#john buckley

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Denise Oliver-Velez from the Revolutionary Peoples' Communications Network in front of Reverend C.K. Steele's church during visit to Tallahassee, Florida, 1971 [Black Women Radicals. Photo: John Buckley. Public Domain]

In "Machismo Will Never Be F*cking Revolutionary”: On the Radical Rebelliousness of Denise Oliver-Velez, (interview), by Jaimee A. Swift, Black Women Radicals, 2020

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Headington shark. Opvallend kunstwerk van John Buckley in een doodnormale straat in het Engelse Headington.

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Crimson Desert: el asombroso logro de completar el 100% en 189 horas que dejó a todos boquiabiertos

Crimson Desert se ha convertido en uno de los fenómenos del año, acaparando la atención de millones de jugadores con su vasto mundo abierto y su generosa oferta de contenido. Con más de 5 millones de copias vendidas en pocas semanas, el título de Pearl Abyss ha demostrado ser un imán para los amantes de la exploración y los desafíos. Sin embargo, lo que ha tomado por sorpresa a la comunidad no es…

Crimson Desert: el asombroso logro de completar el 100% en 189 horas que dejó a todos boquiabiertos

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Somewhere Only We Know (Acoustic) | Jada Facer & John Buckley

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Monty’s Men: The British Army and the Liberation of Europe by John Buckley

I don’t think you can review a book largely about Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery - the clue is in the name - without first stating your opinion on the man himself. Perhaps no other general of the Second World War is so polarising - British opinions tend to vary from praise to biting criticism, whereas American opinions run the range from biting criticism to believing that he was significantly worse than Hitler. My opinion is that, while he was deeply flawed, he was for the most part a supremely competent commander, and that he generally got less men killed than most of his counterparts. It must be remembered, too, that he was commanding an army that was nearing the limit of its potential manpower - he couldn’t afford to expend men in the same way that the Soviets or the Americans could. His chief problem, of course, was his vanity, his unerring ability to place his foot directly in his mouth, and his total inability to work well in a coalition. Basically, there’s certainly a lot to criticise, but calling him ‘tHe WoRsT gEnErAl Of WoRlD WaR tWo’ is having a bit of a laugh.

Much of the Monty bashing, Buckley posits, has been shifted onto the British Army itself, which has been cast as a plodding, unimaginative and incompetent force since 1945 by the likes of, in order, Liddell Hart, ex-German General, Cornelius Ryan and Max Hastings, Hollywood, and video games. This is true to an extent, especially in Liddell Hart’s case as he was trying to prove that his prewar ideas would have won the war. Yet I feel like these charges are generally levelled against the Allies as a whole, largely due to the continuing fetish for the forces of Nazi Germany. Still, there’s enough there in the popular imagination for Buckley to counter, and he does a pretty effective job.

Buckley puts postwar criticism of the British Army into context, particularly in Normandy. There, the British and Canadians faced the lion’s share of German armour, while still evolving their doctrines for cooperation between infantry and armour, and while dealing with ground that heavily suited the defence. As the campaign progressed, the British Second Army improved, while the concentration of German forces eventually allowed the Americans to start the breakout in Operation Cobra. The British then managed to advance from the Seine to the Dutch border with a speed quite at odds with the idea that they were a plodding morass, and proved quite capable of handling the Germans while reducing their pocket on the Waal in the autumn of 1944. They proved the capability of their combined arms operations in the Reichwald and while crossing the Rhine. The Second Army, it seems, proved especially proficient in the set-piece battle. The importance of the infantry, rather than simply blasting through Europe with artillery, was made clear by their casualties - 70% of total British losses in Northwest Europe, which eventually necessitated the breaking up of units to keep others going.

Buckley is not without criticisms, however, and none of them seem particularly unfair. Market Garden is rightly derided as a frankly poor plan, as was the failure to start clearing the Scheldt Estuary early, which led to a campaign that was longer and bloodier than it needed to be. Goodwood was a bit messy, and Montgomery absolutely should not have told Eisenhower it was going to be a breakthrough operation. (It wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. It still baffles me that he told Ike it was.) At times, he says, Montgomery’s forces could be operationally inflexible, which might have lost opportunities to exploit successes on the battlefield. The British didn’t really have a standard doctrine at the start of the Normandy campaign and had to learn a lot of things on the fly, particularly as a lot of what worked in the desert and Italy didn’t translate well to Western Europe. Ultimately, however, these were comparatively minor flaws, especially when compared to the state of the Germans opposite by 1944.

I do have one criticism of this book, and that’s in the title - ‘Monty’s Men.’ It’s somewhat tempered by the subtitle, but if someone just saw ‘Monty’s Men’ on its own, they’d quite reasonably assume that it would cover the British and the Canadians. It doesn’t - this is mostly just about the British, which the activities of the First Canadian Army covered from the perspective of the attached British corps (of which there was usually at least one.) Apart from Crerar and Simonds, there aren’t really any Canadian protagonists here. Keep that in mind if you were hoping for a broader history of the 21st Army Group. On a lesser note, there does seem to be a slight bias towards the 11th Armoured Division, but that’s more about my very specific opinions about British armoured divisions, and I don’t think his opinions about the 11th (vs the Guards and the 7th) are too egregious or unwarranted.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Monty’s Men. I don’t know if it’ll change anyone’s mind on Monty - most people with an interest in the subject have probably made up their minds by now - but even if you hate him, it’s worth a look just to see how the British Army fought in Europe.

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The Heading Shark - Oxford - England

The Heading Shark created by John Buckley is a rooftop sculpture located in Oxford, England. It is made of fiberglass and is 25 feet high.

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Who was John Buckley?

Who was John Buckley?

Introduction Major John Buckley VC (24 May 1813 to 14 July 1876) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was the 115th recipient of the award and the first of 182 awarded during the Indian Mutiny (1358 have been awarded in total). Early Life Buckley was born in a cottage on Cocker Hill in Stalybridge, Cheshire on 24 May 1813 and was baptised in Old St George’s Church. He was…

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JOHN BUCKLEY_UNTITLED 1986_OXFORD_UK