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Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-day (Military History and Policy)
 
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Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-day (Military History and Policy) (Paperback)

by Dr Timothy Harrison Place (Author), Timothy Harrison Place (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (10 Nov 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0714680915
  • ISBN-13: 978-0714680910
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.5 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 400,673 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #15 in  Books > History > Military History > Battles & Campaigns > Dunkirk
    #95 in  Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Naval Warfare > Britain
  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Product Description

Product Description
In this study, the author traces the reasons for the British Army's tactical weakness in Normany to flaws in its training in Britain.

From the Back Cover
Between 1940 and 1944, although large numbers of British troops battled around the littorals of the Mediterranean and Burma, most of the British Army bided its time at home. Between Dunkirk and D-Day, those troops lived in a grey area, neither fully at peace nor properly at war. While they trained under virtually peacetime conditions, their colleagues overseas were gaining up-to-date battle experience. The lessons from that experience should have made the troops who crossed the Channel in summer 1944 the most thoroughly prepared soldiers ever to go into their first battle. Sadly, the results in Normandy confounded any such expectations, as in battle after battle the combat effectiveness of British troops, particularly infantry and armour, proved weak.

In this study, Timothy Harrison Place traces the reasons for the British Army's tactical weakness in Normany to flaws in its training in Britain. The armour suffered from a failure fully to disseminate the lessons of experience in the Mediterranean theatres to troops training at home. Disagreements between General Montgomery and the War Office over basic doctrine for the employment of armour exacerbated matters. The infantry, meanwhile, failed to apply the lessons learned on the Western Front a generation before. They trained according to the habits of 1916, and, despite the efforts of some among their number, the British Army never fully recovered from that error.
This book paints a picture of an untried British Army working hard to learn its trade. Oblivious to the fact that it was always one step behind the enemy, this was an army cruelly let down by poor direction from the top.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Licking Hitler, 3 April 2005
By Charles Vasey (London, England) - See all my reviews
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Timothy Harrison Place has decided to seek the reason for the British Army's less than complete effectiveness in World War Two by looking at how they trained. Apart from Monty's Eighth Army most of the British Army that had actually fought learned how not to win in the period up to 1944 rather than the route to victory. Those who learned in the desert were not numerous and Italy seems to have been disregarded. And in any case Normandy and the desert had many differences from Normandy. Even if these cadres had been fully aware of German tactics and how to beat them it would hardly have mattered since they were handily outnumbered by men whose combat experience was brawling and being told by umpires that they were dead. Although the nation was war-weary the forces that were to constitute the British Liberation Army were untested. Learning theoretically is (as we all know from work) a good start but not the complete answer. Dr Place explains what was taught and how effective it was. He then finishes by reporting on how that training was regarded once July 1944 was past.

For so studiously amateurish a force the British Army can be extraordinarily doctrinaire in its official pronouncements (not that these are always followed) and once again we have all sorts of "enthusiasms", some of which were not to succeed in reality (although this could not always have been obvious at the time). The major success as a starting point was Harold Alexander's Battle Drill which gave the young subaltern a suite of "basic strokes" from which he could construct his response once in combat. Battle Drill was not intended to be followed rigidly but to provide a basic start, rather like learning a basic vocabulary when starting out in French. Given that most troops had never seen combat until Normandy almost anything was better than nothing. (Dr Place is most effective in demonstrating the limitations of learning on exercises.)

The book is not as dry as its topic might imply. Place has read a very large body of literature and has chosen his analysis and anecdote well. It can be matched very well with Hart's "Colossal Cracks".

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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, 25 Mar 2009
If you're in charge of army training for Afghanistan you shuld read this. Bit of a hard slog at times but a gem overall.
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