What happened at Antwerp?

Shortly after D-Day, U.S. ground forces started pushing across the Cotentin Peninsula and finally took Cherbourg. They found the port totally demolished by German engineers and it took several long weeks for the port to be made even partially usable. However, when the British captured Antwerp they basically took the place intact. My question then being: Why didn't the Germans demolish that port? It was much larger than Cherbourg and had, according to my source, several hundred cranes. One would think that they'd at least destroy the cranes and other essential facilities. Why didn't they?

 

It's a matter of geography. With the Germans controlling the north bank of Flushing and Walcheren, island , the allies could simply not use the harbour. This is why the Zaland battles were so fierce, but it took a while and this is what the Germans hoped, allowing them to concetrate forces elswhere, at least for a while . Secondly, the Germans hoped to recapture Antwerp until 1945.

 

My opinion - and it's an opinion, not based on any source - is that the Germans didn't expect the Allied to have advanced so far and so quickly, and therefore hadn't prepared Antwerp for demolition as thoroughly as Cherbourg. Hitler realised its' importance too late, which is why a very large number of V-2 rockets were targeted at Antwerp.

But the German tactic of withdrawing the Fifteenth Army to the North bank of the Scheldt was effective, and in retrospect the Allies may indeed have been better advised to secure Antwerp than to attack Arnhem.

But that is the benefit of hindsight.......

 

First of all, was pulling what was left of 15th(?) Armee into Walcheren Island a strategy or was there no where else to go? Yes, they did hold up the use of the port of Antwerp for a time and forced Monty to divert forces there, but if it was just a reaction to the operational disaster happening to them, could it really be called a "strategy"? I suspect that what Martin says about the Germans being surprised may be true. However, Antwerp was a logical and important objective of the Allies and the Germans had to have known that. Why weren't they more prepared?

 

This doesn't make much sense, they didn't know how long the Allies would take so long to clear the Scheldt, so they left the facilities intact to help out the Allies?
The Germans had really no use for the port facilities in Antwerp, so why not destroy them?
Not like they were expecting a cargo shipment from Tokyo.

Given the already precarious supply situation, bringing in 1000's of tons of cranes and construction material would further strain Allied resources.

That is the reason indeed, the capture of Antwerp on Sept 4, was at the height of the German collapse in NW Europe, with the climax being "Mad Tuesday" Sept 5, when the German front almost collapsed.
Had they been more organized, they certainly would have destroyed port facilities.

Martin, had Market Garden succeeded as planned by Monty, the 15th Army would be cut off, and forced to withdraw units from the Scheldt etc to prevent British 2nd Army from exploiting westwards into Holland

 

Why was Hitler and his senior generals surprised at the collapse of resistance? Rommel and Rundstedt, and later von Kluge warned them this was about to happen! Apparently, Hitler and his entourage were digging themselves deeper in to denial.

 

Rommel was going to conquer Egypt and Hitler would be the Fuhrer of de Nile.

 

I've been reading 'A Bridge to Far' (the book, the movie is based off the book) and they address this (somewhat).

Basically, the Germans weren't expecting the British to get there so fast, so had not prepared the port (fully) for destruction. They did place explosives in several places (on some bridges I believe) but the Dutch Underground knew exactly where all of these were and quickly defused/disposed of them before they could go off. The German Garrison was also, I think, not 'front line troop' worthy...more like the young/old sort of thing. Surprise was certainly on the British side.

The evacuation of the 15th Army was quite the mistake by the Allies. It was the only option for the Germans - a 1 - 2 hour boat ride to the island (Walcheren or something?) and then a few hours drive down a single road to 'freedom'. Someone on the Allied side called this one of the biggest blunders of the war (not attacking) as it was these units that reinforced the Germans lines and hammered the Market Garden forces (and thus prolonged the war). If they had been dealt with, there would have been several thousand (120,000) less German Troops standing in the way.

The Germans, during the evacuation, were really only hit during daylight by aircraft (so quickly abandoned this) and only did the crossing via night time. Very few ships were sunk and they were also expecting the British Navy to came sailing through at any time.

Here is an online article I found on it: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1230&context=cmh

 

That was really, really BAD freebird! So much so that I wish I had thought of it.