Intelligence Service

There was a German agent active in the UK prior the Normandy operation. Or rather I would say the Germans believed he worked for them, he convinced the Germans the landings in Normandy was a diversion. The real invasion was planned to occur at Calais

I think his code name was Garbo, but I might be wrong.

1° I know of Garbo,but,there is no proof that without Garbo,the Germans would have more chances


2° What Garbo told the Germans was not deciding :the German plans were not depending on informations where the Allies would land,but where a landing would have more success .The Germans had only a few mobile divisions:most were stationed south of the Seine,NOT because the Germans thought the Allies would land in Normandy,but because the fortifications in Normandy were much to weak to prevent a landing :the Pas de Calais was more fortified,thus no mobile divisions in the Pas de Calais :15 th Army had to make do with what was available :Bodenständige (non mobile) divisions .
 
MG was a gamble,and a justified one : if it succeeded,there was a big chance that the war could be over before Christmas,if it failed,nothing was lost .But if there was no MG,one thing was certain : the war would not be over before Christmas .

I suspect the British 101st wouldn't agree with this. Their lives were basically thrown to the wind. Monty did well in N Africa, however he made some serous mistakes in the battle for Caen and with operation Market Garden.
 
So Stalin was correct when he ignored the warnings about the German attack, because the warnings were unreliable. That doesn't make any sense. The Germans attacked so the warnings were reliable. If Stalin had believed the warnings about it, he might have reacted differently and acted on it. The performance of the Soviets in the early stage can be explained by other factors.

So the presence of armor and mechanized forces around Arnhem had no significance for the 1st Airborne Division? What happen when light infantry units like an airborne unit face a mechanized unit?


Yes, Midway, there is a difference when the Americans knew about the whereabouts of the Japanese fleet and the Japs were unaware of the presence of the American carriers.

Bletchley Park did an important contribution to the war effort and in the long run it saved lives.

If the American had been aware of the Japanese fleet sailing toward Hawaii in December 1941, the outcome might have been different or way more costly for the Japanese. Information is everything, imagine if the Germans had known about operation Overlord prior the D-Day.

A footnote,

The Swedish intelligence service (the C-Bureau) during the Second World War, was able to brake the German communication and was aware of Barbarossa before the attack.

There were NO significant armour and mechanized forces around Arnhem : the Allies were initially stopped by German ad hoc formations,and,sorry for the Airborne troops : these light infantry units were checked by German light infantry .
 
I suspect the British 101st wouldn't agree with this. Their lives were basically thrown to the wind. Monty did well in N Africa, however he made some serous mistakes in the battle for Caen and with operation Market Garden.

You mean the British 1 Airborne ?The 101 was a American unit .
 
Last edited:
1) Stalin willfully ignored British warning of the massive German buildup in preparation on the border. This cost him dearly. The Nazi juggernaut advanced so quickly into the USSR that they were constantly in danger of outrunning both their supplies lines and infantry support. Thousands of Soviet planes were destroyed the 1st few days of the invasion due to Stalin poor judgment Untold 100's of thousands of Soviet POW's were captured as a result of Stalin's failure to react. Rather than consolidate his forces Stalin had them spread out with some in the frontier regions which were sitting ducks and some in more stable positions in the hinterland which were to far to lend any immediate help to the beleaguer frontier forces.
.

The initial Soviet setbacks were caused by the fact that the Red Army was a peace army in full transformation,and would be "ready" only in 1943:it was also over armoured(to much tanks) ,logistics were totally insufficient,etc,etc and for this mainly the Soviet generals can be blamed : there was a Tank korps without tanks,an other had to much tanks (more than 1000 for 36000 men) but almost no trucks .
 
2) a Myth tell that to the 1000's of dead from the British 1st Airborne division. Who died as a result of the ignoring of these reports.


Let's not exaggerate : 1 Airborne lost :1174 dead and 5903 POW/MIA.Besides, what would have happend if the informations were not ignored ? No MG .
 
Unit correction f0r British at Arnhem

You mean the British 6 Airborne ?The 101 was a American unit .

I stand corrected, not on the casualties or other facts, but on the British units involved at Arnhem on a few of my post.

The British 1st Airborne Division, with the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade attached was dropped to capture 3 bridges across the Rhine at Arnhem. The division was substantially reinforced by the addition of 1,200 men of the Glider Pilot Regiment. Everything previously said about the quality of the fighting of these British units stands.

Note: the American 101st "Screaming Eagles" were involved in MG but not Arnhem.
 
Last edited:
The initial Soviet setbacks were caused by the fact that the Red Army was a peace army in full transformation,and would be "ready" only in 1943:it was also over armoured(to much tanks) ,logistics were totally insufficient,etc,etc and for this mainly the Soviet generals can be blamed : there was a Tank korps without tanks,an other had to much tanks (more than 1000 for 36000 men) but almost no trucks .

A peace time army of > 6 million men? They had more AFV, planes than all other countries combined. They had recently occupied the Baltic states, parts Poland, Finland and Rumania that doesn't sound like a peace time army. I'll agree they had not fully recovered from Stalin's purges of the 30's and as a result the officer corps were in transition. As such planning would have suffered. It was Stalin that dictated that the army be split between troop on the frontier and in the hinterlands thus causing separation between army groups, thus helping the attacking Germans to encircle and destroy them.
 
Let's not exaggerate : 1 Airborne lost :1174 dead and 5903 POW/MIA.Besides, what would have happend if the informations were not ignored ? No MG .

Approx 1,984 killed 6,854 captured, Badsey, Stephen (1993). Arnhem 1944, Operation Market Garden. Osprey Publishing. These are the British (allied) casualties for only the Arnhem portion of the Market Garden operation.
 
Last edited:
I must disagree : the only chance for MG to succeed was if at the day of the landing,the Germans would yell:Kamerad and raise their arms .

In the period immediately before MG,the Hun was on the run,and the assumption was that one more push and he would fall definitively .But there was not much time :the longer the allies would wait,the less chance MG would have to succeed .Thus,improvisation and pray that everything would work .

I am not sure that is the case as Montgomery was told by many senior staff that despite the progress made by the allies after the Normandy breakout the Germans would not roll over in a battle on their own border.

Here is the conclusion from a 2001 report by Philip G. Bradley, Lt Col, USAF for the Air War College, Air University

It is unfair to say that intelligence oversights and mistakes led to the failure of MARKET GARDEN for several reasons. First of all, it is not true that intelligence failed to paint an accurate picture of German troop strength and capability.
The correct information was available along with accurate analysis. True, not all intelligence summaries agreed, but there was enough of a disagreement to warrant more investigation and certainly greater caution. Secondly, it is not true that failure to accurately assess the terrain around Arnhem caused the Allies to pick drop zones six to eight miles from the bridge. In fact, terrain was only a minor issue. Furthermore, on this issue Montgomery was inconsistent.

If the German troop strength was deemed too weak to challenge ground forces, then why wasn’t it deemed too weak to challenge airlift assets?
The one instance that is clearly an intelligence failure was the lack of coordination with Dutch forces about alternate routes to Arnhem. However, this in itself did not cause MARKET GARDEN to fail. To the intelligence community’s credit, they did accurately describe the difficult nature of the route that 30th Corps was to take.

If blame must be assigned, responsibility for MARKET GARDEN’s failure can be given to planners at the strategic and operational levels who seemed hell-bent on carrying out the operation for at least two reasons.
First, there was an ever-increasing push to test airborne operations before the war came to an abrupt end. Second, Montgomery pressed the urgency of the operation in part to make sure that Britain got credit for delivering the knock out punch.

On this second point, General Miles Dempsey, commander of the British 2nd Army, provides evidence that the commander of an operation can significantly slant the perspective of the intelligence effort. According to Ryan, Dempsey believed Dutch reports regarding German troop strength but couldn’t convince Montgomery. Dempsey did, however, send this information on to Browning’s 1st Airborne Corps. But since Montgomery didn’t endorse this information it gained no credibility.

In fact, according to Ryan, reports of panzers in Holland were completely discounted at Montgomery’s own headquarters. In Montgomery’s own words, “We were wrong in supposing it (the 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps) could not fight effectively.”1 It might be more accurate to say that Montgomery was wrong and convinced all his subordinates to agree with him.
 
Last edited:
As pointed out the Germans but up a strong fight again as the allies approached the border. This is pointed out by fierce German resistance at battles such as Operation MG, the Scheldt Estuary, Aachen and the Ardennes Offensive. It was 44 and they were still managing to crank out AVF (although fuel was limited). Many Germans thought by holding off the allies it would help their fellow soldiers in the east hold off the so called "Red Horde". By this time they knew what to expect from the advancing Red Army, having so devastated the USSR.
 
Back
Top