British vs American junior officers comparison

I just want to know how they compared, and test the truth of the stereotypes. Were American officers more brave and competent, as well as more eager and ready to engage the enemy? Did they come from different walks of life? Were American officers more educated? Were the British usually less of these things, and perhaps sometimes cowardly (their officers, not the men).

 

This reads like a wind up.

I don't know where you think the you have said are stereoptypes come from, but they look more like some very prejudicial anti-British views. It is true that some Hollywood movies portray the British as villains or cowards, and film producers get away with anti British slants that would be unacceptable if made against other peoples. Your post would be clearly offensive if you replaced the word "British" with "black" or "jewish"

It is true that there were articles in the US press in WW2 that argued that the Americans were doing more than their share of the fighting while the British. These were good for selling newspapers, as were the articles written by Rupert Murdoch's father in the First World War about the Australians at Gallipoli.

US forces suffered more casualties in the Normandy campaign than British and Canadian, but there were also more US troops there. If you look at casualties as a proportion of the number of troops, the difference is within a fraction of a percentage point. 10.10% of the British and Canadian troops ashore became casualties, compared to 10.29% of US troops; 1.95% of British and Canadian soldiers died. 1.80% of US soldiers died. . Whatever national differences there may have been in the competence of the junior leaders, it does not appear to have made any difference to the losses these armies endured.

 

Yep and not much to be added to your excellent reply. The only places I have seen those stereotypes are in bad "history" magazines and books, newspaper articles, and worse movies. Insofar as I remember, the casualty statistics for Commonwealth and American officers, especially junior officers, were virtually identical. Most were drawn from university or college in both armies, but there was a strong admixture of junior officers drawn from enlisted ranks early on in the American Army, while perhaps somewhat less in the British Army. That may be the only difference, but I believe by the end of the war even that was a match.

Cheers!

 

That was my opinion as well. I highly doubt the OP is being entirely honest in posing this question.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Talk:British_Empire

 

This is a strange post to me, the Internet usually would put it under the troll category but it may not be at all. For reasons unknown to us it may just reflect the views of the poster.

 

I don't think I've ever seen such a stereotype. If anything, at least early in the war, the British Regimental system meant both officers and men were from the same county or district. There was a certain amount of cohesiveness in that system - you knew, or at least knew of, the officers above you and your letters home meant that the whole community knew how things were going. That worked both ways, since an officer had more than just a theoretical duty to do well by his men, his personal reputation in the community was at stake.

Casualties and the exigencies of war changed that as the fighting went on, but even then you still had a core of men from the same district.

On the American side, men were drawn from all over. There was no tie to communities. Even the National Guard units were broken up and scattered around to make a trained core for new Divisions as they were activated.

I've done some rather in depth studies on one particular National Guard Division (30th) that was activated and began training in 1940. As described, trained men were pulled and replaced by new men constantly, right up until they shipped out for England and eventually, D-Day. When the fighting began in Normandy, an enormous number of officers were cashiered, replaced, kicked over to supply or whatever. It was a real purge and not just junior officers, but from top to bottom. I can't say how prevalent that was in other divisions, but obviously that was coming down straight from Eisenhower. Officers who couldn't perform were to be removed, immediately.

In the end, both armies (US and British/Commonwealth) performed admirably.

 

Not sure whether a troll or not. Doing research for glider infantryman and conducting countless 327 interviews, one of the common themes was that the common British soldier was excellent, but the officers were hated by the common US soldiers. This largely had to do with Market Garden as what happened at Arnhem. The 101 and 82nd drops and landings went pretty well. The British operation was a disaster due to bad intelligence from both the British and American side. The didn't listen to local reports of heavy experienced armor in the area and they landed a light infantry Division of British and a brigade of Polish troops into a terrible situation.

This blocked the road that became known as Hell's Highway. The failure of being able to move British Armor through the highway rapidly into Germany caused huge casualties on the British side and a bad situation for light infantry in the 82nd and 101st areas trying to keep the road open. Any 101 soldier much preferred fighting at Bastogne to what happened in Holland. The Americans were willing and able to rush north and help out the British, but the British wouldn't advance. Why? They didn't want to lose tanks. This caused a lot of bitterness on the part of US soldiers there.

Why were the British reluctant? Many officers experienced WW1 and the long grind it out. The US wasn't in WW1 very long. The Brits would take "tea" breaks along the way and move cautiously. They were also more concerned about civilian damage than were the Americans.

After Market Garden failed, the US troops were sent to the "Island" at Opheusden where they fought for months for what they thought was no objective over ground they couldn't see any purpose for. Again you had light infantry fending off German armor. The 101 put such a hurt on the enemy they felt sorry for the repeated attacks. The were exposed as the Germans held the high ground and had to live like moles. British officers at night would drive around with lighted cars and expose US positions. Again, I think this is a legacy of WW1. PFC threatened to shoot a Brit officer for doing such. He put out his lights, but was killed shortly later by artillery when he turned them back on.

The 327 GIR held the west Island perimeter against repeated armor attacks.

Jame Megallis of the 82nd's 504 tells the incredible story of crossing the Waal at Nijegen. He is a part of the movie a bridge to far. Met him personally and a MOH recipient. When you hear the stories of sacrifice and have an understanding of British military culture, it makes sense...

I am not saying the Brit officers were inferior. They were different in parts of the war. The 101 and 82 guys served under British command in Holland.

The post wouldn't seem strange to me at all from someone who has talked to US WW2 vets who served under British command.

 

But at Market Garden (besides Arnhem which was a great display of courage, but this was done by the 1st Airborne IIRC, who I'm a fan of) didn't the British armored fail to do their job? The British officers may not have been exactly cowardly, but it seems like they were not as eager to ''take on'' the enemy (except for the Commandos who served quite fiercely, but they had different roles) as the Americans and it seems the Americans could take on Germans by themselves, without British or French support especially during the Bulge. I do believe the Australians and Americans did the most work against Japan, the British were able to defend themselves after the initial push but keep in mind how easily the first battles with the Japanese were lost by the British officers who thought they were superior to the Japanese forces.

I'm not trying to say Britain was not an effective fighting force that would be a lie as shown by how many important battles they won and how long they held out. I'm just trying to see if the American officers were better than the British ones in any way (including willingness to engage the enemy). I'm certainly not trying to put Britain down, but it seems like their officers (not their soldiers) were not as capable/wanting to attack as the Americans.

Also, on the larger scale Patton didn't much like Montgomery.

 

I don't think you've attained the level of knowledge that would make you a good fit on this forum. I would suggest you either go away, or spend a few weeks reading the hundreds of threads on these subjects before posing questions.

There are two reasons for this, one is that you are insulting an entire generation of gallant British men who died liberating Europe, and the other is that you make Americans sound like idiots. Neither of these positions will make you friends here.

 

After a lot of reading and study, I think the British and US infantry were of comparable quality over all. You got good and bad units in both forces, and units of both went up and down over the course of the war. You certainly couldn't accuse British officers of reluctance to lead; if anything, they often seem to have been careless of their own lives. Losses in junior officers are always high in the infantry, and in 50th Division in Normandy the rate of loss was much higher than that of the other ranks. I did notice that both the British and Australian officers were having trouble getting sufficient good officers for the infantry late in the war. The British had to transfer many officers from other arms like AA artillery and ask the Canadians for help via the CANLOAN program. The Australians had to transfer officers (and men too) from disbanded militia units to the six veteran divisions they kept in the field, even though the transferred officers lacked battle experience and sometimes had trouble controlling the veteran rankers under them. I simply don't know enough about the US infantry officers to comment at length on their quality, but the US Army also had trouble providing sufficient good officers; many ASTP men were sent into the infantry late into the war and as with the British some officers were transferred from AA and other branches. Despite these late war problems, though, you will notice that the British, Australian, and US infantry still got the job done.

As far as hostility between officers and rankers, this varied too within armies as well as between them; good units had less of a problem, bad ones more. The British army had a larger and more obvious class difference than in the US and Australian armies, but the attitude within British combat units (and certainly in good combat units) was cooperative. The Australians and Americans liked to believe that they had no class differences, but that wasn't entirely true. Disobedience and striking officers were more common offenses in the 9th Australian Division than in the 50th. According to some things I looked at, officer privileges were especially fiercely resented in the US Army because they were so contrary to America's egalitarian traditions.

There are different philosophies of troop leading, of course. In the 9th Australian Division, battalion commanders tended to 'manage' the battle while their company commanders and platoon leaders fought it. In the 50th late in the war, battalion commanders tended to be further forward, sometimes right up with the assault waves. Some alleged that they acted so because they could not trust their troops to act aggressively otherwise, but I doubt that. At all events, casualties among 50th Division battalion commanders were very high, higher than in the 9th Australian.

With regard to the comment about the US airborne on the Island, I must point out that the 50th Division also faced heavy German counterattacks at the same place and the same time. The 50th repulsed these with heavy loss to the Germans, and then staged a successful attack of its own that severely mauled the SS infantry. Few casual American students of the war have ever heard of the 50th, but its record on the Island was equal to that of the US airborne.

I welcome persons who come here with only casual knowledge of the war and I don't look down on them. How else are they going to become better informed? They must be prepared to keep an open mind, because they will find that what they learn here (and in good books too) will run counter to many of the popular and media legends of WWII.

 

I don't think his comment is that bad. Maybe could be worded differently. Basically the British Armor did fail in their objective...that is true during Market Garden. Failing an objective doesn't mean incompetence though. The idea was for a rapid advancement which didn't happen. The Americans did want to rush forward, however that could have left the armor caught on the road vulnerable. Talk to ANY US 101st Airborne infantryman and basically you'll here them complain on end about British officers (not the everyday soldier). AGAIN, I think the problem was that British officers either experienced or were taught by those who had experience in WW1, where heroes generally wound up in the meat grinder. Sgt York was an anomaly. The Americans entered WW1 when Germany was depleted. The Brits ground it out with them for years. Reservation and caution was a part of the British leadership in that situation. Ironically it was Monte that wanted to forge ahead for a quick strike end of the war and the American leaders wanted to use caution. I don't think it is necessarily insulting that US common soldiers (at least those in the 101st) didn't have respect for British officers.

 

I answered his first query as if dealing with someone new to the war. Then he came up with another unrelated query also insulting the British.

I think he's just stirring the pot. I'm going to assume he's a troll until proven otherwise.

 

Actually I think this is a promising thread.
Trying to find education statistics of British / USA Officers is proving a challenge. May go to the source. See if they can provide any help.

In the interim, good information at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment_in_the_British_Army#Second_World_War

http://www.unithistories.com/officers/army_officers_k01.html

 

Nice post!

 

What a crapload of half-baked poppycock.

I'm sorry, but it just doesn't measure up.

At the invasion of Singapore, the Japanese landed against Australian troops, commanded by an Australian General Gordon Bennett. So I'm wondering how we measure Australia's contribution against Japan. Maybe they would've solved the issue by attacking en masse, led by the General from the front.

I'm sure it was the fault of the British oficers that the Germans defeated France as well. They just weren't skilled enough to attack.

FDR didn't like De Gaulle, but liked Ol' Uncle Joe.