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JeffroK -> RE: General Douglas MacArthur (10/25/2008 2:10:34 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Terminus
quote:
ORIGINAL: tocaff
Which American Civil War General said that having command of an army required that you be willing to destroy the very thing that you loved?
This is true, and Tel Al Aqaqir had to be broken to crack the stalemate that the greater Alamein battle had become, but sending tanks charging against the very weapons built to destroy them? No. Just no.
From the New Zealand Official History
In this dawn attack by 3 Hussars and the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry there were many acts of gallantry shown by the tank commanders and crews in a determination to carry out Montgomery's orders and Freyberg's plans both in the letter and the spirit. In a later examination of the ground, the two regiments were credited with overpowering some thirty-five anti-tank guns, mainly Italian 47-millimetre and German 50-millimetre and a few of larger calibre, thus making a dent, if not a complete breach, in the enemy's gun line that only needed immediate exploitation.
The third regiment of 9 Armoured Brigade, the Warwickshire Yeomanry, fought an independent battle a mile or more to the south of the other two. On reaching the forward infantry of 152 Brigade with 38 ‘runners’ of the 44 with which it had started out, the regiment advanced on more of a south-westerly bearing than it should have done, possibly because of enemy opposition which the Valentines of 50 Royal Tanks had engaged in that direction or, according to one account, mistaking a rise to the south of Tell el Aqqaqir as its objective instead of the Tell itself. Just beyond the
infantry line, the Warwicks ran head on into a concentration of anti-tank guns backed by enemy tanks. Although numerous guns were shot up or overrun, enemy fire took a heavy toll of the regiment's tanks, forcing the survivors to fall back on to a line hastily set up by the two remaining six-pounders of D Troop of 31 Battery and C Company of the Foresters.
Casualties in the supercharge operation so far had not been unduly heavy except in 9 Armoured Brigade. An evening check on 2 November gave the brigade about 24 ‘runners’ in sufficient order to be used immediately out of the 94 tanks which crossed the start line. Casualties in men came to 163 in the tank regiments, 66 of the motorised infantry, and 22 among the attached cavalry squadrons, anti-tank troops and engineers. The tank losses in 2 and 8 Armoured Brigades were 33 all told from enemy action, mechanical breakdown, and other causes, and casualties in men in the two brigades also totalled 33.
Sadly war causes the death of brave men, but the loss of about 200 men (dead or dead & wounded) to break the Alamein line would be a cheap price to pay
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