Graham Turner (1)

This was quite useful in that while the importance of Walcheren is often bandied about in general accounts of the NW Europe campaign (usually as a way of bashing Bernard Montgomery's military competence), it was good to get a detailed accounting of what went into the battle in question. In particular, I was unaware about the amount of dike-busting that went into this operation and the amount of menace the local population was under. Also, the critics who wonder if this could have all too show more easily turned into another Dieppe probably have a point; in terms of manpower this looks like it was something of an economy-of-force operation and more motivation on the part of the Germans might have meant disaster. show less