lot louder than his ability to sustain an attack.
@JALRML1251
How did Montgomery let them down? He correctly predicted a 3 month fight to attain Paris. Not only was this target met but his forces were 400km ahead of schedule and liberating Brussels Belgium...and overall casualties were lower than expected.
The Poles fought like lions keeping the pocket closed. True warriors
Yea, and the British, Canadian, and US forces just sat on their hands. Evrtyone knows that...
Yet the British refused a participation of Polish armed forces a participation of a victory parade after the war.
@@albertwolanski7688
No.
@thevillaaston7811 The Canadians weren't sitting on their hands. It was the Americans who refused to close the gap. There is some debate on whether it was Patton or Bradley who refused to attack. With a conscript army (66% draftees) the Americans were loathe to take casualties as it would be political suicide. The Poles were supposed to link up with the Americans and Patton but he never came.
@@thevillaaston7811 Yes. For political reasons, Polish servicemen and women were excluded from the Victory Parade in London in June 1946.
Thank you for this, very well done. My father was one of those Canadian soldiers, he spoke of the frustration of Falaise.
I had my my most memorable moment in Normandy visiting the museum on the hill where the allies fought closing the pocket, it was great feeling and local guides were really good explaining the harshness of the moment, many owing the stories from their own parents that were living in the villages nearby
Kudos to IWM - the animated maps are outstanding visual aids! Well done!
Awesome video! You manage to tie together so many of the loose ends left dangling by so many accounts. Hats off, Gentlemen!
I really enjoyed this well done overview. I've read "Caen, Anvil of Victory" and a book on Operation Cobra, but there were so many events and moves and limited maps, that is was very hard to undetstand what went on when and how the two battles unfolded. This video cleared it all up! Great job and thank you.
Call of Duty 3’s Campaign lets you play through the whole offensive to close the Falaise pocket. It’s done a bit like a documentary too, where they’ll give you almost like a news reel overview of what’s going on, with old pictures and videos and maps. Decent story, but has great characters, definitely the most underrated COD campaign out there.
This video title immediately brought me back to that game
The Polish never cease to amaze me with their tenacity and courage. Definitively more impactful than the free French.
Yep I remember this battle from Call of Duty III :) Poles standing their ground against two side attack of German SS Divisions. Thats crazy! And the music when Canadians comes to help! Good times.
The Polish Army was definitely more adept at fighting then the french free army...hell two toddlers are more fearsome than the french free army!!!
Everyone knows that!!!
@@OrbitFallenAngela Napoleonic regiment might have fared better
@@matthewtang9290 I am french and I don't understand we are taking a free hit here... But indeed it is recognized that polish were fierce fighting the germans
No doubt that
Fascinating. I'd heard of the battle of falaise but didn't know how it actually played out but this video does a great job of explaining the complexities.⚛
I have my grandfathers flight logbook from his time in the RCAF. There is an entry in there that reads "Big day in the Falaise Pocket!" with further comments detailing the ground targets destroyed by his group.
The Polish contribution to the Falais closing has been mentioned here, however brief. Thanks.
Polski wkład? Gdyby nie Polacy nikt nie zamknąłby tego kotła, amerykanie mieli za daleko obchodząc pozycje niemieckie od południa i już byli za bardzo rozciągnięci, a Kanadyjczykom nie śpieszyło się do zamykania kotła bo wiedzieli co ich tam może czekać, chyba nawet jeden z ich wysokich oficerów został zdymisjonowany bo jego działania były zbyt opieszałe i zachowawcze w decydującym momencie bitwy, przez co 20-50 tys. Niemców uciekło z kotła, co później odbiło sie aliantom czkawką podczas niemieckiej ofensywy w Ardenach
1:14 Isn't all this blah-blah about Whitman completely discredited at this point?
@@silvershocknicktail6638
There's a Wittmannite lurking in this verbal bocage somewhere.
Wittmann not Whitman. He was German.
Yes, lazerpig has a video breaking down that action in detail.
@@Melior_Traiano As opposed to 'Whitman', the famous Indian last name?
It's still German no matter what spelling. Just like how Meyer, Myer, and Meier are all German and pronounced the same way.
@@AstinCrow As a native German speaker, I can tell you that "Whitman" has a distinct English sounding tone to it. Its like "Schmidt" and "Smith" and not like "Meier" and "Meyer". But we can follow your logic and just anglicize the names of people. I'll start with: Albert Onestone and Michael Shoemaker. How about we germanise some names just for the fun of it: Isaac Neustadt and Oliver Kromquell.
So why don't we just naturalise the names of famous people to our respective native tongue and then use those names when communicating in English, I am sure that wouldn't be confusing at all. Or, I don't know, we could just call people by their given names...
No plan survives contact with the enemy
And everything is much clearer... in hindsight.
That is why good commanders - tactical or strategic - have alternate plans in place. At a tactical level, section/troop commanders always have alternate plans to their activities whether in the defense, withdrawal or advance. They never charge off into the sunset without them and this is true all the way up the chain, Monty included. Monty was the most experienced land commander who had faced some of the biggest axis formations with the exception of those on the Eastern front so the combination of experience and an in depth knowledge and use of Ultra, Monty alone knew all facets of the looming challenge that was D-Day.
@@DaveSherry-z1w And, it would have been Montgomery's head on the chopping block if the Allies hadn't got off the beaches. He was initially in overall charge of ground operations. Eisenhower didn't take overall control of ground operations until early September I think. Accusations of caution often seems to be based on people's personal animosity toward him as an individual. Overwhelming superiority, another thing he is "accused" of, is a good thing, not a bad thing. Grinding down the enemy in the battle for Caen while still managing to build up overwhelming superiority with one Mulberry harbour out of action was no mean feat. It led to Falaise. It was also a good way of concealing ULTRA, the cracking of German codes. The Germans, if outnumbered and defeated wouldn't necessarily question whether their codes had been broken. I don't think people realise just how worried the Allies were of the Germans realising their codes had been broken. Men and material were sent to their deaths to keep it a secret. Montgomery had serious faults as a human being and was a credit grabber, but he was a good general.
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." - Mike Tyson
@@eric934 Thank goodness - someone who understands, However, if you have met any Generals at all you'll note they are all "superior" but Monty had no more "serious faults" than anyone else. Supreme confidence in his own abilities and experience is NOT a "serious fault as a human being".
Outstanding. Great work, please keep it up. First time I have bothered to comment about a doco.❤
I have walked the terrain of Normandy. The terrain around Caen is a defenders dream. Long featureless sloping fields with excellent fields of fire for the Germans. South of Caen is the Bocage. Small, high hedge fields - again a defenders dream. Monty knew his British citizen army was no match for the SS divisions in mobile warfare. Viller Bocage proved that. So, Monty fought an attritional war with metal rather than flesh. No mention though of Canadian General Crerar's night attack with infantry in converted carriers which blew the Germans off the ridges around Caen....THIS WAS A WORLD FIRST for the western allies and it succeeded brilliantly.
@reconn9056 "Monty knew his British citizen army was no match for the SS divisions in mobile warfare. Viller Bocage proved that."
That was just an ambush though, i'd look a bit closer at the performances of the 11th armoured division and VIII Corps under Richard O Connor. The 11th Armoured Division stopped the counter-attacks of the 12th SS Panzer Division during Operation Epsom and managed to capture Hill 112 from the Germans.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- and the Canadian advance during Operation Totalise was nobbled because the USAAF bombed the leading Canadian troops in yet another case of blue on blue, having done that to their own American forces at St Lo, killing McNair in the process. It was because of these two incidents that Monty was to write that the USAAF must NEVER be allowed to bomb near an attack. In Phase 1 of Totalise, the RAF had shown that they were more accurate with their bombing at night than the USAAF was in broad daylight! Norden bombsight or not, the USAAF just simply wasn't accurate enough. (To be fair, the RAF also had their fair share of incidents, too, but not on that scale!)
@@sean640307 On the other hand I think that Operation Goodwood could have been planned a little better, General O'Connor knew that things would get difficult upon reaching the Bourguebus-Verrieres Ridge.
A little more organisation regarding Tactical Air Support would have helped as well as some Armoured Personnel Carriers and infantry to support the tanks. Plus the fact that the Panther battalion of the Leibstandarte reached the Ridge undetected leaves me with the impression that a little bit of Air Reconaissance would have helped.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- I agree VB was an ambush - but it was a microcosm of the crux of my point. It just showed the gulf in class. The British column tentatively crept forward, instead of moving with flair and confidence. And then with nothing in front of them, they stop dead with the whole column strung out back to VB, instead of polling down the dead straight Roman road which beckoned before them. Wittmann, just one field away, sleeping under his tiger tank is awoken by the sound of British engines. Moving with flair and confidence against a numerically far superior force he annihilates virtually the whole column from the top of the hill at the crossroads all the way down the hill and back into the village itself where eventually his Tiger is rendered kaput. I don't doubt the courage and heart of Monty's men, but at VB Wittman was top of the premier league and the British Army wasn't. No doubt the Brits learned the hard way - but as I say Monty knew his army was no match for the match fit premier league SS Divisions.
@@reconn9056 They *defeated* those SS divisions in the end though, so maybe they WERE a match for them.
Refreshing to have these campaigns presented with clear graphics and informative narration.
1:28 How the hell was there a chance of a quick breakout when the Americans hadn’t captured Cherbourg or St lo and the Allies had only fourteen divisions ashore, many of which, particularly the parachute and first assault divisions, were inevitably running out of steam?
Hail John, glad you have weighed on on this one. I suspect we have a couple of Trollbots jumped on board here.
A really fantastic presentation of the Falaise Pocket. Seeing some footage that is new to me. The whole war is fascinating but this 6 - 8 week period is so compelling to study.
Nothing said about the poor sods clinging on the to east of Caen. That's of a lot of interest to me, especially after I found out in the summer of 2023 that my late dad's late, Irish boss, Private D. Anton, flew in no. 3 glider to Pegasus Bridge.
The whole objective of Caen was to draw in the German armour and keep it away from the American beaches.
Nothing went particularly wrong after DDay. The Caen sector was always intended to be the pivot and draw all of the German armour and heavy divisions as the DUKE forces were far more experienced in dealing with them than the Americans. Factor in the storm, losing the mulberry and the associated supplies and divisions, plus the fact that Germans had a fairly decent battle tested army and I'd say Monty's men did a decent job and allowed US forces to breakout. On day 100 Monty was exactly where he said he would be.
@@tedcopple101 Totally agree. Considering the Germans unexpectedly reinforced Normandy in the months leading up to the landings, making the original objectives more difficult and in the case of Caen unrealistic, they did alright. The British and Canadians followed successfully the plan to hold the bulk of the German divisions in place. The Americans followed successfully their objectives to break out west and north.
More Montgomery bashing in the comments. He may have been arrogant, a self promoter and didn’t play well with others, but served in WW1 and saw the slaughter and had that constantly in his thinking along with the fact British troops had been fighting since 1939 with loses accordingly. It’s easier to be bolder and take risks when your population isn’t war weary and you have the vast resources of men to throw at the enemy or in the case of the Soviet Union, men are plentiful and expendable.
Montgomery was actually 400km beyond where he said he would be at the start of September and liberating Brussels Belgium.
No it was not. Montgomery wanted to take Caen. He only said it was a pivot after he failed to take it, to the anger of all the American commanders. Quite laughable of you to suggest the Brits were low on supplies--they were not. Especially compared to the Germans. Plus, they had naval and air support in excess, along with more men. And no, Monty was never exactly where he wanted to be. The allies actually wanted the war over by Christmas.
@@gh87716 Nope. ua-cam.com/video/t-0AxubQEWM/v-deo.html
Not true, there were tons of fails. Brits were planned to take Caen on D-Day, that was why the 6th Paras landed and took Pegasus Bridge. But as always Monty failed to achieve the goals and for 4 weeks did nothing to fix it. As a result the planned airfield construction could NOT be enacted, and only 2 small ones were built. Thus air support was minimal!! That forced the US 1st Army to fight through the Bocage under intense enemy pressure causing 70,000 casualties! US forces had to create their breakout because Monty did not get into the open fields beyond Caen. After the Operation Cobra, (more failures), Patton started his advance through the German southern sector. Half his force was sent to clear Brittany, (another fail), and he sent the rest south and then east. His advances ripped through the broken and disorganized German lines and he then moved north to setup the trap. Bradley moved 1st Army to protect his rear at Mortain, and Ike and Bradley went to see Monty. He was disinterested but stated he would close trap at Argentan. Once again he failed, and over 30,000 Germans escaped.
The whole Normandy Campaign - 1944, actually lasted only 77 days, finishing almost 2 weeks ahead of the 90 days originally allotted for its completion by SHAEF (From D-Day on the 06/06/44 till 21/08/44, inclusive), the date when the first British & Canadian units crossed the Seine River in the hot-pursuit of the escaping German Forces then retreating headlong eastwards towards the German border. This Allied advance was then commonly known to Commonwealth Forces, who had served there then, as the “Great Swan,” which only stopped some three weeks afterwards roughly at the Dutch-Belgian border & in the easternmost provinces of France in Alsace-Lorraine!
Paris was also liberated shortly later on the 25/Aug/1944 jointly by US & Free French Forces!
This is a cool video. I love the maps and the pictures of the commanders are something I've never seen.
Thanks IWM, your videos are informative & appreciated ! 😊
I think it is unreasonable to say that the campaign in the Bocage was due to any failure of planning or training or ability. These troops were trained and trained and trained for one purpose, to secure a bridgehead off the beaches. To not do so would be unthinkable failure, so absolutely everything else played second fiddle. And because goal 1 was achieved then the training deficit WRT goal 2 suddenly becomes 'someone's fault' - no, it was the cost of achieving goal 1.
If they were trained in bocage fighting they would have been uncovered it wasnt Calais but Normandy -in 1943 !
It must be said that though Monty did his part taking on O.B. West, the bulk of the German forces. Things went very badly for the Americans. A fact often overlooked in in the shadow of Monty's success.
The Cotentin Peninsular was the easy job, defended by German 3rd Rate "Static Divisions" with no armour and little artillery. This should have been a walk over. But a mixture of poor planning and leadership led to a disaster. Bradley lost 129,000 men, almost double of what Monty lost fighting the largest concentration of German forces of the NW Europe Campaign. The performance of the two Army Groups could not have been more different.
@@billballbuster7186 They were both unique challenges in their own way, for the Americans they turned the region's sunken lanes into trenches and fortifications. The hedgerows-some more than five feet in height and several feet thick-became traps concealing riflemen, machine guns, and infantrymen armed with antitank weapons.
The countryside in the British and Canadian sectors-a relatively open, flat, dry expanse stretching from Caen to Paris-was more favorable for offensive warfare. Paradoxically, those conditions made fighting there perhaps more difficult than in the American sector. The nature of the ground and the strategic importance of the area compelled the Germans to mass the bulk of their panzer units and their best troops in the path of Montgomery's forces. They turned the checkerboard of villages that dotted the region into an interlocking, mortar-and-concrete version of the bocage.
@@billballbuster7186 Battle of Cherbourg
US Losses
2,800 killed
5,700 missing
13,500 wounded
Total:
22,000
I had to stop watching this, it was too frustratingly misleading. Right at the beginning the suggestion is made that the actions of Michael Wittman were a large part of the 'stalling of the advance'. As if the loss of a handful of tanks in one engagement would deter the progress of two entire armies. There were so many factors that slowed the Allies before Cobra that to cite one small dust-up is disingenuous. Come on IWM, I'd expect better from you.
Too funny.
I am 4 seconds in and already paused and came to the comments. He started off by saying in “July 1944 the allies were in trouble.” Really bro? Maybe they didn’t advance as far as they wanted in the west but to suggest the allies were in trouble in July 1944 is funny.
Thanks for the saved time.
@@bronsonperich9430 ditto
Echoes of Felton and the black Lancaster.?
But no. " Thanks in part " were his words.. that is simply storytelling stylistics and qualifies little more than some success from vittman
It is said that the falaise road was seen with what everyone thought was black smoke for miles ,was really thousands of flies circulating around the stench of dead bodies and blown up equipment
Supposedly pilots flying over it days after the battle could smell it in their cockpits.
Air burst 26 feet above ground from 25 pounder over enemy armour penetrates engine decks knocking the tanks out. Most German armour was lured into 25 pounder fire.
How AGRAvating for them.
I did some more reading. By this time, each British pattern regiment had 3 batteries of 8 guns each. All towed by Canadian built CMP FAT 3 ton 4X4 trucks. This gives a division 72 guns. Also, the new proximity fuses were coming online. 25 pounders did have AP and by this time APBC for anti tank direct fire, both using super charges of powder, requiring the use of a muzzle brake. Each gun was given 20 rounds of anti tank shells.
Canada designed and built the first set of gun laying radar for the Allies.
A highly under rated gun
@@scatton61
Still in service today.
These series are the best ever made, especially due to the fine maps and movements, congrats!🙌
An accurate description of the battle, but woeful conclusions. The battle plan said it would take a year to win the war. This implies it was not going to be a walk in the park. The battle for Normandy was expected to last 3 months. Monty expected it to be a hard scrap. That is what it took. By the beginning of September, the Allies were in Belgium so why say it went wrong?
And yet after the falasie gap was closed and they arrived in Belgium, monty's ego grew and thus lead to the fable: Operation Market Garden...and the disastrous "A Bridge Too Far"
@@boyscouts83712 Germany starts using the V2. It had to be designed for something better than a ton of TNT a dirty nuclear bomb perhaps. I think the decision to take Arnheim came from Washington to deprive the Germans launch sites to hit London. It’s interesting that neither Patton or Bradley had a bad word to say about it.
Check out what was happening in Norway and the concerns they caused.
To answer your question, it's because even Imperial War Museum needs likes.
@@boyscouts83712 well no, that is wrong. it wasnt his ego, it was the americans always pushing to take all the glory and try keep brittian away. market garden was monties plan, however he had very little involvment in it. after setting up the border plan, he was kept out of any future plans, they didnt tell him about the extra german reinforcments, US didnt give the equipment that was needed. Monty would never have gone along with the opperation market garden they had not kept intelligence aweay from him and they had not ignored germna SS troops in the area. porblem was us and their glory hounding generals, and then came battle of the bulge were Monty was given command of the americans in the northers sector and lead them to victory
@@boyscouts83712 Historians (and the German generals involved) mostly agree that Market Garden was not the disaster portrayed by many.
While it’s regularly claimed that the British lost more than 400 tanks, compared to 75-100 German tank casualties, this is massively exaggerated. The German losses *only *include total write-offs or captured vehicles, with vehicles recovered and repaired not counted; while the Allied losses include all those damaged but repaired. Figures for Allied tank *total *losses hover around 130-150.
The British, while running low on manpower, had 3,500 tanks on the eve of Goodwood. Some 150 permanent losses were something they could easily absorb.
Which tanks did the British have ? Who paid for them ?
ARTICLE V
The Government of the United Kingdom will return to the United States of America at the end of the present emergency, as determined by the President, such defense articles transferred under this Agreement as shall not have been destroyed, lost or consumed and as shall be determined by the President to be useful in the defense of the United States of America or of the Western Hemisphere or to be otherwise of use to the United States of America.
@@nickdanger3802
The British paid for them.
The first Shermans were actually constructed in a factory in the United States which had been paid for by the British. The Lima Locomotive Works, Inc in Ohio was a manufacturer of steam engines. In February 1941 the British government signed a contract for them to make and supply 400 tanks, and as part of the deal the UK provided the funding for a new 11,600 square metre manufacturing facility, with all the tooling and equipment necessary to produce 50 tanks per month.
Britain spent it’s massive US currency reserves during 1939-41 on things like paying for US factories to tool up to make tanks and aircraft on their behalf and helping to pull the US out of depression.
_The facilities chosen to build the Grants were in various states of disrepair, none more so than Pressed Steel Car's "Ghost Plant" in the Hegewisch neighborhood of south Chicago. This factory, which had been used for the manufacture of railroad cars, had stood empty since the Great Depression, and had "no roof, no floor, no machinery." The British Production Orders provided funds to add to, refurbish and equip the plants, including a late addition in February, 1941, the Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio, originally contracted to produce 400 Grants. The montage above shows the progress at the Hegewisch plant from February through April, 1941._
When the US government set up the Lend-Lease programme, the British government agreed to sign over its ownership share of the Lima Locomotive Works to the US, in return for a promise that the US would supply them with tanks free of charge for the duration of the war.
This history pretends that Ultra did not exist and the allies had broken the german codes.
@@nickdanger3802 "Who paid for them"
The British
M3 medium yes, M4 no.
In August, 1940, Dewar and the British Purchasing Commission submitted the list reproduced above to the US War Department showing the manufacturers they might use for production of what would become the Grant. Ultimately, Baldwin Locomotive and Pullman Standard were awarded contracts a few months later. Pressed Steel Car was not on Dewar's list, but the company's President, John MacEnulty, contacted the BPC, and "sold" them. On October 25, 1940, PSC was awarded a $28,455,000 contract to produce "501 M3, 28 ton tanks, commonly known as the "General Grant.""
A few months after the passage of the Lend Lease Act on March 11, 1941, the Ordnance Department took over responsibility for the existing British contracts in the US. The original agreement had been for "cash & carry," but with Lend Lease, the materiel could be provided and shipped "free." In partial exchange, British purchased plant and equipment was transferred to the US as Reverse Lend Lease.
British M3, M3A2, M3A3 and M3A5 Grants
Has ! Not secure warning
Over the whole period from March 1941 to September 1945, the balance in favour of the United States in the mutual aid books24 was in round terms about $21,000 millions. But by the settlement of 1945 Britain was required to pay no more than $650 millions, or £162 millions sterling.
page 547
British War Economy
Britain actually paid for less than 1/3 of M4's that were total write offs.
Glad you did a quick change of the title, I find the word FAILED in conjunction with any aspect of the heroic efforts of the Allies to defeat the Axis, highly offensive to the memory of those who fell trying their damnedest to bring about a Victory. They may have struggled to meet targets and deadlines under strenuous circumstances, but overall, they accomplished their goal, the defeat of Nazism in Europe.
For those wondering, the original title was "How the Allies FAILED after D-Day."
@@Lee.Enfield-303 that seems oversensitive. There were real failures in the allied war effort throughout the war.
Agreed - they changed it as I watched. So many of those German divisional symbols shown moving off to the east were actually smashed remnants nowhere near divisional strength.
@@sharpe3698 Yes but Normandy was NOT a failure.
@@PatGilliland Smashed remnants? Panzer Lehr 15,000 men, 12th SS Panzer 20,000 men, 1st SS Panzer also 20,000 men, 9th SS Panzer 15,000 men etc.
How are these smashed exactly? Panzer Lehr alone had 208 tanks and 674 half tracks a long with 42 field howitzers, 18 flak guns, and a self-propelled tank destroyer battalion.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Panzer Lehr had 20 tanks and TDs not 200 at the end of August 44. So yeah - Shattered.
Can't be arsed to dig through the rest but 12 HJ had to be rebuilt from scratch after losing 8,000 men and boys, 80% of its armour and 60% of its artillery.
Top level content, thank you!
Falaise was NOT a failure. Sure, tens of thousands of Germans got away, but they did so without the vast majority of their equipment and with many units utterly destroyed, so they were an army in name only.
A school friend's father was one of the first (if not THE first) allied soldiers to go into the pocket after the shooting stopped. He was a Coldstream Guardsman who had been wounded and afterwards given a non-combat role as a despatch rider, and having a motorcycle that could travel off-road he was sent in to "take a shufti" and report back. What he saw was apocalyptic, with mile after mile of destroyed or abandoned German vehicles and artillery, thousands of dead horses, and of course many, many German dead.
Indeed
If the pincher failed and/or the German army made a coordinated retreat, even more men and material would be waiting at the Siegfried line
So, the initial breakout didn't exactly go according to plan, but we can always point to Brig. Gen. Picket
When asked why his charge failed he stated: “I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”
@Kevin-mx1vi: Almost NONE of the panzers committed to the Normandy campaign were successfully extracted. That fact alone says everything one needs to know about the sorry state of the German units which escaped only as remnants.
Normandy was a great victory that some would say was squandered when Eisenhower adopted his "Broad Front" strategy which allowed the Germans to re-group and prepare for the battle of the Bulge.
Indeed, had things gone the Germans' way, they'd have never had to get nearly surrounded in the first place. Comparing "half your army trapped and destroyed" versus "all of your army trapped & destroyed" is just different degrees of defeat.
@@wyldhowl2821 Yes Normandy was a major disaster for the Germans. Not one aspect of their battle plans was a success. They failed at every level, as was said at the time - they arrived in Tiger tanks and left with hand carts!.
Outstanding visualisation of the dynamics of war. Great!
The choises of keeping the narritive simple with a few well known topics such as Wittman winning the battle on his own are clever.
This provides a healthy manic oversight also to professional historians who sometimes lose track of the forrest through the trees.
Leaving out who it was that ordered Patton to halt is also justified.
Top notch channel!
Nobody has a crystal ball and war is in real time with no do-overs. You have to have the confidence to persevere and adapt.
CoD: 3 taught me more about Normandy as a kid then most of my primary schooling.
The title of this video SHOULD be 'how Hitler got the German panzer army trapped in the Falaise Pocket'.
While tens of thousands of German troops eventually escaped encirclement, their armor and heavy equipment was wrecked.
He was kind of right though as withdrawing the whole army as Rommel and Rundstedt wanted would have meant the Allies overruning the whole army as they had way more vehicles and had complete air superiority.
@@kerotomas1 Not necessarily. Both Generals were adept at executing fighting withdrawals. I believe they recommended a retreat to a defensible position, the Seine.
@@kerotomas1 No, he wasn't. He bound his forces into a bloody attrition that then cost them a huge amount of heavy equipment, and denied them a controlled fall back that could have fought for longer. There was no chance at victory, but a well managed withdrawal would likely have made the push through the rest of France and into Germany slower. Or, Hitler might have made another stupid decision down the line instead and cost that anyway.
@@kerotomas1 which as you said happened, to the extent that the allies cut off their own supply lines by pushing top far when they took the rest of France. Allies (USA and UK) were a lot more mechanized and were a lot more mobile because of it.
@@Hatypusit wasn't stupid, he was right in his assessment that IF the Germans could keep the allies pinned they could defeat the allies in France. Problem was the lack of manpower. Wrong? Sure. Stupid? No. A slow withdrawal wouldn't have given Germany victory in the war..
As American historian Roger Cirillo wrote of Normandy:
_Constant movement, or the threat of constant movement, was the only true “fixer” to keep enemy divisions in place, and the fact that this worked throughout the campaign indicates that Montgomery’s plan, though not gaining significant ground, was working..._
_Unexperienced in such operations,Eisenhower accused the British of not fighting and was content to have his staff openly criticize British operations. Sensitive to American losses, Eisenhower never made such charges against Bradley, never noted the slowness of American divisions to adapt to the bocage, never commented that Bradley faced the lowest quality and fewest numbers of the enemy, and never mentioned that Bradley had been warned about the difficulty of the bocage and that extensive intelligence had been provided by the British…._
_With Dempsey launching probes along his front, the German defensive depth remained in the east until it was too late to prevent a rupture. Montgomery who had refused to attack enemy strength through its entire depth had been proven operationally correct. The battle in depth, had, as in the the Great War, always been dependent upon the enemy’s operational reserve and the ability to use it.The battle around Caen had both fixed that reserve and ground it up. SHAEF, however, painted a different story._
_Monty’s double assault on the 25th (July) leftEisenhower with gripes but no substantial case_
At 15.35 of vid linked below;
"most of them British-Tedder, Morgan, Coningham-were becoming extremely impatient with General Montgomery and critical of his methods."
Week 254 - The Destruction of Army Group Center - July 8, 1944
ua-cam.com/video/xVJzPlO8B_8/v-deo.html
@@nickdanger3802
Yeah, Morgan was upset about the way Montgomery had criticized and changed his original plan, Tedder was still angry with Montgomery about the way he had changed the plan for Sicily, including focusing on capturing ports instead of airfields, and was anti-army. Coningham was frankly jealous.
@@johnpeate4544 That Roger Cirillo fella is coming on with Paul Woodage in a couple of weeks in "Caen to Arnhem: Monty's Narrow Front"
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-
I’ll look forward to that.
Montgomery was one of the worst tactical planners, and military leaders(personality wise), of WW2. It never ceases to amaze me how the British put this man in charge. His beef with Patton and his pride will always be his greatest downfall. He's the guy who takes all the credit and none of the blame. Monty's plan for Normandy was the British were to be the main offensive and break out having the Americans cover the flank and clean up the rear, but tactically blundered and failed to push ending up in a bogged down stalemate. It was then that the Americans took some initiate to break out. Him stopping Bradley from closing the gap on the German army delayed the allies by months leaving more of Europe in Soviet hands. He did the same thing in Sicily as well to Patton. And dont even get me started on Operation Market Garden and Arnhem
The bombing of Caen killed many civilians. The whole terrible war everywhere left civilians dead. Even today, some 80 years later, it is the same. Young and middle aged soldiers dying in wars. Very sad.
No one cares
The absolute best and most honest short video on this battle. As mentioned by Mike Tyson, everybody has a plan "til they get punched in the face. Ike and Monty's PLAN: get ashore (no sure thing) Buildup forces, Breakout, Destroy the fighting ability of the Germans. They succeeded. Controlling the outcomes of battles is like trying to control the weather. My Dad (1st Infantry) who rarely spoke of the war, told me about this battle and his words were close to what IKE said: "They were bulldozing body parts into giant burial pits. Nothing but dead Germans and Cows."
The comments are interesting and generally follow the usual UK vs US jabs. The weather, terrain, logistics and abilities of units is completely disregarded by 'armchair generals'. The terrain around Caen is ideal for German armour and AT guns in defensive, longer sighting range (better optics) evolution. The UK armour suffered horrendous losses as described in the presentation from this in Goodwood and Epsom. Montgomery would have loved to 'level the playing field' with air support and arty but weather and supply issues slowed his plans-and politics seems to have entered into the mix when the USA 3rd Army (Patton) entered the theater. In the Bocage (hedgerows) the German armour was not as effective in a defensive roll as smaller, easily concealed infantry units. Just because the USA faced less troops in number negates the need to look at force multipliers of terrain. As far as Patton's 'uncaring' nature to casualties GSP was a student of history (kinda weirdly so but show me a general that didn't have some 'quirks' in his personality). He took pages from the American Civil War, RE Lee's thinking about the trap of being a general-that he loved his army yet has to order the death of it (paraphrasing). We all have to 'play with the cards we are delt.'
Moderm research shows that British losses were tainted by German propaganda. At Goodwood 352 British were listed as missing, not lost. Of these only 131 were actual write-off, the rest were back in service a day or two later. British casualties were remarkably light considering they did the bulk of the fighting.
In contrast Patton in the US has a magnificent reputation for tank warfare. Yet in North Africa he fought only one battle at El Guettar, which was going badly until British 8th Army attacked von Arnims rear. In Normandy his contribution to victory was minimal. While at Lorraine - Mefz he suffered 26,000 dead and 85,000 wounded. While his vastly inferior enemy was undefeated and retired to join the troops preparing for the Bulge. At the Bulge Patton arrived at Bastogne 10 days after the attack, the German armour had gone. So one has to wonder what exactly was his reputation based on?
Yeah, as usual. On the one hand, the allied high command knew Patton was this sort of guy. They knew "Don't let him grand-strategize too much, but turn him loose if you have a situation where you need a guy who is going to dash in headlong" - which is basically what took place. The careful but relentless general in the east gets the hardest fighting with his most experienced & dangerous soldiers (British & Canadian), up against the toughest Germans, and they managed to either advance in nasty steady fighting or else hold off the German counterattack. Meanwhile in the west, once you have secured the beachhead as a starting place, you let the "manoeuvre" go out there and manoeuvre, with speed as his priority to get around the enemy. Saying this whole thing was a "failure" is wrong - because in fact it succeeded. Indeed, given how much of their advantages were negated by bad weather, they still held up their end, just more slowly.
Saying Falaise was a failure is wrong too - maybe they could have closed it off better, but they also could have done a hell of a lot worse. Indeed, if the German generals had free reign to act logically (without Hitler's interference), they might never have gotten into the kind of pocket where so many did get trapped, so imagine the same battle front only with twice or three time as many German soldiers escaping to keep fighting later. Patton grumbled about Montgomery, but so what? He grumbled about everybody, beside him or above him, even those US commanders who wisely prevented him from getting himself in trouble.
Eisenhower hardly gets any mention here, but have no doubt that he knew all the guys on his team, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their personalities.
I thought factual statistics showed that proportionally, units under Patton's command actually suffered fewer casualties than those under any other Allied commander...
@@billballbuster7186 Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German Army, stated that Patton "was the American Guderian. He was very bold and preferred large movements. He took big risks and won big successes."[279] Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring said that Patton had developed tank warfare into an art, and understood how to handle tanks brilliantly in the field. I feel compelled, therefore, to compare him with Generalfeldmarschall Rommel, who likewise had mastered the art of tank warfare. Both of them had a kind of second sight in regard to this type of warfare.[279]
Referring to the escape of the Afrika Korps after the Battle of El Alamein, Fritz Bayerlein opined that "I do not think that General Patton would let us get away so easily."[279]
@@ColinWrubleski-eq5sh If we're talking about US commanders, then it was in fact Dever's 6th army forces who had the least casualties.
My Father passed through the area of the Falaise Gap a few days after the battle. He said the stench of the bodies baking in the hot August sun was unbearable & that he actually felt pity on the German soldiers after witnessing the carnage.
Напоминает донесение одного генерала - Мы бы воевали ещё лучше, но нам мешали враги.
We could have fought better, but for Nom and Andy.
We would have fought even better, against Norm and Mandy.
I have read the key take aways is: The Goodwood attack was conceived as a way to pin German resources in one place. Sure it would be great to break through. But not essential .
It was a winning ploy.
I read the 'timetable ' for advanced was a concept guide , not a timetable as such. It almost was dropped from the operation plan. But was left in to give strategic direction.
I
I understand why the British and Canadians were the force chosen to contain the up to 10 panzer divisions around Caen while the Americans were meant to be allowed to break out from the west only facing one or two panzer division. The British and Canadian forces were much more experienced and less likely to break under pressure while the inexperienced Americans might have but I am bored with the constant American claims of plodding by the British and Canadians who were facing well prepared positions of an experienced army that was well equipped, knowing that if they could stop the allies at Caen they could be pushed back into the sea . I often imagine if the roles were reversed , less experienced Americans but with generals who treated their men like cannon fodder and more experienced British facing less determined opposition in my opinion would have resulted in a faster closing arm from the west with a more suicidal attack from the north by the Americans could have gone either way . After Falaise the British advance was anything but slow and only contained by lack of material . As for Monty , although a egotistical , narcissistic man , he was the most competent Allied commander on offer and if I was a soldier I would rather have a commander who at least valued my life and sacrifice my life only as a last resort , than a Patton type who was prepared to fight to the last American.
Another excellent presentation..... What a wonderful Channel..... Thank you..... Roger... Pembrokeshire UK
Nice animations but expect more from IWM. Very click-baity and repeats the tropes that modern historians are fighting against.
Disappointing that Britain's national war museum starts off with Michael xxxx Wittman and Villers Bocage, which was never going to be a breakthrough (they knew the SS were moving in) and is best described as a 'score draw'. Do you get more clicks from just mentioning Wittman's bit part role?
At least this video mentions the huge disparity of forces facing the British and Canadians around Caen.
Makes too much of frustration at SHAEF over Monty's progress - Bradley and Eisenhower knew the plan and knew why things were going slowly, like the effect of the Great Storm. Most of the annoyance with Monty was over his BS and Churchill was more frustrated than Ike.
This was clearly an expensive video to make but if the hope was to create a new canon summary of the Normandy campaign, it's only reinforcing myths. Shame to waste those maps though - maybe breaking it down and doing more focussed videos would be a good idea?
Yes, much of the narrative of WW2 is still the old and stale American version of events.
The plan was to take Saint Lo and Caen near simultaneously with Operation Cobra and Goodwood but Monty initially messed up and should have been replaced by Ike.
@@markgarrett3647 The issue with Goodwood was that it was supposed to occur at the same time as Operation Cobra in the American sector as part of a double attack, but the US forces were not yet ready, so in order to keep the Germans on the back foot, Goodwood went ahead on its own.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Indeed, and while admittedly the British forces did not do well on the attack in the bocage, the US forces fared similarly in battles around St. Lo. Simply put, Normandy's terrain heavily favours the defenders: the hedges make not just for great cover but funnel heavy support onto narrow roads where chokepoints can easily be formed, which is part of why the heavy tanks at Villers-Bocage could actually do as much damage as they did (it wasn't even a single tank operating because even Wittman wasn't THAT stupid). Also, villages where soldiers are dug in or hide in the houses are a nightmare to clear out.
There were countermeasures for that, like bulldozer blades on tanks that could open passageways inside the hedges, but the terrain simply favoured the Germans. However, it's also part of why the beaches were protected so little, hence why despite the terrain the attack was still pressed on. And once the breakthrough happened, you can see that even when initial progress is slow, it's unstoppable in the long term.
Now, there is ONE aspect in which the British did shoot themselves in the foot. In order to keep morale up high on the home front, Montgomery kept telling the press that British operations were supposed to lead to breakthroughs, rather than a way to keep the Germans busy while the US forces prepared a much bigger shot at a breakthrough. This however led to criticism as none of the operations were successful on the expected scale. The public got way too many flashbacks to the Great War and it really contributed to the popularity of Monty dropping, which was only accelerated during Market Garden.
This is a great video. I recently ready two books one by an American author the other by a British author; I learned more about this subject by watching this 20 minute video. The moving map worked very well to do that
Les than 50,000 (perhaps only 20,000) German troops escaped Normandy to the east, and next to no armour. In contrast, Normandy cost the Germans 450,000 men and 2,400 tanks, assault guns and tank destroyers. Few of these survivors were combat troops and many who got away were wounded.
20-50,000 Germans escaping is nothing of significance when they just lost nearly ten times that number. It was a shattering defeat for the German armies in the West.
Great video. Did not know the Nebelwerfer had such a big effect (rather like what the German's were on the receiving end of with Katyushas on the Eastern Front). Very clear maps and well explained background that does not skip into usual shortcuts.
The problem in Normandy was the German army, for some reason they decided not to make it easy for the allies.
Instead of the worn out criticism of Monty etc etc, try praising all the allied troops for defeating such a formidable enemy.
Oops sorry I got that all wrong it was of course all Monty’s fault…..
Right on, well said.
Good show, old chap! Old blighty and all that
We all know the best teaching/learning moments come from circle jerks
What people forget about the normandy campaign. is that they faced 2 green divisions; and there elite das reich div full of new recruit's en children, sinds they lost more then 50% of their troops fighting against the russians; it was 1944 after al most was already done by russia; where there were 490+ divsions fighting each other.
@@cedricvanhove7716 There were msny great German Divisions in Normandy, The elite 21st Panzer Division and 12th SS Panzer Division were on the British sector since day one.
Later with O. B. West there was Wehrmacht, Panzer Lehr, 2nd Panzer Division, 9th Panzer Division and 116th Panzer Division.
The SS divisions were 1st SS Leibstandarte, 2nd SS Das Reich, 9th SS Hohenstaufen, 10th SS Frundsberg and the 101st and 102ns SS Heavy Tank Battalions.
All these 11 Divisions served on the British secter around Caen . In July Panzer Lehr with 68 working tanks wad sent to St Lo.
“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy” or as Mike Tyson succinctly put it “everyone has a plan until he gets a punch in the mouth”. It’s how you adapt to the oppositions tactics that matters and the allies did that very well.
Please dont do these clickbait titles anymore
Edit: They changed it quite soon after people were writing about it. The original was something like: "How the Allies FAILED after D-Day"
Welcome to modern UA-cam. The algorithm works in such a way that they need to do this in order to get served to people.
@@himaro101 Yeah I get that, but you lose all your credibility when you are museum providing educational content
@@Jasper-Holland are u saying stop watching,
@@Jasper-Holland exactly
@himaro101 there are plenty of big, informative and historic channels that dont resort to using these ridiculous titles
A few days before this video was posted, I was there. I drove through Villers-Bocage, found the exact spot where Michael Wittman's tank ground into a halt, and parked my car on the spot. I had lunch at a Bistrot nearby and exchanged a few words with the locals in my simple French vocabulary. Have to be a bit careful with what you say these days, even if you are by no means a Nazi.
I wish I was economically independent. I would have spent three months just cruising through Normandy, stopping at every family owned bed & breakfast, eating loads of local food, drinking biere blonde, calvados and even Normandy whisky. Outside all the souvenir shops and monuments, there is a world of discovery and a wonderful atmosphere. A shame that there are very few remains from the Great War though.
All my love to Normandy from a Scandinavian. But hey, we founded it over a millennia back. 🙂♥
The Allies prevailed in Normandy using Monty’s invasion plan and his ground strategy. This was a great success. Montgomery had envisioned a 90 day battle with all forces reaching the Seine. He emphasized Cherbourg, making it clear that the British would hold as many German divisions as possible in Caen or it’s outskirts while the Americans take Cherbourg and go south to break the front without any German Panzer divisions nearby.
Result?
Pretty much that. It happened ahead of schedule and with 22% less casualties than predicted.
_Not even Stalingrad could match the strategic scale of the German defeat in Normandy……._
_….By containing the bulk of the enemy armour and best infantry opposite Dempsey, and giving Bradley time and space to bring the greater numerical strength of the American divisions into battle on the western flank, Monty had out-generalled von Rundstedt, Rommel, Hausser and von Kluge who, limited by the edicts of Hitler, had insufficient strength to defend British, American and Pas de Calais sectors in equal strength. Compared with Hitler’s conduct, the impatience of Eisenhower, Tedder and Churchill had proved merely tiresome to the Ground Forces Commander, and had not affected the course of the battle. Montgomery’s victory was, without doubt in even Hitler’s mind, the decisive battle of the war: ‘the worst day of my life,’ as Hitler remarked on 15 August 1944 as the true dimensions of the catastrophe in Normandy became apparent._
-Hamilton, Nigel. Monty, Master of the Battlefield 1942-1944.
In Normandy the Allies captured twice the number of troops taken by the Russians at Stalingrad, and all were German. Of the 2,400 German armoured fighting vehicles thrown into Normandy, barely two dozen escaped. Two armies were annihilated: by any reckoning a stunning victory.
and yet silly Americans hate Monty and think nothing he did worked, they forget about his victories or are just ignorant of what impact he really had, it was Monty that Dwight David Eisenhower brought in to bolster the northern American sector when during the battle of the bulge as he know Monty could handle static defence battle better than any of his American generals, it was his plan for D-Day and yes there was the failure of Market garden, but what most forget is he outlined the original plan, after that it was handed over and he had no further part in the battle, new intel was gathered and not past on to the general in charge of the plan after Monty and his orginal plan was not modified to to fit the situation on the ground by the time the opperation was meant to take place.
Monty kept my grandfather alive,
@@Ghoulza Hollywood
Great video. Thank you.
Super wonderful introducing...thanks for sharing
The Falaise pocket was kept open because Bradley did not believe that Patton, who had run out of supplies, could hold against determined German opposition.
That might be a correct judgement, considering that German opposition had stiffened considerably.
DUDE Falaise Happened BEFORE supplies ran out. Do you ever do any research yourself at all?
@johnhallett5846 I think it is time you did some reading.
I can't remember Patton being banned from running out of supplies more than once.
How had the German resistance stiffened, they were down to less than 100 tanks by the time Patton entered the fight. Explain also how Patton who had just entered the battle was alreadt "out of supplies".
It's before the US Third Army had supply troubles and the real reason why Brad didn't allow Patton to go for the kill at Argentan was because he didn't want a similar friendly fire incident that happened earlier that a lot of US 36th. Division and General McNair lost their lives.
@@markgarrett3647 moron alert
IT was the bombs that got McNair and that is not what was going to happen at ARgentan/ Do any of you people know ANYTHING?
"I've got some good news and bad new for ya, boys. The Canadians've taken the Laison River. The Poles have moved into Vimoutiers from the north. Bottom line, Jerry's boxed in pretty good. We've got them fallin' back towards Chambois"
"So, whats the bad news?"
"Chambois... is where we're going next"
"*groaning*"
"What REALLY went wrong after D-Day?" Well, for the Germans, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Monty's trade mark, careful, meticulous planning with plans B through Z in place was like a tsunami. A relentless build up of forces that could not be resisted that did not allow the Germans to build up forces yet at the same time sucked them into a deep dark pit. yep there sure were tactical errors and omissions as THERE ALWAYS ARE IN COMBAT. However, this was not a time for reckless Pattonesque charges into the hinterland nor for timidity Lucasesque hunkering down.
The relentless build up post-June 6th was totally necessary in terms of strategy, resourcing and, exclusive to Monty's army, husbanding human resources. Given that the German didn't turn and run on 6th June but fought tooth and nail hampered by their own leadership, with 20/20 hind sight Monty's strategy rolled out perfectly.
And under Montgomery, the allied forces were 400km beyond target by the start of September and liberating Brussels, Belgium.
His trademark tactic is to build up forces 2-1
You do realize that Monty only had a minor role in planning DDay. Now I consider his best act was insisting on a five division assault force instead of three.
@@johnhallett5846 LOL! Monty had THE role in the direction and execution of the whole D-Day operation. His plan and his execution as Commander on the day and for many day thereafter. His insistence on 5 divs is an example of that he would not have got his way if he didn't have overall command and control of the operation. Churchill saw to ti that Monty's attention to detail was utilised in the correct please. Not a single one of the US commanders could have pulled the planning and preparation of this operation - only Monty had the experience of an operation of this scale - including knowing Rommel as well as he did. Patten's arrogance would have seen the operation founder in glorious rampages across the countryside, the other US commanders experience ranged from limited WW1 to none at all.
@@DaveSherry-z1w Monty's excellent planning resulted in untold numbers of casualties for his armies, although much of this is a result of the skilled warriors of the Germans.
Monty promises Normandy campaign in 3 months...Allies complete Normandy campaign ( west bank of Sienne) in 3 months...seems like sucess to me.
With a lot fewer casualties than previously considered likely. Montgomery was under enormous pressure from Churchill (who just could not help himself interfering at ever possible juncture) Monty was aware he had a citizen's army with very little of the pro's he helped make in N. Africa as available to him.
A tadge unfair to the British. They were facing a greater concentration of the best Panzer divisions in the German Army anywhere. The Germans made big mistakes too and suffered the same disadvantages when they attacked. Especially from Commonwealth artillery both Army and Naval. What did the Germans escape with and what did they have to leave behind?
Cheers. Was about to say same thing. Saved me the job:)
@@geordiedog1749 Thanks to WW2 tv and more modern scholars we're better educated about this now and can't be misled. I think.
It took them about 70 says to destroy the German army in France.
@@dulls8475 Yes I don't think I would have survived Normandy for long. I would have been killed or blighty wounded or cracked.
@@Splodge542 You would have been fine if you had grown up with those values. Values that are hated in todays Britain.
I'd say what really went wrong after D-day would be the rest of the war for the Germans. As for the allies, war is hard, logistics isn't easy and that particular part of France where they fought was not as conducive for war of movement as the open deserts in Africa or the lands in Russia.
FANTASTIC VIDEO. Definitely NOT clickbait..
What REALLY went wrong after D-Day? Not much: Allied forces captured Paris many days ahead of the rough pre-invasion schedule - and with fewer casualties.
ironically de Gaulle played a key role in that. becuase he more or less forced Eisenhower to grant leclerc permission to race to paris as fast as possible.
Read Keegens "Six Armies in Normandy" ( if you haven't already). It covers this very well. Basically, LeClerc was told to hear for Paris regardless of orders.
The liberation of Paris wasn't even an objective. The Allied trough Eisenhower wanted to advanve quickly to Germany and for doing that it gets faster if you avoid big cities.
These maps are amazing. Very to folllow the narration with them.
D-Day plus 90 was 4 September 1944.
Monty said Paris would be liberated on D-day plus 90. It was liberated on D-Day plus 80.
General Miles Dempsey took Brussels, 183 miles from Caen, on D-Day plus 89.
Dempsey took Antwerp, 253 miles from Caen, on D-Day plus 90.
Then Monty planned Market Garden, but was absent until it was over.
@@nickdanger3802 Monty did not plan Market Garden. A team headed by a US General planned Market Garden and planned it without having an Airborne General on his team I believe. It was riddled with errors some major, many small but contributing. The one error which could not be overcome was the US 82ND Airborne failure to capture the Bridge at Nijmegen. They did not even attempt to until it was too late. At the time of them landing there were a couple of dozen defenders on that bridge - they did everything except attack it - go figure!
@@Scaleyback317 1st AB took 4 hours to travel 4 miles/6k from LZ Z to the rail bridge and arrived just in time to see it destroyed.
Before 740 men had even arrived at the north end of the last intact bridge in Arnhem area, 82nd had captured the 500m bridge north of Grave and the last intact bridge over the Maas Waal canal and the Heights for Brownings' useless HQ brought in by 38 of 1st AB's gliders with capacity for about 1,000 infantry (including pilots).
When XXX Corps arrived at Grave at 0820 on day 3 they were about 25 miles/40k from Arnhem, well over 1/3 the distance from Joes Bridge to Arnhem with 11 hours of daylight remaining.
"The essential plan was not dead, however, and on the 10th September 1944, Montgomery personally briefed Browning for Operation Market Garden. The objectives remained the same, but now the American airborne divisions entered the equation, and the areas around Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem respectively became the responsibility of the 101st, 82nd and 1st Airborne Divisions with the Poles under the command of the latter. Browning, having asked Montgomery how long the 1st Airborne would have to hold Arnhem and being told two days, replied that they could hold it for four."
Pegasus Archive Browning
@@Scaleyback317 "The 82nd Airborne Division, however, certainly does not deserve any particular criticism for this as their priorities appear to be a further product of the blind optimism that dogged Operation Market Garden, of which everyone involved was guilty. At Nijmegen, as with everywhere else, the assumption was that resistance would be light and so the main concern of the airborne units was to make the advance of the ground forces as rapid and as uncomplicated as possible, instead of devoting all their attention to primary objectives. Furthermore, it should be understood that the 82nd Airborne Division had by far the most complicated plan of any of the Airborne units involved with Market Garden, their troops being required to capture numerous objectives over a considerable expanse of terrain."
Pegasus Archive 30. Reasons for the Failure
@@nickdanger3802 Completely disagree. Whilst 82nd had, "Other responsibilities" or so it seems as they went chasing imaginary armoured forces in the hills and forest above the valley completely neglecting the very reason for their being dropped into Holland in the first place - to take and hold the bridge in order for XXX Corps armour to cross with minimum Germany interference. Some sources claim Gavin ordered (belatedly) the bridge taken yet other sources claim he did nothing of the sort.
You know as well as I or anyone else with even the slightest interest in the why and when it all unravelled that Gavin should have prioritized that bridge or what was the point in them being there. He must also have known as an experience airborne commander how vulnerable his and the British light infantry would be if faced with armour and artillery in large numbers with no armour cover of their own.
Had that bridge been in allied hands Arnhem was within reach for XXX Corps. Gavin would have figured that out for himself. Yet he allowed the bridge defences to be hugely strengthened before making his move. At the time his men hit their DZ's there were less than two dozen defenders on that bridge. I find that unfathomably stupid (and Gavin was a long way from stupid). I cannot help but wonder who and why would not wish that bridge to have been taken immediately.
Call me suspicious if you wish........
Love your work, IWM 👍
This narrative of failure is bizarre and, well, old-fashioned. Yes, it was an attritional battle. It was always going to be, but attrition favoured the western Allies and in end two German field armies were destroyed, regardless of whether or not the "gap" at Falaise was fully closed in time.
It was extremely fortunate that the Germans had become trapped. Replacing experienced troops was even harder for them than replacing their equipment. This was a near total victory, regardless of the demoralized Germans who managed to escape. It is madness for the video to imply this was anything but. Had the reverse happened to the allies, it would have been a catastrophe, delaying the war substantially and would have resulted in Germany being the first country to be the victim of an atomic bomb instead of Japan.
Great video!
It’s already been proven that Wittman is not the best tanker just a very lucky one that’s been glorified for propaganda till today.
the whole "Villers Bocage" thing is so blown out of proportion. It cost the Germans more than it cost the British. That initial attack, against a dismounted column, was spectacularly successful but the subsequent attacks and counter-attacks had a far more damaging effect on the Germans as they lost equipment they couldn't replace (including Wittman's own Tiger)
It really is a testament to German resilience that, less than a year before total defeat, with 300 Soviet divisions hurtling down upon them, could still resist in the West so stubbornly and effectively.
@@scottmccrea1873 Not sure that is correct, and there are two situations on war that are often referenced as exceptional, but are actually pretty common:
1. That it is “amazing” to rebuild war damaged areas or cities quickly. But if there are people and at least some functional government or equivalent…most cities repair war damage fairly quickly.
2. That it’s “amazing” that desperate or motivated men fight well. If facing an invasion to your country or if there is a good risk of death if captured, then it’s impressive and hard, but not uncommon, for even outnumbered men to fight well.
And the Germans had the added incentive of facing hanging and disgrace if they tried to escape the fight as further motivation.
Rather than repeatedly showing footage from the Battle of the Bulge or other unrelated battles, the Imperial War Museum should consider using authentic still-photographs from Normandy, and not just sticky-tape any old war footage to this. If you watch "The New Zealand Wars" by James Belich, or "The Civil War" by Ken Burns, you can see how effective still photography can be when you lack video footage entirely. Otherwise, I enjoyed this video, cheers :-) J
My mother was in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and one of six secretaries to the CIC, 21st Army Group. As such, she was one of the first women to land in Normandy following D DAY. She got there before my father, who was in the Royal Engineers and who had been working on PLUTO and had missed the original landings, something he very much regretted. My parents didn't talk much about their experiences, but my mother did say that, during the advance following the destruction of the German forces at Falaise, she and her female colleagues were diverted around the area, as it was deemed to be too horrible for them to encounter. She was 23 at the time and had joined up in 1939.
It still blows my mind how under-discussed the hedgerows themselves are. I think people understand the breakout and the weird/necessary tech used to break through, but imagine staring down these mazes from the outside as a leader/commander, not knowing if your men who entered would return. And how relieved they mustve felt to move on from them.
It's all well and good to look at maps. I rode my bicycle all over Normandy last summer. Actually experiencing the lay of the land was revealing. Riding a bicycle was far better than going by car, as you took your time traversing areas where the Allies had trouble advancing. I was also able to experience even the slightest changes in slope which would require a slightly lower gear and slower speed. Close to the coast there is wide open terrain where it would be hard to hide large formations. Even the slightest height of land would give huge advantages to the defenders. Riding from Courselles-Sur-Mer to Caen gave us a sense of the gradual slope of the terrain over that interval of land. The Falaise area is a different matter entirely though. The hilly, complex, wooded area of Suisse Normande allowed small formations of the 12th SS to keep the larger formations of the Canadians and Poles at bay. This (now) beautiful area of Normandy is very different than the coastal area. The neck of the pocket was kept open largely because closing the neck was extremely difficult given the terrain. I'm so glad that I truly got to experience the lay of the land first-hand.
Thank you Monty, for moving out of the way. Patton needed that. Also, thank you Imperial War Muesium. You are excellent.
why, what did Patton do?
@@johndawes9337 clearly another who has been overdosing on the Patton kool-aid. It's a shame that a large pocket of the world has been spoon-fed a lot of rubbish by a couple of movies, but that's the way it goes!
As for "moving out of the way", isn't it funny how as soon as Eisenhower took over the role of "land commander", the entire ETO battle came to a grinding halt? Coincidence? Nope!!
I'm a care worker and recently I attended a man who I found out took part in the encirclement at Falaise. He told me that his unit were ordered to be the rear guard and so they got to leave later than everyone else and so they spent the morning loading their trucks with supplies but when it came to around midday they were ordered to unload their trucks and advance forward, they found some 400 dead men in a field who they had to transport back.
Villas Bockage had no strategic impact: the German tanks were destroyed and the town retaken within hours.
It certainly didn’t hold up the wider allied advance as suggested.
Agreed - but it showed German battlefield nous was far superior than what the allies possessed.
@@reconn9056 or rather, the British over extended and Wittmann got lucky.
@@reconn9056 The Germans proved to be predictable in Normandy, push them off of a hill or out of a village, dig in and wait for their counter attacks to arrive and destroy them. This happened time and time again. They had no awnser for it.
is there anyway to find out where my cousin Rifleman Ken Thompson Canadian 2nd Corps was KIA on August 24 at the Gap? Our family was told that he was killed by a sniper? Any additional info would be appreciated!
@@davidthompson7707 check the local registries around where he lived! Or the local libraries. Odds are someone knows where to look!
How long did it take for the title to be changed then
I must stop watching WW2 documentaries when I see the immense cost of suffering and sacrifice, which brought us the freedom and liberty we have had since 1945, and then look at today's UK. I become sad and embittered by how it is being given away and those freedoms eroded.
The headline should read "How the Polish 1st Armoured Division Trapped the Germans"!
The importance of keeping initiative and violence of action cannot be understated. That said, its one thing to write about, something very different in the field
new fact for me that british went out of manpower, surely an important fact
But mainly having to deal with the vast majority of the panzer divisions in Normandy.
The manpower shortage was so severe that some people conscripted were sent down the coal mines. In my neck of the woods, a fire on a council rubbish tip was left for months to burn itself out. No men were available and the women were employed in the factories.
@@spidos1000 yes but as said an advantage for the americas on the western area. Thanks to all the guys who helped to liberate europe. I say this a german thankfully to be born in a free europe.
@@spidos1000 I just don't see how a population of 44 million people over half of them male take another half of that of fighting age i just don't know why we had manpower shortages in WW2.
@@ChrisCrossClash Because 5 years of war can grind up men pretty quickly? Not to mention the massive gaps left by the first world war.
The biggest problem was a lack of clear information from the front to rear commanders. Montgomery and Bradley both wanted a breakthrough, but their planning was not flexible enough and this allowed the Germans to hold until late July.
Monty adapted his strategy to sute the conditions and this was successful. It was the Americans that wanted a rigid plan written in stone, no doubt a result of their inexperience. After Normandy the Americans lost horrific casualties adhering to rigid plans at Lorraine, Metz and Hurtgen Forest.
I have read Bradley''s book "A Soldier's Story." He says in simple terms that the plan had always been that Montgomery would keep the Germans busy while the Americans cut the peninsula and would go on to capture Cherbourg. There were plenty of Germans in the cut off area and if the Germans has been allowed to move their armor into the peninsula it might have made efforts to capture the port city nearly impossible. And keep in mind, they had decided on a one front policy that would keep the Germans from getting strong in one area and getting into the rear of the Allied armies.
There are many reasons why this worked, the biggest was the deception that Patton's fictitious army would invade at a later date somewhere to the east of Montgomery and that kept the 15th Army out of the war until it was too late to stop the Allies.
But the Germans fell for the hoax before they connected Patton with the fictitious army.
the big problem was much stiffer german resistance than expected in the days after operation overlord. also the other big problem was in some way especially with canadians the initial landings hand in someways been too successful and they need to delay their advance slighty to wait for logistics to catch up. also the other thing that made things a lot more problematic was the misuse of allied bombing raids which often missed their targets and incured large scale friendly fire.
Caen, the full Order No 1 transcript:
_(I Corps Operations Order No. 1, WO 171/258)_
_3 British Division_
*a)* _The task of 3 British Division is to capture CAEN and secure a bridgehead over the R ORNE at that place._
*b)* _The enemy may develop his counter-attack--_
_i) Through CAEN_
_ii) Across R ORNE at RANVILLE - BENOUVILLE having established himself in the area East of R ORNE from which he can dominate the beaches West of OUISTREHAM and the Northern approaches to CAEN._
_iii) West of Caen, between R MUE and the CAEN Canal_
_iv) Any combination of the above_
_In cases (ii) and (iii) using CAEN as a pivot, if he succeeds in forestalling us there._
*c)* _To counter these enemy measure 3 British Division should, before dark on D-Day, have captured or effectively masked CAEN and be disposed in depth with brigade localities firmly established._
_i) North-West of BENOUVILLE, in support of 6 Airborne Division operating East of R ORNE (having relieved the airborne troops West of the canal and taken over the defence of the BENOUVILLE-RANVILLE crossings._
_ii) North-West of CAEN, tied up with the LEFT forward brigade locality of 3 Canadian Division._
_Should the enemy forestall us at CAEN and the defences prove to be strongly organised thus causing us the fail to capture it on D-Day, further direct frontal assaults which may prove costly will not be undertaken without reference to I Corps. In such an event 3 British Division will contain the enemy in CAEN and retain the bulk of its forces disposed for mobile operations inside the covering position. CAEN will be subjected to heavy air bombardment to limit its usefulness and to make its retention a costly business."_
- Richard Anderson - _"Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day"_
So the *intention* in the Order is quite clear. Take Caen if possible, but if German resistance ensure that the enemy doesn't use it as a means of counter-attacking. Mask it off then let the RAF deal with Caen. Caen was not the prime aim. It was to draw the German Armour reserves onto the Second Army then grind them down, with also an aim to prevent them from interfering in Bradley's breakout into Brittany and the seizing Cherbourg. The Germans kept approximately 90% of their armour on Monty's left flank against the British and Canadians including *ALL* the elite Panzer Divisions, and kept all the heavy armour away from the US armies.
From end of June to end of August 1944, the German Army lost more than 500.000 soldiers on the Eastern Front (its line going through Finland, the Baltic States, Soviet Union, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania). Most of the German ground forces were on that front.
Squeezed between east and west, the Germans were like a candle burning at both ends.
Wittman was a liar and a crook. his tales about tank kills are vastly overstated.
Proof
Somehow, i doubt Montgomery thought his operation was the subsidiary bait, else he would have insisted on being in overall command.
Most engagements between tanks, even tigers and panthers (which were incredibly, INCREDIBLY rare on the western front until December) were ended in the first shot. Usually whoever shot first won. Even the 75mm Sherman could pierce the front plate of the Tiger if it hit straight on at 200 yards or closer.
The main issue was AT guns and ambushes, not Panthers and Tigers.
Panthers were half the stregnth of the Panzer Divs with the Mark IV. 200 took part in Luttich alone.
@@huntclanhunt9697 Panthers werent rare unlike tiger,1s in the wwst 44, that myth has to stop
Most of the history I have read of the British and Canadian sector made reference to constant contact with panther tanks. Well documented in the regimental diaries.
Good stuff as usual.