twister wrote:
There is no way that General then promoted Field Marshal Bernhard Montgomery could have been excluded from any planning, his input was held in such high regard in Britian at that time.
One more necropost.
I did not have enough time when this first went in and just noticed this statement.
Your credibility just went out the window. At the time of the Dieppe raid not only was Monty not a Field Marshal he was not a General. He was a Lieutenant General at the time of the raid and relatively unknown except in army circles. Promoted to General some three months on 11 Nov 42 upon his success in North Africa. He would not be promoted Field Marshal until Sept 44 after the break out from Normandy.
As to Monty's input and him being held in such high regard? At the time, any reputation he had was based on his training techniques and the fact that he pulled the 3rd "Iron" Division out of France almost entirely intact with regards to personnel. His reputation as someone who spoke his mind without regard to hurt feelings was the real reason that Mountbatten got him taken out of the loop for the re-instatement of the raid. He knew where Monty stood on re-mounting the raid and wanted to make sure Monty would not be heard.
