Ardennes atrocities

Started by besilarius, May 18, 2015, 06:21:38 AM

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BanzaiCat

Quote from: Gusington on May 18, 2015, 07:45:22 PM
I just picked up Beevor's Battle for Berlin.

Ah, okay, sorry about the other thread. Thought you'd read it. I liked this one a lot, as well as Cornelius Ryan's 'The Last Battle.'

mirth

Armageddon by Max Hastings is also an excellent book on the subject.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Mr. Bigglesworth

Quote from: Airborne Rifles on May 18, 2015, 08:07:13 PM
Quote from: mirth on May 18, 2015, 05:59:12 PM
Cool that you've read it. I didn't know Beevor had a new book out so I'm glad this thread was started. I'll pick up a physical copy as soon as I can. He is an excellent author. I think he wrote a book about the invasion of Crete that was done before Stalingrad made him famous. I'd really like to pick up a copy of that one.

Crete...as a paratrooper just the mention of that battle makes me shudder.

Can someone fill us in? I think I am not familiar with the battle being referred to.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; "
- Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III, 1598

Mr. Bigglesworth

Having just read the first link, I don't see the big deal. Regular German troops would probably deserve proper terms. SS troops were butchers, what is the problem with shooting them outright? Especially any involved with the camps or experiments. The same on the Pacific front.

If the enemy was like the soccer match Christmas of WW1, then you treatt hem well on surrender. If they were berserkers, you put them down like mad dogs. Anyone thinking war does not have to be messy is a fool. It is, whether you like it or not. The faster the ugliness is over the sooner normal lives can be glued back together.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; "
- Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III, 1598

BanzaiCat

Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on May 19, 2015, 12:12:20 AM
Can someone fill us in? I think I am not familiar with the battle being referred to.

AR or others could probably do it better justice than I, but the bottom line was, Crete was almost solely an invasion carried out by German airborne troops. There were about 15,000 or so Fallschirmjager involved, and later, about an equal number of mountain troops. About half of the paratroops became casualties (I think, anyway; regardless, it WAS a high number). The number was so high, in fact, that Hitler forbade any large-scale paratroop assaults in the future. The Germans beat the British, but took some punches in return.

Here's a link with a decent description - if you like it, there's plenty of books on the subject that will go into much greater detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete

Airborne Rifles

BC is right. Crete was supposed to be an entirely airborne invasion that secured landing zones for follow-on sea-borne and air landed troops, the showcase for the German Fallschirmjagers. The problem was, it was planned on a whim and the British knew it was coming due to Ultra intercepts. They even knew the Germans' objectives and generally when to expect the attack. Unfortunately, ostensibly to protect Ultra as a source, the British commander (a New Zealander, his name escapes me at the moment) chose not to adjust his deployments or inform his subordinates for fear that this would tip the Germans off that he was reading their mail.

Even so, the German drop was an almost unmitigated disaster, with large numbers of transports shot down, paratroopers killed in their harnesses as they descended or just after they landed, and whole battalions essentially wiped out. If I remember correctly, every German drop was defeated, save one at Maleme airfield. From this one fingernail hold the Germans were able to fly in troops from the follow-on mountain division who eventually forced the British (ANZACS actually) off of the island.

When I was a lieutenant in the 82nd, I made it a point to study all the airborne operations of WWII. The lessons I learned was that they need to be thoroughly planned and have only limited objectives. Whenever we did a big training jump where last minute changes were coming down practically as we were leaving for the airfield, I would pick up my history of the Crete invasion and point to the picture on the cover of a German transport going down in flames with Fallschirmjagers tumbling out the under parachutes that would never open. I suppose my sense of humor is rather dry, and dark. But it made me chuckle.

Airborne Rifles

Here's the picture I'm thinking of:


BanzaiCat

I think the only reason the German paratroops were able to capture that one airfield was because the Brits screwed up and left it open.