Posted by Michael A. Dorosh from Canada on April 10, 2021 at 00:32:19:
In Reply to: Re: XXX Corps was too slow and for Ted posted by Brad Sallows on April 09, 2021 at 16:34:18:
a) re Currie - well said. Did Dancocks write a book about Currie? I seem to remember that he did - wonder what Dancocks had to say about him. Maybe Jules can give it a looksee and let us know.
b) Fighting armour at night is obviously suicide, and you're right about road conditions. However, stopping at tea time instead of pushing on until dusk probably isn't showing much of a sense of 'urgency'.
c) By the time of the Falaise battle, 2 Cdn Div had only been on the Continent six weeks. They may have been blooded, but I don't think they were 'experienced'. And bear in mind many 'experienced' troops from 3 Div had already been killed or invalided out. Look at Buron in July, where the HLI lost 262 men in a single day.
As for the 'cream' of the German Army, by July 1944 Germany's best were by and large buried in Russia. Hitlerjugend Division was just as inexperienced as the Canadians, despite a cadre of LAH. And the number of second line divisions far outnumbered units like LAH or Panzer Lehr.
I didn't mean to whine about the Canadian Army's lack of progress at Falaise - actually, I meant to defend it by saying that they were inexperienced, and in fact I did point out some of the tactical innovations that they came up with (the APC I believe I mentioned, wasn't another one "artificial moonlight" - it was used disastrously to silhouette the North Novies in one attack, but was it not used to advantage in other situations?)
As for the Germans not making progress going the other way - rubbish. How do you think the Falaise Pocket was created in the first place? By a counterattack on Mortain. Had they not gained any ground at all, they would not have created any pocket. Granted, strategically it was stupid (and led to the destruction of a large part of the Seventh Army), but since we are discussing tactical prowess, something must be said for that.
In the final analysis - Normandy was a meatgrinder. It is amazing that all the armies involved managed to suffer such horrible losses yet maintain their fighting capability and spirit, enough to prolong the war into the spring of 1945.