Always loved how the FJ's jumped out of planes head first. So much cooler than feet first.
Max Schmeling, World Heavyweight Champion boxer/paratrooper, 1941:
Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
Less talk, more pictures
^ I always thought this was a great picture of M.Gen Hoffmeister.
An interesting story about his home. http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/0...-the-wrecking-ball-asking-price-25-8-million/
Hoffmeister was probably the best Divisional commander in the Cdn Army in WW2. He was a major in the Seaforth Highlanders in 1939 and rose to the rank of major-general in the space of 4 years. He commanded the 5th Cdn Armd Div for over a year in both Italy and NW Europe and after VE Day was appointed to command the 6th Div in the Cdn Army Pacific Force. By all accounts he was an inspirational leader who knew the difference between commanding troops and leading them. His leadership of the 5th Armd Div caused an exceptional sense of Divisional loyalty and identification to develop among his troops. The troops of the 5th Armd Div called it, "Hoffy's Mighty Maroon Machine", after the color of the 5th Armd Div shoulder patch.
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Max Schmeling, World Heavyweight Champion boxer/paratrooper, 1941:
Did he survive the war?
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Yep - lived to be an old man, and was a decent human being all around.
http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/es/prensa/2005-prensa/max-schmeling-joe-louis-s/
The FJ's were first rate soldiers and were respected by their enemies. They had men like Walter Koch who publicly denounced Hitlers commando order. In Tunesia he intervened when captured British paras were about to be machine gunned by telling the officer in charge he would shoot him next. The FJ's took the para's away to a Pow area. Koch was later killed in a phoney car accident in Berlin by the SS.
IIRC, They had little control once their chutes deployed, dangling on a single attachment to the harness. They hit the ground running as opposed to doing a PLF.
Prompted me to do some reading about Schmeling. I only dimly knew about him and his association with the Nazis... Turns out this was not the man I thought he was at all.
From Wikipedia:
He also refused to fire his Jewish promoter. It wasn't much later that he was drafted and pushed into the FJ... One can assume they were hoping he would get a "Hero's Funeral" - saving them the trouble of going after a very popular sports figure.
Became rich after the war (eventually) by setting up a bottling plant for Coca-Cola. Helped out Joe Louis financially, and funded Louis's military funeral...
This was a helluva stand-up guy.
Thanks for that, Dan... Guys like Schmeling restore my faith in humanity.
The Wizard
CGN Regular
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- Colorado Springs, Colorado USA
Max Schmeling: wounded in the Battle of Crete and was later medically discharged.
And they had men like Kurt Student and many others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Kondomari
The guy next to the camera with the K98 is really enjoying himself.
But if you want a hero, here's one: Karl Peter Weixler, war correspondent who took those photos.
ht tp://www.fallschirmjager.net/Bundesarchiv/Kondomari/Vol_XII_25_02_02.pdf
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
I guess it depends on one's definition.
Arseholes from someplace else land in your ancestral home and start shooting. If you're a Cretan, you grab whatever you have handy and kill them with it. They're serious people. If one defines "partisan" as a local civilian combatant, then a few of those men would have met the definition, but from what Weixler says, that wasn't what these people were.
http://www.fallschirmjager.net/Bundesarchiv/Kondomari/Kondomari.html
That's some hair-raisingly awful stuff. Glad to hear Oberleutnant Horst Trebes ended up catching one in Normandy.
Arseholes from someplace else land in your ancestral home and start shooting. If you're a Cretan, you grab whatever you have handy and kill them with it. They're serious people. If one defines "partisan" as a local civilian combatant, then a few of those men would have met the definition, but from what Weixler says, that wasn't what these people were.
http://www.fallschirmjager.net/Bundesarchiv/Kondomari/Kondomari.html
That's some hair-raisingly awful stuff. Glad to hear Oberleutnant Horst Trebes ended up catching one in Normandy.
.... after the monastery was bombed flat. The FJ's hid and fought in the rubble.
They and the FJ's that opposed the Canadians at Ortona were not necessarily all jump qualified. They lost the crème de la crème of their force at Crete, the "Graveyard of the German Airborne". They were never liked or trusted by Hitler again.
They still retained the aura and mystique of the Fallschirmjaeger regardless.
They and the FJ's that opposed the Canadians at Ortona were not necessarily all jump qualified. They lost the crème de la crème of their force at Crete, the "Graveyard of the German Airborne". They were never liked or trusted by Hitler again.
They still retained the aura and mystique of the Fallschirmjaeger regardless.
The Crete operation basically ended German airborne operations due to the high level of casualties and aircraft losses that were incurred, so German Airborne troops operated as conventional dismounted infantry for the duration of the war.
Other than for the Germans in Crete, airborne operations were not a battle winner on their own, but they did cause a lot of confusion, disarray and casualties among the Germans which was helpful, but not a determinant, in the final outcome of any battle. After the failed Market Garden operation the last large scale airborne operation was Operation Varsity in support of the Rhine crossing. The painful lessons of Market Garden were very evident in Operation Varsity; the need for a quick link-up with ground forces, shallower and better selected drop zones which permitted a quicker link-up, a need for more organic artillery support, better communications and tactical air support, and the imperative of conducting the initial airborne insertion in a single lift (to say nothing of better intelligence in order to avoid dropping lightly equipped airborne troops on top of a mechanized enemy response).
There was a huge investment in airborne capabilities in the 1st Allied Airborne Army (6 divisions, troop carrying aircraft and gliders and all of the higher HQs and support elements) which created a certain imperative to use them simply because they were there. Market-Garden was an overly complex operation which was hastily and poorly planned and was ultimately an operational failure. The Rhine crossings by 21 Army Group would have succeeded without the airborne component in Operation Varsity, but it was available, so it was given a useful supporting role.
Other than for the Germans in Crete, airborne operations were not a battle winner on their own, but they did cause a lot of confusion, disarray and casualties among the Germans which was helpful, but not a determinant, in the final outcome of any battle. After the failed Market Garden operation the last large scale airborne operation was Operation Varsity in support of the Rhine crossing. The painful lessons of Market Garden were very evident in Operation Varsity; the need for a quick link-up with ground forces, shallower and better selected drop zones which permitted a quicker link-up, a need for more organic artillery support, better communications and tactical air support, and the imperative of conducting the initial airborne insertion in a single lift (to say nothing of better intelligence in order to avoid dropping lightly equipped airborne troops on top of a mechanized enemy response).
There was a huge investment in airborne capabilities in the 1st Allied Airborne Army (6 divisions, troop carrying aircraft and gliders and all of the higher HQs and support elements) which created a certain imperative to use them simply because they were there. Market-Garden was an overly complex operation which was hastily and poorly planned and was ultimately an operational failure. The Rhine crossings by 21 Army Group would have succeeded without the airborne component in Operation Varsity, but it was available, so it was given a useful supporting role.
My wife is Dutch, and her parents were both kids during Market Garden. My father in law was in Eindhoven at the time. The only person he hates more than the average German is Bernard Law Montgomery.
A lot of Dutch came out in support of the airborne troops when they landed. And a lot went up against the wall after the failure of Market Garden. Very, very many Dutch hold Monty personally responsible for that.
its very hard to know after the fact where blame lies ... based on my limited understanding of how events have been recorded and reported - Montgomery (and Browning) demonstrated their true colours - and lack of leadership - when they blamed the Polish 1st Independent Airborne Brigade for the failure and hung it on Sosabowski despite the ineptness of Browning and petulance of Montgomery.
Gavin apparently had them (at least Browning) figured as poseurs. Montgomery had very little compassion towards other than British troops (and maybe not even them). His only passion seems to have been his own ego and some unfounded personal perception that he alone possessed any valid strategic insight.
(Its funny -- I recall seeing film footage of the Poles at Market Garden stuck in flooded fields and under heavy fire - and experiencing terrific casualties - but for some reason this doesnt seem to get reported in the latest "Wiki" sources!?!)
As a kid growing up in Canada, I was somewhat brought up under the "myth" of Monty as the "Great British General"... By the time I got to high school, and had read more and more about WWII on my own, that myth was starting to fade.
I suspect that Monty's greatest victory was, in fact, good timing. His big wins in Africa came a time when England desperately needed some good press for morale back home. He wasn't exactly an innovative general in Africa - more of a plodding, by the book fellow. Build up your strength until you have overwhelming numbers, then attack. And the victories in Africa weren't as absolute as they might have been under someone like Patton, who actually understood tank warfare (I'm not convinced that Monty did - he understood sound military practice, but was quite cautious at times when being bold could have done him a great deal of good). He knew how to motivate troops, get their morale up, and blow off the higher ups until he was good and ready to conduct an offensive - and all these are great skills for a General to have.
But when it came to innovative tactics, he was quite lacking. I don't think he truly understood the meaning and conduct of modern mobile warfare, as enabled by aircraft and mechanized ground forces.
His failings came to light in Market Garden. He made an awful lot of assumptions about what Paratroops and ground Mechanized forces could do. And a lot of it he should have known better from his own experience.
I think he was desperate for a win to grab some headlines away from the Americans who were running away with the show at that point. And he did something he wasn't good at, or temperamentally suited to - he took a grand bold risk. And it failed.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- Darkest Edmonton
This photo is said to be taken around Arnhem someplace. I'd not seen it before this morning:
http://1.bp.########.com/-tGntmUjr660/TjmJubYEs3I/AAAAAAAABV4/TRJS2BF9D5I/s1600/stabswache_de_euros.jpg
http://1.bp.########.com/-tGntmUjr660/TjmJubYEs3I/AAAAAAAABV4/TRJS2BF9D5I/s1600/stabswache_de_euros.jpg
- Location
- Leduc County, Alberta
A true "Kampfgruppe".
Waffen SS, Luftwaffe Fallshirmjaeger, and Wehrmacht Heer troops in that photo.
Waffen SS, Luftwaffe Fallshirmjaeger, and Wehrmacht Heer troops in that photo.
