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Counterattack at Abbeville 28 May 1940


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#21 healey36

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Posted 31 May 2023 - 07:46 AM

That's the guy and he never received the thanks he was due IMHO. How do you thank the architect of victory properly?

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The other guy, before Nelson, was William Knudsen, a specialist that came out of heavy manufacturing, primarily in the automobile industry. I think he headed OPM until Roosevelt replaced it with the War Production Board (there's a bit of overlap there). I've read a lot about these two guys, both generating quite a bit of controversy. Knudsen was, in my opinion, a nuts-n-bolts process guy who was able to work with the various industries and corporate leaders to ramp up production, or at least lay the groundwork for them to ramp up production. His problem was that he had little in the way of political chops; he was fundamentally an engineer and seemed to struggle to get folks to do things when they didn't directly work for him. Nelson, a chemical engineer and former high-ranking corporate executive, had the people skills and some fundamental technical knowledge. By the time they created WPB, Nelsen would have a few thousand folks working for him (Knudsen, who had a relatively small staff, had largely been a one-man band).

One clarification of what I posted earlier - neither Nelson or Eastman made it to the end of the war. Eastman died, Nelson they ran off. After close to three years of standing on the hill whilst holding the lightning rod, Nelson was replaced by Roosevelt in 1944, the level of criticism of Nelson's decision-making and prioritization assignments growing to epic levels. Numerous contemporary historians pile onto Nelson based on, IMHO, the criticism he received from the military and civilian sectors at the time. His reputation has been considerably tarnished over the years by folks that fail to consider the massive political challenges of the task at hand (the things D. K. Goodwin wrote about him are just outrageous). It should be noted that they run rough-shod over his replacement as well. I think the production records and ultimate Allied victory speak volumes.

Eastman's health just finally gave out. He'd been at war for close to twenty years, first as head of the ICC from the late-1920s, through the Depression, and then into the years just before the war. As head of the ICC, his task had been one largely of managing the framework within which the American rail network operated. It was a never-ending dog-fight of corporate consolidation, rate-setting, labor/union battles, and safety regulation enforcement, all in a fundamentally unhealthy, uncooperative industry. Compared to Nelson, I think that made him better able to head the ODT and all of the political baggage, but by '44 he was just spent.

#22 W. Clark

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Posted 31 May 2023 - 09:24 PM

And a guy like RAdm Blamey who headed Naval Ordnance and did his very best to keep us from fixing our torpedo problems retires a 4-star admiral. There is no justice.

 

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#23 healey36

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Posted 02 June 2023 - 11:06 AM

There's this notion that people get promoted to their level of incompetence; some, however, are able to move beyond that due to other circumstances. Perhaps this was the case for the admiral.

 

The French had little chance to make these practical determinations as the whole 1940 campaign was largely over in less than three weeks. Still, it became quickly obvious that some folks, both military and civilian, had moved up the org-chart pretty far beyond their skillset.

 

Somehow I've misplaced or lent my copy of Horne's To Lose a Battle, but I found a nice used HB copy online this AM, so hopefully that's back in hand shortly. I haven't read it cover-to-cover in 40 years, but it's where this obsession began. 



#24 W. Clark

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Posted 02 June 2023 - 12:00 PM

I don't dislike the French for just GP. I look at their history and expect them to follow their national interests. But I have no illusions about them either. Their assistance during our revolution was primarily to stick it to the Brits and in fact they are our oldest enemy predating our country's origin. My sister who was Airforce hates them over the loss of our aircrews in 86 and my Great Uncle (who was had just stepped of the bridge at Remagen when it went down) hated them for killing friends of his when we landed in N. Africa. I'm afraid my feelings are mixed at best. In Europe, I much prefer the Brits who like us have their own baggage. But then other than Norman French (Clark started out as Clerc) I'm almost entirely British Isles in my ancestry and that probably plays a part. Nevertheless, I don't blame them for their reluctance to join the Allies again after the Brits fired on them in 40. And I understand their deal with the Devil to keep some part of France unoccupied in 40. On the other hand, it took us asking if he wanted us to remove our dead from cemeteries in France to check De Gaull's actions in the 60s. So, there are times when I write them off.

 

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#25 healey36

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Posted 02 June 2023 - 06:33 PM

I'm going to leave that alone, as I'd likely offend half the folks on here. I'll just say my roots are solidly German, but any remaining family ties with the Old Country were permanently severed during and immediately following WWII.

 

My working career entailed a lot of interaction with Europeans, and I can confidently say the French were and remain an enigma to me. I probably understand them less now than I did thirty years ago. Self-esteem and self-preservation seems to weigh heavy upon them...unnecessarily to my mind.

 

Those three weeks in 1940 were just a perfect storm; despite much reading and study, I am at a loss to explain it any other way. Just a big, complex, convoluted and corrupt mess, confronted by a relatively efficient opponent with a somewhat limited objective. I can't believe anyone on the German side expected to kick the door in and have the entire house collapse, but that's what happened. It is just a terrific, yet heart-breaking story.



#26 W. Clark

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Posted 03 June 2023 - 07:35 PM

Yes, what a difference, France not falling in 1940 would have made. And I agree completely that its rapidity caught everyone by surprise. I wish that it had not happened, but it did, and the French are going to have to live with that, fair or not.

 

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#27 healey36

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Posted 06 June 2023 - 07:17 AM

Somehow I've misplaced or lent my copy of Horne's To Lose a Battle, but I found a nice used HB copy online this AM, so hopefully that's back in hand shortly. I haven't read it cover-to-cover in 40 years, but it's where this obsession began. 

Copy arrived yesterday, the same edition (1969) that I retrieved from the town library and read all those years ago:

 

To Lose A Battle
 
I finally got around to reading Spears' two-volume Assignment to Catastrophe (1954, 1955) last fall, but that felt somewhat skewed toward a British Army/diplomatic corps view. I look forward to a reread of Horne.


#28 W. Clark

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Posted 06 June 2023 - 04:48 PM

I look forward to hearing your take on it.

 

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#29 healey36

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Posted 24 October 2023 - 08:45 AM

Sorry to say, I've gotten no traction building the set for a city-fight version of Abbeville. I've got about ten square blocks of city/town to build, not to mention a bridge and river's edge. Major undertaking...maybe after the holidays we'll make some headway. 






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