Continuing the General Arnhem Bilderberg theme of the battle being 'thrown'
'General 'Boy' Browning may as well have been a Nazi spy'
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=167314#167314
Quote:
I have just finished William Buckingham's book Arnhem 1944 which
presents a scathing account of General Boy Browning's role as
commander of British Airborne forces in WW2 and more specifically at
Arnhem. Buckingham goes so far to suggest that if Browning were a
German spy in an Alastair MacLean book it is hard to think of more
things he could do to wilfully sabotage the outcome of Market-Garden.
Buckingham charges him with:
- Approving the disasterous RAF plan to select DZ's and LZ's 8 miles
from the target
- Acquiescing to RAF's preference to drop the 1 Airborne Divison in
lifts over several days instead of two drops on a single day
- Deliberately suppressing intelligence reports indicating presence
of SS Corps at Arnhem.
- Using badly needed glider transport (36 gliders) to take his
personal staff to Holland when it was a questionable necessity
- Interfering in the 82nd operation almost resulting in the loss of
Nijmegen bridge
- After 30 Corps arrived at the lower Rhine, washing his hands of 1
Abn Div as no longer his responsibility. He spent his time seeking
comfortable quarters in Nijmegen as the perimeter at Oosterbeek shrank.
- Sleeping in bed in his now secured comfortable quarters as 1 Abn
Div was evacuated.
- Slandering Gen Sosabowski in an effort to shift the blame for his
own failures.
Although Buckingham states his career was finished after the failure,
he was still knighted and is still regarded as father of the Airborne
units and I believe at least one barracks is named after him.
Hi all, thought I'd toss in my twopennies worth as it's my book under
discussion.
Smile
Hitch, glad you enjoyed it. One point, my analysis of the battle
isn't merely rational, it is properly researched and verifiable.
that's what all those endnote thingies in the book are for - to show
where I got the info and to prove I'm not making it all up!
Consequently, I don't merely suggest that Gale told Browning that the
plan was a disaster waiting to happen, it is a matter of historical
record, with the relevant documents being held in the Airborne Forces
Museum Archive.
Ref the rest, collective response to save bandwidth:
4(T), no fitting up of preconceived villains or taking a pop at dead
folk who can't defend themselves, and I disagree that what happened
at Arnhem is so steeped in myth etc that meaningful analysis is
impossible. I also disagree with your inference that only folk who
have served can get a handle on such things; that's why we have
trained historians. Taking the second point first, it is quite
possible to sort out the dross from the good stuff with a bit of
research and critical thinking, and to add some objective analysis on
the result. I was actually surprised at how little proper analysis
had actually been done despite the sheer number of books on Arnhem,
and how much pretty damning stuff had been hidden in plain sight
without comment. IMO part of the problem lies with attitudes like
that displayed by Archer above - someone is a good chap so no-one
bothers to look any further. This is compounded by the fact that a
lot of British military history is written by ex-officers who don't
like to rock the boat for their brethren. As I see it that attitude
not only obstructs getting to the bottom of what what happened and
why (overall, not just with ref to Arnhem), but it is also
disrespectful to the blokes that get caught up in the works too. This
is especially rife with the history of British Airborne Forces - we
have Browning and Urquhart at Arnhem, Hopkinson gets a free ride for
the results of his appalling behaviour in Sicily and Italy, and H
Jones provides a more recent example of the same thing.
Ref Browning, his record speaks for itself. He was selected to
command the British airborne effort because his contacts as a Guards
officer made him an ideal choice to fight the airborne corner in
Whitehall, not because of any operational acumen or experience -
AFAIK he had no operational command experience save as a company
level officer during WW1. He turned his role into an operational one
with an adroit bit of empire building. Having studied the
establishment and initial development of British Airborne Forces for
my PhD, I cannot really see what Browning did to merit the title of
Father of that force; John Rock or Richard Gale have a far stronger
claim to the title. By 1944 Browning had gotten himself the top
Allied airborne job, but again I cannot see how he was really
qualified for the post. He had no real airborne experience
operationally or otherwise, whereas men like Gale and Ridgeway had
both and plenty of it. I think that seeking to rectify that is the
only logical explanation for his decision to take a forward HQ into
the 82nd Airbornes area at Nijmegen, diverting 38 gliders and tugs
that could have been much better employed elsewhere. Also, Browning
had form for this, having interfered with the planning for the
Bruneval Raid in 1942.
With ref to him sleeping while the remnants of 1st Airborne Div were
being withdrawn across the Lower Rhine, I disagree this is a shallow
snipe. He had played the major role in getting those blokes into the
mess, the least he could have done was be up front as they came out.
Note Browning wasn't just getting his head down, he was tucked up in
a proper bed in silk PJs, so well that he kept Urquhart waiting for
20 minutes when the latter turned up at his HQ to report. Even
Urquhart thought that was out of order with hindsight, according to
his biography. FWIW I think Urquhart's behaviour was a bit off too in
just taking a place in the queue for the boats and then running
straight off like a schoolboy to see Browning leaving his men to fend
for themselves. I thought British officers were supposed to put their
men before self...
Without wishing to derail Hitch's thread, a couple of more general
comments while I'm at it. PTP, ref blaming the RAF being easy, it
comes as a surprise to most folk that the RAF had total control over
airborne ops in WW2 until the troops were on the ground. It didn't
make much difference before Arnhem because common sense prevailed but
on that occasion the RAF simply stuck to its guns with the outcome
predicted by some at the time. Also, with ref to the German flak,
this is a bit of a red herring. The Arnhem landing areas were well
west of the German home flak defences, and there was little to none
when the op was launched; the Arnhem portion of the MARKET lift did
not lose a single aircraft on the first day, and they only lost six
on the second lift the next day. The suicidal stuff you refer to came
later, after the op was supposed to have been over and the Germans
had had time to drag light flak in from all over the shop and set it
up all round the airborne perimeter.
W.Anchor, your first bit reflects the popular view of the battle, but
there is a bit more to it than that. For example, there was nothing
like an SS Panzer Div anywhere near Arnhem, and virtually nothing
between 1st Parachute Brigade and Arnhem for the first 12 hours or so
after landing. The key problem was an unrealistic and arguably
unworkable plan and a lack of haste by 1st Para Brigade in that same
12 hour period. The command and general state of 1st Airborne Div
doesn't do too well under close scrutiny, and some of the errors they
made at Arnhem were repeats from Sicily.
Anyway, that's enough for now.
ExMercian
<http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/general-boy-browning.61382/#post-1279205>http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/general-boy-browning.61382/#p
ost-1279205
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Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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