Quote:
Originally posted by John McGillivray
There are some stats given in Terry Copp’s book “Field of Fire’ in Appendix D. Between the period 18 July to 8 August, 1944 the 2nd Canadian Corps handled a total of 1,114 prisoners of war. Below is shown a break down of PW’s taken by 2nd Canadian Corps from 8 August to 23 August. So this gives a total of 18,312 PW's for the period of 18 July to 23 August.
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John,
Thank you very much for these data. They are very useful and informative. Up to this time I thought that there is a kind of mental barrier in the midst of the Canadian researchers and historians to publish detailed lists of the Canadian combat successes measured by the POWs taken for instance, not to mention destroyed enemy tanks, vehicles and others. I thought that maybe there is an opinion in Canada that such an estimation is impossible in very detailed form therefore it would be better to avoid such estimation.
But,… if we are at the details… As I wrote somewhere in the other post of this forum Professor Terry Copp is my favourite WWII historian. I admire both his work and his publicistic culture as well as the fact that he is personally involved in building new monuments at the Normandy battle fields, despite the fact that he is retired and he is not forced to such an activity. I think he must love this part of history, and I love the people who love their job. But,… what is surprising for me at this POW list is its accuracy. Literally to a man. I do not know if the Canadians counted at this list also Chambois and its region but they ought to do it because North half of the town was held by the Canadian 1st Army in the form of Polish 1st Armoured Division. At Chambois there is big problem when it comes to the POWs though frankly speaking I do not think that it is only Chambois-related case and problem. Up to this day there is fierce conflict between US and Polish troops for the German POWs at Chambois. There is lack of approx. 800-1200 POWs in the mutual American-Polish "reckonings". The POWs were handed over then from the Poles to the Americans but not all of them found safe place at the provisional cages. There are various Canadian, American and Polish memoirs on the subject of what happened with those POWs. No doubt it is sad and hard moment of the US-Polish relations from the Falaise Gap. I wanted to tell only one thing -- I am afraid that at the POWs list from the Falaise Gap the level of accuracy to a man is pure theory if only two Allied divisions are unable to agree between them (officially) how it is possible that 1,000 POWs "disappeared" them during march from Polish lines to the American lines.
One more time thank you very much for the list
Best regards
C.
PS. Is there any list of the German tanks and other vehicles destroyed/captured by the SAR?