Caen

[Deleted]

Montgomery the war wizard of the Empire after D-Day was suppose to move in and capture Caen , Monty said yes of course the right move jolly good just let me study it a little bit should be able to take Caen in a week or so the week or so took six weeks gave the Hun's plenty of time to regroup and the war went on a little longer , the outcome of the war would have been the same but thanks to Monty it took just a little bit longer .

[Swampy]

Monty was always late, because of his plodding methods. That said, he may have had no choice, because the British were running out of fit young men to fight.

[Deleted]

The Brits didn't need any more fit young men as Churchill said we have all those Americans there is plenty and more to spare

[Swampy]

Yes and no. Yes as in the British were willing to use the colonies to further their purpose; no as in they knew that, the smaller their contribution, the smaller their say in strategy and post-war issues - they had almost no contribution in the Pacific, and so they didn't have a force occupying Japan.

[Sir John]

Should have gone around the place and let it "whither on the vine".

Same with Monte Cassino.



SJ

[Sir John]

Britain was not part of the BCOF?

[Swampy]

Yes they did, SJ, you're right, but they were totally under the control of the Americans, in some way, shape, or form.

[Sir John]

Swampy,


The Australian contingent to the BCOF were based at Kure, outside Hiroshima. I was always under the impression that the British etc were all in the same area.

Canadians too??

Not at all sure they were directly under the command of MacArthur, but I guess so.


SJ

[Swampy]

Canadians weren't part of the BCOF, according to Wikipaedia, but they were probably part of the occupation forces in Germany.

[griffin]

I'm not a fan of 'Monty', however the Normandy landing plans were designed to see the British Army Group face the vast majority of Panzer Divisions. Part of this was the deception plan the allies used that had Patton attacking in Calais region. This is in fact what happened, until after Operation Cobra took off with Patton with his flanking attack.

There are some good books on this and will dig out references if anyone is interested.

[Swampy]

I thought Monty was supposed to get the glory, but, after Patton broke through, Monty made the excuse that he was all along supposed to support Patton - IOW, Monty changed his story after the fact.

[Deleted]

Monty got plenty of attention but no glory .

[griffin]

May 4, 2013 22:45:20 GMT -5 Swampy said:

I thought Monty was supposed to get the glory, but, after Patton broke through, Monty made the excuse that he was all along supposed to support Patton - IOW, Monty changed his story after the fact.

If you want I can give you books that go into this in detail.

[Swampy]

May 5, 2013 22:07:25 GMT -5 griffin said:

If you want I can give you books that go into this in detail.

Thanks, but I've read quite a bit on Operation Goodwood.