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Originally Posted by WotNoChad?
Really? I think it's blindingly obvious, and many of the better historians agree, Ambrose did and that's usually enough for most. 
Quite, although the 7.5 kilotons of bombs dropped by combined airforces between Jan & June helped, but when it comes to efficiency the resistance rate as an elite. There's a wealth of operational stories but one of faves, and a good example of their outstanding efficiency, is that of some sub-agents of Anthony Brooks.
Simplistically that's a few bags of grit, dropped by a single plane, used by several teenagers with a few of bicycles immobilising an elite armour division for a week and making a profit from recycling the oil... c'est fantastique!
I think it's more to do with the F section ops being highly classified for longer than any of the regular military ones, the landings became widely reported quite rapidly and the Germans already knew about them, while the resistance techniques would continue to be of use and many didn't get reported for decades. |
Wotno;
The Resistance snowballed after Operation Cobra and the French themselves liberated numerous towns and cities;
The Real History of World War II: A ... - Google Book Search
Did some Resistance Units on the French side ever achieve a degree of battlefield expertise comparable to the Eastern Partisan units? It's doubtfull for the simple fact that the French resistance units weren't really around for all that long. For the most part the Resistance could not go toe to toe with the better armed and trained German units-which is not to say that they weren't extremely usefull for the ALlied cause. The German Army in France was bedeviled with a two front war-one conventional and one guerrilla. It is interesting to note that once the Germans fell back on Germany proper-where there was no guerrilla movement dogging their supply lines and tattling on their movements-that the going got much rougher for the Allied forces.
JeffinMNUSA
PS. I read Max Hastings book "Das Reich" and Old Max did not mention the fact that it was some teenagers who WRecked the Division's flat cars. Interesting though...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Das-Reich-Pa.../dp/0330483897
PSS. A read on the making of the Free French Army of 1945;
http://books.google.com/books?id=Twy...num=7#PPA69,M1
http://sonic.net/~bstone/history/freefrench.shtml
PSS. Kehoe in Brittany;
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f..._99/art03.html