Hollow Heroes: An Unvarnished Look at the Wartime Careers of Churchill, Montgomery and Mountbatten by Michael Arnold

Author:Michael Arnold [Arnold, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781612002743
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2015-02-18T22:00:00+00:00

D’Este goes on to ask whether such an overwhelming bombardment was really used by Montgomery as the ultimate tactic, and one forced on him to reduce the pressure that had been building up for him to break his stalemate and whether Caen was not sacrificed in order to maintain Montgomery’s image. And in posing these questions he does not take into account the military casualties and equipment losses—5,000 killed and over 300 tanks lost—most of which could have been avoided if a frontal assault had also been avoided. Although Montgomery had such an embarrassment of riches that he had replacement tanks piling up on the beaches, the needless loss of life was a sad epitaph. Again, here was a situation where Montgomery knew he had plenty of tanks waiting to be used, a luxury the Germans just did not have. The annals of the 11th Armoured Division, The Black Bull, recount that if a Sherman tank was even slightly damaged, the crew could afford to abandon it in the knowledge that just a few miles back was a field with several hundred new Sherman tanks just waiting to be picked up.164 And yet he hesitated: undecided? Worried? Uncertain? Unable to change the plan?

In further comment about this delay at Caen, Carlo D’Este also quotes from Patton’s War as I Knew It, where Patton has said:

One does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make plans fit the circumstances. I think the difference between success and failure depends on the ability, or lack of it, to do just that.165

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