Operation Plunder was a military operation to cross the
Rhine
The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...
on the night of 23 March 1945, launched by the
21st Army Group
The 21st Army Group was a British headquarters formation formed during the Second World War. It controlled two field armies and other supporting units, consisting primarily of the British Second Army and the First Canadian Army. Established ...
under
Field Marshal
Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army (in countries without the rank of Generalissimo), and as such, few persons a ...
Bernard Montgomery
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and the ...
. The crossing of the river was at
Rees,
Wesel
Wesel () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel (district), Wesel district.
Geography
Wesel is situated at the confluence of the Lippe River and the Rhine.
Division of the city
Suburbs of Wesel i ...
, and south of the river
Lippe
Lippe () is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Herford, Minden-Lübbecke, Höxter, Paderborn, Gütersloh, and district-free Bielefeld, which forms the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe. ...
by the
British Second Army
The British Second Army was a Field Army active during the World War I, First and World War II, Second World Wars. During the First World War the army was active on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front throughout most of the war and later ...
under
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...
Miles Dempsey, and the
United States Ninth Army under
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...
William H. Simpson.
The Battle of the Rhine was crucial for the Allied advance into Germany, and was planned by Montgomery as a three-army assault, including an airborne assault, a five-thousand-gun artillery barrage, and Anglo-American bombers. Thousands of tons of supplies were brought forward including huge amounts of bridging equipment.
The
First Allied Airborne Army conducted
Operation Varsity on the east bank of the Rhine in support of Operation Plunder, consisting of
U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, the
British 6th, and the
U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions.
Operation Grenade in February by Simpson's Ninth Army and Crerar's Canadians was also expected to prepare the ground.
Preparations such as accumulation of supplies, road construction, and the transport of 36
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
landing craft
Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. ...
, were hidden by a massive
smoke screen
A smoke screen is smoke released to mask the movement or location of military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft, or ships.
Smoke screens are commonly deployed either by a canister (such as a grenade) or generated by a vehicle (such as ...
from 16 March. The operation commenced on the night of 23 March 1945. It included the ''Varsity'' parachute and glider landings near Wesel, and
Operation Archway, by the
Special Air Service
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terr ...
.
Battle
Four thousand Allied guns fired for four hours during the opening bombardment. British bombers contributed with
attacks on Wesel during the day and night of 23 March 1945.
On the night of 23 March, companies E and C of the
17th Armored Engineer Battalion
The 17th Armored Engineer Battalion was a part of the 2nd Armored Division (United States), 2nd Armored Division "Hell on Wheels". During World War II, they were active in North African Campaign, and Western Front (World War II), Western Europe Ca ...
, part of the
U.S. 2nd Armored Division, constructed treadway rafts to prepare the crossing of the Rhine about five kilometers south of Wesel.
Bridge construction started at 9:45 a.m. and by 4:00 p.m. the first truck crossed the floating
pontoon bridge
A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, is a bridge that uses float (nautical), floats or shallow-draft (hull), draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the support ...
. Over of M2 treadway and 93 pneumatic floats were laid in the six hours and fifteen minute construction project, a record setting for the size of the bridge. It took twenty-five 2 ton
GMC CCKW trucks to transport the bridge parts to the construction site, part of the
Red Ball Express
The Red Ball Express was an American truck convoy system that supplied World War II allies, Allied forces moving through Europe after breaking out from the D-Day beaches in Normandy in the summer of 1944. To expedite cargo shipments to the fro ...
.
Three Allied formations made the initial assault: the
British XII Corps and
XXX Corps and the
U.S. XVI Corps. The
British 79th Armoured Division—under
Major General Percy Hobart—had been at the front of the
Normandy landings
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...
and provided invaluable help in subsequent operations with specially adapted armored vehicles (known as
Hobart's Funnies). One "funny" was the
LVT-2 "Buffalo" operated by the
4th Royal Tank Regiment, under the command of
Lieutenant Colonel Alan Jolly, an armed and armoured amphibious tracked personnel or cargo transporter, which was able to cross soft and flooded ground. These were the vehicles for the spearhead infantry.
The first part of ''Plunder'' within the framework of XXX Corp's Operation Turnscrew
[Tim Saunders 2008 "Operation Varsity", p. 61, accessed 10 September 2020.] was initiated by the
51st (Highland) Infantry Division, led by the 7th Battalion,
Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of
154th Brigade at 21:00 on 23 March, near
Rees, followed by the 7th Battalion,
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (also of 154th Brigade). At 02:00 on 24 March, the
15th (Scottish) Infantry Division landed between Wesel and Rees. At first, there was no opposition, but later they ran into determined resistance from machine-gun nests. On the same day the 51st Division's commander, Major-General
Tom Rennie, was killed by
mortar fire. The British
1st Commando Brigade entered Wesel.
The
U.S. 30th Infantry Division landed south of Wesel. The local resistance had been broken by artillery and air bombardment. Subsequently, the
U.S. 79th Infantry Division also landed. American casualties were minimal. German resistance to the British landings continued with some effect, and there were armored counter-attacks. Landings continued, however, including tanks and other heavy equipment. U.S. forces had a bridge across by the evening of 24 March.
Operation Varsity started at 10:00 on 24 March, to disrupt enemy communications. Despite heavy resistance to the airdrops and afterward, the airborne troops made progress and repelled counterattacks. The hard lessons of
Operation Market Garden were applied. In the afternoon, the 15th (Scottish) Division linked up with both airborne divisions.
Fierce German resistance continued around Bienen, north of
Rees, where the entire
9th Canadian Infantry Brigade was needed to relieve the Black Watch. The bridgehead was firmly established, however, and Allied advantages in numbers and equipment were applied. By 27 March, the bridgehead was wide and deep.
File:Wesel 1945.jpg, The city of Wesel in ruins after Allied bombardment, March 1945
File:British commandos in the shattered outskirts of Wesel.jpg, British Commandos
The Commandos, also known as the British Commandos, were formed during the World War II, Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill, for special forces that could carry out Raid (military), raids against German-occ ...
on the outskirts of Wesel
File:8th Royal Scots mortar under fire 24-03-1945.jpg, 3-inch mortar of the 8th Royal Scots
The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment), once known as the Royal Regiment of Foot, was the oldest and most senior infantry regiment line infantry, of the line of the British Army, having been raised in 1633 during the reign of Charles I of England ...
under enemy fire during the Rhine crossing, 24 March 1945
Aftermath
Impact on German forces and command
The Allied operation was opposed by the
German 1st Parachute Army, commanded by
Alfred Schlemm, a part of
Army Group H. Although this formation was considered to be the most effective German force in the area, it was severely depleted from its previous action in the
Battle of the Reichswald. Unable to withstand Allied pressure, the 1st Parachute Army withdrew northeast toward
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
and
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...
, leaving a gap between it and the
15th Army in the
Ruhr
The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populati ...
.
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
was well aware of Plunder's potential impact from the beginning. On 24 March, he began his diary entry with, "The situation in the West has entered an extraordinarily critical, ostensibly almost deadly, phase." He went on to note the crossing of the Rhine on a broad front, and foresaw Allied attempts to encircle the Ruhr industrial heartland.
On 27 March, command of the 1st Parachute Army was passed to
Günther Blumentritt, because Schlemm had been wounded. Blumentritt and his superior,
Johannes Blaskowitz, both recognised that the situation was lost. The army's front was incomplete, there were no reserves, weak artillery, no air support and few tanks. Communications were weak, indeed, one corps was never contacted. The reinforcements were so poor that the generals decided against using them, to avoid needless casualties.
Although Blumentritt had strict orders from Supreme Command to hold and fight, from 1 April, he managed a withdrawal with minimal casualties, eventually withdrawing beyond the
Dortmund-Ems Canal to the
Teutoburg Forest
The Teutoburg Forest ( ; ) is a range of low, forested hills in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the 17th century, the official name of the hill ridge was Osning. It was first renamed the ''Teutoburg Forest'' ...
. Within a week of the start of ''Plunder'', the Allies had taken 30,000 prisoners of war north of the Ruhr.
Winston Churchill
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was present at Field Marshal Montgomery's headquarters near
Venlo
Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), ...
on the eve of ''Plunder''. Subsequently, Churchill and Montgomery watched the ''Varsity'' air landings on 24 March.
The next day, 25 March, Churchill and Montgomery visited General
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
′s headquarters. After lunch and a briefing, the party went to a sandbagged house overlooking the Rhine and a quiet, undefended stretch of the German-held riverbank. After Eisenhower's departure, Churchill, Montgomery, and a party of U.S. commanders and armed guards took a LCVP landing craft and landed for 30 minutes in enemy territory, without challenge. They next visited the destroyed railway bridge at Wesel, departing when German artillery appeared to target them.
Military rivalries
The Plunder crossings in the third week of March were planned as the primary assault across the Rhine, but at the
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...
in early February 1945, it was decided to add another crossing to the south of the Ruhr. The additional crossing was intended to draw off any concentration of forces in opposition to Plunder. Two earlier crossings actually happened.
On 7 March, U.S. troops unexpectedly captured the
Ludendorff Bridge
The Ludendorff Bridge, also known as the Bridge at Remagen, was a bridge across the river Rhine in Germany which was captured by United States Army forces in early March 1945 during the Battle of Remagen, in the closing weeks of World War I ...
as a result of the
Battle of Remagen. Within the next 10 days six divisions and 25,000 troops established a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Rhine.
On 22 March, General
George S. Patton sent his
Third Army across the Rhine, at
Nierstein, to form another bridgehead. His superior, General
Omar Bradley
Omar Nelson Bradley (12 February 1893 – 8 April 1981) was a senior Officer (armed forces), officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. He wa ...
, released news of this crossing to the press "at a time calculated to take some of the lustre from the news of Montgomery′s crossing".
Bradley later remembered that Patton had strongly urged the announcement saying "I want the world to know that Third Army made it before Monty starts across".
In culture
* "Crossing the Rhine", Episode 8 of ''
The Lost Evidence'', The History Channel, UK, 2004.
* Heinz Bosch, Wilhelm Haas: ''Der Krieg am Niederrhein'', Kreis Kleve, 1976 (German).
* "World War II": season 5, episode 8 of ''
Drunk History.''
See also
* https://www.krieg-am-niederrhein.de/en/index.php (full English-language version available)
*
Ludendorff Bridge
The Ludendorff Bridge, also known as the Bridge at Remagen, was a bridge across the river Rhine in Germany which was captured by United States Army forces in early March 1945 during the Battle of Remagen, in the closing weeks of World War I ...
, ''the bridge at Remagen''
Notes
Bibliography
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1945 in Germany
Battles of World War II involving Canada
Battles of World War II involving the United States
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March 1945 in Europe
Rhine
Western Allied invasion of Germany