Falaise & Market Garden seem to focus the sort of cavalier bickering about the competence of either the Americans, the British, the Canadians or even the Poles. Before going down that road what I require of myself is to be aware that the men in all these groups were incredibly brave, motivated and many did not return. Any criticisms should be tempered by respect and gratitude for the efforts of those men.
@@zepter00 I'm not trying to pick on the Poles, as they were clearly ferocious fighters, but they also had their own leadership problems. One group of Polish tanks learned that the 2 SS Panzer division, which had been in Poland in 1939, was now within easy striking distance at Falaise. So they disobeyed orders and veered off from their target and went chasing after them. Things like this leave gaps open for the enemy to escape through and leave your divisional commanders without the information you should be providing. Very much a no no and I expect he got an earful and maybe more when he next met his superiors. 🤨
This was such an excellent discussion! Thank you so much Anthony & Paul! I always come away from these discussions having learned something new! My late Dad participated as a young Canadian soldier in the Battle of Normandy but it wasn’t something he would talk about. However, I did go to Normandy with him once before he passed away. His memories of his time in Caen & around Rouen were unpleasant & painful to say the least. I’m thankful the trip proved to be somewhat healing for him & given he died not too long afterwards the time we had there together were a precious gift for me.
Met a Polish Vet from Hill 262 in Normandy at the 80th anniversary veteran Lieutenant Eugeniusz Jan Niedzielski. He is the last surviving soldier from General Stanisław Maczek's 1st Polish Armoured Division living in the UK.
Thank you Paul and Anthony! I learned a lot. Like it is no simple thing to conduct a campaign as some historians would have us believe. Nowhere near enough is known and at hand to end a major piece of the war in a nice tidy manner. David Currie was sitting there with 80 men and expected to know everything that was going on and plug every hole? Come on! Some historians' hindsight is 20/20 but let's see them do better when _they_ are the ones being shot at! Montgomery had his flaws but he _still_ completed the Normandy campaign in 77 days, when all of the Allied commanders had concluded it would take 90 days. That sounds like a success to me when all is said and done. 👌
What a treat to listen in on such a wonderful discussion. I had always lived with the idea that those Germans who escaped Falaise lived to conduct the Battle of the Bulge----but duh-----they also appeared mere weeks later in Holland at Market Garden......great job guys!
I'd thought of Falaise was a huge disaster for the Germans in France. I'd heard all the stories about the corpses. This puts a much bigger light on the good job of the German defense of saving valuable command organizations and experienced troops. Never heard it called the German Dunkirk until today. I'd put it in the same category as Tunisia and Stalingrad.
Absolutely brilliant and fascinating discussion about the Falaise Gap and the conduct of the operation by both sides - thank you Anthony & Paul for such an enlightening programme. WW2TV does it again with a great show, hope the channel continues to grow and provide such quality content!!!👍👍👍👍👍👍
Damn, this was a heck of a week for shows and I enjoyed everyone of them. It's great that there are other Historians in the sidebar giving their 2 cents to the discussion as well as everybody else contributions it makes for a lively presentation. Anthony Tucker-Jones is on his subject and I look forward to his next presentation and book. I said it before that these shows gives the viewer a deeper look into battles and maybe gives them pause as to what they believed or learned before. Again I learned some new info. Great show Paul and Anthony Tucker-Jones, Cheers!
Quote> Rarely does a battle follow the tidy arrows that have been sketched on a map or limned in a commander’s imagination. The mighty struggle for the Falaise Pocket was no exception. Several factors prevented the enemy annihilation envisioned by the Allied high command, including miscalculation, confusion, and dull generalship. Not least among the variables was a German reluctance to be annihilated. Rick Atkinson The Guns at Last Light
Very enjoyable show today. I think the takeaway should be this--be cautious of revisionist views of this campaign. Very fluid situation which would make intelligence difficult. I think it is easier to criticize the Battle of Bulge and ignoring the intelligence which was available. Great job. Thanks again for your hard work Paul!!!
The Red Army launched Operation Bagration on 06/22/1944, 3 years to the day after the Wehrmacht launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. The Falaise Gap was finally closed on 08/19/1944. if you check the record, I believe you will find that during those 2 months, OKW was too preoccupied with stemming the tide of the Red Army against the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front to pay sufficient attention to Operations Bluecoat and Cobra. Also, during that time period, Speer was doing the hotfoot to protect his factories against the devastation of Nazi armament production wrought by the Allies' Combined Bomber Offensive. It's called "ETO" for a reason: each campaign in the theatre should be analyzed with the others occurring at the same time.
I consider myself a fan and somebody who has a strong interest in world war II but I didn't know until a few weeks ago about the allied attack on the panzer headquarters as part of the D-Day invasion. It was an amazing project that had great success not only in killing off many of the important officers but in causing huge disarray which setback the ability of the Panthers to act cohesively for days. It's strange how you can watch years of content but somehow miss one thing that's really important and I missed that thing until sometime during the last month. I'm sure you've probably done an episode on it but I haven't watched all of the episodes. Great show as usual.
I cant agree that Falaise was the German equivalent to the Allies at Dunkirk. That completely disregards the fact that Dunkirk left the Allies in the war, a low point certainly but an event which would lead to eventual victory (albeit a long time later). Falaise was, at the very best, only a temporary reprieve for the Germans which would only ever be from that point on, a fairly rapid terminal demise which only ultimately lead to inevitable defeat (in the west). Thats night and day!
I remember watching the world at war series and I'm sure it was pt 19 pincers, were the American General Lawton Collins, said about the British being to slow, it was also mentioned in the episode Tough old Gut covering the Italian campaign, and of course the film Bridge to far. However alot of sources have said recently, and I believe including yourself Paul that this statement is simply untrue, I reckon it was more to do with the fact that the Germans realised they were getting squeezed at Falaise and got out ASAP, Wasn't it about 60 to 80,000 that escaped??
Can’t agree that Overlord and Dragoon weren’t “decisive” even though many German troops escaped. The Germans lost France, that was a decisive defeat. Also don’t agree with the attitude that it somehow doesn’t count if a vehicle crew under air attack bails out and runs away but the vehicle isn’t damaged. The vehicle is denied to the enemy, that’s an airpower kill.
Alexander Fitzgerald-Black - "Monty's masterplan was to convince us all he had a masterplan." If only he had laid out that plan at St James' School in his briefing made to the entire Allied command weeks before D-Day. If only that plan has been laid out in all the memoirs of the senior allied command (including Eisenhower and Bradley). Oh, hang on a minute!
The American who was scared to close the gap was Bradley. Patton thought he could. Bradley told Patton not to try. To stay out of Monty’s area of responsibility
@@WW2TV ….Bradley’s decision isn’t a theory. He wouldn’t let Patton advance into the gap. Bradley covers this in his memoir. Would Patton’s forces have closed the gap? We don’t know. Patton saw an opportunity. Bradley saw risk.
@@Idahoguy10157 Bradley was nervous for fear of Friendly Fire. As the gap continued to close, Bradley was getting more and more reports of friendly fire incidents with mounting casualties from these occurrences. Mostly from air support miscues. In one, the Canadians suffered more casualties from a bombing by B-17's than they did in the similar incident in the Cobra breakout. They actually shot back with AA support batteries and succeeded in shooting down one B-17. It is kind of weird that in this battle the US Tactical Air supported the British and Canadians, and the British Tactical Air supported the Americans. Coloured smoke markers were confused. The Canadians again suffered from friendly air bombings as red smoke for them meant "friendlies here". To the Americans red meant targets. An American fighter-bomber group took out half the fuel reserves of the Polish brigade in one raid. Another attack destroyed the command position of US VII Corps forcing a retreat that allowed the Germans to reoccupy good defensive ground. Bradley continued to recieve reports such as these, along with increasingly muddled reports of the tactical situations, and came to the conclusion to halt. An opportunity lost, yes. But given events leading up to his decision, I can understand it in it's moment.
A fairly standard argument ignoring the reason for not wanting German armour close to the beach. Rommel had experience with the difficulty of fighting when the enemy had air superiority but little in defending against heavy naval supported landings. Runstedt on the other hand was well aware of the effect of heavy naval gun support as happened at Salerno and had no desire to see his armour wiped by naval gunnery. Not only were the bulk of the Panzer units were facing Montgumery, but the bulk of the SS and Panzer Grenidier units were facing the British Canadians, while of the fewer divisions facing Bradly contained some second line divisions, some reinforced frotress divisions with no organic transport.. This of course only made sense since the British position was far more strategically important with the road to the Seine and Paris and the Germans to the south being isolated if the British were able to advance. Had Hitler let the professionals have their way Falaise would not have been an issue. also if Montgunery and Patton had their way Patton would have went wide to the Seine rather than consentrate on Falaise. Falaise was a Bradly, Eisenhauer choice.
A school friend's dad was at Falaise and was among the first into the pocket after the Germans had left - as a despatch rider and having a motor bike he was sent to take a look and report back. I clearly remember him telling me about what he saw and that many of the dead horses were still steaming from being driven until they dropped. The scene must have appeared to him as apocalyptic. It may be an exaggeration, but he reckoned he could have walked for miles by stepping from one corpse (many human and literally thousands of horses) to the next. The roads were totally impassable because of the wreckage, which is why the film units present didn't film the worst of the destruction - they simply couldn't reach it. It's easy to say with hindsight (which is 20/20 vision) that it could have been a greater victory, but without witnessing it first hand it's just hot air.
In coming the predictable comments "the Brits were slow" "the yanks were too busy swanning off around france" 😂 The Falaise is a classic example of finger pointing and national pride.
The comment about walking across ground without touching the ground because the person is walking on the bodies of men reminds me of The Wheatfield at Gettysburg. Same aftermath regarding the ground being covered with dead and dying men.
Jolly good show gentlemen! I only wish I could have been there for the very lively chat room. Poor Canadians, always seemed to be involved with the tough ones. Very brave. (Not to detract from the efforts of all the nations and units involved)
Take heart! It was the Canadians who unlocked the strategy that allowed the Allies to take charge and win WW!. And although a miscalculation sent many to their graves at Dieppe, my uncle Bob being one of them, they made a great name for themselves in ousting the Germans from the Holland and the Islands, as my Dutch cousins would remind you.
I was there years ago the destruction the sadness the loss of ,it had to happen to end the war.the only thing that was peaceful was the river near near by. Sad memories .
Surely one of the biggest problems we have when assessing the efficiency of the closing the gap is firstly, judgment based exclusively on hindsight, and secondly a near complete lack of context when examining similar operations during the war. Fair enough there are few comparable battles fought by the western allies, but there are quite a few if we look east. Can anyone name a more successful operation for the Germans fighting the Russians in the east in the early part of that campaign, or vice versa the Russians encircling the Germans later on?
I know a lot of people have said the gap would have been closed quicker if the British moved faster, does this take into account that they had been facing a lot more armour, many of the units had been fighting a lot longer than others, and nobody really knew if they shifted units to falais would they get attacked elsewhere
@ 58:06 The main objective of Operation Dragoon was to capture the southern ports to improve logistics and support the troops that were projected to close in on the Rhine River late in 1944. This actually worked quite well, as the Germans didn't expect it and didn't *completely* destroy the ports or fortify them and hold them, as they did at Cherbourg, Dunkirk, and the approaches to Antwerp. There were problems with demolitions and the aftereffects of Allied bombing and shelling, but by November over 500,000 tons of supplies were arriving through the Mediterranean ports. Use your imagination to cancel Dragoon, and thus subtract half a million tons from the monthly logistics total, and envision what that would do to the effectiveness of the armies fighting in France and Benelux.
A lot of the stuff photographed in the pocket is armor that was taken out by air power. It's not all horse-drawn carts and broken-down tanks. There's a lot of stuff that was destroyed by the allied Air forces and a lot of stuff they didn't have the time and the capability to bring with them if they were going to get out so they destroyed it themselves.
You don't mention artillery? The reports done at the time indicate that not as much equipment was knocked out from the air as the many paintings and stories would suggest. Also I'm not sure the Germans had much time to destroy their own equipment. Sure, some was abandoned, but I'm not sure they had the time for anything else
What are the approximate numbers for those who were killed or captured and those who managed to get through the pocket? I guess it's a tough number to the fine because where do you start the German withdraw as far as the timing of that is concerned? I guess I'm wondering from the start of Cobra to the closing of the pocket. Now I'm making it even more difficult to define the numbers. LOL.
Sometimes we do history really bad. I think you could sum this up without all of the back and forth by saying some of the Germans that were trying to get out of the pocket were well-organized and a lot of them weren't. I know that history hates the shade of gray but that's probably more applicable here then either one of those other viewpoints as far as the quality of German organization during this retreat
The Generals didn’t have the recon abilities we have today. There was guesses and estimates based on incomplete radio reports and photos that were hours old by the time they were understood. The Generals blaming for the 100k of Germans escaping was all done in retrospect.
I wonder if you could give a picture of the participation of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry from canadas 2nd Division with respect to Verrieres Ridge? My dad was there when he was severely wounded by 88mm shrapnel.
This is an English language channel. Of course Waffen should have a v sound, but in English it is a common short-hand to use W. What matters more is the history
The mother of the captured german officer in the photo 34:35 was informed that he was killed in action so when she saw him in the photo being captured by the British years later in the 1960s she was greatly puzzled because he never returned home to Germany
One thing that I notice a lot, the Germans were not very good at giving casualty figures throughout WW2. At wars end the Germans admitted 3.6 Million Military casualties, However the modern researched figures are over 5.4 Million.
Weird, I just played some of it back and the audio is fine/normal for me. Is this the first WW2TV show you have watched? In past shows when there is an issue with the audio someone mentions it straight away in the live chat, so I feel the problem may be at your end
I've often wondered how much shorter the war may have been if we had not had the issues at Falaise and the failed operation of Market Garden. It would have definitely taken a few months out of the war because there would have not been troops available for the German Ardennes attack and the time to recover the line afterwards wouldn't have been necessary.
Mkt Garden was about building a corridor to Berlin. 4/5 bridges were taken. Gavin wasted a day on the heights above Nijmegen. The rest is history. No plan survives...
Weird that you focus on Market Garden, yet ignore the US debacles at Metz and Hurtgen, which wasted far more time, men and material than Market Garden.
At least you're honest. But for the record Montgomery didn't plan, or command Market Garden. Brereton and Browning of 1st Allied Airborne Army did the majority of it, and they were under the command of SHAEF, not Montgomery, and so answered to Eisenhower. They took Montgomery's original plan, Operation Comet, and expanded it, but crucially removed elements such as the coup de main attacks on all the bridges and the need to get all the Airborne troops landed on Day 1. The Market Garden plan bears little resemblance to Comet. It ultimately failed because Gavin, US 82nd Airborne ignored Nijmegen Bridge. As for Falaise, it was a victory, at the end of the day, but I think you need to give credit to the German forces who fought tooth and nail to keep the pocket open and didn't just give up and collapse. Again it's strange that you focus on Montgomery for that "failure" when it was Bradley who held back Patton's forces from closing the gap, instead leaving it to the Canadians and Poles.
There was something wrong with Anthony's video camera. It was either badly out of focus or of really poor resolution. Paul can't do anything about that. And Anthony is likely not used to giving these sorts of interviews because he would sit forward and then sit pretty far back, not realizing that his voice would get really loud as he sat up or that his voice would disappear when he sat back. It takes a few of these sessions before you understand as an interviewee that you must sit pretty much in one position and not move a lot. But this was information from an excellent historian that is pure gold. You will seldom find this sort of historical insight on any other UA-cam channel. Paul's channel is excellent! 💘😏👌
@@WW2TV Thank you for replying. I am deaf but have good hearing aids and good headphones. I hear most YT fine. I can just make out what the guest is saying but in the end it comes down to whether I want to make this much effort for a whole hour for what for me is a matter of historical interest while I put my feet up. I understand you make great efforts to put this stuff up which I do appreciate. I also understand that you have no influence over the guests' microphone set up but in some cases they are not up to speed. However my biggest regret is that I missed the talk; I am sure your guest had much to tell us.
@@andrewblake2254 If you can use over the ear headphones to listen to the episode Andrew, that might help. As long as they will fit over your hearing aids that should let you hear everything.
About the resources used to go to Cherbourg and in Britanmy, why is it that the planner could not force how the Germany would react to make them useless? Or the problem caused by the becoges.
I don't think closing the gap faster would have changed something. If you look at what happens in Iraq during the first gulf war . the USA didn't close the gap , they created a corridor for the Iraqi to escape. And managed to destroy thousands of vehicles by bombing them from the air. You gives the illusion of a chance to escape but in reality your enemies its a trap that gets you stuck in a massive traffic jam.
The situation the Germans found themselves in on D-Day and after really resembles what the Japanese were going through each time the Americans attempted a landing during the island-hopping campaign. I don't know if there's a good answer yet as to whether it's best to allow the troops to get inland before using all of your force and well-established positions to attack them or to throw everything at them as they're coming ashore. The Japanese found success and failure with both types of reactions so it's difficult to say whether the Germans got it right or not. History says that they got it wrong because the Allies eventually established a large enough beachhead at several positions to secure the landing and the invasion of France but that's not one-hundred-percent provable because they may have still lost even if they had employed a different system to try to defeat the Allies on D-Day and the weeks following.
Okay well, I've hosted 557 live shows and have always worn a hat, it having become something of a trade mark. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch
2:18 and then 3:12 😁The 'annoying black and silver covers' bit made me laugh. Sorry I had to downvote this because of the 'historian' not because of WW2TV. Too much out-of-date unsubstantiated wehraboo twaddle that passed unchallenged. IMHO.
Falaise & Market Garden seem to focus the sort of cavalier bickering about the competence of either the Americans, the British, the Canadians or even the Poles. Before going down that road what I require of myself is to be aware that the men in all these groups were incredibly brave, motivated and many did not return. Any criticisms should be tempered by respect and gratitude for the efforts of those men.
Good point
I think all were competent and had their assets and faults. The better debate imo is lacking leadership.
The poles were the only one which one were competent there.
@@zepter00 I'm not trying to pick on the Poles, as they were clearly ferocious fighters, but they also had their own leadership problems. One group of Polish tanks learned that the 2 SS Panzer division, which had been in Poland in 1939, was now within easy striking distance at Falaise. So they disobeyed orders and veered off from their target and went chasing after them. Things like this leave gaps open for the enemy to escape through and leave your divisional commanders without the information you should be providing. Very much a no no and I expect he got an earful and maybe more when he next met his superiors. 🤨
@@zepter00 Highly debatable as they allowed themselves to get cut off from resupply and reinforcement and were almost overrun as a consequence.
This was such an excellent discussion! Thank you so much Anthony & Paul! I always come away from these discussions having learned something new! My late Dad participated as a young Canadian soldier in the Battle of Normandy but it wasn’t something he would talk about. However, I did go to Normandy with him once before he passed away. His memories of his time in Caen & around Rouen were unpleasant & painful to say the least. I’m thankful the trip proved to be somewhat healing for him & given he died not too long afterwards the time we had there together were a precious gift for me.
Met a Polish Vet from Hill 262 in Normandy at the 80th anniversary
veteran Lieutenant Eugeniusz Jan Niedzielski. He is the last surviving soldier from General Stanisław Maczek's 1st Polish Armoured Division living in the UK.
Thank you Paul and Anthony! I learned a lot. Like it is no simple thing to conduct a campaign as some historians would have us believe. Nowhere near enough is known and at hand to end a major piece of the war in a nice tidy manner. David Currie was sitting there with 80 men and expected to know everything that was going on and plug every hole? Come on! Some historians' hindsight is 20/20 but let's see them do better when _they_ are the ones being shot at!
Montgomery had his flaws but he _still_ completed the Normandy campaign in 77 days, when all of the Allied commanders had concluded it would take 90 days. That sounds like a success to me when all is said and done. 👌
What a treat to listen in on such a wonderful discussion. I had always lived with the idea that those Germans who escaped Falaise lived to conduct the Battle of the Bulge----but duh-----they also appeared mere weeks later in Holland at Market Garden......great job guys!
I say it again … this channel is gold for WW2 content …
Thanks for the support
I'd thought of Falaise was a huge disaster for the Germans in France. I'd heard all the stories about the corpses. This puts a much bigger light on the good job of the German defense of saving valuable command organizations and experienced troops. Never heard it called the German Dunkirk until today. I'd put it in the same category as Tunisia and Stalingrad.
(1:12:22) Somewhat ironically, Dieppe was the first truly useful Channel port to open to Allied shipping following D-Day (on September 6th, 1944).
Good factoid
Absolutely brilliant and fascinating discussion about the Falaise Gap and the conduct of the operation by both sides - thank you Anthony & Paul for such an enlightening programme.
WW2TV does it again with a great show, hope the channel continues to grow and provide such quality content!!!👍👍👍👍👍👍
Damn, this was a heck of a week for shows and I enjoyed everyone of them. It's great that there are other Historians in the sidebar giving their 2 cents to the discussion as well as everybody else contributions it makes for a lively presentation. Anthony Tucker-Jones is on his subject and I look forward to his next presentation and book. I said it before that these shows gives the viewer a deeper look into battles and maybe gives them pause as to what they believed or learned before. Again I learned some new info. Great show Paul and Anthony Tucker-Jones, Cheers!
Generalleutenant Otto Elfeldt was commander of LXXXIV Korps. Captured in the morning on 20.8.44 near Saint Lambert by Polish tank division.
Quote> Rarely does a battle follow the tidy arrows that have been sketched on a map or limned in a commander’s imagination. The mighty struggle for the Falaise Pocket was no exception. Several factors prevented the enemy annihilation envisioned by the Allied high command, including miscalculation, confusion, and dull generalship. Not least among the variables was a German reluctance to be annihilated.
Rick Atkinson The Guns at Last Light
Very enjoyable show today. I think the takeaway should be this--be cautious of revisionist views of this campaign. Very fluid situation which would make intelligence difficult. I think it is easier to criticize the Battle of Bulge and ignoring the intelligence which was available. Great job. Thanks again for your hard work Paul!!!
The Red Army launched Operation Bagration on 06/22/1944, 3 years to the day after the Wehrmacht launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. The Falaise Gap was finally closed on 08/19/1944. if you check the record, I believe you will find that during those 2 months, OKW was too preoccupied with stemming the tide of the Red Army against the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front to pay sufficient attention to Operations Bluecoat and Cobra. Also, during that time period, Speer was doing the hotfoot to protect his factories against the devastation of Nazi armament production wrought by the Allies' Combined Bomber Offensive. It's called "ETO" for a reason: each campaign in the theatre should be analyzed with the others occurring at the same time.
I consider myself a fan and somebody who has a strong interest in world war II but I didn't know until a few weeks ago about the allied attack on the panzer headquarters as part of the D-Day invasion. It was an amazing project that had great success not only in killing off many of the important officers but in causing huge disarray which setback the ability of the Panthers to act cohesively for days. It's strange how you can watch years of content but somehow miss one thing that's really important and I missed that thing until sometime during the last month. I'm sure you've probably done an episode on it but I haven't watched all of the episodes. Great show as usual.
Great presentation. One more book to buy. 👍
Fabulous work guys, would love to see a show on the capture of Le Mans and the destruction of 9th panzer in the south of the pocket.
I cant agree that Falaise was the German equivalent to the Allies at Dunkirk. That completely disregards the fact that Dunkirk left the Allies in the war, a low point certainly but an event which would lead to eventual victory (albeit a long time later). Falaise was, at the very best, only a temporary reprieve for the Germans which would only ever be from that point on, a fairly rapid terminal demise which only ultimately lead to inevitable defeat (in the west). Thats night and day!
Great show again. A T-J and Woody do well explaining a side of this, as there are so many opinions.
Hi @WW2TV Great video, very informative. Can you do a video on the battle of Anzio please????
Anzio will comr up at some point. Maybe in 2024 for the 80th, maybe sooner
How have I only just discovered this channel? Absolutely amazing work, thank you.
Another great topic and talk! Love getting these little details!
I remember watching the world at war series and I'm sure it was pt 19 pincers, were the American General Lawton Collins, said about the British being to slow, it was also mentioned in the episode Tough old Gut covering the Italian campaign, and of course the film Bridge to far.
However alot of sources have said recently, and I believe including yourself Paul that this statement is simply untrue, I reckon it was more to do with the fact that the Germans realised they were getting squeezed at Falaise and got out ASAP, Wasn't it about 60 to 80,000 that escaped??
Yep at least that number got it
Can’t agree that Overlord and Dragoon weren’t “decisive” even though many German troops escaped. The Germans lost France, that was a decisive defeat. Also don’t agree with the attitude that it somehow doesn’t count if a vehicle crew under air attack bails out and runs away but the vehicle isn’t damaged. The vehicle is denied to the enemy, that’s an airpower kill.
Alexander Fitzgerald-Black - "Monty's masterplan was to convince us all he had a masterplan." If only he had laid out that plan at St James' School in his briefing made to the entire Allied command weeks before D-Day. If only that plan has been laid out in all the memoirs of the senior allied command (including Eisenhower and Bradley). Oh, hang on a minute!
Some very interesting comments. As usual a great presentation. Thank you!
Very informative and thought provoking presentation by Anthony. Learned a lot today. Many thanks
Great to hear!
The American who was scared to close the gap was Bradley. Patton thought he could. Bradley told Patton not to try. To stay out of Monty’s area of responsibility
Yep, that's one of the theories. Over the years historians have put the blame on various commanders
@@WW2TV ….Bradley’s decision isn’t a theory. He wouldn’t let Patton advance into the gap. Bradley covers this in his memoir. Would Patton’s forces have closed the gap? We don’t know. Patton saw an opportunity. Bradley saw risk.
Bradley changes his version slightly though in the second memoir
@@WW2TV …. Likely in response to Monty’s memoirs. Which excoriated everyone but Monty
@@Idahoguy10157 Bradley was nervous for fear of Friendly Fire.
As the gap continued to close, Bradley was getting more and more reports of friendly fire incidents with mounting casualties from these occurrences. Mostly from air support miscues. In one, the Canadians suffered more casualties from a bombing by B-17's than they did in the similar incident in the Cobra breakout.
They actually shot back with AA support batteries and succeeded in shooting down one B-17. It is kind of weird that in this battle the US Tactical Air supported the British and Canadians, and the British Tactical Air supported the Americans.
Coloured smoke markers were confused. The Canadians again suffered from friendly air bombings as red smoke for them meant "friendlies here". To the Americans red meant targets. An American fighter-bomber group took out half the fuel reserves of the Polish brigade in one raid. Another attack destroyed the command position of US VII Corps forcing a retreat that allowed the Germans to reoccupy good defensive ground.
Bradley continued to recieve reports such as these, along with increasingly muddled reports of the tactical situations, and came to the conclusion to halt. An opportunity lost, yes. But given events leading up to his decision, I can understand it in it's moment.
A fairly standard argument ignoring the reason for not wanting German armour close to the beach. Rommel had experience with the difficulty of fighting when the enemy had air superiority but little in defending against heavy naval supported landings. Runstedt on the other hand was well aware of the effect of heavy naval gun support as happened at Salerno and had no desire to see his armour wiped by naval gunnery. Not only were the bulk of the Panzer units were facing Montgumery, but the bulk of the SS and Panzer Grenidier units were facing the British Canadians, while of the fewer divisions facing Bradly contained some second line divisions, some reinforced frotress divisions with no organic transport.. This of course only made sense since the British position was far more strategically important with the road to the Seine and Paris and the Germans to the south being isolated if the British were able to advance. Had Hitler let the professionals have their way Falaise would not have been an issue. also if Montgunery and Patton had their way Patton would have went wide to the Seine rather than consentrate on Falaise. Falaise was a Bradly, Eisenhauer choice.
A school friend's dad was at Falaise and was among the first into the pocket after the Germans had left - as a despatch rider and having a motor bike he was sent to take a look and report back. I clearly remember him telling me about what he saw and that many of the dead horses were still steaming from being driven until they dropped. The scene must have appeared to him as apocalyptic.
It may be an exaggeration, but he reckoned he could have walked for miles by stepping from one corpse (many human and literally thousands of horses) to the next. The roads were totally impassable because of the wreckage, which is why the film units present didn't film the worst of the destruction - they simply couldn't reach it.
It's easy to say with hindsight (which is 20/20 vision) that it could have been a greater victory, but without witnessing it first hand it's just hot air.
In coming the predictable comments "the Brits were slow" "the yanks were too busy swanning off around france" 😂 The Falaise is a classic example of finger pointing and national pride.
-Absolutely great program but the audio was difficult at times.
-Thank you.
RS. Canada
The comment about walking across ground without touching the ground because the person is walking on the bodies of men reminds me of The Wheatfield at Gettysburg. Same aftermath regarding the ground being covered with dead and dying men.
Awesome, thank you!
Jolly good show gentlemen! I only wish I could have been there for the very lively chat room. Poor Canadians, always seemed to be involved with the tough ones. Very brave. (Not to detract from the efforts of all the nations and units involved)
Take heart!
It was the Canadians who unlocked the strategy that allowed the Allies to take charge and win WW!.
And although a miscalculation sent many to their graves at Dieppe, my uncle Bob being one of them, they made a great name for themselves in ousting the Germans from the Holland and the Islands, as my Dutch cousins would remind you.
Sat on their arse from 1939 till 1943@@stevemcnair-wilson6106
What a great discussion.
I was there years ago the destruction the sadness the loss of ,it had to happen to end the war.the only thing that was peaceful was the river near near by. Sad memories .
Many German units were pretending (issuing reports) that they were fighting aggressively, while in fact they were retreating or preparing to do so.
Fuel!
The Germans never solved that problem, and their escape after Falaise was in part due to the over extension of the Allies.
Lovely stuff once again! Sadly, I too have the Germans as the nameless baddies in Star Wars. It's just really hard to get the source material. 🙂
Great show, it was fascinating to learn that Falaise was not the huge victory that it has been portrayed as. Thanks!
Wasn't Cherbourg reopened by the Allies in Aug 1944? Great presentation again, Woody.
Only partially George
Surely one of the biggest problems we have when assessing the efficiency of the closing the gap is firstly, judgment based exclusively on hindsight, and secondly a near complete lack of context when examining similar operations during the war. Fair enough there are few comparable battles fought by the western allies, but there are quite a few if we look east. Can anyone name a more successful operation for the Germans fighting the Russians in the east in the early part of that campaign, or vice versa the Russians encircling the Germans later on?
I know a lot of people have said the gap would have been closed quicker if the British moved faster, does this take into account that they had been facing a lot more armour, many of the units had been fighting a lot longer than others, and nobody really knew if they shifted units to falais would they get attacked elsewhere
@user-ny5yv9rt9s It's just pure ignorance of the situation the Canadians and Poles were facing.
@ 58:06 The main objective of Operation Dragoon was to capture the southern ports to improve logistics and support the troops that were projected to close in on the Rhine River late in 1944. This actually worked quite well, as the Germans didn't expect it and didn't *completely* destroy the ports or fortify them and hold them, as they did at Cherbourg, Dunkirk, and the approaches to Antwerp. There were problems with demolitions and the aftereffects of Allied bombing and shelling, but by November over 500,000 tons of supplies were arriving through the Mediterranean ports. Use your imagination to cancel Dragoon, and thus subtract half a million tons from the monthly logistics total, and envision what that would do to the effectiveness of the armies fighting in France and Benelux.
A lot of the stuff photographed in the pocket is armor that was taken out by air power. It's not all horse-drawn carts and broken-down tanks. There's a lot of stuff that was destroyed by the allied Air forces and a lot of stuff they didn't have the time and the capability to bring with them if they were going to get out so they destroyed it themselves.
You don't mention artillery? The reports done at the time indicate that not as much equipment was knocked out from the air as the many paintings and stories would suggest. Also I'm not sure the Germans had much time to destroy their own equipment. Sure, some was abandoned, but I'm not sure they had the time for anything else
By this stage in Hitler's life, Nazi forces were often better off when he was sleeping.
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Been there terrible experience what a waste of life,I only remember the beautiful river .
What are the approximate numbers for those who were killed or captured and those who managed to get through the pocket? I guess it's a tough number to the fine because where do you start the German withdraw as far as the timing of that is concerned? I guess I'm wondering from the start of Cobra to the closing of the pocket. Now I'm making it even more difficult to define the numbers. LOL.
There are numerous sets of figures, but none are definitive and the real figures may never be known
Sometimes we do history really bad. I think you could sum this up without all of the back and forth by saying some of the Germans that were trying to get out of the pocket were well-organized and a lot of them weren't. I know that history hates the shade of gray but that's probably more applicable here then either one of those other viewpoints as far as the quality of German organization during this retreat
The Generals didn’t have the recon abilities we have today. There was guesses and estimates based on incomplete radio reports and photos that were hours old by the time they were understood. The Generals blaming for the 100k of Germans escaping was all done in retrospect.
I wonder if you could give a picture of the participation of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry from canadas 2nd Division with respect to Verrieres Ridge? My dad was there when he was severely wounded by 88mm shrapnel.
I dont play the rabbit hole drinking game . I enjoy having both kidneys and a liver .
You always know a quality author or historian when. They pronounce waffen with a W!!!
This is an English language channel. Of course Waffen should have a v sound, but in English it is a common short-hand to use W. What matters more is the history
The mother of the captured german officer in the photo 34:35 was informed that he was killed in action so when she saw him in the photo being captured by the British years later in the 1960s she was greatly puzzled because he never returned home to Germany
It's one of the versions of the story yes
At least 3 different identities have been attributed to the officer
@@WW2TV Interesting do all the stories follow a common theme or is each story different in context and in outcome ?
They are quite different IIRC
@@WW2TV In your opinion do any of the stories have a grain off truth ?
I've not done enough research into the subject to have a strong opinion
One thing that I notice a lot, the Germans were not very good at giving casualty figures throughout WW2. At wars end the Germans admitted 3.6 Million Military casualties, However the modern researched figures are over 5.4 Million.
Its a shame that the sound is so poor.
Its hard to undertand some key phrases from both of you.
Weird, I just played some of it back and the audio is fine/normal for me. Is this the first WW2TV show you have watched?
In past shows when there is an issue with the audio someone mentions it straight away in the live chat, so I feel the problem may be at your end
I've often wondered how much shorter the war may have been if we had not had the issues at Falaise and the failed operation of Market Garden. It would have definitely taken a few months out of the war because there would have not been troops available for the German Ardennes attack and the time to recover the line afterwards wouldn't have been necessary.
Mkt Garden was about building a corridor to Berlin. 4/5 bridges were taken. Gavin wasted a day on the heights above Nijmegen. The rest is history. No plan survives...
Weird that you focus on Market Garden, yet ignore the US debacles at Metz and Hurtgen, which wasted far more time, men and material than Market Garden.
@@davidhall3145 probably because I'm an American and I can't stand Montgomery.
At least you're honest.
But for the record Montgomery didn't plan, or command Market Garden. Brereton and Browning of 1st Allied Airborne Army did the majority of it, and they were under the command of SHAEF, not Montgomery, and so answered to Eisenhower. They took Montgomery's original plan, Operation Comet, and expanded it, but crucially removed elements such as the coup de main attacks on all the bridges and the need to get all the Airborne troops landed on Day 1. The Market Garden plan bears little resemblance to Comet. It ultimately failed because Gavin, US 82nd Airborne ignored Nijmegen Bridge.
As for Falaise, it was a victory, at the end of the day, but I think you need to give credit to the German forces who fought tooth and nail to keep the pocket open and didn't just give up and collapse. Again it's strange that you focus on Montgomery for that "failure" when it was Bradley who held back Patton's forces from closing the gap, instead leaving it to the Canadians and Poles.
@@bookaufman9643 Monty the best general in the ETO and you can not stand him..why so?
. Guest sound and video quality very poor; sound quality especially too hard to listen too.
That's very odd - thanks, because no-one mentioned poor audio in the live chat, but two people have since. It plays back fine for me
There was something wrong with Anthony's video camera. It was either badly out of focus or of really poor resolution. Paul can't do anything about that.
And Anthony is likely not used to giving these sorts of interviews because he would sit forward and then sit pretty far back, not realizing that his voice would get really loud as he sat up or that his voice would disappear when he sat back. It takes a few of these sessions before you understand as an interviewee that you must sit pretty much in one position and not move a lot.
But this was information from an excellent historian that is pure gold. You will seldom find this sort of historical insight on any other UA-cam channel. Paul's channel is excellent! 💘😏👌
@@WW2TV Thank you for replying. I am deaf but have good hearing aids and good headphones. I hear most YT fine. I can just make out what the guest is saying but in the end it comes down to whether I want to make this much effort for a whole hour for what for me is a matter of historical interest while I put my feet up. I understand you make great efforts to put this stuff up which I do appreciate. I also understand that you have no influence over the guests' microphone set up but in some cases they are not up to speed. However my biggest regret is that I missed the talk; I am sure your guest had much to tell us.
@@ToddSauve Yes I quite agree with all of your comments. I have replied fully elsewhere.
@@andrewblake2254 If you can use over the ear headphones to listen to the episode Andrew, that might help. As long as they will fit over your hearing aids that should let you hear everything.
About the resources used to go to Cherbourg and in Britanmy, why is it that the planner could not force how the Germany would react to make them useless? Or the problem caused by the becoges.
I don't understand why Dragoon is considered a waste of time. The Germans lost a lot of man power no?
Well they did lose manpower dealing with Dragoon, but the consensus still seems to be that the Allies could have better used that force elsewhere
Imo they should have advance to seine river then attack Germans trying to cross the river.
I don't think closing the gap faster would have changed something. If you look at what happens in Iraq during the first gulf war . the USA didn't close the gap , they created a corridor for the Iraqi to escape. And managed to destroy thousands of vehicles by bombing them from the air. You gives the illusion of a chance to escape but in reality your enemies its a trap that gets you stuck in a massive traffic jam.
The situation the Germans found themselves in on D-Day and after really resembles what the Japanese were going through each time the Americans attempted a landing during the island-hopping campaign. I don't know if there's a good answer yet as to whether it's best to allow the troops to get inland before using all of your force and well-established positions to attack them or to throw everything at them as they're coming ashore. The Japanese found success and failure with both types of reactions so it's difficult to say whether the Germans got it right or not. History says that they got it wrong because the Allies eventually established a large enough beachhead at several positions to secure the landing and the invasion of France but that's not one-hundred-percent provable because they may have still lost even if they had employed a different system to try to defeat the Allies on D-Day and the weeks following.
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Ahmmm was the German Army Group destroyed at Falaise And was not the agents of that destruction the British and Canadian Army and RAF
Well this is the debate, Key elements of the German Army did escape, hence why people still talk about whether it is a partial or total Allied victory
The hat isn't a good look.
Okay well, I've hosted 557 live shows and have always worn a hat, it having become something of a trade mark. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch
2:18 and then 3:12 😁The 'annoying black and silver covers' bit made me laugh.
Sorry I had to downvote this because of the 'historian' not because of WW2TV. Too much out-of-date unsubstantiated wehraboo twaddle that passed unchallenged. IMHO.
And how he takes the moral high ground. Wonder if he mentions the Rheinwiesen in his book.