Brian Reid

I am used to it. I often see it rendered as Ried, using the English rule, 'i' before 'e,' except after 'c' or sounded as 'a' as in reindeer and sleigh. Reid, of course, is not an English word, it is Scottish.

First, thank you, Andreas, for your kind words. You need not worry about me getting too rich writing military history; if I am lucky I will cover my expenses with perhaps a bit left over. As for TRACTABLE, it is not as well documented as TOTALIZE, so I shall have to do a lot more digging. Re the propaganda benefits to be gained from publicizing Wittmann's death, I have no explanation why this was not exploited. It may have been that the Germans downplayed his demise, and/or the Allies did not pick it up.

While Wittmann may have been known to certain elements in Allied intelligence, as Andreas points out, he was an unknown quantity to the Allied troops he was facing. I have read the First Canadian Army intelligence summaries for the Normandy campaign, and his name does not appear in any of them. Ditto for Ultra, and if his name had appeared in this product, without another source, it could not have been disseminated in any case. Let's face it. He was an acting battalion commander and, as such, was of little import in the big scheme of things. It fell to a later generation to elevate him to near mythical status. Still, he was a good soldier who met a soldier's fate.