1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been better?

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Tom from Cornwall
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been better?

#61

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 10 Feb 2010, 22:10

Rich,

Thanks for the link - that has saved me and my camera a lot of work at Kew. :D

Regards

Tom

dieseltaylor
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been better?

#62

Post by dieseltaylor » 23 Feb 2010, 01:41

I was asked for details of Crocodile use in the bocage. A pictorial history of the RTR by George Forty page 179
"Before the battalion leagured for the night a Crocodile flamed the hedges round the field and 40 Huns came out"

Seems then it waas effective for persuading Germans to give up - as I suggested. : )


arjones
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#63

Post by arjones » 08 Nov 2013, 05:16

Several comments need to be made to correct some errors that seem to be being perpetuated.

Firstly, as early as May 1943 the plans for Overlord were in the hands of the Americans.. specifically General Andrews and his Chief of Staff. Andrews was the commander of ETOUSA at that time but sadly he died in a plane crash in Iceland just prior to Churchill and Roosevelt met.

Lt Gen Devers took over. Maj Gen Barker was his deputy but given the title Deputy Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Command (Designate). Politics entered the fray and the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Command (Designate) was a British Lt Gen Frederick E Morgan. (hence COSSAC).

COSSAC was situated in Norfolk House on St James's Square at this time. One of the staff officers working there was in the planning section by virtue of having been one of the few american officers at that time to have been trained in amphibious assault landings. His name was Ralph Ingersoll.

A lot of the problems stemmed from several factors. Some of these are .....

1. The Brits had been fighting for years and most of the planning staff had been around the block, seen it all and done it all. Montgomery was seen by all as a great commander having proved himself. The in theatre Americans were newly arrived to both the theatre and the war. The American generals were by and large untested and unproven (as validated by the high sacking rates once battle in Normandy commenced).

2. Britain was totally at war and by and large reaching a steady state with the war (indeed perhaps even exhaustion). America was still eager to get into the battle and so the natural caution of commanders not wishing to lose limited manpower was at odds with the more cavalier American's. Production of equipment was paramount so a lot of equipment was out of service pending much needed spares and replacements ( for example landing craft which were in dire shortage).

3. Despite a common language, the two nations were worlds apart (ironically including language) on to terminology through to even trivia like map marking ( USA blue meant friendly forces and red enemy whereas in the UK at that time it was the other way around).

4. The American Army was hated by the American Navy and also their Air Force. Production and tasking of Navy resources were earmarked for the Pacific rather than Europe. The British Air Force was also at odds with the Army as to how to carry out operations (earlier comments about Op Sec are valid in this context).

5. The British had just survived Dunkirk and then the Battle of Britain and other reversals around the world. The confidence was damaged so caution prevailed (even to the point of cancelling the invasion for 1944). Indeed it was delayed from the promised April (to the Soviet Union). No amphibious invasion in modern war was successful prior to WW2. Africa and Sicily were inferior enemies, undefended coasts or sheltered waters. Dieppe had been studied by General Dever's and his staff and actually deemed a success (for all the reasons quoted as a failure as well as the landings were achieved by a relatively weak force and that there were no follow up forces).

6. German defences on the Atlantic wall were felt to be better than they actually were. Whole German armies were available to use against any breach. Air defence was local.

7. French politics got involved too .. De Gaulle, Giraud or Darlan were juggled adroitly by Eisenhower after he was appointed and that sealed Eisenhower's position.

COSSAC formally obtained the plans in July 1943. Just a few of the issues included...........

The plans failed to detail commanders and roles... had a long series of circumstances that had to be right for Overlord to happen and so on. The only port detailed as being necessary to capture was Cherbourg, with the alternatives of Le Havre and Brest being left to the field commanders post invasion. Air cover was based tentatively around the shorter ranged Spitfire. The British had already landed troops at earlier beaches so had experience of amphibious assault operations. The quantity of Divisions landing were dictated by the amount of lift available (both landing craft and airplanes). The shortage of landing craft was a bottleneck with 870 bottoms or 13% missing being admitted to by the Brits. American figures indicated 55% missing and this was due to the lack of repairs, spares and so on. Some were still in the Med for Italian operations (the landing craft issue was solved in Sept 43 by a rushed order to the USA but even then needed the White House to intercede due to US Navy turf wars (done via Donald Nelson the chairman of the War Production Board and Harry Hopkins in the White House)).




Devers attempted to solve these problems by proposing that the military areas should be autonomous ... from operations through to logistical supply. Focus on command of own troops rather than try to cross train / integrate in the short time remaining prior to the invasion. Again command issues prevailed. Devers set up FUSAG (First United States Army Group) but a bombing raid burnt out their London Headquarters. One notable event later on was when American staff visited Montgomery's HQ. Monty's Chief of Staff Freddie de Guingand clearly stated that " it was not an Anglo-American headquarters, rather a British HQ. Americans were there simply to keep themselves informed as to how things were happening. " This was accepted given that the British had just done successful landings in the Med.

Training of troops was an issue .. but an engineer Col Paul Thompson build a replica strong point at Appledore and founded the Assault Training Centre. The US Navy provided an Admiral and landing craft and allowed training to commence. However, there was no curriculum to teach.. Overlord was cautious (Op Sec again) and didn't specify what weapons, formations, time of day or night that any landing would occur. COSSAC was approached for a ruling but dithered so Col Thompson was instructed to use trial and error. (Issues here omitted for simplification purposes). He did use first reports from the landing of Tarawa to assist.

During this time the American London headquarters picked up on a new weapon (the only new secret weapon of the invasion according to Ralph Ingersoll ( p35 Top Secret Partridge Publications 1946)) This was the DD tank. It was invented by a British Officer but rejected by the British War Office so he offered it to Jakey Devers. Devers got his staff officer to arrange a demonstration that went badly wrong yet still impressed. The British War Office agreed to convert sufficient tanks for both allies as the conversion was a small engineering issue that was too small to trouble the USA production lines.

When the first order was due to be delivered, it transpired that the order had been overlooked by the War Office. Given this was a top priority secret weapon to change the entire assault formation (not something done easily due to pre allocated shipping and craft) then this was a strange SNAFU.

In October 1943 the White House was favouring General Marshall as Supreme Allied Commander as he was the only man suitably qualified. In Teheran (December 1943) this changed. Devers wasn't tactful so was sacked (send to a different theatre of operations) ; Eaker from the 8th Air Force was replaced by Doolittle. Eisenhower was appointed to a) appease American public opinion and b) neutralise the French who were anti British (eg post the British shelling of the French fleet at Oran). America would be the fall guy should things go wrong.

The new commanders arrived to encounter the plan. The plan had been written and fixed in concrete with lots of component parts underway. All were secret and so it was impossible to alter significantly. Thus the new commanders inherited the plan .. regardless of issues. Knowledge of German strength and disposition was unclear to the Americans with the British maintaining 100% monopoly on Intelligence. This meant that it was easy to promote the idea that Germany would soon surrender due to the shortage of resources and manufacturing thus rendering Overlord unnecessary. Indeed the imminent collapse of Germany led to the development of Plan RANKIN .. the swift movement into Germany on their sudden collapse post Overlord and this was felt so likely that it was suggested that RANKIN should have priority over Overlord.

The belief that Germany was near collapse was in part due to the Jan bombing campaigns by the Eight Air Force combining with the Fifteenth (in Italy) to destroy Germany's industrial might .. Regensberg, Merseburg and Schweinfurt for example. This severely crippled the Luftwaffe so that air superiority was gained in June.

The plan took over so that by April 1944 no one was commanding operations. The plan was running everything.

RANKIN was the only attention paid to post landing and leaving the beachhead other than seizing Cherbourg. No mention by the American planners was made about the Bocage. There were too many other more immediate issues to resolve (I've just touched on some of them above! ).

pugsville
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#64

Post by pugsville » 08 Nov 2013, 06:37

i thought the replacement 'ripple' system was a bust, feeding new guys into units overnight while units at the front. no time to form a 'team' and develop understanding . undermined unit cohesion and many of the new guys were casualties. pull them out allow some bonding and getting to know each other. time for the old hands to pass on some of their experience.

arjones
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#65

Post by arjones » 08 Nov 2013, 12:32

pugsville wrote:i thought the replacement 'ripple' system was a bust, feeding new guys into units overnight while units at the front. no time to form a 'team' and develop understanding . undermined unit cohesion and many of the new guys were casualties. pull them out allow some bonding and getting to know each other. time for the old hands to pass on some of their experience.

agreed!

RichTO90
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#66

Post by RichTO90 » 08 Nov 2013, 19:03

arjones wrote:Several comments need to be made to correct some errors that seem to be being perpetuated.
I'm afraid I'm not sure where your comments correct errors made in this thread?
Firstly, as early as May 1943 the plans for Overlord were in the hands of the Americans.. specifically General Andrews and his Chief of Staff. Andrews was the commander of ETOUSA at that time but sadly he died in a plane crash in Iceland just prior to Churchill and Roosevelt met.
The Combined Commanders (Mountbatten, Paget, Ramsay, and Douglas) were the first to be tasked in January 1942, by the British Chiefs of Staff, to study plans for a cross-Channel attack - ROUNDUP - prepared by a British joint planning staff in late 1941. The group first met in May 1942 and began developing, informally, their own ideas. The commander of American Forces in Europe (later ETOUSA) was invited to sit in as an informal liaison.

The next concept the CC's studied was SLEDGEHAMMER, in September 1942. That also was a product of the British Joint Staff.

The first American conception was produced on 27 March 1942, in Washington, by the Army's Operations Plans Division, but as a memorandum rather than a plan.

Andrews was appointed CG ETOUSA in early February 1943; he died 3 May though, so had little opportunity to deal with OVERLORD. Morgan was appointed originally in March 1942 to act as a chief of staff for the CC's, but then became COSSAC-D on 23 April when COSSAC-D was created by the Combined Chiefs.

I do not see how that left OVERLORD planning "in the hands of the Americans"?
Lt Gen Devers took over. Maj Gen Barker was his deputy but given the title Deputy Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Command (Designate). Politics entered the fray and the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Command (Designate) was a British Lt Gen Frederick E Morgan. (hence COSSAC).
Barker had been working with the CC's and their staff since November 1942 in his role as Assistant Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army War Plans Division - in other words, he was the WPD liaison to the CC's. Barker was Deputy Chief of Staff ETOUSA February-April 1943 under Andrews, but not Devers. Barker was appointed Deputy COSSAC when Morgan was appointed COSSAC.
COSSAC was situated in Norfolk House on St James's Square at this time. One of the staff officers working there was in the planning section by virtue of having been one of the few american officers at that time to have been trained in amphibious assault landings. His name was Ralph Ingersoll.
Be very, very, very careful when using Ingersoll's memoir, they are woefully agenda driven. Ingersoll was trained in amphibious warfare at the Engineer Amphibian Command, which was a newly minted as he was when drafted in June 1942. He did well enough that the EAC CG BG Daniel Noce, took him on as an aide, writing up the new training manuals and acting as public affairs officer for the EAC. When Noce was appointed G-3 ETOUSA by Devers in May, he brought Ingersoll with him.
A lot of the problems stemmed from several factors. Some of these are .....
I thought this discussion was about preparing for the bocage? :D
1. The Brits had been fighting for years and most of the planning staff had been around the block, seen it all and done it all. Montgomery was seen by all as a great commander having proved himself. The in theatre Americans were newly arrived to both the theatre and the war. The American generals were by and large untested and unproven (as validated by the high sacking rates once battle in Normandy commenced).
Actually, no, not when considering OVERLORD.
2. Britain was totally at war and by and large reaching a steady state with the war (indeed perhaps even exhaustion). America was still eager to get into the battle and so the natural caution of commanders not wishing to lose limited manpower was at odds with the more cavalier American's. Production of equipment was paramount so a lot of equipment was out of service pending much needed spares and replacements ( for example landing craft which were in dire shortage).
True, but I'm not sure how it is relevant?
3. Despite a common language, the two nations were worlds apart (ironically including language) on to terminology through to even trivia like map marking ( USA blue meant friendly forces and red enemy whereas in the UK at that time it was the other way around).
Very true! :lol:
4. The American Army was hated by the American Navy and also their Air Force. Production and tasking of Navy resources were earmarked for the Pacific rather than Europe. The British Air Force was also at odds with the Army as to how to carry out operations (earlier comments about Op Sec are valid in this context).
"Hated"? Perhaps at the annual Army-Navy game, but otherwise a poor choice of words. They were rivals for funding and recognition then and still are, as are most services in most countries.
5. The British had just survived Dunkirk and then the Battle of Britain and other reversals around the world. The confidence was damaged so caution prevailed (even to the point of cancelling the invasion for 1944). Indeed it was delayed from the promised April (to the Soviet Union). No amphibious invasion in modern war was successful prior to WW2. Africa and Sicily were inferior enemies, undefended coasts or sheltered waters. Dieppe had been studied by General Dever's and his staff and actually deemed a success (for all the reasons quoted as a failure as well as the landings were achieved by a relatively weak force and that there were no follow up forces).
Um, I'm afraid you are stretching that a bit. In May 1943 when COSSAC was appointed, Dunkirk and the early stages of the BoB were three years in the past and total victory was just two years away, so saying the British "had just survived" is a bit much. BTW, the Japanese might argue with your assessment of the lack of success of amphibious operations in "modern war" as might the U.S. Army and Navy, depending on what you consider "modern". :D

And I believe Dever's assessment of Dieppe is quite accurate.
6. German defences on the Atlantic wall were felt to be better than they actually were. Whole German armies were available to use against any breach. Air defence was local.
Yes, but who stated the opposite erroneously in this thread?
7. French politics got involved too .. De Gaulle, Giraud or Darlan were juggled adroitly by Eisenhower after he was appointed and that sealed Eisenhower's position.

COSSAC formally obtained the plans in July 1943. Just a few of the issues included...........
Again, how do these relate to the bocage and where has the opposite been stated erroneously, thus requiring correction?
(snip) Devers attempted to solve these problems by proposing that the military areas should be autonomous ... from operations through to logistical supply. Focus on command of own troops rather than try to cross train / integrate in the short time remaining prior to the invasion. Again command issues prevailed. Devers set up FUSAG (First United States Army Group) but a bombing raid burnt out their London Headquarters. One notable event later on was when American staff visited Montgomery's HQ. Monty's Chief of Staff Freddie de Guingand clearly stated that " it was not an Anglo-American headquarters, rather a British HQ. Americans were there simply to keep themselves informed as to how things were happening. " This was accepted given that the British had just done successful landings in the Med.
Devers "set up FUSAG" 16 October 1943, but at the direction of Marshall, who rejected Dever's fusion of operational and administrative functions. I am not sure how the bombing of a London headquarters building made any difference since for all intents and purposes the operational bits of FUSAG was Headquarters First U.S. Army at Bristol. BTW, do you have a date or source for the bombing in London? I've never heard that before.
Training of troops was an issue .. but an engineer Col Paul Thompson build a replica strong point at Appledore and founded the Assault Training Centre. The US Navy provided an Admiral and landing craft and allowed training to commence. However, there was no curriculum to teach.. Overlord was cautious (Op Sec again) and didn't specify what weapons, formations, time of day or night that any landing would occur. COSSAC was approached for a ruling but dithered so Col Thompson was instructed to use trial and error. (Issues here omitted for simplification purposes). He did use first reports from the landing of Tarawa to assist.
The Assault Training Center was established in April 1943, because of experiences in TORCH, but did not begin training operations until September. Given that the full analysis of the events at Tarawa was not available until February, I don't believe Thompson had much opportunity to incorporate any of those lessons? Admiral Ramsay is known to have consulted the reports and commented on the lessons learned about the effectiveness of naval bombardment, but none of those lessons were implemented in NEPTUNE.
During this time the American London headquarters picked up on a new weapon (the only new secret weapon of the invasion according to Ralph Ingersoll ( p35 Top Secret Partridge Publications 1946)) This was the DD tank. It was invented by a British Officer but rejected by the British War Office so he offered it to Jakey Devers. Devers got his staff officer to arrange a demonstration that went badly wrong yet still impressed. The British War Office agreed to convert sufficient tanks for both allies as the conversion was a small engineering issue that was too small to trouble the USA production lines.
Funny, I always thought Nikki Straussler was a Hungarian civilian living in Britain? :lol: The order for 450 Valentine DD was made in June 1942, long before Devers ever saw a demonstration. Firestone Tire and Rubber was commissioned to produce 350 conversion kits in late 1943, so that must have been large enough for USA production lines. :D
When the first order was due to be delivered, it transpired that the order had been overlooked by the War Office. Given this was a top priority secret weapon to change the entire assault formation (not something done easily due to pre allocated shipping and craft) then this was a strange SNAFU.
Uh, no, the actual planning and allocation of assault craft went through a number of iterations, but were not firmed up until beginning in February 1944. The failure to produce 450 Valentine DD promptly after June 1942 had no effect that I can see.
In October 1943 the White House was favouring General Marshall as Supreme Allied Commander as he was the only man suitably qualified. In Teheran (December 1943) this changed. Devers wasn't tactful so was sacked (send to a different theatre of operations) ; Eaker from the 8th Air Force was replaced by Doolittle. Eisenhower was appointed to a) appease American public opinion and b) neutralise the French who were anti British (eg post the British shelling of the French fleet at Oran). America would be the fall guy should things go wrong.
Actually, Ike was appointed because he had managed to weather the problems he encountered in TORCH and so had considerably more hands on experience than anyone else, including Marshall. Alexander might have been an alternative, except Alan Brooke likely realized he was too much a ninny for the job. :D

And yes, Jake Devers was indeed a pain in the ass, mostly because he was usually the smartest in the room and was only marginally more diplomatic about it than Georgie Patton. :lol:
The new commanders arrived to encounter the plan. The plan had been written and fixed in concrete with lots of component parts underway. All were secret and so it was impossible to alter significantly. Thus the new commanders inherited the plan .. regardless of issues. Knowledge of German strength and disposition was unclear to the Americans with the British maintaining 100% monopoly on Intelligence. This meant that it was easy to promote the idea that Germany would soon surrender due to the shortage of resources and manufacturing thus rendering Overlord unnecessary. Indeed the imminent collapse of Germany led to the development of Plan RANKIN .. the swift movement into Germany on their sudden collapse post Overlord and this was felt so likely that it was suggested that RANKIN should have priority over Overlord.
Uh, I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion? the "new commanders" - Eisenhower and Montgomery - separately and independently arrived at the immediate conclusion that the preliminary planning done by COSSAC was tosh and refused to take it on unless they were given full authority to change it. They were given the authority, they changed it, and it worked.

OVERLORD, COCKADE, and RANKIN were all the purview of COSSAC. Work on RANKIN did not begin until the initial OVERLORD plan was completed. It is odd to conclude that "RANKIN should have priority over Overlord" since the actual analysis of the matter was:

"The plan throughout was conservative in estimating the time needed to build up strength before joining the final battle. The conclusion was that German collapse as envisaged under cases A and B might permit the Allies to return to the Continent before May 1944 but that such collapse would not materially advance the time for decisive action. In short, the RANKIN A and B plans offered little military advantages and the grounds for considering them were chiefly that politically it might be necessary to press into the occupied countries as soon as the Nazi grip on them relaxed." (Cross-Channel Attack, p. 80)
The belief that Germany was near collapse was in part due to the Jan bombing campaigns by the Eight Air Force combining with the Fifteenth (in Italy) to destroy Germany's industrial might .. Regensberg, Merseburg and Schweinfurt for example. This severely crippled the Luftwaffe so that air superiority was gained in June.
I do not see where that follows from any of my reading.
The plan took over so that by April 1944 no one was commanding operations. The plan was running everything.
That would have surprised Montgomery, Ramsay, Tedder, Eisenhower, Bradley... :lol:
RANKIN was the only attention paid to post landing and leaving the beachhead other than seizing Cherbourg. No mention by the American planners was made about the Bocage. There were too many other more immediate issues to resolve (I've just touched on some of them above! ).
Ah, you finally mention the bocage. But, no, I'm afraid quite a bit of non-RANKIN attention was paid by planners - specifically at 21st Army Group - looking at "post landing" operations other than the immediate task of seizing Cherbourg. Of course, those were British planners.

BTW, yes, as I mentioned - I guess erroneously - earlier in this thread, mention was made by American planners to the bocage, but it wasn't acted upon for many reasons. I haven't found the companion British terrain assessment that was made, but would doubt it was much different, aside from possibly describing what wonderfully good tank ground the British armoured divisions would be able to take advantage of southeast of Caen... :lol:

arjones
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#67

Post by arjones » 08 Nov 2013, 20:07

The fire was mentioned by Ingersoll ... it was caused by the incendiaries used by the Luftwaffe as they experimented with a new bombing system using a sideways H as the indicators for the pathfinders / bombers to drop on.

My points were all being used to illustrate just how the other issues all played to focus attention away from the Bocage.

Yes hate was too strong a word.. it was 3 am .. apologies..

Sources include Butcher who spent 3 years with Eisenhower as his aide. Incidentally Butcher and Ike were aware of the various specials on Jan 27 when Lt Col Gault reported to Butcher on Ike's trip to the British 79th Div. It was not just the DD tank that was discussed and even Ike test steered one when in the water at a demonstration. The flail tank (called a Crab), plough tank and flame thrower tank were explicitly mentioned along with other devices (unclarified) demonstrated to Ike. Yes not primary source I realise but pointers as to the fact that other devices were on the table for American forces to use.

We are in agreement that insufficient attention was paid to the operations post landing. My mention of RANKIN was to illustrate that some planning post landing did occur but again insufficient detail for a specific region like the Bocage.

Tom from Cornwall
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#68

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 08 Nov 2013, 20:58

Rich,
Be very, very, very careful when using Ingersoll's memoir, they are woefully agenda driven.
:thumbsup:

I would put it more strongly - don't touch Ingersoll with a barge-pole; it is so poor as to be laughable.
Eisenhower and Montgomery - separately and independently arrived at the immediate conclusion that the preliminary planning done by COSSAC was tosh and refused to take it on unless they were given full authority to change it. They were given the authority, they changed it, and it worked.
We might differ slightly on the emphasis placed on who, between the two of them, had most influence, but, at the end of the day, Eisenhower was Supreme Commander and he agreed with Montgomery's dismantling of the COSSAC Plan and thereby laid the groundwork for a great Allied victory, and, together with his decision to launch D-Day in the face of less than perfect weather, this means he certainly deserves more military credit than I sometimes give him. :oops:

BTW that's a good question about British terrain appreciations pre-D-Day. Perhaps the answer might lie in the planning for the employment of 7 Armoured Division - i.e. was it in fact meant to be employed exploiting south from CAEN to secure the desired strong eastern flank and did it end up scrabbling around in the bocage against those ungentlemenly Panzergrenadiers from Panzer Lehr Division because either (a) CAEN was blocked off and therefore the "Desert Rats" had to go somewhere else or (b) the British saw a chance to exploit the relative success achieved in the centre of the American - British beachhead and were attempting to reinforce success in time-honoured military fashion?

Back to those pesky primary sources I think :lol:

Regards

Tom

Aber
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#69

Post by Aber » 08 Nov 2013, 21:10

Don't forget the planned deep thrusts by armoured brigades on D-Day; IIRC Villers-Boacage and Evrecy were targets.

On the US side, their divisions should have been aware of the impact of small fields, high hedges and sunken lanes, as they are common in Devon and Cornwell as well as Normandy.

RichTO90
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#70

Post by RichTO90 » 08 Nov 2013, 22:08

arjones wrote:The fire was mentioned by Ingersoll ... it was caused by the incendiaries used by the Luftwaffe as they experimented with a new bombing system using a sideways H as the indicators for the pathfinders / bombers to drop on.
As I said before and Tom so nicely reinforced, beware of Ingersoll. The man was a newspaperman and, in the argot of a few years ago, a confirmed Pinko. :lol: His anecdotes are just that and few can be confirmed with outside sources.
My points were all being used to illustrate just how the other issues all played to focus attention away from the Bocage.
Ah, now that you so nicely 'splained it to this poor ignorant Yank, I can finally see the connection. :lol:
Yes hate was too strong a word.. it was 3 am .. apologies..
No problem, I sometimes post late, or drunk, or late and drunk, or under other handicaps, so understand... :lol:
Sources include Butcher who spent 3 years with Eisenhower as his aide. Incidentally Butcher and Ike were aware of the various specials on Jan 27 when Lt Col Gault reported to Butcher on Ike's trip to the British 79th Div. It was not just the DD tank that was discussed and even Ike test steered one when in the water at a demonstration. The flail tank (called a Crab), plough tank and flame thrower tank were explicitly mentioned along with other devices (unclarified) demonstrated to Ike. Yes not primary source I realise but pointers as to the fact that other devices were on the table for American forces to use.
Yes, I document the rather interesting paucity of hard primary evidence for just what happened during Ike's trip to Orford. Eisenhower mentioned the 27 January demonstration he attended at least twice; in fact it was 617th Assault Squadron, R.E. that conducted the demonstration and Ike wrote very nice note to Hobart on 29 January thanking him for the demonstration. He followed that with a note to Straussler on 7 February and then a memo to Marshall on 9 February. Alan Brooke was also present at the demonstration, confirming that in addition to the basic A.V.R.E. the SBG assault bridge, Crocodiles, DD tanks, and Crabs were also demonstrated. Major Roly Ward of 617th Squadron mentioned the demonstration to Patrick Delaforce and also to me in a series of letters he sent me shortly after the publication of my book and shortly before he died (he also, embarrassingly enough, pointed out a number of glaring errors I had made, he was still very sharp at 92 :D ).

The result was that Ike had a First U.S. Army team go to a demonstration given on 11 February, which was even more scantily reported, the upshot of which was the request made on 16 February for a supply of "Funny" equipment for the U.S. assault forces. How that request eventually got translated into being a "refusal" has long been a mystery to me, but like many historical myths, it has developed a life of its very own and, like Dracula, refuses to die even with numerous stakes driven through its heart. :roll:

We are in agreement that insufficient attention was paid to the operations post landing. My mention of RANKIN was to illustrate that some planning post landing did occur but again insufficient detail for a specific region like the Bocage.[/quote]

RichTO90
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#71

Post by RichTO90 » 08 Nov 2013, 22:14

Aber wrote:On the US side, their divisions should have been aware of the impact of small fields, high hedges and sunken lanes, as they are common in Devon and Cornwell as well as Normandy.
Why? Virtually all the division's in England except for the 29th and the two airborne divisions arrived post-haste after the 1st of the year and had a difficult enough time settling into cantonment areas before being hustled off to the sausages, let alone conducting tactical problems. Most "training" was small unit exercises, chiefly involved with getting American vehicle columns from point A to point B over what were felt to be grossly inadequate British roads (an uncharitable assessment given the state of American roads at the time, but chauvinism is chauvinism) or target practice on formal ranges. AFAIK, there were no division-sized exercises other than the series of amphibious tests conducted in the run up to D-Day.

Aber
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#72

Post by Aber » 09 Nov 2013, 00:12

Surely small unit exercises would have highlighted some of the issues of small fields/high hedges?

At least British units like 7th Armoured had the excuse that there are few hedges in East Anglia, although that should have been good practice for Holland. :D

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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#73

Post by RichTO90 » 09 Nov 2013, 00:42

Aber wrote:Surely small unit exercises would have highlighted some of the issues of small fields/high hedges?
Again, why? They were not true force-on-force divisional exercises as in the big stateside maneuvers. Mostly they were movement exercises, there simply wasn't time or space to anything much larger and those that were larger were all concerned with the amphibious part of the invasion. The focus on that was myopic, but given the scale of the problem it was also somewhat understandable.

In any case those exercises did identify what they assumed the main problem caused by the hedgerows would be - traffic congestion in the inadequate road net. The tactical issues simply weren't worried about since it wasn't expected the Germans would stick around.

arjones
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#74

Post by arjones » 09 Nov 2013, 01:37

Aber wrote:Surely small unit exercises would have highlighted some of the issues of small fields/high hedges?

At least British units like 7th Armoured had the excuse that there are few hedges in East Anglia, although that should have been good practice for Holland. :D
There were insufficient training areas in the UK at that time and most certainly none that even approached the Bocage. Leaving aside the excellent points about Op Sec the major training areas are / were in wilderness (in UK terms) from Dartmoor to the Brecon Beacons. Even the Devon or Cornwall hedgerows at their worst are trivial in comparison to the Bocage hedges .. I've some photos of modern hedgerows to demonstrate the point. Two different locations but notice the full overhead cover, high banks surmounted by the vegetation and narrow lanes. Bottom one is near Saint Lo (to the East on the ridge line).

Hope this helps the discussion......
bocage today.jpg
bocage today
bocage2.jpg
bocage3.jpg

RichTO90
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Re: 1944 Preparing for the Bocage - Should it have been bett

#75

Post by RichTO90 » 09 Nov 2013, 06:43

arjones wrote:[ Bottom one is near Saint Lo (to the East on the ridge line).

Hope this helps the discussion......

Yes, it does immensely. It is interesting though, when I was there in 2000 (slightly to the west closer to Periers, following the track of the 90th Division) my Dad commented that the most striking difference that he could see was the bocage wasn't nearly as extensive as he remembered. In either extent of ground covered or in the density of the vegetation.

Cheers!

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