Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944 - From Dunkirk to D-Day

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.

List of contents

Immensely detailed yet comprehensible and logical, Military Training in the British Army is a thought provoking study. It will be of particular interest to military historians who focus on operations and to service professionals.

- Twentieth Century British History

About the author

Place, Dr Timothy Harrison; Place, Timothy Harrison

Summary

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

Product details

• Authors: Dr Timothy Harrison Place, Timothy Harrison Place
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2021
• EAN: 9780714650371
• ISBN: 978-0-7146-5037-1
• No. of pages: 242
• Weight: 610 g
• Series: Military History and Policy; Military History and Policy
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Cultural history; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political administration; History: specific events & topics, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Military Science, HISTORY / Military / Strategy, United Kingdom, Great Britain, c 1938 to c 1946 (World War Two period), History: specific events and topics, c 1939 to c 1945 (including WW2), Land forces & warfare, Theory of warfare and military science, Theory of warfare & military science, Land forces and warfare, HISTORY / Military / Land Forces