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Market Garden Radios

Discussion in 'Western Europe 1943 - 1945' started by Hufflepuff, May 1, 2008.

  1. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

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    I agree with Wilson. I've read Ryan and seen the film and I don't recall any anti-British slant. This is the kind of thing that begs for corroboration. Can you provide it?
     
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  2. JJWilson

    JJWilson Well-Known Member

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    "A Bridge too Far" is anti-war yes (2 years after the end of Vietnam war, 4 after American departure), but I don't see the anti-British thing either. Yeah it showed how they underestimated the German capabilities, and didn't really have good backup plans but I still can't recall anything that seemed anti-British? I think overall the movie seemed to be pretty neutral, they didn't show the Germans to be the monsters most movies tend to show them being, they didn't make the Americans look like an army of Captain America's either, as for the British, it seemed like the movie gave them a bad wrap for the mistakes, but showed them being tough and loyal fighters. It's been a year at least since I last watched the movie, but I think I would have picked up on an anti-British vibe, but I might be wrong?
     
  3. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    Is that not true only if you consider the Canadian 3rd Division as being "British" troops? Despite serving as part of the British 2nd Army the Canadian troops were hardly British -- Canada became a sovereign country in 1867.
     
  4. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake Member

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    There were problems with command, control and communications in Op market Garden. WW2 era radios were temperamental needed highly trained operators to get the best performance from them. They did not work well in built up areas and among trees. Airborne forces had a lower establishment for communications equipment and vehicles than infantry formations.

    Much of this was known and discounted. Airborne troops are trained to operate on their own initiative in the expectation that they will be dropped into chaos.

    Several factors exacerbated the problems experienced on Op Market Garden.

    #1 None of the airborne formations above divisional level had operated in the field before.
    #2 Op Market and Op Garden were commanded by different higher formations (30 corps 18 airborne corps 1st airborne army 2nd British Army - too many cooks.
    #3 The air support for Op market Garden was commanded by an organisation with no experience of close air support and had not worked with ground forces before. ADGB and 8th US Air force instead No 83 Group 2 TAF.

    The operational planning was sloppy and the pre-operation preparations may have been slack in the expectation that this operation would be cancelled. It would not be a surprise to find that batteries, valves etc had not been thoroughly checked.
     
  5. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake Member

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  6. FACer

    FACer New Member

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    Thanks chaps. My feelings about market garden plus the ambrose books are based on reading them. I may be too sensitive. If so I apologise to those better informed and qualified. Market garden had definite failings of course, Montgomery and the pressure to use the airborne element all accepted. The film (like all Hollywood!) caricatures the British leaders as upper class twits, the Generals particularly; whilst the Americans are can do press on types. E.g the positioning of the assault boats in th convoy. i paraphrase ‘ if this was a Us column the boats would be at the head”. ..what? The plan depended upon the US troops securing all the bridges, no plan to make a river assault - which, to those doubters about my allegiances, were carried out with extraordinary courage and fortitude by the Americans, but the plan had never envisage a river assault, in daylight, across the fastest and widest rivers in Western Europe. So I applaud the American willingness to fight. No criticism intended. The apparent ‘unwillingness’ of the 30 Corps tanks to press on once across the US captured crossings is an unfair implied criticism in the film and grossly unfair. The film was made with 40 odd years’ hindsight. With limited knowledge of the battle picture, the tactical problems of advancing tanks without infantry support down a well defended, single road, any tank commander would have been subject to massive criticism to go against his staff orders. The film knows the desperate situation the paras were in, the 30 corps commanders implied knowledge was there but the opposition and geography did not allow them to achieve the aim in the time allowed. Sorry for the poor written English,.
    the Stephen Ambrose book re D Day once again states the Britis reluctance to get off the beaches before a necessary ‘cup of tea’.
    The numbers of Brits’ landed on dday was taken from ‘http://www.dday-overlord.com/en/d-day/figures although when adding up individual beach landings by country the us still seems to have been in the majority..’lies, damned lies and statistics’. I know we Brits are imperfect, but time and again history is written showing little of the sacrifice, heroism and loss that GB suffered in the liberation of Europe. French school children think of DDay as American , Canadian and Free French forces landing, virtually no mention of UK forces. I know as I lived in France with young kids for 3 years. I hope i have added to the sum of knowledge and find all the erudite comments on this forum, fascinating, thanks.
     
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  7. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    As an American, I would strongly disagree with this...Sean Connery's "Major General Roy Urquhart", Edward Fox's "Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks", Dick Bogarde's "Lieutenant General Frederick 'Boy' Browning, and Anthony Hopkins' "Lt. Colonel John Frost" all come across as "can do press on" types. I can't say that any of the British combat officers came across as "upper class twits." The one possible exception to this would be Jeremy Kemp's "RAF Briefing officer", who is the recipient of Gene Hackman's pointed remark.

    However, the film does give the reasons for the selection of the distant landing zones.

    IIRC, the boats used were those that would have been used to construct the various Bailey Bridges and other various types of bridges to get tanks and troops across. Positioning the boats and bridges so far back in the column was a mistake. No ifs, ands, or buts, about it.


    This is based on a well-known encounter between US Captain T. Moffatt Buriss and the British Capt. Lord Peter Carrington.
     
  8. JJWilson

    JJWilson Well-Known Member

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    I thought initially that you had said the directors ans authors had specifically made remarks about it being anti-British, now I understand that was your perception of it. Sorry if we seemed overly defensive, I think we all wanted to know if that was the case. I can definitely see how you saw the film as Anti-British though.
     
  9. JJWilson

    JJWilson Well-Known Member

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  10. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Seems someone has a bit of a chip on their shoulder. While there have been people on all sides who tend to denigrate others it isn't as common as some imply. Misrepresenting the facts doesn't help one either. For instance:
    Except they weren't really. From what I've read the numbers are approximately 73,000 US, 62,000 British, 11,000 Canadian. Of course in a sense they were all from Britain as it was the staging point but I doubt that's what you meant.
     
  11. Geoff Lowe

    Geoff Lowe New Member

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    Thought I'd add this as I've never seen it mentioned before in any books or forums. I knew a Para who was a radio op at Arnhem. He was very disparaging about the whole affair. In his opinion it was badly conceived and executed. He told me the reason most of the radios didn't work was that they were so heavy that as soon as they were out of the plane most ops cut the chord that attached the radio to their waist. This allowed them a decent chance of landing uninjured. Apparently they were supposed to cut the chord just before landing. He said the rate of descent was terrifying with this thing swinging between your legs. The ops weren't happy also about having to lug a radio 8km to Arnhem along with all their other gear. They simply reported them lost on landing, Little wonder the few that were found didn't work properly. Probably not what many want to hear on this forum but I have no reason to doubt his story.
     
  12. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    Firstly - welcome to the Forum, Geoff !

    Secondly - I would tend to agree with your post. When I visited Arnhem for the 60th in 2004 I had a similar discussion with a group of veterans at the Schoonord. They also pressed the point that radios back in 1944 were generally unreliable and quite fragile - although the larger ones were OK if carefully set up at height ( eg the one which was placed atop the the bakery in Oosterbook and which called down the very accurate artillery fire from Nijmegen ).
     
  13. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    Without warning, the "tip and run" attacks ceased altogether following the hignly successful attack on Eastbourne on June 6 1943. The majoity of German fighter-bombers were then transferred to the Mediterranean, leaving just 42 fighter-bombers which were used solely for attacks at night.

    From Luftwaffe fighter-bombers over Britain by Chriss Goss
     

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