Monty v. Patton at Falaise ?

The subject of German forces escaping from the Falaise Pocket on another thread has aired another bout of 'Monty-bashing'.

I was going to quote Hastings or Keegan but - hold on, they're Brits so can be accused of bias...

So let's turn instead to Carlo D'Este who devotes an entire chapter of ' Decision In Normandy ' to The Falaise Controversy.

And interesting stuff it is, too. Montgomery in fact favoured a 'long envelopment', building a defence line to trap the German forces at the Seine.Bradley and Eisenhower favoured a 'short' envelopment at Falaise and Montgomery conceded. D'Este quotes Bradley :
'To his credit, Monty was flexible in his thinking. Ike wrote in his memoirs that Monty 'agreed the prospective prize was great and left the entire responsibility for the matter in Bradley's hands''.

Bradley further never wavered in his statement that Montgomery had nothing to do with the decision to halt Patton at Argentan. Quoting from Bradley's memoirs again ;
'Patton, in his diary, blamed Montgomery...But, in fact, Montgomery had no part in the decision, it was mine and mine alone'.

Both Bradley and Montgomery were concerned that, should the gap fail to close and with no strong defences at the Seine, a disaster would occur. Bradley's reasoning to 'stop Patton at Argentan' was, in fact, quite probably sound. The entire 3rd Army was not there - only Haislip's overstretched XV Corps who could well have been badly mauled by the retreating German forces who - do not forget ! - consisted of large numbers of Waffen-SS.

The 'slowness' of the advance was mainly, in fact, on the front of the Canadian 2nd Army and was chiefly due to the sheer exhaustion of the troops pitched against the desperation of their opponents.

The main critic of Montgomery is General Richard Rohmer in his book 'Patton's Gap' . This book is dimissed by D'Este thus ; -

''..(to suggest that Montgomery) needlessly sacrificed lives or deliberately allowed his enemy to escape in order to enhance his own self-glorification is a preposterous claim and Rohmer fails to offer a single shred of evidence to substantiate his absurd conclusion. Rohmer also misjudges the results of the battle by alleging the numbers to have escaped to be 200,000 - 250,000 ''with them went enormous numbers of tanks, vehicles and huge volumes of war material''. If so, it certainly would have been news to the Germans'. ( D'Este, pp454-455 ).

After Falaise, Field-Marshal Model reported that :
'All that remained of eleven armoured divisions when replenished with personnel and materiel amounted to eleven regiments, each with 5 or 6 tanks and a few artillery batteries'.

I know that Montgomery ( and Harris ) are very tempting targets but here, as so often, things are more complicated than they may seem on the surface.

 

Martin, I think terrain became a factor during the closing days and of course the entire area was covered with smoke from explosions and burning armor and trucks. So visibility was almost nil in some cases..... Becuase of this the 2nd W-SS Panzer was able to lead a breakout against the Polish armor with Sherman's who had the high ground. Fritz Langanke I believe knocked out at least 4+ Shermans in the breakout knowing full well that he probably would never make it out of the Cauldron alive.........but he did

~E

 

Quite correct, Erich - there was nothing 'neat and tidy' about Falaise, especially in the final stages.

D'Este also says that Falaise :
'..does not appear to have been the tactical misjudgement that some have claimed....the Germans in the pocket comprised a dangerous fighting force which could not be taken lightly. Montgomery and Bradley were faced with a constantly changing situation demanding that decisions of enormous importance be made often and with increasing frequency'. (p.459).

One last thought. After a brilliant performance in the Trun/Chambois/St Pierre.s.Dives area, where were the Tatical Airforces during the German retreat to the Seine, and why was the bridge at Putanges not destroyed ???

 

Very good thread, Martin! But may I know where is the other thread where MOnty is being attacked?

I've been reading a little more on the Normandy battle and I have to say that Patton always tends to blame people for his own errors or make unrealistic claims as "if they gave me all the supplies, instead of sharing them with the Brits, I could be in Berlin by December..."

As Erich says, it was the difficult terrain and the leadership of junior German officers what allowed a few Germans to escape the encirclement. Only 10.000 escaped, am I right? And of course, 4/5 of their equipment was destroyed in side the pocket. I don't see what does Monty have to do with it. And if we take into account that Montgomery had a more accurate and proper strategic view than his American colleagues... I don't see how people can claim that he wasted his men. That's precisely what he didn't do! All his tactics and every battle he fought he was thinking in keeping his soldier's lives! And Monty's suggestion for a better prepared offensive may have worked better. The problem with encirclements is that it must be done very, very quickly, without hesitation. And Monty was not an impetuos general. But we must consider now, that Hitler's orders would have given Monty all the time he needed to properly surround the German divisions.

 

Martin I have wondered the same but can only say the smoke was so bad that some 9th AF P-47 squads could not make bomb/rocket runs do to the problem of telling the difference beetween friend and foe.

I wonder if anyone has that Tempest title that covers the a/c and pilots during Normandie ? That should have some helpful information. The Luftwaffe was actually pulled back into the Reich interior to battle Heavy bombers and their escorts and only came into really facing the 9th AF during the market Garden battles....

still researching.....

~E

 

Friedrich, the thread is: http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000063;p=1

According to my sources, it were not 200,000 German soldiers to have escaped the trap, neither only 10,000 (Friedrich), but 80,000.

 

80,000 ? not really sure but it appears that at least 2nd W-SS and the 9th W-SS made it out in fairly good order. 1st and the 12th W-SS were made mince meat of as well as 6th Fallschirm and the 17th W-SS which were pretty much eliminated altogether.

any words about Heer units. the cauldron was a death march and so many units combined to form small battle groups each vieing for survival.

~e

 

Friedrich, it was in fact under Kai's 'Western Front' thread - reading it again, it the really daft 'Patton Uncovered' website website that was 'Monty-bashing' but I thought it interesting to raise Falaise under a different thread ( it's one of my three 'favourite' battles.... _

 

This should be interesting...I mean I have a book named " Kampfgruppen" and I did have a quick view on the Falaise portion at one time and in it the credit for stopping Monty´s troops was given to a small group of Hitlejugend soldiers making up a Kampfgruppe...I´ll try to read it for tomorrow for comments...




[ 22. October 2003, 04:57 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

http://www.normandywebguide.com/falaise_pocket.htm

Something on the battle.

 

hmmmmmm I hope they wrote editions Heimdal for free useage of their materials ?

If you look at the map it shows that 2nd and 9th W-SS tried their best to keep the 'door' open for the rest of the tired Wehrmacht to esscape.

More in Weidingers vol. on the Das Reich Division and the Wilhelm Tieke "Firestorm in the Last War Year covering 9th, 10th W-Ss and the 102 SS Schwere Pz Abt.

~E

 

Some interesting things:

From Hans von Luck´s Panzer commander:

On closing the Falaise pocket p 205

"...Patton no longer seemed to be interested in exploiting his advantage but in pushing on fast to the Seine east of Paris. A certain animosity on Patton´s part toward Monty helped us after all to rescue sizable elements from the pocket, though without material."

On German losses:

" It is known that about 10,000 men were killed and that between 40,000-50,000 were able to break out. SOme 40,000 were taken prisoner.."

"Not until after the war did I learn that Montgomery had drawn a line of demarcation between the British and the Americans, which ran past Mantes on the the Seine, west of Paris, far to the northeast via Amiens-Lille as far as Ghent in Belgium. This meant that patton had to recall his elements advancing on Rouen and use them elsewhere..."

"We were concerned at the time ( 23rd August ) only with Monty, and he, for whatever reasons, was moving froward very hesitantly...."

p 208

-----------

Steven J Zaloga : Operation Cobra 1944

p 81

On 13 Aug Bradley ordered patton to redirect his corps eastward, rather than north into Argentan-Falaise gap.Bradley´s reasons were straightforward. Bradley was concerned that a head-on-meeting of the American and canadian forces would lead to serious "friendly fire" problems (?), and complicate air-support missions.
Bradley stated thta he woudl prefer a "solid shoulder at Argentan than a broken neck at Falaise".

" Bradley´s decision was also based on false intelligence estimates that the Germans were already withdrawing the bulk of their forces from the Falaise pocket (?).Bradley´s move instead aimed to eliminate the remaining German forces by a deeper envelopment on the Seine.
The Allied commanders found it hard to believe that the Germans would be stupid enough to allow the bulk of their forces in Normandy to be trapped."

----------

On the defence of Falaise

from James Lucas´ Battle Group!

"Panzer" Meyer delegated the defence of Falaise to kampfgruppe Krause, a formation less than 200 men, two 75 mm AT guns and two Tigers of the 102nd heavy panzer battalion. Krause and his men held out for over two days and nights gaining time for German formations to escape.
The attack started 16 Aug 15.00 hrs."

from Zaloga´s operation Cobra 1944:

" German troops began to move out of Falaise pocket after sunset on 16 August 1944 "

----------

Michael Reynolds´ book I SS panzer corps Steel inferno confrims the data on KG Krause´s tanks and AT weapons but puts the number of Grenadiers down to 150.

On tank numbers for both sides after operation Lüttich ( I don´t have the exact date here sory ) Reynold´s book puts:

"...Less than 50 tanks and jagdpanzers for Germans against 700 canadian and Polish tanks..."

"The chances of holding the impendign attack were remote!"

 

Certainly shows how confusing the Falaise situation was/is !

Zaloga writes quite well about tanks but I think here he has muddled several accounts and the paragraph quoted is just plain confusing.

For a very good 'ground view' of Falaise, it's hard to beat 'Panzer' Meyer's own memoir, 'Grenadier' which is very graphic indeed.

 

I guess the allied commanders didn´t really think the "cat was in the bag"...and definitely better co-operation would have been needed here!

BTW, Martin, weren´t these guys that attacked from the north ( Canadian-Polish ) mostly fresh troops and had not seen battle previously or do I remember wrong here?

--------

But one of the miracles in 1944 ( if we move a little bit in time )for German west front was not as much the battle of the Bulge , I think, but the creation of the new frontline by von Rundstedt in Sept 1944 from the leftovers...

 

have either one of U read Breuer's "Death of a Nazi Army" ?

if so comments please.....

~E

 

Kai, I think the Poles may have been fresh but the Canadians had definitely been in the 'thick of it'. There's a book called 'The Guns Of Normandy' by, I think, George Blackburn who describes their exhaustion very well.

You're quite right about the German forces before the Bulge. But still,the entire preparation for that battle, whatever the wisdom of launching it, was near-miraculous and a fantastic feat of arms for Germany. As Bradley is recorded as saying, once the scale of the assault had finally dawned on him ;

'Just where has this son-of-a-bitch gotten all his strength from ?'

Erich, I read Breuer's book some years ago and wasn't terribly impressed, although to be honest I can't remember why now. My own 'favourite' is Eddy Florentin's ' The Battle Of The Falaise Gap'.

 

I am not sure either as it has been sitting on my shelves for some time. Not sure of it's accuracy or if it really gave the reasons why the Allies let the German out. Guess I need to do a re-read through. the title you mentioned sounds like something of interest....

~E

 

Eddy Florentin's 'The Battle Of The Falaise Gap' ( Elek, London, 1965 ) is an acknowledged standard work on the battle.

Florentin was an ex-Resistance member who spent 11 years researching his book, interviewing 700 participants whose memories were still fresh at that time.

To me, it is similar to Paul Carell's Eastern Front books. Essential, but difficult-to-find and definitely in the 'if you see a copy, grab it !' category.....

 

Well, I´m not sure if there is actually much reason to blame anybody here IN THE END anyway, and the section of Patton ending the war short if he had been given the chance of attacking Falaise was quite hilarious to me ( that´s why I put (??) in the end )as he would not have the fuel to do it later on...By Sept he had run out of it!

The Germans had the same kind of problem in the east and you just cannot stop it really, unless you put a million men to stop those surrounded from escaping through to their side. Always some get through.

Actually I think that the Falaise pocket victory was a great one and robbed the Germans from vehicles and tanks and heavy weapons.

Of course it would have been nice to get all the men to shorten the war but all in all a great victory.

I have some little details to ask that I´ll put here later on that sound quite odd but mayne there´s an explanation to them all...?

 

Here´s some bits that came up while I was reading on this subject:

1. On Reynold´s Sons of the Reich II SS Panzer Corps

" If the 5th Guards Armoured Brigade had not spent the 18th and 19th attending a parade, listening to a speech by Monty and then "resting and sightseeing" more Germans might have been killed or captured..."???

Any idea on this?

2. From Helmut Ritgen Memoirs of a Panzer Lehr officer

Before dawn ( 8th Aug it seems) the way to Falaise lay open. However, instead of immediately continuing the attack, the Canadian formations were ordered to eliminate all remaining nests of resistance in their rear and await the planned commitment of heavy bombers. This pause allowed "Panzer Meyer " to occupy the prepared positions north of Bretteville-le-Rabet and conduct a counterattack. When, suddenly, he saw hundreds of tanks from the two attacking armored divisions in front of him and pathfinder in the sky, he recognized the threat of carpet bombing.His attack broke the inexperienced tankers into groups and dispersed them into the target bombing area. The subsequent carpet bombing by hundreds of American bombers against the towns and farms north of Bretteville-le-Rabet inflicted further losses on the Canadians and Poles.Also,apparently through a breakdown in communication, the bombers regocnized the yellow smoke as designating targets, not as air recognition signals indicating Canadian troops. The more the Canadians set off the yellow smoke canisters to mark their positios, the more they were bombed....




Sounds horrible...