Chapter 23

Beachheads and Bridges: Normandy and Northwest Europe, 1944-1945

In This Chapter

● Raiding Dieppe, 1942

● Landing in Normandy on D Day, 6 June 1944

● Attempting to breakthrough at Arnhem, 17-26 September 1944

● Crossing the Rhine and ending the war, 1945

After Allied successes in North Africa and Italy (refer to Chapters 21 and 22), the scene was set for a re-entry into Europe, and by forcing Germany onto the defensive on home soil, ending the war. For more on Allied and Axis strategy, see Keith D. Dickson’s World War II For Dummies (Wiley). Figure 23-1 shows where the key action took place in 1944-1945.

Table 23-1 shows the amount of hardware used when the Allies launched themselves into Europe via Normandy, at D Day. Figure 23-2 shows some of the commonly used British tanks for this part of the war.

Figure 23-1: The war in northwest Europe, 1944-1945.

Figure 23-2: British tanks in northwest Europe.

Hobart's Funnies

Major General Percy Hobart began his career in the Bengal Sappers and Miners and then transferred to the Royal Tank Regiment. He was, therefore, uniquely qualified to carry out his task of designing armoured vehicles to deal with the Germans' defences. Gifted with a powerful intellect himself, he exploded with volcanic rage if people failed to grasp immediately what he was proposing. Not even senior officers escaped his fury, but he produced results.

The most versatile of Hobart's 79th Armoured Division's vehicles was the AVRE (Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers), developed as a direct result of the experience gained during the Dieppe raid. The hull of the Churchill tank was chosen because of its roomy interior, heavy armour, and adaptability. It was fitted with a specially designed turret mounting a 290-millimetre spigot mortar named a petard. This threw an 18-kilogram (40-pound) bomb and was capable of cracking open concrete fortifications, to a maximum range of 210 metres (230 yards). In addition, standardised external fitting enabled the AVRE to be used in a variety of ways. It could carry a fascine up to 2.4 metres (8 feet) in diameter and 4.2 metres (14 feet) wide that it could drop into anti-tank ditches, forming a causeway. It could lay a small box girder bridge with a 40-ton capacity across gaps of up to 9 metres (30 feet), and could be fitted with a bobbin that unrolled a carpet of hessian and metal tubing ahead of the vehicle, creating a firm track over areas of soft going. It could place demolition charges against an obstacle or fortification, then detonate them by remote control after it had reversed away. It could push mobile bridges into position, or be fitted with a plough that brought mines to the surface.

The division's standard mine-clearing tank was the Sherman Crab. This employed a powered rotating drum that beat the ground ahead of the tank with chains, detonating any mines in its path. The Crab was capable of clearing a lane almost 3 metres (10 feet) wide at a speed of 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) per hour and could fight as a conventional gun tank when it was not flailing.

The Allies required a tank to land ahead of or with the first assault wave. Following experiments, Hobart decided to adopt the DD (Duplex Drive) Sherman amphibious tank. When swimming, this was kept afloat by a collapsible canvas flotation screen and driven by twin propellers. Only a few millimetres of the screen appeared above the water, resembling a harmless ship's boat. Once ashore, the screen was collapsed, the drive to the propellers disengaged, and the tank proceeded normally on its tracks.

Together, the AVRE, the Crab, and the DD formed the basis of the Division's assault teams on D Day. Following the invasion they were joined by the Churchill Crocodile flame thrower (recognisable by its armoured trailer containing the flaming fuel and propellant gas cylinders), tracked landing vehicles named Buffaloes, Canal Defence Lights (Grants fitted with a powerful armoured searchlight), and Kangaroos (turretless tanks or self-propelled gun carriages stripped of their armament and used as armoured personnel carriers).

The Raid on Dieppe, 19 August 1942

Two years before D Day, on 19 August 1942, the 2nd Canadian Division and Commando units raided the French port of Dieppe. Stalin had complained that if the Allies didn’t start a Second Front in Europe, the

Soviet Union would make a separate peace with Hitler. Preparations for return to France were still in the early planning stage, but to convince Stalin that a premature invasion would have catastrophic results, Churchill authorised the raid on Dieppe to demonstrate the sort of difficulties the Allies would face.

As expected, the raid on Dieppe achieved very few of its objectives and the Canadians sustained severe casualties. Against this, the Allies drew valuable lessons:

● They could not expect to capture a port intact, so they decided to take their own prefabricated harbours, codenamed Mulberries, with them.

These consisted of breakwaters made from sunken blockships, quays consisting of concrete caissons or watertight chambers, and floating roadways.

● The German’s coastal defences, known as the Atlantic Wall, were so highly developed that they were capable of inflicting horrendous casualties on any landing force. The Allies therefore designed armoured vehicles that were capable of dealing with every aspect of the defence, including mines, concrete bunkers, anti-tank walls, and anti-tank ditches (see sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’).

● As the shortest sea crossing between England and France lay between Dover and Calais, it seemed logical for the planned invasion to take place in the Pas de Calais area. That was what everyone, including the Germans, thought, so the Allies decided to land somewhere else, namely Normandy - but placed dummy tanks, lorries, guns, supply dumps, and camps in southern England for German reconnaissance flights to spot them, with the result that almost all the German armoured divisions congregated in the Calais area to oppose this dummy force.

D Day, 6 June 1944: The Greatest Amphibious Invasion in History

The Allied invasion of France, codenamed Overlord, was the largest amphibious operation in history. Getting everyone in the right place at the right time required organisational genius on a grand scale. In the period immediately prior to the departure of the invasion fleet, the army sealed off southern England while the divisions for the landing moved into their embarkation areas. It strictly forbade movement out of this secure area and suspended communication by telephone or post with the rest of the country until the landings had taken place.

The Allies had already conducted a month-long air offensive against road and rail communications in northern France, accompanied by a steady increase in French Resistance activity. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, appointed General Sir Bernard Montgomery commander of the cross-channel assault. On the German side, the Commander-in-Chief West was Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. The Luftwaffe had only 319 operational aircraft available on D Day.

Shortly after midnight on 6 June, the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions dropped on the western flank of the projected beachhead. Simultaneously, the British 6th Airborne Division dropped on the eastern flank and captured bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne. The seaborne landings commenced at half-tide, from 6.30 a.m. onwards, when most of the German beach obstacles were visible. Beyond the Vire estuary the US 4th Division landed on Utah Beach, then advanced inland. At 1 p.m. it made contact with the American paratroopers. By midnight it was holding a beachhead 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) wide and 14.5 kilometres (9 miles) deep. Across the Vire the unsubdued defences of Omaha Beach pinned down the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions. The Americans finally overcame these defences at the cost of over 3000 casualties, but at midnight their advance units were only 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) inland.

Further east, the British Second Army’s landings had the benefit of a more prolonged naval bombardment and the presence of 79th Armoured Division’s assault engineering teams with the leading elements. The 50th (Northumbrian) Division landed on Gold Beach, capturing Arromanches, and by midnight had reached the outskirts of Bayeux, which they took the following day. The Canadian 3rd Division came ashore on Juno Beach and, despite congestion, struck inland to a depth of 11 kilometres (7 miles). The British 3rd Division landed on Sword Beach and, with 6th Airborne Division, had advanced to within sight of Caen by midnight.

The Germans believed that the landings were simply a feint intended to draw their attention away from the Pas de Calais, which complicated their response. Hitler refused to commit his reserve panzer divisions until too late. During the afternoon, however, the 21st Panzer Division, which was on the spot, mounted a counter-attack from Caen into the area between the Juno and Sword beachheads, but was halted by the Allies and driven back. Additional factors limiting the German response were the Allies’ complete air superiority and the tremendous weight of naval gunfire support available.

By midnight 57,000 American and 75,000 British and Canadian troops and their equipment were ashore. Allied casualties included 2500 killed and 8500 wounded, a fraction of those expected given the strength of the defences and poor sea conditions prevailing. The German loss remains unknown.

Pushing on through the hedgerows

Eisenhower believed that the British performed best in dogged, sustained fighting, while the Americans produced better results in fast-moving operations. That was how the campaign was planned. By launching a series of heavy offensives, the British would attract most of the German armoured formations in the west. When their preparations were complete, the Americans would break out of the western end of the beachhead and roll up the enemy’s left flank.

While the Allies had achieved strategic surprise by landing in Normandy, it was very difficult country in which to fight. Much of the area consisted of narrow lanes and very small fields divided by hedges planted on top of earth banks. Visibility often did not extend beyond the next hedge. This type of country was known as bocage. In some places it was simply not possible to deploy major armoured formations, and this favoured the defenders. For the British and Canadian infantry, supported by three Churchill-equipped tank brigades, the battle was one of attrition in which casualties at times bore comparison to the daily losses on the Somme (see Chapter 17).

During the rest of June and most of July the Allied build-up continued. As more American armies reached France, leadership of the Western Alliance passed to the United States, which now had by far the greater number of troops in the field. In the meantime, Montgomery had mounted three major operations to tie down the enemy’s armour:

● First came Epsom, lasting from 25 June until 2 July. This was mounted west of Caen and succeeded in crossing the River Odon and securing the notorious Hill 112.

● Next came Charnwood, aimed directly at Caen, between 4 and 10 July.

● Finally came Goodwood on 18 July. This took place east of Caen, in one of the few areas suitable for the deployment of armour on a large scale and involved the 7th, 11th, and Guards Armoured Divisions. Some ground was gained, but a massed anti-tank defence halted further progress on 16 August.

On 25 July the Americans began their breakout from the beachhead. Responding to their excellent progress, Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, now commanding the German armies in the west, withdrew some armour from the British sector. His action was too little, too late. When he delivered his counter-attack at Mortain on 6 August, the Germans made some progress because poor weather stopped the Allied ground attack squadrons from taking off. These returned to the battlefield two days later and halted the counter-stroke. At the opposite end of the beachhead, the Canadian II Corps mounted a major offensive. The first phase of this, codenamed Operation Totalise, involved a daring night attack astride the Caen-Falaise road on 7 August. To reduce casualties, the infantry rode in Kangaroos (see the sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’, earlier in this chapter). The operation got off to a bad start when the US Air Force accidentally bombed the troops on their start line, but the advance reached a point halfway to Falaise. It was repeated under the codename Tractable on 14 August. This time air support consisted of area bombing to protect the flanks of the advance. Aware that they faced a strong anti-tank gun screen, the tanks fired smoke shells on the move to further blind their opponents and drove straight through it.

The Americans were now driving up from the south, while the rest of the British and Canadians continued to advance from the north. The Germans, an estimated 80,000 men, were now trapped inside a shrinking pocket, hammered incessantly by artillery and air attack. Perhaps 20,000 escaped by the time the Allies closed the last exit on 19 August. Of the rest of the Germans, 10,000 were killed and 50,000 surrendered. Amid the wreckage in the pocket were over 700 tanks and armoured vehicles of various types, 750 artillery weapons, and 7500 motor vehicles. No one counted the thousands of horse-drawn vehicles.

Pursuing through France and Belgium

With nothing to stop them, the armoured divisions of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group raced north in a 480-kilometre (300-mile) drive. On 3 September they liberated Brussels amid scenes of rejoicing. So rapid was the advance that when units of 11th Armoured Division entered Antwerp two days later, they found they had forced the Germans to leave the docks more or less intact. For the moment, however, the Allies could not use them because the enemy was still present in strength on both banks of the Scheldt estuary.

Back in France, some tidying up remained. As all the Allies’ supplies were still coming across the Normandy beaches, they needed to capture the Channel ports as quickly as possible. Hitler, recognising the ports’ importance, had decreed that the Germans were to defend them to the last man. The British assaulted:

● Le Havre on 10 September. The AVREs, Crabs, Crocodiles, and Kangaroos (see the earlier sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’) of their assault teams sorted out the prepared defences so quickly that three days later the garrison surrendered. The chagrined Germans described their use, and particularly that of the Crocodiles, as ‘unfair’ and, best of all, ‘un-British’!

● Boulogne on 17 September. The Canadians and the armoured assault teams opened their attack, and on 21 September the last of the garrison surrendered.

● Calais and Cap Gris Nez on 25 September. The Germans had flooded much of the surrounding area, making the approaches difficult, but the Allies realised at once that most of the garrison were elderly or invalids who lacked the will to fight. By 1 October the fight was all over and for the first time in four years shipping was able to pass through the Straits of Dover without the Germans’ huge coast defence guns threatening it.

With the exception of Dunkirk, whose garrison represented no danger and was allowed to rot until the war ended, all the Channel ports were now in Allied hands. The enemy, however, had done such a thorough job of wrecking their facilities that it would be months before they became operational. The only alternative, therefore, was to clear the Scheldt estuary and open Antwerp. On the south bank resistance centred on the town of Breskens. On 6 October the Canadians cleared this and, shortly after, Buffaloes (tracked landing vehicles) lifted two of the brigades into the enemy rear; from then onwards the infantry, AVREs, Crabs, and Crocodiles took every neighbouring town and village, until by 3 November the area was clear. Across the Scheldt the Canadians cleared the South Beveland peninsula, the last operations taking place on 27 October. They enjoyed the support of almost everything 79th Armoured Division had to offer, including DDs and Buffaloes (for more on these vehicles see the sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’, earlier in this chapter).

To the west of South Beveland was the heavily fortified island of Walcheren. On 1 November the Allies made landings at Flushing and Westkapelle. That at Flushing went according to plan, but at Westkapelle the landing force ran into some of the heaviest coast defence fire of the entire war. Of the 27 LCGs (Landing Craft Guns), nine were sunk and eleven were put out of action with serious damage. The four LCTs (Landing Craft Tank) carrying the armoured assault teams had the worst landing in 79th Armoured Division’s experience. They took a fearful battering, but managed to get a few of their vehicles ashore. The situation eased when commandos stormed each of the coast defence batteries in turn. They captured Flushing and the remaining Germans withdrew to the fortified town of Middleburg in the centre of the island. As flooded terrain surrounded the town, they must have felt secure. However, on 6 November Buffaloes closed in. Already demoralised and surprised by this turn of events, the Germans gave up without a fight.

Between 1 October and 8 November the Canadian First Army sustained 12,800 casualties. In return, they took over 41,000 prisoners and cleared both banks of the Scheldt. Minesweeping had begun even before Walcheren surrendered and the first cargoes reached Antwerp docks on 26 November.

Operation Market Garden, 17-26 September 1944

Decisive as the operations around the Channel ports were (see the previous section), they were overshadowed by dramatic events elsewhere. On 3 September 1944 Eisenhower assumed direct command of ground operations. He had insufficient fuel to keep both his army groups supplied, but he decided to allocate the bulk of what was available to Montgomery’s 21st Army Group.

Montgomery proposed an operation that, if successful, would shorten the war by months. He suggested the use of three airborne divisions to create a corridor between the existing Allied front line on the Dutch border and Arnhem on the north bank of the Lower Rhine. XXX Corps, spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, would drive north up the corridor and relieve each airborne division in turn. The effects of this would be twofold. First, it would turn the northern flank of the notorious steel and concrete defences of the Siegfried Line; and second, possession of a bridgehead across the Rhine would permit a drive deep into the heart of Germany. Some felt that Arnhem was too ambitious an objective, but without Arnhem no point lay in mounting the operation at all. The codename for the operation was Market Garden. The plan received Eisenhower’s approval and was put into effect very quickly.

The drops

The drops took place on 17 September. Near Eindhoven the US 101st Airborne Division secured the bridge across the Wilhelmina Canal. The US 82nd Airborne Division captured the bridge over the Maas at Grave, but became involved in bitter fighting for possession of that over the Waal at Nijmegen. At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division dropped well to the west of the town, because of unjustified fears that the anti-aircraft defence closer to the bridges would cause heavy casualties. Although the landing achieved tactical surprise, the result of this decision was that the division had a long march into town, during which the Germans got their act together very quickly.

Unfortunately the immediate enemy consisted of the II SS Panzer Corps, refitting after their ordeal in Normandy. In addition, German units, including formidable Tiger tanks, converged on Arnhem from every direction. They halted 1st Airborne Division’s advance and forced most of its units into a defensive perimeter in the suburb of Oosterbeek. For a while, General Urquhart, commander of the British 1st Airborne Division, was cut off behind enemy lines. Nevertheless, one group of paratroopers worked its way through the town, reaching the north end of the huge road bridge, holding it against all comers until 20 September, knocking out tanks, armoured cars, and half-tracks, inflicting 400 casualties, and taking 120 prisoners.

Meanwhile, XXX Corps had relieved the US 101st Airborne on 18 September. Next morning it broke through to the US 82nd Airborne, with which it spent the rest of the day fighting its way through Nijmegen, simultaneously fighting off counter-attacks from the Reichswald Forest to the east. The following afternoon US Parachute Infantry made an apparently suicidal crossing of the Waal in assault boats. They suppressed the opposition on the far bank, captured the north end of the railway bridge, and were quickly reinforced. At about 6.30 p.m. a Sherman tank troop of Grenadier Guards charged across the Nijmegen road bridge under heavy fire, routed the defenders at the far end, and went on to join the Americans, having lost two of its tanks. Little did the Grenadiers know that the enemy tried to detonate the bridge’s demolition charges while they were on it. A member of the Dutch resistance who was later killed in the fighting may have cut the wires to prevent this.

Arnhem was now only 18 kilometres (11 miles) distant. On the morning of 21 September a squadron of Irish Guards’ Shermans broke out of Nijmegen and took the Arnhem road. Unfortunately, this ran along the top of a causeway with deep water-filled ditches on either side, so that when anti-tank guns knocked out the leading tanks south of Elst the remainder were unable to deploy. The Irish Guards were now strung out along the embankment. No further movement was possible, because behind them several kilometres of closely packed vehicles stretched all the way back to the road bridge, creating a traffic jam of which the German artillery took full advantage.

Withdrawing from Arnhem

The original object of Market Garden had long since ceased to be attainable. The priority now was to extract as much as possible of the 1st Airborne Division, fighting its ferocious battle against immense odds at Oosterbeek. As a first step, a Polish Parachute Brigade was dropped at Driel, on the south bank of the Lower Rhine, almost opposite Oosterbeek, on the afternoon of 21 September. The question now was whether XXX Corps could reach Driel.

Next morning, elements of Major General G.I. Thomas’s 43rd (Wessex) Division, led by armoured cars, took advantage of a heavy mist to work their way out of the bridgehead and through the enemy lines. Map reading on minor roads proved difficult, but by 8 a.m. the leading troop was receiving a delighted welcome from the Poles. The car’s radios were used to establish a link with one of XXX Corps’ artillery regiments, which began to pound the enemy attacking the Oosterbeek perimeter.

General Urquhart, commanding 1st Airborne Division, sent two of his staff officers across to Driel in a rubber boat. They said that the troops in Oosterbeek were short of ammunition, food, and medical supplies and could not hold out much longer. Meanwhile, Thomas had used two of his brigades to punch a hole through the Germans surrounding the Nijmegen bridgehead. A relief column pushed through consisting of light infantry, a Sherman squadron, and two DUKWs (amphibious troop carriers) laden with supplies. On the road to Driel they ambushed an enemy tank column that had tagged on behind them, destroying five of its number. More of 43rd Division followed, including an convoy carrying assault boats.

On the night of 25/26 September these boats ferried 2162 men of the 1st Airborne Division across from Oosterbeek. The rest of the division were either dead, wounded, or prisoners. In Arnhem itself, the Germans sustained some 3300 killed or wounded and an unexpectedly high number of armoured vehicles destroyed.

Arnhem was a battle of ‘what ifs’. What if 1st Airborne Division had been dropped over the town instead of out in the country? What if the extravagant number of gliders that transported the corps headquarters from England had been used to deliver the division’s full complement of anti-tank guns on the first day? What if Urquhart had not been cut off at a vital moment? What if II SS Panzer Corps had not been refitting on the spot? And, the biggest ‘what if’ of all, what if Market Garden had succeeded and the war shortened because of it? Then Montgomery would have been hailed as a genius and his coup regarded as one of the greatest strokes in military history. But then ‘if’ is the biggest word in the English language.

Fighting Through to Germany: The Last Winter

In the aftermath of Market Garden (see the previous section), the Allied priority was to widen the narrow corridor that had been created by XXX Corps’ drive northwards. This became known as the Airborne Corridor and was cut by the enemy several times during Market Garden. The Corridor not only made life very difficult for those Germans to the west of it, it also enabled troops and stores to be assembled in the Nijmegen area for the projected drive into Germany itself (see the section ‘Operation Veritable, 8 February-8 March 1945’, later in this chapter). The Allies also had to secure the area between the Waal and the Lower Rhine, called The Island. With the exception of the operations to open the Scheldt (see the section ‘Pursuing through France and Belgium’, later in this section), winter weather and soggy going meant that no major developments took place on the British sector.

The Battle of the Bulge, 16 December 1944-16 January 1945

To everyone’s surprise, Hitler used a period of fog, rain, and snow to mount a major counter-offensive, now known as the Battle of the Bulge, on 16 December. The German intention was to drive through the Ardennes, cross the Meuse, take Brussels, and throw the Allies out of Antwerp . . . using captured American fuel. The effect would be to cut Eisenhower’s armies in two. Those to the north, mainly the British and Canadians, would be cut off and forced to surrender, and the Germans would return to the rip-roarin’ days of 1940. At least, that was the dream of the deluded maniac that Hitler had become. The situation never came close to that, of course, but it was a dangerous, damaging offensive.

The Germans made a breakthrough on a sector of the front manned by inexperienced American divisions and made considerable progress. Beyond some redeployment, British troops were hardly involved, although the 11th Armoured Division was briefly engaged with the 2nd Panzer Division near Dinant on 24 December, forcing it to withdraw.

Eisenhower made Montgomery responsible for operations against the northern flank of the Bulge, while Omar Bradley, commanding the US 12th Army Group, continued to command in the south. Montgomery could be difficult at times, but the American officers who served under him on this occasion admired his perception, strength of purpose, and the results he achieved. By the middle of January 1945 the Germans were back where they started.

Operation Veritable, 8 February-8 March 1945

While the Allies were reducing the Bulge (see the previous section), they were also preparing for the next phase of the campaign, involving an advance through the Reichswald, a forest east of Nijmegen. This contained the as yet incomplete northern section of the Siegfried Line, the defences of which had not developed to anything like the same extent as they had further south (see the section ‘Operation Market Garden, 17-26 September’, earlier in this chapter). When through the Reichswald, the advance would clear the left bank of the Rhine in preparation for a crossing in force. The operation, codenamed Veritable, began on 8 February 1945.

Operation Veritable used the British artillery’s largest fire plan of the entire war. It lasted for two-and-a-half hours. The British laid a smoke screen 12,500 metres (13,500 yards) long in front of the German lines. The enemy, understandably thinking that an attack was coming in, surfaced from their dugouts and fired into the smoke, at the same time calling down their own artillery’s defensive fire strikes. For ten minutes the British locating units pinpointed the position of the German guns, and then the whole shooting party started up again, smashing the guns to ruin while continuing to pound the defenders.

Incessant rain had turned the ground into a quagmire, and in some areas the enemy had breached the dykes and flooded the landscape, leaving farms and higher ground as islands. In places the only vehicles capable of movement were jeeps, the Churchills (initially designed for conditions similar to the Western Front in the First World War, described in Part V), and Churchill-based ‘Funnies’ (see the sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’, earlier in this chapter). Progress was sustained but steady, improving towards the end of the month when the water level dropped and the ground began to dry out. During the first week of March the enemy withdrew across the Rhine, leaving the left bank of the river in Allied hands. The British and Canadians sustained approximately 15,000 casualties during Operation Veritable. The Germans lost 22,000 men killed or wounded and the same number captured.

Crossing the Rhine

On 7 March 1945 the leading elements of the US First Army seized an unexpected opportunity to capture the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen more or less intact. They supplemented the bridge by pontoons and by 21 March the bridgehead was 32 kilometres (20 miles) long by 13 kilometres (8 miles) deep. On 22 March Patton’s US Third Army mounted a surprise river crossing and secured a second bridgehead at Oppenheim. The following day Montgomery’s 21st Army Group obtained bridgeheads at Rees, Wesel, and Rheinberg.

Montgomery’s assault crossing, codenamed Plunder, attracted the same detailed planning that went into the preparations for D Day. At 9 p.m. on the evening of 23 March, covered by the fire of 3500 heavy, medium, and field guns, four battalions of 51st (Highland) Division, mounted in 150 Buffaloes and accompanied by DD Shermans, secured a good beachhead near Rees. An hour later XII Corps employed all its artillery to cover 1st Commando Brigade’s crossing at Wesel. The commandos crossed in 24 Buffaloes while a second wave followed in assault boats, the far bank illuminated by the top-secret Canal Defence Lights. At 2 a.m. on 24 March the 15th (Scottish) Division crossed near Xanten, using Buffaloes and assault boats. Simultaneously, the US Ninth Army put its 30th Division across north of Rheinberg and its 79th Division east of the town. Resistance to these crossings varied between stiff and indifferent. (See the earlier sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’ for more on DD Shermans, Buffaloes, and Canal Defence Lights.)

At 10 a.m. the US XVIII Airborne Corps (British 6th and US 17th Airborne Divisions) began dropping behind the Diersfordter Wald, opposite 15th Division, to capture bridges on the Issel river. Tanks were rafted across the Rhine almost at once, and construction work began on pontoon bridges. Distinguished visitors at the end of the first day included Winston Churchill, Eisenhower, and Montgomery. The bridgeheads were linked and expanded quickly. By 27 March the combined bridgehead was 56 kilometres (35 miles) wide and 32 kilometres (20 miles) deep. The British Second Army sustained 3868 casualties and took 11,161 prisoners during the river crossing and the expansion of the bridgehead.

Advancing across Germany to Victory

Very few people can name the battles that 21st Army fought during April 1945 when it broke out of its bridgehead and advanced northwest across Germany.

Even fewer know of the attempted stand by the German army on the line of the river Aller, or the bitter fighting that took place around the little town of Rethem, or the use of Canal Defence Lights to cross the Elbe on 26 April (see the earlier sidebar ‘Hobart’s Funnies’). Some people know that Bremen fell on 28 April or that 7th Armoured Division occupied Hamburg on 3 May, and that on 4 May Field Marshal Montgomery received the surrender of all German forces in Northwest Europe at his headquarters. The war, to all intents and purposes, was over.

The journey from the Rhine to the Baltic was a strange one. The German civilians were sullenly indifferent, glad only that it was the British and not the Russians who were occupying their country. Towns and villages hung out white sheets, but Nazi fanatics were always willing to fight to the death while their world collapsed around them.

There was, too, a hint of things to come (see Chapter 25). On 2 May the Royal Scots Greys, with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion aboard their tanks, were told to head for the Baltic coast road at Wismar. Shortly after they had arrived, advance elements of the Russian III Tank Corps trundled into Wismar from the east; they were heading for Denmark and would have occupied it if they had got there. The arrival of the 11th Armoured Division at nearby Trevemunde next day ended any discussion on the subject.