Reinforcement quality Post D-Day

Discussion in 'NW Europe' started by a well camel, Jun 18, 2011.

  1. Open for discussion, are these examples of one Unit expressing the general situation regarding men and materiel in 1944 after D-day. Taken from the War Diary of 102 (Northumbrian Hussars) Anti-Tank Regt.R.A.
    27 June: Reinforcements collected “Out of 59 offered only 12 are accepted and of these 12, 5 are our own men back again. The standard of reinforcements is extraordinarily low.”
    11 July:A reinforcement arrives-typical. He is 37, has been 7 months in the Army and is blind in one eye”
    12 July: “99 Bty is very short of Drivers who can drive tracked vehs. Reinforcements received have not been capable of this and there is no opportunity here for training”
    There is also comment concerning the total lack of integrated training for anti-tank in England.
    There are more examples which question tactics and the lack of information being given to the Unit.
    The situation still has not been resolved in October;
    7 October 1944:” To date since landing the Regt has not been able to concentrate, rest or maintain as a Regt. In spite of great efforts by all concerned there is much need of a few days out of the line and concentrated. Our tracked vehicles have done many hundreds of miles and are hard pressed. The general standard of replacement vehicles is the lowest it has ever been.”
    There follows three examples; a replacement Carrier which would neither start or charge; a three tonner replaced minus all tools, canopy and with four burnt out valves; an M14 lost in action replaced with a Guy Signal Truck with a burnt out clutch, bad steering and no canvas penthouse.
    Following on: “Standard of reinforcements particularly Tradesmen is low. It has been necessary for us to retest recently thirteen of our so called Dvr Mechs. Ten of them failed so miserably, having no idea of their job, that they voluntarily gave up their trades.”
     
  2. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    I think that by December 1944 this situation had became much worse - the lines of communication could be chaotic and the manpower barrell was rapidly emptying. In the post that started this one wonders if questions were asked of the training establishments who passed these men up the line as competant. In WWII there were many examples of whole units having their role switched from Infantry to Artillery to Armour or vice versa, also by 1945 replacement infantry could hae earlier been in the RAF, Royal Navy, or other arms of the Army. Perhaps most worrying was the atrition of junior officers and senior NCOs in line regiments as suitable replacements were becoming hard to find.
     
  3. One of the main gripes of the Diary writer seems to have been the inability to get their own men sent back from R.H.U.'s. Even after they are reported as sent back the Diary writer records that they have been sent to different Units.

    There are a number of reports attached to the Diary which have been submitted to C.R.A. expressing an overall feeling of there being a lack of co-ordination in all things military.
     
  4. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    It seemed to me that with the reinforcements. (Much younger) We lost that special Esprit de Corps that existed. These fresh faced new boys formed their own groups.
    To such a degree, that in Holland I was surrounded by youngsters. And! An outsider....
    Yet the daftest thing about all this was that I was 19 myself.
    That I recall very clearly, is how I felt at the time. If the other men had that experience? I do not know....
    Sapper
     
  5. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I am constantly amazed that people think that all their troubles with reinforcements being sent to different units only happened in the NWE sector after D Day - those people should read about the Salerno Mutiny in October 1943 of how 2000 men of the 8th Army were sent to reinforce the Xth Corps with the US 5th army- and the hullaballoo that caused - plus the travesty of British Army Justice which followed at the Courts Martial - then the almost total lack of any reinforcements after Rome was liberated and the units sent to the NWE sector -such as seven divisions from US 5th Army- and the break up of many other units including the whole of 1st Armoured Division to fill the gaps- finally the departure of the two Canadian Divisions and one Armoured bde plus the 5th Division from 8th Army to finish the war in Germany 4th Indian and 4th British to Greece etc....then they can bitch about reinforcements
    Cheers
     
  6. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

    Quality? Maybe - what was known sometime before; The US study of Op Bolero (US Troop build up) 1942. Survey of manpower resources. This showed a shocking situation with regard to availability of service troops and units. 1942 only 11.8% of troops were in support of combat units, neglect of service troops - not seen at this level since prior to the Franco-Prussian wars of 1870! At wars end WW1 34% were service and support troops. The aim now for Bolero should be 35% support troops.

    USA-E-Logistics1-2.jpg
     
  7. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    I am always totally awed by the logistical effort involved in maintaing theAllied armies fighting on three fronts - Normandy, Southern France and Italy - with theclandestine war in the Balkans and Poland also being supported. The manpower aspects must have been a headache for the commanders
     
  8. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Yes.... No wonder Britain was totally bankrupt after the war. We had to return to austerity. Sir Stafford Cripps. Nothing in the shops. No coal ..Yet we then set about restoring our land..And bloody hard work it was.

    Not like the measly 11% of GDP that is being use as an excuse for ideology today.

    Not only were we stony broke, but Attlee created the health service. modernised the mines and the railways. All that when we were genuinely bankrupt.... NOT with this 11% of GDP(Gross domestic Profit) The countries income.

    Post war was a very hard time, we had lost the cream of our young men all around the globe....There was nothing to replace them.... NO Reinforcements!

    For if ever a land needed reinforcements..It was during that post war period. As important as in battle.

    For in truth this was the time when we needed the men most.......
    Sapper
     
    Nick the Noodle likes this.
  9. Ray Hanson

    Ray Hanson Member

    I am always totally awed by the logistical effort involved in maintaing theAllied armies fighting on three fronts - Normandy, Southern France and Italy - with theclandestine war in the Balkans and Poland also being supported. The manpower aspects must have been a headache for the commanders

    Not just a problem for the military. Churchill was concerned to hide from the the Americans just how desperate the British (and Commonwealth) manpower shortage was. Large numbers had been lost during the early defeats, KIA, disabled or POW. The navy including the merchant marine employed very large numbers. The RAF was huge and there was a need for garrisons globaly across the Empire's lines of communication. Add to this the rate of attrition amongst the front line troops. Some infantry battalions in the 3rd Division in Normandy suffered close to 100% casualties amongst the rifle companies in the first month alone. It was probably a similar situation on other fronts, not forgetting the Far East. This must have effected esprit de corps as sapper says elsewhere.

    One veteran told me that he was almost at the end of his pilot training with the RAF when the whole training course was cancelled and he found himself in an infantry battalion just in time for the Rhine crossing. Another assured me that the army actually formed 'stomach' battalions of men with ulcers. This sounds a bit far fetched but if true it is akin to the 'bantam' battalions of men who didn't meet the normal physical requirements of the army in WWI. A decline in the quality of reinforcements, even of units themselves, was probably unavoidable. There's the makings of a fascinating book here. Perhaps it's already been done?
     
  10. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

    Montgomery Colossal Cracks 21 Army Group - Extracts:

    By 1942 the British Army had become a 'wasting asset', manpower intakes did not match actual wastage. It was already known that 21 Army group would suffer to some degree - it was a crisis. Short of six (6) divisions of rifle infantry and the six divisions would have to come from lower establishment infantry divisions that had been intended as home defence only. 19 March 1944 FM Montgomery informed DCIGS Lt Gen Weeks that the situation for reinforcements was not good.

    I believe many do not give the great master of the battlefield Montgomery the credit he truly deserves, some generals might have had better points, but the all round tactical and logistic genius of the man, not for him the vast resources of the US army. When some criticise his caution at times caution was for very obvious reasons.

    krrc_recruiting_poster_1938_fs.jpg Early!
     
  11. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    AGREE 100%
    Monty never stood fools gladly. If you did not come up to scratch OUT... Bowler hat laddy!
     
  12. BottyWWFC

    BottyWWFC Member

    Agree also. ALL of Monty's cards were on the table and he didn't have many cards left. The way in which our army managed to muster enough troops to fight on so many fronts, as well as accommodating an air force and navy to do likewise, is nothing short of miraculous and a masterclass in logistics.

    The one thing we definitely could not afford to do was throw bodies at the enemy, as the Americans and Russians could and did do.
     
  13. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I do recall there was a hell of a lot of interchange between different regiments.
     
  14. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    The way in which our army managed to muster enough troops to fight on so many fronts, as well as accommodating an air force and navy to do likewise, is nothing short of miraculous and a masterclass in logistics.

    Hmm, I'm not sure about a masterclass. John Peaty, who studied the 1944 manpower crisis in depth, concluded that:

    The Army did not receive either the quantity or quality of manpower it needed. At the same time, the Army could have better used the manpower it did receive ... the manpower crisis affected the infantry principally. This was not only because the infantry bore the brunt of the fighting and consequently suffered most of the casualties, but also because, as a result of the Army's low manpower priority, only a proportion of the Army possessed the physical fitness, mental robustness, youth and motivation necessary for infantry duty in the field - and only a proportion of these men were actually in the infantry in the field, most being employed elsewhere in the Army ...

    The size, composition and role of the British Army in the Second World War were largely determined by Churchill. It may fairly be called Churchill's Army. Consequently, many of the manpower problems experienced by the British Army in the Second World War may properly be laid at the door of Churchill. This is especially true of the infantry shortage, which was to a large extent both created and exacerbated into a crisis by decisions of Churchill. Given that Churchill - quite rightly - constantly drew attention to and criticised the Army's declining infantry strength and growing "tail" during the war, this is both ironic and paradoxical. Yet it is a fact that, unwittingly but inevitably, by his decisions he decreased the supply of suitable personnel to, and increased the burden on, the infantry. But for the preference shown to Special Forces, the Foot Guards, the Royal Artillery, the Royal Armoured Corps, the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command and the Ministry of Aircraft Production; and but for the reluctance to build a mass Army on Great War lines, to tighten Army discipline and to halt in Italy; it is certain that the infantry crisis would not have been as bad as it was and it is probable that there would have been no infantry crisis at all.

    Best, Alan
     
  15. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Agree also. ALL of Monty's cards were on the table and he didn't have many cards left. The way in which our army managed to muster enough troops to fight on so many fronts, as well as accommodating an air force and navy to do likewise, is nothing short of miraculous and a masterclass in logistics.

    The one thing we definitely could not afford to do was throw bodies at the enemy, as the Americans and Russians could and did do.


    When did America throw bodies at the enemy?
     
  16. BottyWWFC

    BottyWWFC Member

    When did America throw bodies at the enemy?

    I refer to the sheer weight of numbers Dave. Probably a harsh term to use in comparison to the Russians, who had the choice of being shot by the enemy or shot by their own COs. Where the Americans and Russians enjoyed the luxury of a huge reserve, Britain was stretched to it's absolute limit in manpower terms.

    Alan...However better the distribution of our paper-thin human resources COULD have been, the fact that we DID distribute our forces over so many fronts and still managed to function as coherent fighting units was a major achievement in itself. It is only hindsight that tells us how much better it could have been done and hindsight, after all, IS a wonderful thing.

    If only those poor buggers who were made to surrender to a numerically inferior army in Singapore had the benefit of hindsight. I'm pretty darned sure they would have rather fought on than face the horrors of Changi and the "death railway".
     
  17. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    It is only hindsight that tells us how much better it could have been done and hindsight, after all, IS a wonderful thing.

    I sympathize with the general point that wartime decisions were often made with imperfect information. It is, true, always easier to see mistakes in retrospect. But 'hindsight' cannot be used as an all-purpose excuse for policy failure. Throughout 1943, there were many warnings from within the government as well as the War Office that not enough manpower was being set aside to alleviate the massive 'wastage' that the NW European campaign would inflict on the Army, especially the infantry. These warnings were not acted on, and the decision not to act upon them had consequences.

    Best, Alan
     
  18. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Thanks for the reply, Botty. You're right that I misunderstood the analogy with the Russians. I was thinking of the dispicable Zhukov.

    From Wiki:

    On 28 September 1941, Zhukov sent ciphered telegram No. 4976 to commanders of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Navy, announcing that returned prisoners and families of soldiers captured by the Germans would be shot.[36] This order was published for the first time in 1991 in the Russian magazine Начало (Beginning) No. 3.

    Dave
     
  19. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

    Choose a selection of 'historians' and you will be pushed to get two in agreement. I remember points being made in study periods about manpower, War Department has a view, politicians chipped in, commanders in other theatres needed men too, Alan Brooke stopped Churchill many times making a complete pigs ear. Montgomery was a very shrewd operator if he needed to know something one of Monty's favoured ones was in the office somewhere. Once Monty accepted that he could not change something it was stop bellyaching and get on with it.

    There are two schools of historian when it comes down to Monty, the denigrators and the could not do anything wrong group. Flawed but brilliant as was Churchill, if we need to thank anyone I would put FM Alan Brooke forward.
     
  20. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    There are two schools of historian when it comes down to Monty, the denigrators and the could not do anything wrong group. Flawed but brilliant as was Churchill, if we need to thank anyone I would put FM Alan Brooke forward.

    Not sure of the context of the above, Wills. I would have to agree with you about FM Alan Brooke especially in reference to the British war effort.

    However, from 1944 on, I would nominate General Eisenhower because I don't know who else could have combined the efforts of so many different personalities. nationalities, not to mention egos, in a combined action against the enemy. There were many near "blow ups" anyway but at least he would invariably resolve them without automatically giving preference to his own American base. An exaggeration no doubt but some in SHAEF would occasionally claim he was more British than the British....and that was not intended as a compliment!
    Nevil.
     

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